Just discovered a new resource about user experience: User-Centered.
It’s a moderated group blog with over 100 members. (If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts, it’s running on the Opera community blogging platform.)
The posts range from the mundane (“take a look at this funky interaction…”) to the in-depth. For example, check out this insightful post about the lack of feedback from crosswalk systems.
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Yes, I’m going a little crazy with the Flickr blogging…
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I was a passenger in a VP’s car a couple of weeks ago, when this startling message popped up while motoring down a busy suburban road.
I asked the car’s owner if he’d ever seen the message before. He said it had been appearing and disappearing for weeks.
The first time he saw it, he was worried. When nothing bad happened (and his locks didn’t appear to have failed..), he just ignored the message.
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She said that when the screen offers the three choices of “Credit” “Debit” and “[something else, I can't remember]“, too many people were pressing the white buttons instead of the black ones. So they covered the white buttons.
I just had to get a picture of it.
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I just read a great post by Joel Spolsky on Vista’s shutdown menu. Turns out there’s FIFTEEN items on this menu. Joel argues that you really only need two:
Anyway, here’s Joel’s screengrab:
I agree with him. His analysis is spot-on.
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Various sites on the web are reporting first looks at the the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) user interface. Try this link to see some screenshots.
If this is the first time you’ve heard of the OLPC, the short version is that Nicholas Negroponte and the MIT Media Lab are pushing the idea that every kid in developing countries should have a portable personal computer. You can learn more about the OLPC here.
As you may have gathered from the title of this post, I don’t think this is such a hot idea. I think Negroponte and the Media Lab are too sanguine about the “transformative” power of technology. There are too many unmet basic needs in developing countries. What the hell is a bunch of laptops going to do for these people?
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A few people have asked me about the presentations I gave at the User Friendly 2006 conference in Hangzhou, China earlier in November. If you’re one of them, or are just interested in seeing the PowerPoint decks, you can access them at this URL: http://www.usabilityblog.com/UF2006/.
The file starting with “Talk…” is the slide deck that accompanied my invited speaker talk. I presented about the project I led redesigning Peachtree Accounting’s user interface. Direct link is here.
The files starting with “Panel” are the slides and schedule for the panel I led, “Some Right – and Many Wrong – Ways to Incorporate Usability into an Organization.”
Enjoy.
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My favorite time waster-slash-guilty pleasure weblog, Engadget, has posted a surprisingly thorough review of the new Microsoft digital audio player, the Zune.
The review is here: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/15/zune-review/.
This review is better than most popular press reviews in that it touches on scenario- and task-based usability issues, as well as describing in great detail what it’s like to actually operate the Zune’s physical and onscreen controls.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, the Zune doesn’t fare so well in the review. I’m not a reflexive Microsoft-hater; in fact I was hoping that M$ would come up with something good enough to motivate Apple to flesh out the iPod feature set a bit more. Alas, the Zune doesn’t seem to be that something.
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I just looked at the sample chapters for The Usability Kit, a comprehensive resource for web site designers that explains critical usability concepts and also provides actual templates for common interactions such as login pages, help and FAQ areas, My Account pages, etc.
I really like it. It’s a great idea, and it appears to be very well executed. I downloaded the sample from SitePoint, the kit distributor, and the sample chapters read great. Dan Szuc and Gerry Gaffney cover all the right topics. I’m really glad they covered the critical information architecture concepts of faceted classification, tagging, and folksonomies.
Let me do the full disclosure thing at this point: I’ve known Dan Szuc for a few years now, and consider him a friend. And I’ve recently met Gerry Gaffney. So I’m not an impartial observer. However, I consider myself a reasonably ethical person, so if I didn’t truly feel that this resource was worth your time, I would say so. (Or more likely, I just wouldn’t blog it.)
By far the best thing about The Usability Kit is the blueprints. In providing what amount to templates for common interactions, Gerry and Dan have gone where many others fear to tread. Let’s face it: there’s only so many *good* ways to design a login box or a “Subscribe To Our Newsletter” form. And if I’m reading SitePoint’s blurb page correctl, you actually get electronic copies of the blueprints, so you can build pages from the templates. (I could be wrong about this; and besides, who builds sites with static HTML anymore? That’s so 1998…)
Unfortunately, the SitePoint sample didn’t include the chapter about user research. I am very particular about how user research is done, because I’ve seen so many ill-conceived, inefficient and biased user research projects performed by well-meaning people. So I can’t speak to how well Gerry and Dan covered this topic.
Bottom line: would I buy yet another *book* about usability for US$197? Frak no. Would I buy this kit, with all its templates and other goodies? Frak yes.
So you decide. Am I logrolling (or shilling), or pointing y’all to a quality resource?
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As I continued browsing the Making Life Easy site, I stumbled across a picture of the low-flow toilet they praise as very usable.
I’m almost certain that this reaction is coming from my US-centric, don’t-like-to-think-about-or-acknowledge-bodily-functions cultural baggage…but does this particular potty make anyone else go “yuck!”?
I mean, I know intellectually that the water going into the toilet tank up top is as clean as the water coming out of a faucet tap, or for that matter, a drinking fountain. But there’s something skeevy about this design that adds up to a negative user experience for me.
I’m sure it’s a me thing…
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There’s a very good article on voting, accessibility and usability over at UXMatters.
Whitney Quesenbery, former President of the Usability Professionals’ Association, describes her experiences serving on the Technical Guidelines Development Committee crafting standards for usable, accessible voting systems.
The article is at this URL: http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000136.php. Or follow this link. Enjoy.
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World Usability Day 2006 is coming up fast. If you haven’t found an event to attend or participate in, go here to find an event near you.
This is looking to be the biggest World Usability Day ever. There’s going to be over 200 events in more than 35 countries. That’s big!
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I guess books are like potato chips. It’s hard to stop at just one. I’m planning a second book about usability and user-centered design, and I’m looking for a few more people who are interested in contributing chapters. If you’re interested, contact me.
The book I am planning is a follow-on to the book that I just finished editing, “Usability Success Stories: How Organizations Improve By Making Easier-To-Use Software and Web Sites.”
I am planning a follow-on to Usability Success Stories because usability engineering and user-centered design are growing in importance worldwide. While the case studies in Usability Success Stories are quite compelling, all of the contributors are based in the US. (This was due to the fact that I had relatively few contacts outside the US when I began planning the book in 2002…)
I believe that the high-tech industry would benefit from hearing about the great work being done by usability and user-centered design practitioners around the globe, not just in the US. I am confident that there are many compelling stories to tell.
Like Usability Success Stories, the follow-on book will contain case studies of how user-centered design contributed to a successful outcome, be it a web site, software product, or hardware product. The authors will also explore the organizational factors that helped or hindered the application of UCD. Because this will be a collection of stories from different nations and cultures, I would also like the contributors to explore how their national or regional culture played a role – positive, negative, or a bit of both – in the success.
If you’re interested, let me know!
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I have a problem: I habitually click “reply to all” when responding to emails. I can’t help myself. I do it EVERY time I reply to an email. I don’t know why. But I can’t stop.
As you can imagine, this has caused me no end of embarrassment. Countless times I’ve responded to an email, intending to communicate only with the sender, and shamed myself by writing to everyone on the To: list.
The last time I did this was particularly embarrassing. So I went googling for a “behavior-modification” tool. I found one. It’s a plug-in for M$ Outlook called Reply To All Monitor. Full disclosure: I have no formal or informal relationship with Sperry Software, the producer of Reply To All Monitor.
The plug-in pretty much does exactly what the title suggests. It monitors you as you reply to emails. When it detects that you’ve pressed the “Reply to all” button, it simply pops a confirmation dialog. If you in fact intended to reply to all recipients, you click Yes. If not, you click No, and the plug-in strips out all respondents but the original sender.
Simple. But for me, incredibly useful. It’s by far the best 10 dollars I’ve ever dropped on a software product.
Whoever runs Sperry Software is pretty savvy about email-related behavioral disorders. Check out their product page. They’ve got a plug-in to remind you to include attachments (and who hasn’t forgotten the attachment once in their life?), strip attachments from incoming emails, and more. Nice.
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Gerry Gaffney of UXPod has posted a podcast of interviews with speakers and attendees of the User Friendly 2006 conference held last week in Hangzhou, China.
I was one of those interviewed. Listen to the podcast and marvel at my hybrid New Jersey-Texas accent. (People tell me I switch between “you guys” and “y’all” at random intervals. And you should see their eyes bug out when I say “fixin’ to”, as in “I’m fixin’ to go down to Katz’s Deli and pick up some bagels, would you like me to git you a bialy?”)
Short article about the conference and interviews is here. The podcast can be downloaded from this link.
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Like any first-time author, I had been eagerly looking forward to my book finally coming to market. I’ve been working on it over a span of three years, so knowing that it was finally going to be available to the public has been an ongoing source of pride.
But instead of feeling pride and pleasure in my accomplishment, I feel shame and embarrassment.
Why?
The publisher has priced the book at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS.
It’s just sillly. My book is a collection of case studies by user-centered design practitioners, tied together with introduction and concluding chapters where I discuss the organizational factors that help and hinder the creation of usable, useful products. Of course *I* think it’s a good book…but for frak’s sake it’s only 226 pages and 11 chapters long. I created the damn book and I DON’T EVEN THINK IT’S WORTH ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN DOLLARS.
I can’t imagine anyone else does either.
The fact is that the publisher has virtually ensured failure because they’ve priced the work far beyond what any reasonable person in our field is willing to pay.
You’re probably wondering whether I brought this up with them. In fact I did raise my concerns in August when I first noticed that the price was going to be set at $99.95. (Don’t ask me what caused the price to jack up 15 dollars; I haven’t a clue.)
In my discussion with the marketing head, he indicated that they typically set the price of their new works somewhat high, and gradually reduce them in response to market conditions. Since I am not a marketer, I figured that they must know what they’re doing.
But now that the book is actually available, it’s clear to me that this strategy will not be successful. As you probably know, many publishers and retailers provide notificaitions when books of potential interest become available. Several people have written to me over the past few weeks expressing various degrees of shock and chagrin at the price of Usability Success Stories. (You have no idea how crappy it feels to write back to these folks explaining that yes, I agree that it’s crazy, and no, I can’t do anything about it.)
The fact is the book is competing against works that are typically priced in the 30 to 50-dollar range. Who in their right mind would buy Usability Success Stories for $115 when they could buy the updated Cost-Justifying Usability for $59.00, Observing the User Experience for $34.00, Designing Interfaces for $32.00, or Designing for Interaction for $26.50?
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The stunningly beautiful lake in Hangzhou.
Giles Colborne’s talk on building user communities.
More as it occurs to me.
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I am here in Hangzhou, China speaking at and attending the User Friendly 2006 conference, organized by UPA China.
The conference is a rousing success: more than 500 people from around the world are in attendance, and the program of events is top-notch.
Let me put that number in perspective for you. The “regular” UPA conference usually draws between 400 and 500 people. The ACM-SIGCHI conference sees a little over a thousand. Think about that: in only it’s 3rd year, User Friendly has already surpassed the attendance of the parent organization’s conference! That is impressive. Credit for building both the UPA China chapter and the User Friendly conference goes to the fine folks who founded and run the China chapter. They have truly done excellent work promoting usability and user-centered design concepts and techniques across China.
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