So I went looking for a better content inventory template than the one I use currently, and was reminded how great the IA Institute’s tools and downloads page is.
You should check it out if you haven’t seen it yet.
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2008
Since I’m still UPA President till tomorrow (and will be on the board till the end of next year), I think it’s fitting and appropriate that I mention UPA’s software and services discounts for current members.
Trent Mankelow, UPA’s Director of Member Services, did a great job negotiating a bundle of discounts on products and services that user experience professionals typically use. And there’s more coming. Here’s what’s available today:
- $89 US discount on Axure RP Pro 5 for creating wireframes, prototypes and specifications for applications and web sites
- 10% discount on a variety of eye tracking services and analysis software from Mangold International
- 25% discount on Optimal Sort for online card sorting tool
- 20% discount on the TechSmith Morae software bundle for conducting usability testing
- 25% discount on any level of WebSort.net subscription for web-based card sorting
These discounts are available to all current UPA members. To get them, go to this page.
Props again to Trent for getting this program set up.
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I’m always in search of the easiest, most dependable and redundant backup solution. A while back I wrote about my backup script solution for Windows XP (and how it broke in Vista…sigh). It involved using XCOPY32 and Windows Scheduler, as well as a few backup drives for redundancy.
Since I’ve now moved over to the Mac completely (OK, I still run Visio in a VMWare Fusion window…), I’ve had to craft a new backup solution.
Once again, my backup wants/needs – and I assume most peoples’ are similar – are:
- Automated: I don’t want to have to *do things* to back up my data. It’s gotta be set-and-forget.
- Redundant: No single points of failure please. And while I’m at it, I’d like off-site backup in case the house burns down.
- Trustworthy: I need to have faith that my backups are happening and that I can recover from any size disaster, ranging from “oh crap I didn’t mean to delete that file” to “whoah, my hard drive just died.”
Unfortunately, I haven’t satisfied all of these wants and needs with my little scheme. And frankly I’d love some advice from readers on how to do it better. But here’s what I’m doing:
- Cloning my MBP’s hard drive to an external 250GB 2.5″ HDD with Carbon Copy Cloner. It’s got a neat scripting capability so everytime I plug in that drive, it clones my lappy’s hard drive. Unfortunately, it’s not automated. I have to remember to plug in that drive…and some days do go by when I forget. And I’d really love to suppress the dialog that asks me whether I want to proceed or skip the operation. Maybe that setting is there. Hey, it’s free, and it seems trustworthy. Can’t argue with that.
- Setting Time Machine to back up hourly. It’s backing up to a 500GB NAS drive, so when I tire of wandering around the house with my laptop and plug it back into the KVM and Ethernet cable on my desk, I’m assured of getting a Time Machine backup kicked off sometime soon.
- Using Apple Backup to copy “critical” data to my iDisk.? I stumbled upon Apple Backup while looking for a file synchronization tool that would work with iDisk, which I want to use for offsite backup.
Apple Backup / iDisk is quite frankly is the weak link in my backup plan. The big problems with Apple Backup and iDisk?
- On iDisk I’m limited to 10GB (unless I buy more capacity of course), and like most people I have much more data than that, if you include pictures, vids, and music. So I’ve decided to use it for work files only. Which still takes up about 5-6GB.
- Apple Backup is as slow as molasses over the Interwebs.
- Frankly, I’m not sure I trust it. It seems to be backing everything up to a compressed file rather than just replicating my files and folders on the target drive. Which means that if I ever need to recover files, I’ll need to learn & use AB’s restore feature. I haven’t played with it yet, so I don’t know how well it works. In my 18+ years of compy experience however, I’ve come to learn that the bigger a compressed file is, the more likely it is to be corrupted. And AB makes some seriously ginormous files.
- It also doesn’t seem to support synchronization. AFAIK it’s happily chewing up space on my iDisk, without even making differential backups.
So there you have it, my halfway decent backup scheme. It ain’t pretty, and the offsite part is seriously hokey. Any better recommendations out there?
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Twitter is so very addictive. Now I get it.
I think it’s lacking in the discoverability department though. I don’t find it very easy to find new people – or topics – to follow.
Follow me at http://twitter.com/pjsherman.
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A little behind the curve, that’s me. John Rhodes of Webword and IMSimple sent along this link to a USN&WR article calling (sic) “Usability Experience Specialist” a best career for 2009.
So for those of you who – like me – got RIF‘ed this holiday season, this might bring you a bit of holiday cheer during this bleak Christmahanukkwanzaa.
(Incidentally, being RIF’ed was not unexpected on my part, and believe me I’m not feeling sorry for myself…I am starting my own practice.)
Best Careers 2009: Usability Experience Specialist :: US News and World Report
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Tags: Careers, UX, Usability, User Experience, Christmahanukkwanzaa, WTF_is_a_usability_experience_specialist
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So I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that my latest column in Uxmatters is getting good notices.
The title is “Why Enterprise Software Usability Matters” and in it I talk about why enterprise application usability lags behind consumer software and web site usability.
To summarize and quote myself:
Over the past twenty years, the field of user experience has been fortunate. Software and hardware product organizations increasingly have adopted user-centered design methods such as contextual user research, usability testing, and iterative interaction design. In large part, this has occurred because the market has demanded it. More than ever, good interaction design and high usability are part of the price of entry to markets.
However, there’s one area that I believe has lagged behind: the enterprise software space. I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection?
Nice to learn that something I have to say resonates. After my last UXmatters article was met with the sound of chirping crickets, I was starting to worry…and I thought people would really groove to the idea that you can evaluate and measure the risk that your product will be perceived as malware by the market.
Just goes to show, you never can tell which one of your album tracks will be the hit single.
The Usability of Enterprise Software Matters :: Paul Sherman
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I’m in Dallas watching a game usability test. I figured it’d be fun to liveblog it.
4:18PM
The first set of participants – there are two for each session – have been brought in. The facilitator (my friend, de-identified) is pre-briefing them. It’s a type of head-to-head game where players can also play the AI.
4:22
Of course the participants are guys…
4:27
They’re working through the game tutorials now, trading off the controller and learning the basic attacks, counterattacks, and combination moves.
4:28
The graphics are amazing. We just own a Wii and as the world knows it’s not about realism or pixel count. But this game looks amazing. Not a jaggy or a jerky movement in sight.
4:35
P’s are still just practicing.
4:41
One of the participants says that he’s having trouble remembering some of the moves, especially of course the complex ones.
4:42
I’m looking at the two participants – they’re sitting on a sofa like they’re at home – and the one with the controller is just rapt looking at the screen.
4:43
The game’s lead designer and my friend the facilitator are discussing how much tutorial text is on screen.
4:47
Now my friend and the designer have decided to just let them play the game now, they see some problems with the tutorial phase of the game. Mostly around the amount of tutorial text and the desire to give the players more context as they go through the tutorial.
4:48
Watching the cinematic effects, actually just noticing them. They really help the game’s level of realism.
4:52
One of these participants is clearly more proficient on console games. The less proficient participant basically can’t do any of the complex moves. When they play head to head it’s going to be a rout.
4:54
OK, their going to have a head-to-head battle…
4:58
P2 is playing. He got some good shots in, but the AI (the computer-generated character) took him down.
5:02
P2: “There’s no way I can tell if having experience…” never mind, I missed this.
5:13
It’s really hot in the control room…and I’m wearing a wool sweater. With only an undershirt, so I can’t take it off…
5:17
P2 is studying the action list. He’s trying to figure out how to do a certain move.
5:19
P2 has been really into it, talking to the screen, exclaiming, etc. P1 is much more circumspect.
5:21
P1 just lost quickly. He’s frustrated.
The affective reactions of the participants are really positive and the level of engagement is high, as you would hope for a game.
5:26
The participants are looking at the character choices, and they commented that they’d really like to see the characters’ attributes on the screen as they browse them.
5:38
They’re going to play head-to-head now. Both sitting on the edge of the couch. P2, the better and more verbal participant, wants a particular character. P1 doesn’t care.
5:41
Fingers twitching on the controllers. They’re just wailing on each other. P2 just beat P1.
5:44
Rematch. P2 won again.
5:46
Facilitator: “What did you think of the game?” P’s like it, but feel that the moves are complex and it’s hard to remember them. ?”What did you think about how the game felt? The responsiveness of the controls?” P2: Pretty smooth, pretty responsive, no delay.
P1 is hardly talking. Sitting back, hands folded. Not looking at the camera (we’re in a separate room, no glass).
“Favorite part of game?” P1: I like the look, the variety of different moves that you can do… P2: The thing I like the most is some of the major attacks, the effects, the fact that they have different style of playing, it’s more of a technique match.
“Least favorite part?” P2: I did not like [an aspect of the controls]…it just don’t feel comfortable using it.
5:52
Just finishing up the debrief with the first two participants.
Took a little break for pizza. Back now with the game utest liveblogging.
7:01PM
Participants 3 and 4 are trading off the controller and practicing moves. They’re having some of the same issues that P1 and 2 had, learning the complex moves. No surprise.
7:11
P4 is engaged in the game. He’s talking to himself, saying “Strategy. Strategy! Gotta remember, strategy.”
7:15
A pattern is emerging: once the AI does a particular move, the players don’t know how to recover.
7:17
P4 just did a great move, but it’s clear that he didn’t know how he did it, he stumbled on the controller combination. It’s frustrating to the designer.
7:18
My friend asked P4 how he was trying to counter the AI’s move. P4 has a goal, but can’t figure out how to execute it. (He can’t bridge the gulf of execution.)
7:25
P3 just played against the AI and won. He’s figured out how to respond to the AI’s “unstoppable” moves.
7:36
I shouldn’t have eaten that pizza. Must.find.Zantac.
7:37
The participants are going head-to-head now.
8:45PM
Last session for the night. As usual, I’m a bit fried at this point. And I’m just an observer, not even working.
I wish I hadn’t worn a wool sweater and an undershirt, because I can’t take off the sweater and sit here in just an undershirt.
8:47
Participants 5 and 6 are going through the tutorials, playing against the AI. Same problems are coming up: what do they do when the gameplay goes into the different modes? It’s a long flat learning curve.
Yes, I’m using that metaphor correctly. “Steep learning curve” means the subject learned a lot of information very quickly. Long and flat means it took a long time to learn. So all y’all who say “It’s a steep learning curve” are actually saying “It’s easy to learn quickly.” So nyah nyah nyah.
8:52
Did I mention it’s hot in here?
8:53
A lot of button-mashing has happened here tonight. But good, fun, interesting mashing.
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Either have I. But that’s exactly what I’m going to do tonight. I’m driving up to Dallas to observe a full day of utesting with one of my Dallas friends who works for a game publisher.
I will blog – in fact, I may even liveblog – my experience tonight.
Stay tuned.
View Larger Map
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The proprietor of uselog.com wrote to tell me that his site now works in Firefox and its derivatives. Good on him. I’ll add it to my blogroll.
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I’m not sure exactly how but I ended up at uselog.com, which bills itself as “The Product Usability Weblog.” It’s run by a guy named Jasper van Kuijk, whose posts I think I’ve read on the UX-related lists.
I was in Windows at the time working on a redesign of an enterprise web app that only runs on IE, so I initially perused Uselog in IE. I really liked the posts, particularly the one about how one designer is solving the problem of used teabags.
Then I went over to the Mac side of my machine to view it in Firefox (actually Flock, the Firefox derivative that I love dearly) and save it using my bookmark manager/propagator/sync’er. Unfortunately, Uselog is busted in Firefox. Or at least the homepage is.
Still, recommended for the thoughtful analyses and topical gadget coverage.
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An article on Digg caught my eye this morning. Seems some non-profit foundation has given the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization responsible for Wikipedia, almost 900K USD to make Wikipedia “easier to use”.
OK. No problem so far. (Well, I’m a bit shocked that they think it’ll take 900K to fix the entry edit interaction…I could design AND validate a better interaction for less than 1/10th of that amount…)
I’ve edited Wikipedia entries and it’s no picnic. What I take exception to is C|NET columnist Caroline McCarthy referring to folks who have trouble with Wikipedia’s editing tools as “Luddites”.
The problem with this cavalier putdown is that it perpetuates the attitude, held by many technophiles, that anyone who can’t easily use a complex system is stupid, lazy, or both, and that they small-mindedly shun new technology.
C’mon now. People who can’t slog their way through the entry edit flow are *not* Luddites. They’re just regular people. The idea that they’re Ludditical (I just coined that, props to me…) devalues the admirable goal of fixing a poorly designed interaction on an Internet resource that is regularly used by millions of people.
Wikipedia gets $890,000 for the Luddites :: The Social :: CNET News
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: Web, Web 2.0, Design, Usability, Attitudes
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Bet you didn’t know that showers had operating systems.
(Click picture to see full-sized)
Originally uploaded by Dan Szuc of Apogee Hong Kong.
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Say what you will about Wil Wright’s Spore. One thing he and the team got right: the creator interaction. Ever since I downloaded Creature Creator, my 5- and 9-year old have been building ships, buildings, and creatures endlessly. And more importantly, they’ve discovered how to do this with minimal intervention from me.
Video of Hattie’s creature is here. His name is “Spino Jerry.” Not sure where she got that, exactly.
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Long time no post. Sorry. Been too busy obsessively following the U.S. election at www.FiveThirtyEight.com. If you’re a hardcore stats junkie, this is – or was, after Tuesday – the site for you.
Anyway, since my last post I traveled to Hong Kong and Shenzhen to take part in the User Friendly 2008 conference, put on by UPA China, a group of China-based UPA chapters.
As current UPA President I was asked to give the kick-off talk. I took the invitation as an opportunity to focus the audience on how far our discipline has come, and how far it has to go to be truly strategic in scope and reach.
You can download the presentation from this link or the one below.
User Experience: Drive Change, Become Strategic ::? Paul Sherman
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I have kept politics off the table during my 3+ years of running this blog. I just think it’s a private thing, and not germaine to the topics I cover here. Suffice it to say I’m a something like a rabidly capitalistic social-liberal-fiscal-conservative-with-a-libertarian-streak. Or a Second Amendment-supporting Democrat (befitting my Texas residency) who believes in states’ rights and a limited Federal government. (In other words, there really is *no* real party for me in the US…but that’s another story and another blog…)
But today I thought I’d point to a really top-notch user experience, and in the process reveal that I am a contributor to the Obama-Biden campaign. After reading about how Sarah Palin’s RNC convention speech raised 1M for the Replicans and 10M for the Democrats, I was reminded that I wanted to contribute. Rather than browse to barackobama.com, I decided to go to www.mybarackobama.com, the social networking site run by the campaign.
I was impressed with how easy it was to not only contribute (it darn well better be), but to quickly and easily increase your level of commitment to the cause. Obviously there’s been some research behind this. They hooked me with the drop-dead simple way to register, and the ease with which they asked me to contribute time, money, or my personal network. They also offered registrants the ability to harness network effects by setting up a personal donations page, where you can ping your friends for donations in your name. Check out my page at http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/pjsherman. The page took no time to set up. My only nit with the site? Why oh why did they make the username/login fields the same color as the background?!? Amateurish mistake, that.
Now I’m sure that the McCain campaign has made it easy to contribute as well, but from my forays onto the McCain site I don’t see the same social networking aspect. And I have to say, I don’t like having a video start up automatically when I visit a site. It’d my choice whether I’d like to watch video content, thank you very much.
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File this post under “more signs of the USPTO apocalypse.” In a story reminiscent of The Onion‘s parody news article “Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros“, iTWire reports on Microsoft’s patent “Method and system for navigating paginated content in page-based increments“… which is a fancy way of describing the Page Up and Page Down buttons.
The iTWire article isn’t bad, though like most news outlets it doesn’t provide sufficient background on why the patent system is in such a sorry state. (I did explain this in some detail in my UXmatters article; follow this link to read “Your Design Is Infringing On My Patent.”)
I don’t blame the Microsoft employees who put their name on this patent; they’re just playing the game that they were hired to play. (Though I do wonder whether they look at that patent plaque in their offices and feel a slight twinge of embarrassment.) It’s not Microsoft’s fault either. They’re playing the game too. The fault lies squarely with the USPTO, and with a Congress that is too deep in the pockets of large incumbent businesses from many domains.
I hate to keep ringing this bell over and over, but the fact of the matter is that patents stifle innovation and provide a means for lazy and litigious people to live off the work of others. And by patenting something so (pardon the pun) “patently obvious” as Page Up / Page Down buttons, Microsoft degrades the user experience for us all. Think about it: every time Microsoft (or some other software company) patents a commonly-used interaction pattern or UI design, they make it less likely that other product producers will want to pay a licensing fee to use the pattern or design. Which means that the producer will have to skirt the patent by creating a new interaction or design, even though a common and perfectly reasonable one already exists.
This isn’t just an academic problem, folks. If this is allowed to continue, we’re headed even farther down the slippery slope. What’s next? Will Microsoft or Apple or IBM patent the “OK” button? Will we have to label it “Affirmed” to skirt the patent? How many other patent landmines are sitting out there waiting to be stepped on?
If you’re interested in patent reform but don’t know what you can do or where to start, check out these organizations. You might find a way you can contribute to the elimination of obvious and overly broad patents. (These are taken from my UXmatters article.)
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation — The EFF is a nonprofit organization that advocates for free speech and individual rights in the digital domain. Its Patent Busting Project is an initiative “to protect innovation and free expression” by fighting against vague, obvious, or overly broad patents.
- Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure—Based in Europe, this organization currently runs the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, which has as its aim stopping enaction of a US-like patent system in the European Union.
- The Free Software Foundation — Founded by Richard Stallman, the FSF promotes and supports the free software movement. The FSF supports a less restrictive approach to patenting intellectual property. Founded as a US-based organization, FSF branches have opened in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
- Another advocacy group is the Software Freedom Law Center, which Eben Moglen founded in 2005.
Microsoft Granted Page Up Page Down Patent :: iTWire
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Tags: patentreform, user experience
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I believe Samsung has surpassed Apple with this OOBE…
Samsung Omnia i900 Unboxing: Greatest. Packaging. Ever. :: Digg
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This article has been making the rounds today. Thought I’d do my part to keep the meme alive. OK, this isn’t really a meme. But it’s an interesting little compilation of UI concepts. Of course the author cites Adaptive Path’s Mozilla Labs effort called Aurora.
My last article for UXmatters also touched on the topic of this article.? I was focusing on 3D virtual spaces and navigation. Still, I would suggest reading that article of mine if you’re interested in uncommon user interfaces.
10 Futuristic User Interfaces? ::? Monday Inspiration? ::? Smashing Magazine
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A few colleagues have pointed me to the article by movie director-sounding blogger Matthew Paul Thomas entitled “Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, and How to Improve It.”
I’ve given you the link to the original Thomas article, but I’m more interested in discussing Johnathan Gruber’s take on it. Says Gruber in this post:
I posit that the usability and elegance of any product, software or hardware, tends to reach and seldom surpasses the level that satisfies the taste of whoever is in charge of the product. This applies universally, not just to free and open source software. For example, it explains why Microsoft produces such crummy software even though the company employees [sic] thousands of talented programmers and even designers — Microsoft’s decision makers have no taste. But the problem is endemic to open source.
The people in charge of most free and open source software products tend to have poor taste in user interfaces; people with good taste in user interface design are seldom in charge of open source software projects.
Put another way, if you have to ask for better design, you will lose. You need to be in a position to demand it.
Yes. (Adding some more later in the day…) Aside from the comment about Microsoft’s decision makers having “no taste” – undoubtedly a reference to Steve Job’s comment about Microsoft – I have personally seen what can happen when leaders demand better design…and what can happen when they don’t.
Design leadership *has* to come from the top. It can’t be, as Cooper said in February at IxDA 2008 – an “insurgency” driven from below.
Matthew Paul Thomas :: Why Free Software Has Poor Usability, and How to Improve It
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