“These are online games that, in my opinion, offer a “good experience” – good game design with an overall attention to quality. Unless otherwise noted, they’re all free, online, and available right now.”
Once upon a time, I was worked with a company that hired 37signals to do web usability and design work. It really wasn’t that long ago that they only did consulting.
The ship has changed course. They are now a software company: “Simple softare to help you get organized.” Indeed, it takes effort to find their consulting page, which is really just their old home page.
Personally I think this move by 37signals is smart. They have talented developers and designers, but they have less skill with hard core usability. Don’t get me wrong, they are good but they never really did focus on “usability” as most people think about it: research and testing. Although they don’t do usability deeply, they most definitely understand usability. Their work is excellent.
I need some help.
Does it bother you that athletes use peformance enhancing drugs? Does doping bother you? Be honest.
Now that you have worked through that exercise please explain the difference between “steroids” and cortisone. To make it easier, explain the difference between Mark McGuire and Giambi.
Mark evil, Jason wonderful. Right? Um, I don’t get it.
Despite the international audience of WebWord I find that I consistently and constantly use idioms. My expressions are probably very difficult for non-native English speakers to grasp yet I still use them.
The problem is that idioms are so easy to use. It’s as easy as pie to use them. The related problem is that idioms seem to capture something that other “normal” phrases do not.
What idioms do you use? What are some good non-English idioms?
Daniel Szuc and Gerry Gaffney — “Planning is crucial if you want your user research efforts to be effective. You need to think about what information you need to gather, and why, before embarking on any research. Good planning, well communicated to the client or project, and followed by careful implementation will ensure your research is effective.”
Planning is important for many activities, but it is especially critical for research. Trust me, I’ve been there. Get your ducks in a row.
Doc Searls — “A friend of mine who watches these things tells me that Microsoft in the past would have shut down sales of pirated Windows copies on eBay — but isn’t any more, essentially allowing the eBay marketplace to discover the “true” value of the OS.”
Clever.
“The idea behind is simple: There are many Usability Experts who want to contribute to software projects. And there are many developers who want to make their software more usable, and as a consequence, more successful.”
“But what would happen if interest rates suddenly weren’t so benign, or if foreign governments, corporations and individuals stopped investing so heavily in America? Some analysts fear such actions could trigger doomsday scenarios in which the bills come due and Americans can’t pay, with devastating consequences for the entire economy.”
Good overview of debt in the U.S.
BrightPlanet — “U.S. businesses could achieve $33 billion in savings annually through better ways to find previously discovered Web content. This white paper describes how keeping search queries, the search process, and their attendant results persistent is the missing link in deriving true value from the global document warehouse that the Internet has become.”
Good points are made in the whitepaper. I agree that there is a difference between commercial (personal) search and corporate (business) searching. It relates to purpose and motivation, mostly.
Your Memory Stinks and Search Engines Smell It
Human memory is incredibly bad. In fact, it is so bad that you probably don’t remember what you ate for breakfast just a few days ago. The interesting thing is that human brainpower is pretty impressive; we are outstanding at pattern matching and problem solving. Memory has everything to do with search.
You often search because you have poor memory. But, it isn’t so poor that you are a blank slate, tabula rasa. No, instead, you have a clue and you are buying more clues with every search you do. Let’s cut to the core of this.
Your ability to pattern match and recognize is outstanding, but your ability to dredge up old memories is awful. This is recognition versus recall at work.
Put into a simple example, you are great with faces but you just can’t remember names. Which face? Any face! By the way, you aren’t special or unique. You are like every other human on the planet. You are better with faces than names.
Why?
Show Me and Don’t Make Me Think!
The answer is simple. When you see a face you match it against what you know. You are matching patterns. You are capitalizing on your ability to recognize faces. But, you can’t remember names because you have poor recall. You can’t dredge up the name that goes with that face. Recognition in this case is a face-to-face matching exercise. Folks, that is pretty easy.
But really, why is it easier to recognize someone versus recalling their name? The fundamental question has not been answered. Actually, I’m sort of lying.
Spreading Activation, Cues and Related Psychological Foo Foo
It comes down to cues and activation of similar information in your brain. Recognition of a face is an apples-to-apples exercise. Example: Face is stored in memory, you see face, you match face to what is in your mind, and you determine there is a match. Bingo! On the other hand, when you see a face and have to remember a name, the face-to-face match paradigm is broken. It is a face-to-name match, and that isn’t so easy.
Let’s rub this way. A face-to-face search (recognition) is a matter of matching visual information (face) to the same visual information (face). However, matching a face (visual) to a name (language item) is not the same kind of matching. X matches X is easier than X matches Y or more accurately, X activates Y to get Z. That’s almost mathematically interesting, isn’t it.
I’ve grossly abused this concept through simplification, but that’s fine. They key is that it is easier to recognize something than it is to recall something. For those folks that are still lost, up above I’ve just explained why a multiple-choice exam seems easier than writing an essay (for most folks at least).
If your recall was good, you would do much less searching. Most of us need to search to perform recognition exercises.
“I know it when I see it!”
Therefore, we hastily throw together a query and begin the search exercise. We fire off query after query so that the results come back, as fast as possible, and we press forward. You are a pattern matching bug…
Prediction: Recall Driven Search
The summary is that search is dominated by the human memory framework of recognition. Search engines work these days because they capitalize on our pattern matching skills and recognition abilities, no doubt about it.
This story needed to be told. If it is obvious to you now, I’m glad. If you think this is all puff, then throw me some references. I’ve not seen much, if anything, about how recognition and search go hand-in-hand.
In any event, I think that truly powerful search engines will move far beyond the recognition-capitalization stage. Eventually, search will capitalize on our recognition and recall abilities, not just recognition alone.
What will that look like? That’s the wrong question. What will it feel like? Riiight, now that’s a much better question to ask. It’ll feel like someone is talking to you. Your conversation with the search engine will feel good. It’ll be your friend and you won’t know how you got along with it.
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Reference…
The Psychology of Search: Chapter One
You don’t care much about the technology of search. You care about results. Search is an indication of failure, not success. If you had the answers, you wouldn’t need to search.
The Psychology of Search: Chapter Two
Search is a conversation, a contract and perhaps a negotiation between two parties (man or machine). Search engines technically represent a set of basic human activities, such as information seeking, discovery, and problem solving.
“6. Be mindnumbingly simple. Extra clicks are deadly. People just won’t do it. ”
Good list. Read it. Take action.
What Mamma Don’t Talk About
No one really understands search, or searching. Don’t be fooled! There is a poverty of understanding on this topic for many reasons, but the primary reasons are hubris and ignorance. Too many people are reluctant to admit they don’t understand search, and too many in turn are too weak to resist those that claim they do.
The fundamental nature of search is not well defined or known. Ask yourself, what is a search engine and what is it for? Searching? I think not.
Searching is:
But it is also much more. Search is also a conversation. It is the talk that occurs between a database or index, and a human. It is not human-to-human conversation per se, but it is, nevertheless, a conversation. A dialog.
Consider, if you could just talk to someone who could answer all your questions, would that be better than search? Better still, wouldn’t it be great to be given all the answers ahead of time completely cutting out the need for search?
But wait, there’s more. Search is also a contract. Ask a judge about a contract and he will ask if there was a meeting of the minds. That, in essence, describes search success. Did your mind meet the mind of someone, and did you get what you wanted from that interaction? Did you close the deal or not?
(Kids, you won’t get this kind of thinking other places. Most folks are off talking technology and gee whiz when it comes to search. I hope you are starting to see the light, that search is a conversation and a contract. And more. It certainly is not just a bag o’ technology.)
Caveman Search, Oooga Booga
Before search engines there was searching. To forget this is foolhardy. The world hasn’t stopped and started on the basis of search. We’ve all been hunting and seeking and asking and finding answers for a long time.
Bottom line: Search is a conversation, or perhaps a negotiation between two parties (man or machine). Search engines technically represent a set of basic human activities, such as information seeking, discovery, and problem solving.
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Reference…
The Psychology of Search: Chapter One
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