The iPhone User Experience: A First Touch (Ask Tog) — “The “fit and finish” of the device are extraordinary, both in terms of industrial design and human-computer interaction.”
Don’t miss: The iPhone User Experience: A First Look
Ask Great Questions — “When testing people in front of the computer screen, you need to guide them in some way through the process. The usability goals need to be operationalized in order to check if the product meets them. Operationalization means to take an abstract goal and describe it in terms that can be measured and observed.”
Good word: operationalized.
It is critically important to ask the right questions because that’s how you get the right answers. You have to know what you want to get; what are your goals. Questions follow those goals you’ve set. Then bam, get what you need.
Free IQ CXO Andy Edmonds on Free IQ Usability — “The site has a “clean”, frictionless look and feel. Think about the best search engines (Google), and content publishers (Amazon). Forget “talking heads”, banner city and intrusive pop ups. Free IQ is a true e commerce platform that hosts and streams video- for free. A site that clearly differentiates free content and paid content.”
Andy Edmonds is a Chief Experience Officer at FreeIQ. He’s a usability guy that I’ve known for a long time. I generally like what he has to say and he’s always keeping me on my toes. That’s all for now.
A while ago I looked at Twitter and I was not very impressed. I just didn’t see the point. But I’m going to give it a second chance. I’m going to try it out for, um, maybe a week or so. Two things have to happen to keep me going.
1. It’s gotta be deadly easy, day after day. I mean easy. I don’t like adding anything to my plate. These days I have no time. Speed is everything. Usability is king.
2. I need to know that at least a few people care. I want to Twitter for myself but also other folks. I want to keep keep informed and updated. I need your help.
First, take a look at my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/webword
Second, consider subscribing to my Twitter RSS feed.
Third, consider posting a comment here. Tell us about your Twitter page. Or, just let me know that you’re watching what I say on Twitter.
By the way, you might want to think about grabbing the WebWord RSS feed.
There’s still a lot more to talk about so keep your eye on this blog. Also, I’m going to strongly encourage you to subscribe to the WebWord Newsletter. The “first” edition is coming out very soon.
Since the announcement yesterday of the Rebirth of the WebWord Newsletter there have been a lot of subscriptions. Apparently there is a lot of pent up demand.
I really should have started the newsletter back up a couple of years ago. Even periodic updates would be useful to WebWord readers, like you. More importantly there are always things going on that I think you would find interesting from a usability perspective and beyond.
Here are a couple of examples…
First, I’ve been listening to a book by Peter Drucker. This man was smart. He spent one chapter talking about profit versus cash flow. In a very eloquent manner, he stated that many people are stupid about business. Drucker specifically attacked people for caring too much about profit versus cash flow.
That makes sense when you think about it. If you only sell one item for $100 and the cost to you was just $1, then your profit per item is insane. On the other hand, if you sell 500 items $100 but the cost to you is $99, then your profit per item is low. However in the first case, you’re only pulling down $99 whereas in the second case you’re pulling down $500.
When I started thinking about this in relation to usability something struck me. Most consultants “swing for the fences” meaning that we take on just a few large projects. Although the income per project is huge, the overall level of usability in the world doesn’t change much unless the project in question is open and exposed to the masses.
Should UX’ers spend more time creating products and services for the masses? Is usability something you can mass produce in some manner or another? Do books and web sites fulfill this UX gap in any way? Is is possible for usability practitioners to shift from Whale Hunting to Fish Farming?
Here’s another example. Why don’t more UX’ers talk about the mundane regularity that makes up 94.85% of our waking lives? There are many things we do day after day that are not very user friendly (ugh!) but we continue doing them again and again. Imagine if we could improve the UX of putting on socks. Imagine if we could make it easier to comb hair. Imagine if we could improve the experience of brushing our teeth.
Sure, these are silly examples but I have a point. We don’t focus enough time on boring stuff that takes up hours or even years of our lives. We don’t talk about the dull stuff because, well, it’s dull. Imagine making improvements.
That’s enough for now. I’ll just encourage you again to sign up for the WebWord Newsletter. I talk about usability and UX stuff, just like I did in this posting. Sometimes what I write is a lot better. Sometimes not. Consider it an adventure.
Oh, one last thing. If you have subscribed the newsletter in the past (like 6 years ago, for example) you might be getting an email from me about signing up. I’m trying to import an ancient subscription list. Wish me luck!
I’ve been quietly working to start publishing the WebWord Newsletter once again. This is a serious decision because writing and publishing the newsletter takes a lot of time and effort, as you can probably imagine.
Despite the fact that I don’t post on this blog as much as did a few years ago, I still stay on top of usability and trends in user experience. I also still make predictions and I forecast what’s coming next.
I also still write articles and I’m really active on the internet, although in new places and doing new things. I’ve been especially focused on marketing which I plan to talk about a lot more than the past.
Here’s where my head is at today. These are the kinds of thoughts I’m going to share with you in the WebWord Newsletter.
There’s a critical shift right now in usability. On the one hand, things haven’t changed a bit. Humans are still humans. The core principles haven’t changed. But on the other hand, there are two monumental shifts upon us.
First, humans are connecting to humans like never before despite problems with technology. We’re all finding ways to communicate and connect unlike any time in the past. This shift is having a profound impact on how we search for information, how we think about our friends and families, and how we get work done.
Second, usability is going mainstream. The demands for solid UX workers, or at least workers with reasonable UX knowledge, is skyrocketing. Managers and CEOs are beginning to exploit usability and UX in new ways. Without getting too complex about it here, they are using our tools as business weapons. It’s not just about the customer experience, it’s about market domination. This just fuels my interest in the crossover of marketing and UX.
I’m blabbering a bit here, but that’s because I’m excited. I’m more jazzed about usability now than I was when I started WebWord nearly 9 years ago. And, I’m nearly jumping out of my skin about the WebWord Newsletter.
I should have brought it back sooner than this. Forgive me…
It’s been a very long time since I talked about the Perceived Information Architecture Test (PIA). However, some folks are redesigning a web site and they’re looking to use the PIA. Here are some of the questions they asked:
Here’s my response, pretty much word for word. Minor edits only, to protect the innocent…
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We’ve used the PIA test a few times with great success. It’s definitely a “niche” tool, meaning that you only want to use it narrow circumstances. It’s best for web sites that are already designed or prototypes that are high fidelity. The reason is that you want users to absorb a lot of information and then reconstruct the architecture for you. In our opinion, users need to absorb a lot of material in order to form their mental models.
Unfortunately, I have not written any more papers on the PIA. We’ve used it a couple more times as a low fidelity, back pocket tool. It’s great to get people to produce something as a result of their interactions. In any case, I do not have anything else to pass along. I wish that I did.
Regarding instructions, you’re right that the instructions matter. I’m going to stick to what’s in the original article. The main thing is to make people VERY comfortable with the task. We’ve given people some examples in the instructions like:
- “Imagine that you have to create an outline of the web site”
- “Maybe you want to draw some boxes or circles and connect them”
- “You could literally draw some of the key pages and how they’re linked”
We provide these examples to get the juices flowing, but we leave it up to users to create their own PIAs. We do answer questions, but never say “yes” or “no” to the best way to generate the PIA. We do provide the examples in the same order for each user but not much else. It’s very free form. It’s a very creative task.
The best way to analyze the data is to lay out the drawings, diagrams, and related artifacts. Look at what sticks out from artifact to artifact.
Important: Be certain to gather comments along the way as you conduct the sessions. What people say as they create their PIAs is pure gold. We simply look for common words, themes, information groupings, location of information (e.g., upper right button location), and so on. You’re looking for emergent concepts, if that makes sense.
I still like the PIA Test. As I said, I use it more informally now than I did 5 years ago. It’s a wonderful back pocket test.
So, I do still recommend the test, for sure. It’s an easy test to run and you can get solid additional information for next to nothing. And, it’s fast.
Caveat: Don’t depend on only this test. But, use it to supplement other UX and IA work you’re doing.
I hope this helps. If you have more questions, please let me know. I’m also available for additional consultation if you’d like more formal assistance.
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That’s all for now. Is the PIA right for you?
Matthew Oliphant writes I Can Exist Now. The NYT Said So. where he tells us how he feels about the NYT times article on usability. For the most part, he’s frustrated with the New York Times article. Here are some snippets:
“Had it been written 5 years ago, I’d be really pleased about it. But it isn’t a very well written article and has some mis-information as well.”
“Our role has been viewed as expendable in the past and the companies that have cut us in budget shortfall times have still been profitable.”
“User-experienced people. People who are experienced with users? This is either an editorial issue or Harvinder doesn’t know what he’s recruiting for.”
“The article is written in the style of an Emerging Job, but should have been a Job Trend piece. I think you could make a good case in writing this article about Experience Design or Design Strategy, but not about “traditional” usability professionals.”
Despite criticism by other folks as well, I stand by my statement that the article is good. My reason is quite simple. When you see articles in major publications it raises the awareness of usability, which is a very good thing.
There’s another reason the article’s flaws don’t bother me. I’ve seen crappy reporting on usability for years. It hardly phases me. If you look at the composite of articles, they do paint a reasonable picture of usability. Not perfect, but they help people “get usability” which is extremely important.
Would it be better to have no exposure or flawed exposure? Personally, I’ll take flawed exposure as long as nothing is grossly wrong. In the case of the NYT article, nothing was so wrong that I had to head to bathroom to visit the toilet.
Look folks, the NYT article was not a good educational piece on usability or user experience or accessibility. In that respect, I agree with critics. It was a steaming pile. But from an exposure and awareness perspective, it delivered a reasonable punch.
I’m not a glowing optimist. I’m more of a practical realist. In this case, I say that on the whole, usability practitioners should be thankful for the NYT article, even with the moles and warts.
Technology’s Untanglers: They Make It Really Work (NY Times) — “Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology.”
Good, solid article. Usability is here to stay. I also liked this piece a lot because it was in the NY Times and it felt very real. It wasn’t just another junk piece quoting Jakob Nielsen.
How to Deliver Bad News to Customers (John S. Rhodes) — “The intention of usability testing and user experience (UX) research is to help clients and end users. If you want to help people, you must first understand problems and issues. You have to explain the challenges you discover. After all, you can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. Your clients cannot take action without information. You can’t improve something or make it usable without exploring what isn’t working.”
This is an article that I wrote for publication over at Apogee. It’s useful because it’s practical. I give some rather explicit guidance, which should help in your usability work. Enjoy!
Unmasking the Decepticon: TransformersMovie.com Battles Usability — “Maybe I’m not the target (ugh) audience, here, but I don’t see a lot of 13 year olds having much more patience than I. I’ve seen a representative of your key demographic use a computer multiple times (many of which consist of me leaning over his shoulder to make sure he’s not eye-emming either a convict or an FBI agent pretending to be a 15 year old girl) and if it doesn’t load in half a second he’s gone. You seem like, and maybe were, an afterthought.”
I agree that TransformersMovie.com offers up a poor experience. It’s Flashy, to be sure, but it ain’t easy or fun to use. It also doesn’t offer much interactivity. The navigation is especially challenging and I can imagine that most people won’t enjoy figuring out how to use the site, even young folks. What an opportunity, lost!
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