‘User Experience’ Blog Entries
I’ve been a BlackBerry Pearl user for only a short while, almost a year. It has its merits but my next phone probably won’t be another BlackBerry. There are more than a few quirks, but one that has always got me is so simple to solve that it seems weird it has been overlooked for so long.
The Pearl was Research In Motion’s, maker of the BlackBerry, first entrance into the multimedia phone space which includes a camera and audio, video playback–all types of media which require a fair amount of memory. With limited storage, it is not uncommon to want to know how much space you’ve got left on the Pearl’s 64 megabytes of internal memory, or 65142784 bytes as my BlackBerry prefers to tell me.
In a time where we are beginning to even forget about kilo-bytes it truly seems baffling that Research In Motion would even present the memory total and usage in bytes. I studied computer science and even I don’t want to spend the time deciding whether I want to divide that number by 1024 or 1000 to get a better idea in today’s terms of how much memory I got left.
09.12.07 — Technology, User Experience
I recently discovered that my co-workers have been secretly keeping a running list of how many usability rants I have a day. I won’t lie, it is a fairly common occurrence and an activity I recommend for anyone in the industry. Often my rants are five minute manifestos on why something is designed poorly and what needs to be changed to rectify the situation.
In order to push that agenda for designing more usable products you need to be as mad as hell and let it be known–in the politest manner possible. Being irked on a daily basis, as frustrating as that sounds, I find to be paramount in the ideation process.
08.31.07 — Design, User Experience, Work
In the early days it was email and today it’s the online profile. It seems these days that if you don’t have a profile on a social network you don’t really exist, at least in regards to the Internet–even my dad has one. I’ve had profiles on too many sites to remember, many of which were before the days when we called them social networks.
“You Looked Hotter On MySpace”
I was a hold out on MySpace–due to its utterly poor design. As someone in the field of user experience I felt disgusted in myself for not only finally signing up to use it, but to also promote it. Don Norman had stated in his classic book, The Design of Everyday Things that we are to send a message to companies who make unusable products by boycotting them. I knew very well I was breaking this rule when I signed up. But much like the early days of email, when people would ask “What’s your email address?”, everyone started asking “Where’s your MySpace profile?”.
Salvaging What I Could
I did everything I could to make my profile clean, trim, and easy to use. But still, I could not bare to sit through some of the most obvious user experience design problems (e.g., clicking a link to a page that requires you to login, after login should send you to the requested page!). To compound such problems, the use of third party design layouts made profiles almost outright unreadable. Autoplaying profile songs, slideshows, autoplaying movies, animated backgrounds, and countless full resolution photos; it’s like a 13 year old girl’s scrapbook but fully animated with accompanying audio. I soon identified which friends’ profiles I would never visit again. Sadly, even my own sister was on that list.
The issue with MySpace though is that they truly see no reason to solve any of these problems. They are not in the business of providing any kind of enjoyable user experience or new innovative features. Just by looking at the constant marketing AD takeovers of the site you will understand MySpace’s true goals–a marketing mouthpiece. It is not a place for friends but a place for advertising executives.
Good Bye
I may no longer be up on what new movies Twentieth Century Fox is releasing or what new beverage I should be drinking, at least I will have ended that momentary lapse in judgment.
08.29.07 — Design, User Experience
Instructions on how to operate a mouse are fairly rare these days. But there was a time when the mouse was a new method of interaction and we had to inform people on the mechanics of its operation. In a 1984 Apple brochure for the Macintosh they outlined how to use a mouse and what it could be used for. Reading it today, it sounds like a set of directions for something as pedestrian as a door handle.
08.06.07 — Design, User Experience
Spanning search results or any other kind of list of information across pages has become standard fare on the Web. Unfortunately this information is now secretly locked behind mystery doors (links) 2 through 34. How can we give the user insight into what lies behind these doors instead of simply choosing at random in order to find they information they desire?
Pagination has helped in reducing the load of information a user has to take in or download for that matter, but the pagination navigation leaves a great deal to be desired. Typically the pagination navigation is simply a list of linked numbers which reference each page of results, sometimes truncated to reduce an overload of page links. The problem with this is that the user is essentially gambling with what he will be presented with when clicking on a page link. Which is why most users don’t actually randomly pick a page, they walk through the results with the Next Page link.
Jared Spool has talked at great lengths about the idea of information scent, basically giving the user an idea of what lies behind a link before they click it. Information scent can give a user a purpose to click a link. Pagination navigation does not provide the user with any scent as to what exists behind a link such as 4. When looking at an alphabetically sorted list of results, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to know that a particular letter was on a certain page instead of excessively clicking around? Figure 1 showcases a pagination navigation scheme with scent for Flickr. When the user mouses over a page link he is presented with a sample of the photos which exist on that page. Thus allowing the user to make a better informed decision about whether to proceed to that page or not.
Figure 1. Flickr pagination with information scent
11.20.05 — User Experience
I know, why are we still talking about tag clouds? The concept is becoming a bit cliche as of late, but they’re still a viable option for presenting information visually. Although, a problem with tag clouds seems to be that their scaling ability is limited. But there are ways to improve its scalability.
As an avid Flickr (king of tag clouds) user, you can imagine my list of photo tags is getting larger over time. Thus the tag cloud which represents my photo tags is becoming increasingly difficult to quickly acquire comparative information of my tags, based soley on font size.
The visualization of varying font sizes becomes almost useless when viewing a tag cloud which approaches the length such as mine (Figure 1). Tags begin to blend together and it becomes almost more difficult to determine differences between tags as well as lowers their findability.
By using a gradient of color in addition to varying font sizes we can bring more depth to the tag cloud and augment its ability to emphasize popular tags (Figure 2). The variations in color almost give the tag cloud a 3D representation, pushing the popular tags to the front while de-emphaszing the less popular tags.
Figure 1. Current Flickr tag cloud with varying font sizes representing popularity
Figure 2. Modified Flickr tag cloud with varying font sizes and colors representing popularity
The traditional Flickr tag cloud works well for lists with few elements, I don’t think the addition of color would provide significant improvements for such tag clouds. There seems to be a threshold where merely using font sizes is not enough and color could be added to assist.
10.11.05 — User Experience
If you use Apple’s iTunes Music Store you’ve probably had that moment of confusion when attempting to decipher the iTunes login prompt. What was meant to be a simple option of choosing whether your account is from Apple or AOL has led users to have to more closely evaluate what is being asked of them.
The login prompt, displayed in figure 1, goes against the typical linear fashion of form entry. Account type options are listed vertically alongside the username and password fields. Without any presentational separation or field label for the account type, the form is read from left to right and top to bottom. Figure 2 outlines how the current format is typically perceived by the user when scanning the form. The user is given the impression that the username field may only belong to the Apple radio button and password to the AOL radio button.
Figure 1. Current iTunes login prompt
Figure 2. Current iTunes login prompt with emphasis
The root of this problem can be traced to the advent of AOL logins in iTunes 4.2. This new feature required Apple to redesign the interaction for logging into the iTunes Music Store. It appears that instead of more carefully investigating how to incorporate the option for AOL logins, Apple merely dropped the option into the, then current, prompt where space was available.
Figure 3 provides a simple redesign which follows the typical flow of how users interact with entry forms. Additionally, the user is provided with a field label for account type to provide extra guidance and consistency throughout the form.
Figure 2. Redesigned iTunes login prompt
While this is a minor annoyance I have heard this complaint from more users than I would have imagined. Plus, I expect more from Apple as I know that they take even the most minor details into consideration when designing.
09.25.05 — User Experience
I recently heard a radio advertisement proclaiming, “Don’t change that dial”, a fairly common phrase in radio advertising. But as technology advances (eliminating dials in favor of buttons), sayings such as the aforementioned one are becoming irrelevant. This same progression is occurring in the metaphors we use in computing.
When the first graphical user interfaces were being developed the designers sought to ease the learning curve by making the user experience similar to one which they already knew–the desktop. Such a metaphor was an ideal implemenation. The computer interface contained all the familiar elements of that of a desktop–files, folders, sticky notes, a desktop workspace, and a trash can.
But what happens when the desktop metaphor becomes irrelevant because the computer has become the desktop? Today, when someone speaks about files or folders, it isn’t so out there to assume they are speaking about computer files. Will there be a time when someone much younger than myself will question why the computer is arranged as such? But then again, there is the possibility that the desktop metaphor will simply fade away as developers push towards a more Internet OS strategy than the traditional desktop environment.
08.04.05 — User Experience
As a PayPal user I frequently use it to pay for products or services when available, as it is easier than pulling out the credit card. Recently, while renewing a domain name at GoDaddy using PayPal I ran into an unfamiliar form request. Unfortunately GoDaddy does not provide easily accessible explanations to such requests. Situations such as these are ideal for contextual help.
The form request in question is displayed below in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Ambiguous form request at GoDaddy
My first inclination about this form request was that the system needed a name which they would use to identify my PayPal account–and it wanted it to be friendly! Unsure of what exactly this meant, I simply re-entered my name.
Upon further research, the form request is asking the user to give the PayPal account a name which the user can use later to identify it (e.g., My Personal PayPal account). Such form requests are of a different nature than the typical Name, Phone, and Email Address which users are already familiar with, they are used frequently, and are self-explanatory. Additionally, the typical mode of interaction for the user is to provide the system with the necessary information for it to process the transaction. But in this case the system is asking the user to provide information for the user to use. Thus, such a request can appear somewhat ambiguous to the user. Contextual help could have easily provided me with the basic information about what the request was truly seeking.
Contextual help the is simplest and quickest way to assist users when they are unsure about something. Using contextual help provides the user with specific and concise information about the request in question. Displayed below in Figures 2 and 3 are two simple contextual help implementations for the GoDaddy order form.
Figure 2. Example contextual help
In Figure 2 the user is guided by the presentation of example responses. This method utilizes a limited amount of screen real estate and conveys the intended meaning of the request concisely. The downside of this method is that it cannot provide a more in depth description, which depending on the ambiguity of the request, some users may require.
Figure 3. Contextual help through “What’s This” link
Figure 3 provides a method which handles the shortcoming of the example method by offering a “What’s This” link, which provides a supplementary page containing additional information unconstrained by screen real estate. Typically upon pressing the link the user is presented with a new window featuring a deeper explanation of the request. One of the drawbacks of this method is that the user is required to manage multiple windows, which can hinder the intended goal by increasing the cognitive load.
Both methods are significant improvements over providing nothing at all, especially for an e-commerce site like GoDaddy who seeks to get your business. As a designer you need to determine what contextual help methods are most ideal for each particular situation–what will make the user feel comfortable and allow them to achieve their goal quickly.
05.02.05 — User Experience
Reaching out of the development bubble to learn how users feel about and use an application or service can provide useful insight. It sounds like an obvious idea, but it is not always commonly done. Luckily it seems that Northeastern University is getting closer to realizing the benefits of such a method.
Over the course of two years I have identified some key areas of Northeastern’s MyNeu student portal system which I felt were hindering the overall user experience (readings available in the Related Links section). I had mailed my original research paper to Northeastern’s Information Services department in hopes of creating a dialogue to discuss ways to improve the MyNeu user experience. Nothing came of my efforts so I ultimately left it at that.
Recently MyNeu sought input from its users about the services they were providing–what new features to add, how to improve existing ones. I saw this as an opportunity to provide them with my thoughts on one of their most troubling areas, Co-Op Services. Much of my comments were drawn from my article titled, MyNeu: Things Have Only Gotten Worse. Harsh, but I truly believe this was a major fumble on their behalf. Luckily it seems that this time my comments were heard and action was taken. To preface this, figure 1 shows what the Co-Op Services section previously looked like. Providing equal screen real estate for Co-Op information from each college, when the user is really only in need of the information from their one respective college.
Figure 1. Original Co-Op Services section design [View Full Size]
Based upon my comments stating how MyNeu should provide their users with information relevant to their specific needs (i.e., the information from their college), Figure 2 displays the updated version.
Figure 2. Updated Co-Op Services section design [View Full Size]
While this is my last semester at Northeastern, I hope that maybe my work can turn both users and developers to look more deeply into ways of improving the user experience of Northeastern’s offerings.
Related Links
03.30.05 — User Experience