Google imitates Ask Jeeves
Google Answers was just released as a "beta". Looks a lot like the old Ask Jeeves to me. Their FAQ does provide some additional info -- like the fact that answers will cost between $4.50 and $50.50 each.
April 20, 2002
Off to CHI 2002
Well, CHI 2002 kicks off today. I'll be "drinking from a fire hose" for the next six days. Just hope my brain has enough room for all the information. The people behind CHIplace have put together a blog for CHI attendees to share their thoughts and experiences. If you're not able to attend you might want to check out CHIblog.
Related info:
Well, CHI 2002 kicks off today. I'll be "drinking from a fire hose" for the next six days. Just hope my brain has enough room for all the information. The people behind CHIplace have put together a blog for CHI attendees to share their thoughts and experiences. If you're not able to attend you might want to check out CHIblog.
Related info:
- Proceedings from previous CHI conferences - ACM Digital Library
- Notes from the Practicing Information Architecture SIG at CHI 2001 with some interesting results from a survey of attending Information Architects
- SAP Design Guild - CHI 2001 - A Collection of Very Subjective Snippets is one person's account of their CHI 2001 experience. Has some good summaries of research and photos
April 17, 2002
Dead men don't read email
Recently on SIGIA-L I got involved in a little debate over the value of e-mail auto-responders. My position was that auto-responders, when used properly, can add a lot of value. From a usability principles perspective, an e-mail telling you your order has been received provides a certain amount of system feedback and status. My feeling is that auto-responders should be used to provide additional information and value to users. For example, rather than just telling a user that their order was received, an auto-response can inform the user how to check on their order's status, when to expect a shipment, etc.
After reading The Case Against Autoresponders, I think it's time to clarify a few points about auto-responders:
Autoresponses, if used well, can strengthen user trust in a company or site. If used poorly, they can make users feel like just another number -- another email address in a huge spam-sending database. Many companies talk about "building relationships" -- but the last few lines of the GrokDotCom article emphasize how superficial so many of these "relationships" are:
"My friend conscientiously sent emails to a number of online businesses who regularly sent both email and snail mail to her mom, requesting her mom's name be removed from their lists. Only one replied."
Clickz does a great job of explaining how to deliver value along with strong branding and marketing messages via email and auto-responders:
Recently on SIGIA-L I got involved in a little debate over the value of e-mail auto-responders. My position was that auto-responders, when used properly, can add a lot of value. From a usability principles perspective, an e-mail telling you your order has been received provides a certain amount of system feedback and status. My feeling is that auto-responders should be used to provide additional information and value to users. For example, rather than just telling a user that their order was received, an auto-response can inform the user how to check on their order's status, when to expect a shipment, etc.
After reading The Case Against Autoresponders, I think it's time to clarify a few points about auto-responders:
- Auto-responses and the processes around them must be designed well like any other customer-facing content or system.
- Just because you can take some humans out of a process by automating some customer interaction, don't forget that there's a human on the receiving end.
- Processes should allow for a way to prevent the auto-response. Designers should allow for manual intervention to take the place of automated processes -- acknowledge that exceptional situations happen, like the death of a customer, and provide a way to handle those situations individually. Not all situations can be anticipated and some communications shouldn't be scripted in advance.
Autoresponses, if used well, can strengthen user trust in a company or site. If used poorly, they can make users feel like just another number -- another email address in a huge spam-sending database. Many companies talk about "building relationships" -- but the last few lines of the GrokDotCom article emphasize how superficial so many of these "relationships" are:
"My friend conscientiously sent emails to a number of online businesses who regularly sent both email and snail mail to her mom, requesting her mom's name be removed from their lists. Only one replied."
Clickz does a great job of explaining how to deliver value along with strong branding and marketing messages via email and auto-responders:
April 16, 2002
Web designer builds home out of Flash
"Conventional home builders aren't concerned just yet that they will become obsolete. "I see a fundamental usability issue with Flash homes," relates Greg Watson of J & G Builders. "For example, from home to home there will be design differences. In one house if you turn the door knob it'll open the door, but in another the house might start dancing."
[via xBlog]
Here's a past post about a site that only seems fictional: Dialing for Doritos
This is the best use of Flash I've ever seen...nothing like an "utltrainteractive kung-fu remixer" to spice up your day. Ja-ja-ja-jam on it.
"Conventional home builders aren't concerned just yet that they will become obsolete. "I see a fundamental usability issue with Flash homes," relates Greg Watson of J & G Builders. "For example, from home to home there will be design differences. In one house if you turn the door knob it'll open the door, but in another the house might start dancing."
[via xBlog]
Here's a past post about a site that only seems fictional: Dialing for Doritos
This is the best use of Flash I've ever seen...nothing like an "utltrainteractive kung-fu remixer" to spice up your day. Ja-ja-ja-jam on it.
April 14, 2002
Rising Costs of Free Web E-Mail
Oddpost is a new online email service that reminds me of Google when it was in beta. Within a few days of its release, more than 300 people have signed up for the $30/year Oddpost service. It just goes to show, once again, that a significantly better user interface can be used to sell products.
"Instead of the lumbering setup standard in Web e-mail, where each action takes a few seconds to complete, Oddpost gives you a quick, drag-and-drop design that looks and feels like a "real" e-mail program"
"The company spent no money on marketing and received no media coverage, but like the best technology often does these days, the site found its way onto various weblogs and discussion sites, and "we got slammed with traffic," Diamond said."
Related posts:
- User centered design sells products
- Outlook, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
Oddpost is a new online email service that reminds me of Google when it was in beta. Within a few days of its release, more than 300 people have signed up for the $30/year Oddpost service. It just goes to show, once again, that a significantly better user interface can be used to sell products.
"Instead of the lumbering setup standard in Web e-mail, where each action takes a few seconds to complete, Oddpost gives you a quick, drag-and-drop design that looks and feels like a "real" e-mail program"
"The company spent no money on marketing and received no media coverage, but like the best technology often does these days, the site found its way onto various weblogs and discussion sites, and "we got slammed with traffic," Diamond said."
Related posts:
- User centered design sells products
- Outlook, how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
Impressions after riding a Segway HT
Dan Bricklin has written a nice article on what it's like to actually ride (drive?) a Segway or "Ginger". His discription of how the Segway feels to ride was interesting. He said it feels as if it has four wheels, not two:
"Looking forward, you don't see the two wheels. In my mind, it always had four. (How else could it feel so stable?)"
"It always feels in control, never like it's coasting. That, and the low center of gravity (80 pounds under me rather than me balanced on a lightweight bike or something), distinguished it from other small personal transport devices. It reminded me of my few times on a jet ski on a lake (without the bumping or waves): When you stopped telling it to go, it slowed down very authoritatively."
After reading Dan's review I could see my mom, who has MS that affects her balance and endurance, riding a Segway. It seems like a viable alternative to a wheelchair or walker. My guess is the Segway won't be adopted widely as an alternative to cars, but Bricklin's final statement has a ring of prophesy:
"Gary hinted a bit to us about Segway's Stirling engine that with or without the Ginger could have great impact around the world. Remember, this is just the first general product using some of these technologies. There will be many more. Think of the Segway like the first uses of the microprocessor in a calculator, before the personal computer, PDA, flat panel LCD, DSP, GPS, etc. On my run when I saw a Vespa-like motor scooter putt-putt-putting along, I thought of the abacus."
Dan Bricklin has written a nice article on what it's like to actually ride (drive?) a Segway or "Ginger". His discription of how the Segway feels to ride was interesting. He said it feels as if it has four wheels, not two:
"Looking forward, you don't see the two wheels. In my mind, it always had four. (How else could it feel so stable?)"
"It always feels in control, never like it's coasting. That, and the low center of gravity (80 pounds under me rather than me balanced on a lightweight bike or something), distinguished it from other small personal transport devices. It reminded me of my few times on a jet ski on a lake (without the bumping or waves): When you stopped telling it to go, it slowed down very authoritatively."
After reading Dan's review I could see my mom, who has MS that affects her balance and endurance, riding a Segway. It seems like a viable alternative to a wheelchair or walker. My guess is the Segway won't be adopted widely as an alternative to cars, but Bricklin's final statement has a ring of prophesy:
"Gary hinted a bit to us about Segway's Stirling engine that with or without the Ginger could have great impact around the world. Remember, this is just the first general product using some of these technologies. There will be many more. Think of the Segway like the first uses of the microprocessor in a calculator, before the personal computer, PDA, flat panel LCD, DSP, GPS, etc. On my run when I saw a Vespa-like motor scooter putt-putt-putting along, I thought of the abacus."
April 06, 2002
Pictures taken on the road: American Mile Markers
Kodak has a feature story on Matt Frondorf, an engineer who took a trip from New York to San Francisco with his 35mm camera snapping pictures out his car window once every mile. The resulting photos are very cool, as is Matt's story about how he did it -- changing film every 36 miles!
“I think I got what I hoped to get,” he says. “I wanted to be able to assemble long, continuous pieces to get a feel for vastness. To look at one wheat field doesn’t have the same quality as looking at the whole wheat belt.”
He made the trip of over 3,300 miles in just 6 days. Tip: I preferred looking at the Qucktime movies rather than the Flash "picture viewer" -- seemed to be a better way to experience the photos.
[via Slashdot by way of Alterslash]
Kodak has a feature story on Matt Frondorf, an engineer who took a trip from New York to San Francisco with his 35mm camera snapping pictures out his car window once every mile. The resulting photos are very cool, as is Matt's story about how he did it -- changing film every 36 miles!
“I think I got what I hoped to get,” he says. “I wanted to be able to assemble long, continuous pieces to get a feel for vastness. To look at one wheat field doesn’t have the same quality as looking at the whole wheat belt.”
He made the trip of over 3,300 miles in just 6 days. Tip: I preferred looking at the Qucktime movies rather than the Flash "picture viewer" -- seemed to be a better way to experience the photos.
[via Slashdot by way of Alterslash]
April 05, 2002
Anti-Simplification - How to Make Life Harder for Users
If we find out which factors make applications more complex, we can learn through bad examples which pitfalls to avoid.
[via cognitive Architects]
If we find out which factors make applications more complex, we can learn through bad examples which pitfalls to avoid.
[via cognitive Architects]
April 03, 2002
Need a LIFT in the accessibility department?
Digital Web reviews UseableNet's LIFT for Dreamweaver, a product that helps you build and test sites for compliance to section 508 and W3C standards. I haven't tried out LIFT, but after reading the review I'm more curious now.
Digital Web reviews UseableNet's LIFT for Dreamweaver, a product that helps you build and test sites for compliance to section 508 and W3C standards. I haven't tried out LIFT, but after reading the review I'm more curious now.
April 02, 2002
Usability can save lives
Boxes and Arrows: The story behind Usability.gov
"One minute, a researcher seeking grant information is pulling up an NCI [National Cancer Institute] website for details on what grants are available and where to apply. The next minute, an ordinary citizen is frantically searching NCI websites for any information -- any clues about a type of cancer for which the doctor is testing them. Every day, NCI disseminates life and death information. Usability.gov ensures that users and their web behaviors are kept in mind when designing sites."
See also: my previous comments on the NCI guidelines.
On a related note, I'm very proud of some volunteer work I was involved with a while back for a Minnesota based cancer charity: The Children's Cancer Research Fund. It's a phenomenal charity, and if you're looking for a good charity that really makes a difference in people's lives, you'll have a hard time finding any better. (The site's been redesigned since I worked on it in 1997.)
I remember the heart-wrenching day when I learned I had to remove the photo of a beautiful, smiling little girl from the home page -- she had lost her battle with cancer. I'll never forget her face and the darling smile she wore under a flowered hat that I'm sure covered a bald head.
About a year later, I was proud as I could be that the large corporation I worked for donated the use of its corporate jet to take another little girl home from Minnesota. She too was losing her battle with the disease and needed to fly home to be with her family in the end. It was in the middle of an airline strike, and the doctors were afraid she wouldn't get a commercial flight home in time. CCRF gave us a call to see if there was any way we could help. A call was placed to our CEO, and within minutes we had the go-ahead to do whatever we could to help, with no questions as to the cost.
There was no follow-up story in the paper, no community relations release. It was just a large corporate giant silently committing an act of kindness because they could, and because it was the right thing to do. It's a side of corporations that never gets its due -- all too often we see corporations portrayed as cold, heartless, greedy monoliths. What I saw that day was genuine caring, giving and a willingness to help the community and individuals -- with nothing wanted in return.
The Boxes and Arrows article just reminded me of those days working with CCRF. It pointed out that the NCI's Usability.gov site can help researchers and doctors save more lives. The site can help cancer victims find life-saving information. Sometimes, usability can mean the difference between life and death.
Boxes and Arrows: The story behind Usability.gov
"One minute, a researcher seeking grant information is pulling up an NCI [National Cancer Institute] website for details on what grants are available and where to apply. The next minute, an ordinary citizen is frantically searching NCI websites for any information -- any clues about a type of cancer for which the doctor is testing them. Every day, NCI disseminates life and death information. Usability.gov ensures that users and their web behaviors are kept in mind when designing sites."
See also: my previous comments on the NCI guidelines.
On a related note, I'm very proud of some volunteer work I was involved with a while back for a Minnesota based cancer charity: The Children's Cancer Research Fund. It's a phenomenal charity, and if you're looking for a good charity that really makes a difference in people's lives, you'll have a hard time finding any better. (The site's been redesigned since I worked on it in 1997.)
I remember the heart-wrenching day when I learned I had to remove the photo of a beautiful, smiling little girl from the home page -- she had lost her battle with cancer. I'll never forget her face and the darling smile she wore under a flowered hat that I'm sure covered a bald head.
About a year later, I was proud as I could be that the large corporation I worked for donated the use of its corporate jet to take another little girl home from Minnesota. She too was losing her battle with the disease and needed to fly home to be with her family in the end. It was in the middle of an airline strike, and the doctors were afraid she wouldn't get a commercial flight home in time. CCRF gave us a call to see if there was any way we could help. A call was placed to our CEO, and within minutes we had the go-ahead to do whatever we could to help, with no questions as to the cost.
There was no follow-up story in the paper, no community relations release. It was just a large corporate giant silently committing an act of kindness because they could, and because it was the right thing to do. It's a side of corporations that never gets its due -- all too often we see corporations portrayed as cold, heartless, greedy monoliths. What I saw that day was genuine caring, giving and a willingness to help the community and individuals -- with nothing wanted in return.
The Boxes and Arrows article just reminded me of those days working with CCRF. It pointed out that the NCI's Usability.gov site can help researchers and doctors save more lives. The site can help cancer victims find life-saving information. Sometimes, usability can mean the difference between life and death.
April 01, 2002
Google tweaks search results
Either I've scooped everyone on this or I just can't find any documentation of this as a prior Google feature. Google now includes a "Description" field in a search result listing for any page that has a listing in the Open Directory. See this example. It's a nice addition as it provides the user a nice short description of a page. The way they do this also makes sense since there's an editorial process for those descriptions in the Open Directory whereas description meta tags are often used to mislead search engines.
Learning from hypertext's history
Lessons learned:
The web wasn't the first hypertext system created; many systems came before it: Intermedia, Hypergate, Hypercard, and Storyspace are just a few. In the early days of hypertext experimentation, developers came up with many different ways to represent links. A short historical sidebar to a HypertextNow article outlines some of the different link representations that were explored. After a comparison of different methods at the Hypertext '87 conference (a full 15 years ago), the consensus was that links should be hidden until users elected to show them. Why? Because the other methods had various issues: they gave links too much emphasis, they wasted screen space, or they looked strange and confusing.
Then Mosaic came along and ignored everything that had been learned -- it showed links as underlined blue text. "A link, even the most minor footnote, sticks out from its surrounding text almost as if it were blinking."
Lessons learned:
- Seek out existing research and best practices. Learn from the mistakes of others.
- Really think about where you insert links into your text, they can really be disruptive.
- See what else we can learn from early hypertext systems.
- Two Basic Hypertext Presentation Models: note the various link styles and contextual navigation.
- Short History of Hypertext: Starting in 1945!
- Features Missing in 1995 Web Browsers: All are still missing today. Some of these like fat links, are fascinating.
- Navigation Features in Netscape 1.1: Sadly, we haven't added much to this list since 1995.
The technology behind Google's great results
"Page and Brin developed groundbreaking technology for converting poop to pixels, the tiny dots that make up a monitor's display. The clean white background of Google's home page is powered by this renewable process"
"Page and Brin developed groundbreaking technology for converting poop to pixels, the tiny dots that make up a monitor's display. The clean white background of Google's home page is powered by this renewable process"
A better printable page
NUblog you how to prepare online content for offline reading, covering some good tips in the process.
NUblog you how to prepare online content for offline reading, covering some good tips in the process.
March 27, 2002
Hobbits on Soapboxes
After watching the Oscars a few nights ago, I thought folks might get a kick out of this post from the archives. Compare Jakob Nielsen to a hobbit and Peter Merholz to an elf...you be the judge. Personally I think it's evidence of another government cover-up.
After watching the Oscars a few nights ago, I thought folks might get a kick out of this post from the archives. Compare Jakob Nielsen to a hobbit and Peter Merholz to an elf...you be the judge. Personally I think it's evidence of another government cover-up.
Modeling the user, the business model and the interface
Came across this diagram via Google...it's that whole "picture says a thousand words" kinda thing...or something. I'm guessing Jeffrey Veen is the master modeler. Reminds me a lot of my dot com days.
(see also articles by Jeffrey.)
Came across this diagram via Google...it's that whole "picture says a thousand words" kinda thing...or something. I'm guessing Jeffrey Veen is the master modeler. Reminds me a lot of my dot com days.
(see also articles by Jeffrey.)
March 26, 2002
People and Hierarchies
SAP Design Guild covers hierarchies in depth. Part one of their series has an especially good reminder on considerations to bear in mind when designing anything with a hierarchy -- like a typical site map.
"people have problems with abstract hierarchies. They cannot create a suitable mental model for them because the system seems artificial, and often they do not understand what the categories mean. Deeply nested hierarchies cause even more problems because people get disorientated. People already get confused in mazes, where they only have to remember a larger number of binary left or right decisions. It is even easier to get lost in complex application structures, hypertexts, Websites, or the Web as a whole, if there are no "anchor points" where they can regain their orientation. People need to know where they are, why they are there, where they came from, and where they can go."
[via InfoDesign]
SAP Design Guild covers hierarchies in depth. Part one of their series has an especially good reminder on considerations to bear in mind when designing anything with a hierarchy -- like a typical site map.
"people have problems with abstract hierarchies. They cannot create a suitable mental model for them because the system seems artificial, and often they do not understand what the categories mean. Deeply nested hierarchies cause even more problems because people get disorientated. People already get confused in mazes, where they only have to remember a larger number of binary left or right decisions. It is even easier to get lost in complex application structures, hypertexts, Websites, or the Web as a whole, if there are no "anchor points" where they can regain their orientation. People need to know where they are, why they are there, where they came from, and where they can go."
[via InfoDesign]
Breadcrumbs > Breadcrumbs > Breadcrumbs
Keith Instone, previously thought to be hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan due to his silence, surfaces once again to provide the usual "Instone Insight". Keith recently made a few of the goodies from his poster at IA Summit 2002 available. He does a good job of cataloging different types of breadcrumbs, what they're used for, and examples of each. Here are the 3 types he covers:
(Keith Instone is the owner and mastermind behind the highly useful Usable Web.)
Keith Instone, previously thought to be hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan due to his silence, surfaces once again to provide the usual "Instone Insight". Keith recently made a few of the goodies from his poster at IA Summit 2002 available. He does a good job of cataloging different types of breadcrumbs, what they're used for, and examples of each. Here are the 3 types he covers:
- Location Breadcrumbs: show the position of the page in the site hierarchy. Tell the user "where" they are in the site.
- Path Breadcrumbs: show the path the user has taken within the site to get to the current page. Help the user navigation "back" the way the came.
- Attribute Breadcrumbs: provide meta-information and navigation to related areas/products. Also used in search results to help explain what type of thing a particular result represents.
(Keith Instone is the owner and mastermind behind the highly useful Usable Web.)
March 24, 2002
Eating your own dog food doesn't work if you're a cow
AOL finally realized that corporate use of email is different than personal or small business use of email. All I can say is "Duh!" Here's what happens when you disregard your users' unique needs and go chasing after false cost savings:
Bad corporate mandates trap users in a bad situation:
Not all corporate mandates are bad. Homogenity and standards within a company can save money and create a healthy environment for good user support, reuse of code, and less training and re-training. BUT you have to pick the right product based on the business and user needs. AOL obviously didn't do that:
"management got months of complaints from both senior and junior executives in the divisions involved, who said the e-mail system, initially designed for consumers, wasn’t appropriate for business use. Among the problems cited: The e-mail software frequently crashed, staffers weren’t able to send messages with large attachments, they were often kicked offline without warning, and if they tried to send messages to large groups of users they were labeled as spammers and locked out of the system. Sometimes, e-mails were just plain lost in the AOL etherworld and never found. And if there was an out-of-office reply function, most people couldn’t find it."
AOL was clearly focused on cutting software licensing costs by using their own product. In doing so they also figured they'd quit helping out their competitors like Microsoft by not buying their software. While they were at it they should've just switched all their business users over to AOL dial-up accounts using a 56K modem. Of course, with no better, more usable option, AOL employees searched for ways around the horrible product that some myopic decision makers cursed them with:
"The e-mail problems have led many staffers to resume pre-Internet habits. Employees say they are faxing and using Federal Express more than before. They also are picking up the phone or wandering down the corridors in search of human contact. “If all goes well, we’ll never have to use e-mail and we’ll have to start talking to each other again,” says one magazine writer."
Businesses that allow decisions to be driven solely by false cost savings at the expense of business productivity and user needs will only drive costs up. One can only guess what this has cost AOL. Think about that in terms of real dollars, personal careers, inside political implications, employee turnover, and end user pain. Now instead of moving to one good unified solution, they'll have multiple products in use. One bad corporate mandate can spoil the appetite for any future mandates and the possibility of any corporate standard.
While it may be a good idea to eat your own dog food sometimes, you shouldn't make your business and thousands of employees suffer when your product won't work for them. If you represent a large herd of cows, making them eat your dog food is just plain stupid. If your product's target market is dogs, then just make it the best dog food you can. If AOL wanted to compete with Microsoft Outlook for the corporate email market, then they should have improved their product to compete in that space. Once they had a competitive product, then and only then should they have considered deploying it across their whole company.
AOL finally realized that corporate use of email is different than personal or small business use of email. All I can say is "Duh!" Here's what happens when you disregard your users' unique needs and go chasing after false cost savings:
Bad corporate mandates trap users in a bad situation:
Not all corporate mandates are bad. Homogenity and standards within a company can save money and create a healthy environment for good user support, reuse of code, and less training and re-training. BUT you have to pick the right product based on the business and user needs. AOL obviously didn't do that:
"management got months of complaints from both senior and junior executives in the divisions involved, who said the e-mail system, initially designed for consumers, wasn’t appropriate for business use. Among the problems cited: The e-mail software frequently crashed, staffers weren’t able to send messages with large attachments, they were often kicked offline without warning, and if they tried to send messages to large groups of users they were labeled as spammers and locked out of the system. Sometimes, e-mails were just plain lost in the AOL etherworld and never found. And if there was an out-of-office reply function, most people couldn’t find it."
AOL was clearly focused on cutting software licensing costs by using their own product. In doing so they also figured they'd quit helping out their competitors like Microsoft by not buying their software. While they were at it they should've just switched all their business users over to AOL dial-up accounts using a 56K modem. Of course, with no better, more usable option, AOL employees searched for ways around the horrible product that some myopic decision makers cursed them with:
"The e-mail problems have led many staffers to resume pre-Internet habits. Employees say they are faxing and using Federal Express more than before. They also are picking up the phone or wandering down the corridors in search of human contact. “If all goes well, we’ll never have to use e-mail and we’ll have to start talking to each other again,” says one magazine writer."
Businesses that allow decisions to be driven solely by false cost savings at the expense of business productivity and user needs will only drive costs up. One can only guess what this has cost AOL. Think about that in terms of real dollars, personal careers, inside political implications, employee turnover, and end user pain. Now instead of moving to one good unified solution, they'll have multiple products in use. One bad corporate mandate can spoil the appetite for any future mandates and the possibility of any corporate standard.
While it may be a good idea to eat your own dog food sometimes, you shouldn't make your business and thousands of employees suffer when your product won't work for them. If you represent a large herd of cows, making them eat your dog food is just plain stupid. If your product's target market is dogs, then just make it the best dog food you can. If AOL wanted to compete with Microsoft Outlook for the corporate email market, then they should have improved their product to compete in that space. Once they had a competitive product, then and only then should they have considered deploying it across their whole company.
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