New web form control combination
Design Not Found points out a Sprint PCS form that works a little code magic to tell the user how many additional characters they can type into a textarea box. Kind of an interesting use of controls, but the idea that comment or message boxes should have character limits is a bad one. It's usually a sign of lazy programming and/or database design. Of course you usually have to some kind of logical limit, but it should be rather large (e.g. 10K) so that most users will never hit it. Most good databases won't allocate that much empty space in each record - they just store what's entered. Anyway, as DNF points out, the Sprint solution is better than an error message that tells you that you typed too much. Here's some code to steal if you want to make your users nervous about how much they're typing.

Tell me what you think of this blog in 160 characters or less. :-)

Hey scarecrow, use your brain
Erin Malone reminds us that tools are just tools, what's important is designing & building the right product/solution.

"Solving the problem will come from a deep understanding of the issues, of the users’ needs, of the task—from research, from analytical thinking and then sketching out solutions. Sketching these solutions can be done in any way—on a whiteboard, on paper with (gasp) a pen or pencil, or on the computer with the tool of choice.

"My concern and angst over these types of discussions, as well as the kind of proclamations that Nielsen and other gurus make, is that focusing on the tool—either finding the right tool or badmouthing the perceived “wrong” tool—moves our energies away from the real problem at hand: design solutions that are inappropriately or poorly executed."

You can extend Erin's argument to usability methods and research as well -- in effect, they are tools and only have value in what we can apply them to -- what they help us build -- whether it's a web site or knowledge.

UPA Web Site Redesign Project
The Usability Professionals Association site is being redesigned. The project team has documented much of the process used in creating the new design. Here are some of the deliverables:

- Site wireframes
- An early design mockup of one concept
- A later refined and more detailed mockup of a sub-page

The site sounded fairly close to launch according to folks I talked to at the national conference.

[link via Jess on IA/]

How's your Information Architecture's health? Open up and say aah!
An article in Searcher magazine called Beyond the Information Audit: Checking the Health of an Organization's Information System discusses an approach needs assessment or "current state" research. The examples are from the perspective of a librarian, but the concepts are pretty universal. This is not the same as a content audit/inventory.

"Information audit, needs assessment, knowledge inventory — all are names for a process that examines the secret life of information within an organization...The problem with all the names for the process is that they're too narrow. Audit implies an analysis of what's been reported; a needs assessment looks at only the first half of information's organizational life; and inventory assumes all needs are met. What we'll talk about here is an information checkup. Compare it to an annual physical...Getting the results of an information checkup is a lot like that part of the physical where you get your clothes back on and go sit in the doctor's office."

More resources:
The Information Audit as a First Step Towards Effective Knowledge Management (PDF)"For many years the information audit process has been promoted by information
professionals as a means of identifying the information needs of an organisation
and matching them against existing services and resources. In more recent years it
has been used extensively, mainly by consultants, as the first step in the
development of a knowledge management strategy."

Boxes and Arrows: Defining Information Architecture Deliverables
Pre - Boxes & Arrows...
"[A content inventory] is exactly what you might guess: a complete list of all the content that the site holds and will hold. For sites particularly rich in content, it may be a list of types of content."

Penguin Code
Considering using ISO standards in your forms for country names? Might want to think again after reading Web Forms and ISO 3166 country codes Conquering "Penguin Code". The page covers a lot of areas and how geographic location isn't as cut-and-dried as you might think. It talks about cultural perceptions and how users may feel that their county name is important when from a shipping perspective it isn't. Also covers some obvious blunders committed by us Americans frequently when requesting user location information on web forms.

"I am not certain why uninhabited islands made it into the ISO 3166-1, while the following geographic areas did not; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. People have been living in these areas for hundreds of years, and there is a strong cultural identity involved. The ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes overlooked these same areas again. Guess, the penguins won out, because they have an automated weather station on their island. Uninhabited islands and several other entries should have never been included in the IS0 3166-1 Country Codes. Why? Because they are not really countries at all."

What state was that?
The ISO site has forms with required state/region fields. They use a drop-down with only one value: N/A -- N/A must be that 51st state otherwise known as "Area 51" -- of course the US government has conspired to hide that state from us. Looks like the ISO requires all of us to move there. Cool. I always wanted to get in on an alien autopsy...

Tick me off...
Here's a humorous check box label from the same page: "The data provided via this form will be used by the ISO Central Secretariat and by the ISO members (national standards institutes). If you wish to restrict the use of these data to the administrative tasks related to the sales transactions and for statistical purposes, please tick the checkbox"
...ISO Central Secretariat...didn't that horse win a few races in Kentucky? Maybe only horses are allowed to live in Kentucky?

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, 2nd Edition
Sneak preview (beta) chapters from the next Polar Bear book by Lou Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. Just digging in now -- gotta be good!

Interface Invaders
The latest from the "Cranky User": Everything I need to know about usability, I learned at the arcade makes some excellent points.

"Many video games are designed so that the user doesn't need to be taught how to play; the designers assume that the user will never read the manual. Modern games often feature some kind of tutorial before the game really starts, to expose you to the concepts you need to be familiar with in order to play the game well. To be frank, productivity software is often hostile to new users. Help systems are either absent, poorly designed, or just plain wrong. Even companies like Apple, who have built a reputation for usability, can get this wrong; Apple's AppleGuide help system, for instance, won't let you read the instructions for performing a task unless you perform them as you read through them. Its mantra of "do this, then click 'continue'" is a distressing one."

Classic video arcade games I remember playing a lot (dating myself): Dig Dug, Defender, Spy Hunter, Galaga, and Tron

Classic PC software you might have missed: Oregon Trailer Trash, Mavis Beacon Teaches Quilting, and Microsoft Bob

Usability Must Die
No matter how cynical you think you are, keep in mind there's always someone more cynical. Of course regular readers know I'm a sucker for sarcasm and cynicism -- so these made me chuckle:

Free Discount Usability Advice from Jakob Nielsen - you can also ask Jakob's advice on fashion or hair styles. :)

Illustration of the process for a usability review of a VCR - If the review in the example would've been conducted by UIE the final product would include a Mickey Mouse wrist watch and be located in the cheapest hotel on the monorail at Disneyworld. The product also wouldn't have any FF or REW options -- after all, they're too similar to search and movies have no "uniquely identified content" within them (at least no movies starring Keanu Reeves). Another issue obviously overlooked in the review is that most videotapes don't provide enough "scent" -- yet more proof that we need Smell-o-Vision(TM). (Apologies in advance to Jared.)

The painful details of a content inventory
Donna Maurer has created a new blog on IA, UCD and usability. She has a nice writing style and has shared her recent experiences doing a content audit on a pretty good sized site "down under" in Aussie-land. Check it out.

Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility
10 guidelines for building the credibility of a web site that are based on three years of research that included over 4,500 people.

Like most guidelines, when you see them they seem like common sense. That being said, I think these are excellent guidelines -- truly a new milestone in the area of online trust.

Related:
- ecommerce Trust & Trustworthiness - Philosophe.com
- Affective Design of E-Commerce User Interfaces:How to Maximise Perceived Trustworthiness - Florian N. Egger
- A matter of trust - InfoWorld

Seven plus or minus two reasons you should forget the magical number seven plus or minus two
Ron's Ramblings (cool new blog found via Webword) has a list of articles that explain how most people misuse George Miller's 40-year old research on short-term memory limitations.

Some excerpts:

How to improve design decisions by reducing reliance on superstition by Dr. Robert Bailey of Human Factors International (HFI)
"At least partially because of the success of Miller’s paper, the number “seven” is now almost universally and erroneously accepted as the human capacity limit for a wide range of issues."

The Myth of "Seven, Plus or Minus 2" by James Kalbach in WebReview
"While Miller's "Magic (7±2)" principle reminds us of moderation, it is not appropriate for fundamental navigation decisions and leads to an arbitrary "one-size-fits-all" solution. In no event should it be taken as an absolute law. On the other hand, spamming site visitors with hundreds of navigation links is also irresponsible. Feelings of confusion and information overload are problematic. There probably are limits to the number of menu items a web page can display without overwhelming the user, but these do not come from Miller.
Clearly, the optimal number of menu items cannot be reduced to one generalized rule applicable in all situations. Instead, when planning the information architecture of a site, the two most important considerations are breadth versus depth and the display of information."

More in-depth info on the same topic:
3.14159, 42, and 7±2: Three Numbers That (Should) Have Nothing To Do With User Interface Design by Denny C. LeCompte
"The fame of Miller's number would be a wonderful thing if not for a couple of problems. First, at least in private settings, the magical number is often invoked inappropriately. For example, an individual may claim that a web page should have no more than 7±2 links on it. As will be discussed in more detail, nothing Miller said lends support to such a statement. Second, even when it is cited correctly, Miller's work is discussed as if the scientific understanding of short-term memory had not advanced at all in the last half century. In fact, an analysis of Miller's original paper and of subsequent scientific research suggests that 7±2 is no more relevant to user interface design than is Douglas Adams' facetious 42." ... "At best, Miller's 7 ± 2 figure applies to immediate serial recall for a sequence of familiar, easy-to-pronounce, unrelated, verbal stimuli presented auditorily with no distracting sounds within earshot. Thus, the narrow range of generality implied by the research findings cannot support the wide variety of situations to which people try to apply this heuristic. Based on the relevant data, user interface designers should probably forego application of the 7 ± 2 heuristic altogether."

Fighting (with) Hierarchies - Part I: Basics - SAP Design Guild
"Why is breadth harmless and why are the people who cite Miller wrong? Because the user doesn't have to memorize the menu - that is to say, the link list. It's on the screen and available to the user. The memory problem is posed by the levels or steps to be remembered; that is why a route in a maze is so hard to remember."

Of course, as the SAP article points out, good UI's rely on recognition rather than recall, so the idea that users have to depend soley on short-term recall memory is flawed from the start.

Debunking the three-click "rule"
A good layman's explanation of why designers should igore the "3-click rule". In reality some sites may be able to get users to the necessary content in fewer cases, in others, a better design may take more clicks in order to provide a clear interface that provides good "scent of information".

"for companies with many different types of products — or products with multiple options, modules or related products — the three-click rule can quickly become a very uncomfortable noose."

News Flash!: different operating systems use different platform UI standards!
In The GUI Gold Standard, Newsfactor asserts that "the GUI of certain operating systems seems to be determined not so much by general usability standards but by understanding the quirks and desires of its users."

I might point out that User-Centered Design says the "quirks and desires of users" matter. Although I seriously doubt that the reason Macintosh pull-down menus and the Windows taskbar are designed differently is due to some great variability in their user groups. The desire for innovation, lawsuits (fear of copying a good design exactly) and other factors are more likely reasons why there are few "gold standards."

"When Microsoft released Windows 2000, they were trying to achieve simplicity but they destroyed consistency," he said. "They've ensured that, from minute to minute, controls will disappear, and there will be a battle to learn where things are. They've asked users to spend a lot of time learning all over again."

Similarly, when Apple's GUI first came out, its range of icons made a great deal of sense, according to Benatan. But with many applications and a smaller range of icons, it becomes confusing.

Said Benatan, "The primary goal of a good GUI is: Don't make me feel stupid."

Pop-up ads come to TV
That compelling viewing experience you get from watching TV -- you know, the one that compels you to never put down the remote control -- that wonderful experience is about to be visited by the dregs of online advertising models: pop-up ads.

Tog's back
After roaming the earth for months in a motorhome, Tog's posted a new article on his site -- the first since last November.
Call Center: Profit or Loss? -- How Call Centers can Make or Break Companies

Your call center is vital to you company's continued success. Your people should be charged with several jobs:
1. Answer questions.
2. Pass people on to a higher level if you are not able to help them, either within the call center structure or, upon occasion, to others within the company.
3. Build FAQ's and other website self-help information sources based on frequency and seriousness of calls, thereby constantly reducing the total call volume.
4. Collect bug reports.
5. Assign priorities to bugs based on frequency.
6. Identify those bugs/problems costing the call center the most money and quantify how much money that is.
7. Pass along potential solutions to known, baffling problems.

Zen Haiku
Chad Lundgren has created a new blog related to usability -- some good comments, stories and insights.

Text Readability Research
A survey of user preferences on foreground and background colors and some additional work on text readability has confirmed some fairly well established conventions (e.g. black text on white background is preferred). Still worth a look.

A Heuristic Review Tool
Surfmind gives us a very brief look at a utility for conducting heuristic evaluations...interesting.

The WASP is creating a Buzz
The WASP (Web Standards Project) clears up some recent misinformation about how developers code. The explain that developers don't develop web pages for IE -- they only just TEST with IE -- big difference.

"Many books on web development still teach outdated methods, and many practitioners take pride in delivering sites that look and work exactly the same in compliant and non–compliant browsers alike, at the cost of accessibility, long–term viability, or forward compatibility. Others develop proprietary code that works only in a handful of popular browsers."
- from The Web Standards Project's New Mission Statement

It's good to have the WASP back.

Previous posts:- The Web Standards Project: Phase II Coming
- Whither (or wither) the WaSP?

Back and down to UPA

After a long absence from blogging, I'm back in the saddle. The absence was due to moving into a new home -- all that packing, moving and getting settled takes a lot of time. The new house is great, although my current connectivity is horrible. Hope to get that remedied soon.

I'm heading to the UPA conference this week, and hope to meet lots of neat folks there and learn a few things.