UPA 2007 Conference Submissions Open
Have you considered creating a submission for the Usability Professionals'
Association (UPA) Conference next June 11-15, in Austin, Texas? This is
an excellent opportunity for you to share your knowledge and experience
with other's who care about usability!

http://www.upa2007.org

The Truth of User Experience: Three Stages

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

This quote made me think about how usability (the concept) has been received by the technology elite in the last 10 years.

First, they seemed to reject it...refusing it flat out. Much like strung-out groupies who'd been riding the tour bus and partying backstage far too long with their rock and roll "gods" in the mythical band called "New Tech and The Latest Gizmos." They ridiculed those in the usability movement as if they were "New Kids on the Block" and promised that in time people would see that "New Tech" was where it's at.

Second, they opposed the messengers. The way to be cool was to take shots at Jakob Nielsen and other usability proponents. I seem to recall that Jakob's hair, website, sideburns, guidelines, thumbs and speaking style were favorite targets.

Third, they started accepting it (or the need for it) as self-evident. This doesn't mean they understand how to create usable products, but it's definitely not unusual for business people to have discussions about usability these days. In addition, lots of companies are trying to hire usability talent: Monster.com lists over 1000 usability jobs, and CareerBuilder has 979. Design firms have all seemingly retooled...suddenly splashing a "user experience" coat of paint on their existing wares, no doubt in response to customer demand.

So now we've entered a phase where buyers are seeking "the truth"...with a lot of false prophets and snake-oil vendors selling cheap wares. Buyers aren't educated enough yet to know what to look for...but that's changing.

Consumers and markets have evolved to the point that usability will continue to be a huge factor in coming years. Just look at food for example: we no longer think much about food safety, about freshness or transportation, or about variety. Supermarkets in developed countries offer a huge variety of safe foods from all around the world. Food companies have started focusing on consumer convenience: packaging, portability and portion size for example. Convenience...analogous to "ease of use."

What do you think? Am I speaking the "truth" or telling a whopper? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Additional Resources:
- The Backlash against Jakob Nielsen and What it Teaches Us
- Usability Jobs: Usability Professionals' Association
- Directory of Usability Consultants: Usability Professionals' Association

Ease of Use and Usability Engineering as Marketing Tools

This press release from Red Gate shows how you can use ease of use as a competitive advantage:

Red Gate Poll Reveals Role Of Usability Engineers Critical To Future Of Software Development

A few nice quotes from Red Gate's Press Release:

"The company’s SQL Bundle customers were asked why they would recommend Red Gate products, with an expectation that the majority would choose one of the first three options: time-saving, speed, or accuracy. Instead a conclusive 65% chose the fourth option – ease of use."

"Unfortunately, the marketplace for packaged software solutions is cluttered with vendors trying to sell Swiss Army knives when most buyers are looking for a hammer, but good usability engineers will allow better products to be produced without hindering quality. We will continue to strive for better testing, as we always do, but will be taking on more Usability Engineers to improve user friendliness even further,” added Reed."

"The discipline of usability engineering has been an object of study and learning ever since computer technology emerged as a viable industry. Developers, testers and users are now recognising the increasing importance of usability as a significant driver of developing good software tools and customer satisfaction rates."

Check out their web site for screen shots of their software (in walk-throughs). I see evidence of good UI design:
http://www.red-gate.com/products/SQL_Compare/

Oz -IA 2006

An IA conference in Sydney, Australia looks to have a great lineup of presenters. I've met a few of the presenters, and just wish I didn't have all this "real work" to do, and could just attend conferences around the world for a living. (Anyone who'd like to gainfully employ me to attend conferences on their behalf, please email me at yesimfilthyrich@professionalconferenceattendees.com.)

Thomas Vander Wal, Dan Saffer, Donna Maurer, Eric Scheid, and Ash Donaldson are all folks I wouldn't mind seeing present. I just met Ash at the UPA 2006 conference in June - great guy. I recall we had a nifty discussion about Activity Theory over drinks one evening.

I also think the navigation on the Oz-IA site is neat. It's humorous and ironic that IA's would design and use an image of a Post-It note/whiteboard site map diagram for main navigation...it made me chuckle. (The site's small enough that this design works just fine and conveys a certain "IA-ishness" to users.) It's very creative...I like it.

More Blogs About UPA 2006

I've updated the UPA Conference Wiki to include a list of bloggers who've posted something (so far) about the UPA 2006 conference. To login to the UPA Conference Wiki, use a password of "upa".

UPA 2006 Conference - Monday

This week I'm at the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) Conference, just outside of Denver, Colorado. It's only Monday, and I'm already meeting new people and learning new things. The number of people trying to make more usable products around the world is really amazing. There's a great amount of international attendees. Last night I had dinner with 3 other people from the U.S., 2 from the UK, 2 from Hong Kong, and one from New Zealand. I guess it's not really surprising since UPA now actually has more chapters outside of the U.S. than within the U.S., but it's definitely exciting to find that such a diverse group shares the common language of "usability."

Here are some UPA 2006 photos from Daniel Szuc of Apogee Usability Asia (in Hong Kong). Hopefully other attendees will add to the set as the conference proceeds.

Card Sorting - The Book

A book in progress by Donna Maurer. Publisher: Rosenfeld Media. Anticipated publication date: January, 2007

Donna has been writing her weblog, DonnaM, since 2002, and is a Very Sharp Cookie. Donna says that many of the existing resources on card sorting don't answer the majority of questions practitioners face, so she's focusing on card sorting as a practical technique to be used in the design of information environments. As a practitioner who's had to learn most of what I know about card sorting by doing it, I love the focus she's got for this book, and I know Donna can pull it off.

If you have experience running card sorts, you might consider helping Donna by completing a survey on card sorting that she's running.

Donna has written a number of articles for Boxes and Arrows, including a "definitive guide on Card sorting".

Donna is also an active member of the Usability Professionals' Association (UPA), is a local ambassador for UXnet (the User Experience Network), and is very active in the IA Institute.

More Info: Rosenfeld Media - Card Sorting Book


Additional Card Sorting Resources:
- STC's Card Sorting Resource List
- Card Sorting at IAwiki
- Card sorting at iaslash

Online Photo Editor - A Lightweight PhotoShop Anywhere?
A new web application called Phixr (pronounced "fixer") is pretty slick. After playing with the online demo a bit, I'm impressed. You can do basic photo editing:
- resizing
- cropping
- red-eye removal
- rotating
- sharpening / blurring
- adding borders
- adding text
- and a number of other functions

What's impressive is it looks like the designers boiled photo editing down to the key 20% of functionality people need 80% of the time. The result is a nice, lightweight web app that does what many people need to do. It's also (for a photo editor) a pretty simple user interface - with nice previews of changes before they are executed, as well as undo and redo functions.

There are a number of improvements that can be made to the app, but it's still noteworthy as a rather simple photo editor, that's free, and requires no software installation.

Try out Phixr

Human Error, Design Flaw, or a Darwin Award Winner?
When you see a headline like "Man runs himself over in Burger King drive thru" - you just have to watch the video.

Related:
- Darwin Awards
- How To Jump Start A Car (Note it says to "make sure the cars are in park", but it omits the very important precautionary warning "don't lay underneath the car while performing the jump start.")

Caroline's Rules for labelling Buttons

1. Label the button with what it does.
2. If the user doesn't want to do it, don't have a button for it.

Read Caroline's nice, short article on the topic:
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2949.asp

Related Info:

- MS Windows Interface Components - Controls - has a section on command buttons

- Apple Human Interface Guidelines > Controls > Buttons

- IBM: Using Web widgets wisely, Part 1 - Has a short section on command buttons

- Alertbox: Reset and Cancel Buttons - covers issues around using the dreaded reset button on web forms

- The Piece of HTML created just for Me: Reset - Caroline's explanation of why you should scrap your reset button.

- Usability.gov Research-Based Guidelines > Screen Based Controls (PDF) - discusses "PushButtons"

New Year, New Job, New Posts
Wow! It's been two months since my last post...I can't believe it. Well, I'm planning to change that and post more frequently. (Publicly declaring that means I'm all the more likely to actually do it.)

I recently took a new job...leaving my position as User Experience Director at Cargill. Cargill's a great place to work, and I really enjoyed the time there and will really miss the people I worked with there. Perhaps more on the new job later.

Workers Waste 10% of Their Time Fighting with Technology

From Scotsman.com: We have the technology, now tell us how to use it

"OFFICE workers waste up to a month a year trying to figure out how to use their computers properly because modern technology is so complicated, a new study warns.

Trying to get their heads round difficult programmes on the PC is costing firms both time and money, often because no-one has taught employees what to do."


"The survey of 500 workers and 300 bosses by the training body City & Guilds found that workers spent 10 per cent of their time battling against computer programmes or getting to grips with phones, handheld devices and other gadgets, equating to a month a year.

Thirty-seven per cent say they are frustrated by not being able to handle the technology.

About a third (32 per cent) of workers say they have failed to receive training from their company to teach them to use the technology in the office."

Today is World Usability Day

I'll be participating in events here in the Twin Cities along with representatives from many local companies.

"On November 3rd, 2005, World Usability Day, a worldwide series of events will promote the benefits of user-centered design, with the theme "Making It Easy." Local events are being held in over 100 locations in 35 different countries."

World Usability Day is getting quite a lot of attention from major media and press (and this is just the first one). For example, a Usability Professionals' Association spokesperson will be on CNN Headline News at 7:15 (Eastern time?) in the morning to talk about the event. Other representatives have been interviewed for radio and various publications. Here are links to a few early articles talking about the Day along with usability, and user-centered design:

USA TODAY: Why are tech gizmos so hard to figure out?
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2005-11-01-usability-cover_x.htm

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “World Usability Day” aims to make technology
more user-friendly
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnists.nsf/techtalk/story/2A55335C4AB1E067862570A7006AFC1A?OpenDocument

Sydney Morning Herald: Pushing the right buttons requires a human touch
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/pushing-the-right-buttons-requires-a-human-touch/2005/10/31/1130720481954.html
(Talks about how even urinals have been improved using UCD.)

BBC: The secret of making things work
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4393468.stm

User Centered Products Are Market Winners - An example from Whirlpool

This recent Whirlpool Press Release is just one example of how a company that adopts and uses UCD (I know that Whirlpool has an active UCD/usability team) will create products that win in the marketplace. The press release shows that, by being user-centered, a company knows what product features or attributes have value to different audiences. Often these value points are learned when evaluating designs (e.g. in usability tests).

Here's an excerpt (note that Duet is a high-end model of Whirlpool front-loading washer and dryer):

"[T]he attribute that stands out most prominently with consumers may be the overall design of front loaders, and most prominently the features of the Duet(R). At the time it was introduced it was hailed for its sleek, sophisticated, user-friendly design, garnering praise from an impressive and diverse range of audiences, including the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), whose members appreciate the Duet(R) model's tactile and audible controls.

"We often find that technologically advanced products are difficult for blind people to use, because they often incorporate things like touch screens and LCD displays that require sight," said Betsy Zaboroski, executive director of NFB's Jernigan Institute. "With the Duet, you get the best of both worlds -- it's high tech, but usable by virtually everybody. That's great design."

Other accolades for the Whirlpool Duet(R) fabric care system include:
- The editors of Popular Mechanics, Graphic Design USA Magazine, and Appliance Manufacturer Magazine for design and/or engineering achievement.
- ID Magazine (International Design), one of the design industry's most respected publications, honored the Duet(R) system in its Consumer Products category
- A Human Factors & Ergonomic Society User-Centered Design Award because the pedestal drawers raise the unit off the floor by 13 inches, minimizing bending while providing additional shelf space."

Of course Whirlpool doesn't talk as much about it's usability team as we'd like. Why would you reveal a competitive advantage? But they have had some press. This article says that "Whirlpool assembled a global design team of industrial designers, human factors, and usability specialists from around the world, including Germany, Italy, Great Britain and the United States" to create the Duet line and that it "has been a consumer hit ever since. 'It’s been so successful that we’ve been playing catch up with production capacity,' says Joe Foster, director of Whirlpool Brand Fabric Care. 'We’ve had to invest in additional production capacity twice since the launching in 2001 to keep up with consumer demand.' [Date of article publication unknown.]

FastCompany published an article on Whirlpool's design innovation in June 2005. It's a great read and offers the savvy reader glimpses of usability testing at Whirlpool - in the first paragraph:

"Whirlpool design chief Chuck Jones stands behind a two-way mirror in a dimly lit observation room at the company's headquarters in Benton Harbor, Michigan. On the other side of the glass are a twentysomething volunteer and a shiny, black refrigerator. Jones and a small team of designers, engineers, and usability specialists watch as the woman loads groceries into the fridge. Her movements are mind-numbingly mundane, but the Whirlpool folks are rapt. "This is a very complex interaction between a user, a product, and her goals," whispers a human-factors expert."

The article goes on to say "At $2,000, the Duet is Whirlpool's most expensive washer-dryer set, yet it sells like an iPod: In the premium front-loading washer category, Whirlpool has gone from a market share of zero to more than 20% in three years."

Those that wonder about the return on investment (ROI) of User Centered Design (UCD) and usability should take note. Of course, I'll take market-disrupting innovative design over generic ROI any day. :-)


See also:
* New Generation of Innovators: Creating Extraordinary Products which talks about the design team at Whirlpool
* Whirlpool Finds Its Cool - To understand what good design can do for the bottom line, check out how Chuck Jones has revved up the sleepy, boring world of refrigerators and washers.
* Whirlpool Relies on Networking to Harmonize its Global Operations
* 2004 World Technology Awards Winners & Finalists - Charles Jones -- a biography of Whirlpool's design chief

ROKR Phone Not Meeting Customer Expecations

ROKR Not Rocking, says Motorola

"Motorola's chief executive - Ed Zander has reportedly admitted that the company may have got it wrong with the recently released, iTunes-compatible, ROKR phone.
...the number of people returning the ROKR is six times higher than normal"

Seems to me that some early concept testing would have helped prevent some of this.

Now I've seen it all...

Talk about taking "user experience" to a whole new place:

http://restroomratings.com/

Letter to Google - How you can help Hurricane Katrina survivors

I just emailed this to the Google Blog:

Just an idea I thought Google could help with.

Currently the Google home page has a link to Google News coverage of Hurricaine Katrina. Something that might help survivors and family members is to have a link to a site or sites with information about finding/notifying family members who have survived. Another idea is to link to a Google map of the area affected. Links to charitable organizations would be great too, but a basic web search turns those up quickly enough.

With thousands feared dead, a huge effort will be spent trying to locate familiy and friends in the area who have been displaced or injured. Traditional communications are majorly crippled, and people aren't in the locations where they can normally be reached. Online locations and addresses are more persistent for people the "real" ones. Google is as close to an Internet home page or "town square" as it gets, so you would be able to help a lot.

Please pass it on to those who might be able to help within the Googleplex!


More Information:

- Wikipedia Hurricane Katrina - Excellent information so far, and improving constantly!
- WDSU - New Orleans
- WDSU Page for Messages From Katrina Survivors - helps people let others know they are safe or try to find missing people

Muji - the Un-brand
BusinessWeek: The Serious Cachet of "Secret Brands"
"Muji certainly has made a business case for saving marketing dollars on brand building and plowing that money into better design at affordable prices. Its executives believe a brand name or a logo is extraneous and doesn't bring a specific benefit to consumers except to satisfy their ego. "Muji can focus on the basic essence of products instead of dedicating energies to the frills," says Hiroyoshi Azami, General Manager at Japan's Ryohin Keikaku, which owns the Muji stores."

[Via Web Globalization News]

Polishing your diamond search results

Amazon's AJAX diamond search is very cool. It's also dangerous...if you say "hey honey, come check THIS out"...it could set you back thousands of dollars! :-)

Compare it to their basic diamond search [Suffers from linkrot - as of 2008, can select "basic diamond search" from the AJAX page, but not sure if this is what the old one looked like.]

[via iaslash ]

Note: Ajax link fixed April, 2008

Change or Die

"What if you were given that choice? For real. ... You wouldn't change." Nine in ten people wouldn't change.

"You can train a rat to have a new skill. The rat solves a puzzle, and you give it a food reward. After 100 times, the rat can solve the puzzle flawlessly. After 200 times, it can remember how to solve it for nearly its lifetime. The rat has developed a habit. It can perform the task automatically because its brain has changed. Similarly, a person has thousands of habits -- such as how to use a pen -- that drive lasting changes in the brain. For highly trained specialists, such as professional musicians, the changes actually show up on MRI scans. Flute players, for instance, have especially large representations in their brains in the areas that control the fingers, tongue, and lips, Merzenich says. 'They've distorted their brains.'

"Businesspeople, like flutists, are highly trained specialists, and they've distorted their brains, too. An older executive 'has powers that a young person walking in the door doesn't have,' says Merzenich. He has lots of specialized skills and abilities. A specialist is a hard thing to create, and is valuable for a corporation, obviously, but specialization also instills an inherent 'rigidity.' The cumulative weight of experience makes it harder to change."

"What happens if you don't work at mental rejuvenation? Merzenich says that people who live to 85 have a 50-50 chance of being senile. While the issue for heart patients is "change or die," the issue for everyone is "change or lose your mind." Mastering the ability to change isn't just a crucial strategy for business. It's a necessity for health. And it's possibly the one thing that's most worth learning."

Read the whole article in Fast Company: Change or Die

[Via Laurie]