User Experience Monitor

The Value of A Space of Your Own for Design

For many years I've struggled with the pros and cons of group work vs individual work in the area of software app and Web design.  Sometimes it's great to have a team, and a creative team at that, to work out specific problems.  Other times, well, I just need to be on my own thinking quietly about the problem (and so does my Art Director, and so does my developer).

So, I relished this article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine:  The Rise of the New Groupthink, and the research behind individual vs group creativity. And guess what the long and the short of it is? Individualism wins out when it comes to innovation. And introverts rule.

Browse vs Search - The Evolution Away from Serendipity

There's an interesting aricle in The Economist's Online Magazine "Intelligent Life" by Ian Leslie on how Internet may be hampering innovation.  He points out that as search engines like Google and social networks like Facebook give us back more of what they guess we want (rather than what we may need) we end up in a less varied and diverse world - at least online.  Many innovations come about by serendipity, and the Web is moving away from that, and more towards a tailored, personalized experience.

I am not sure I buy the entire argument, as many Web users (including myself) find a way to "discover" information in innovative ways, even using Search alone.  But it is interesting as a framework for the larger issue - the move towards Search and away from Browse as a model for behavior on the Web.

Do we want tailored? Is personalized always good?  Possibly not.  Check out Leslie's article and see for yourself:

The Search for Serendipity

And the UI Innovation Award Goes To... "Zen Mode"

Most web and mobile users look for zip and jazz and wow factors in their interfaces.  I am in love with simple interfaces.

Therefore, I applaud the Nieman Journalism Lab for their "View in Zen Mode" button.  What could be simpler?  You're reading along in an article, and you want to focus on it.  You push the "Zen Mode" button and whoosh! all the distractions of left columns and right columns and headers and footers fall away and magically, you're just - reading the article.  Sweet.

Try it out on this terrific article by Ken Doctor: "The newsonomics of the long goodbye: Kodak's, Sears', and the newspapers'" and see what you think. (Hint: The "Zen Mode" button is on the right).

The article in regular mode (a few distractions, like most Web articles)

 

The article in "Zen Mode" - mmm, lots of white space. Doesn't look exciting in this little screen capture but when you're reading it, it feels very, well, Zen. I feel calmer already.

 

 

The iPad at Work and Play

I enjoy reading Usability News, and recommend this online newsletter that comes out of the Software Usability Research Laboratory at Wichita State University. In their December 2011 issue authors B.Nguyen and B. Chaparro have a summary of the results of a  study on the ways iPads are being used:

iPad Usage Patterns On-the-Go and At Work