User Experience Monitor

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

 

US Digital Trends in 2010

Comscore just released their report on trends in the US digital marketplace - "U.S. Digital Year in Review."

Top trends reported incude in this latest report include:

• Although portals are still large in online (measured by total time spent online/day), the general shift away from portals to social media and entertainment sites is a major trend.
• Facebook takes the lead on Engagement (no surprise), with 180 million visitors/month. Facebook now accounts for over 12% of the time spent online in the US.
• Smartphone adoption surges past 25 percent penetration in the US. One third of Americans now access mobile browsers and applications.
• In the area of search, 2010 saw the integration of real- time search, improved blended search results and other new search modules, all of which have enriched the search experience.
• Online TV viewing is showing significant growth in 2010.  On an average day in December 2010, more than 88 million Americans watched online video, up 32 % from a year earlier.

Download a copy of the report on comScore's Website.

 

A New Approach to Understanding New Media

John Carey and Martin Elton's new book has finally arrived from the University of Michigan press. "When Media are New: Understanding the Dynamics of New Media Adoption and Use" has been published by the University of Michigan Press, and is also available online at Digital Culture Books.

Carey and Elton, two distinguished scholars both with a long history in user research and analysis of interative media and technologies, have compiled their years of analysis and thought into a far-reaching book that takes a unique look at the evolution of consumer technologies.

Their analysis includes how and why new media technologies are adopted, the key factors that differentiate failures from successes, the impact of interactive technologies on television viewing and the "long road" to interactive television, as well as the emergence of new consumer media such as satellite radio and mobile phone technologies.

If you're in the process of creating new new interactive products or services this book is worth a look.

Buy it online at the University of Michigan Press

Read it online for free at Digital Culture Books

The Power of Visual Communications

Clive Thompson, made a good case for visual thinking recently in Wired Magazine.   Visualizing problems can help you solve them, and he cites some interesting examples. They can also help to get people  "seeing the same mental model" as visualization expert David Sibbett told Thompson.

Thompson is looking for digital communications tools that can help people communicate more easily (like quick sketch tools on touch screen devices).  Such tools may have already arrived, but few may have embraced them: British painter David Hockney, for example, starts every day creating digital art works using a simple app called "Brushes" on his iPad.

This is a thought-provoking article for those of us in the visual communications field, and raises the question: can we do accomplish more in our everyday work by being visual communicators?  Anyone who has suffered through an all-text Powerpoint presentation knows what I'm talking about.