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

Tracking Google's Influence: A Review of 3 Books on the Search Giant

This is an interesting article  by Daniel Soar in the London Review of Books about the influence of Google.  He reviews three books out this year: "The Googlisation of Everything (and Why We Should Worry)" by Siva Vaidhyanathan, "In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives" by Steven Levy, and "I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59" by Douglas Edward, and analyzes what they're saying collectively about the search gian.

I love his assertion near the end of this article that: "Google is getting cleverer precisely because it is so big."  This is the antithesis of what most analysts think about Google!  How does he come to this conclusion?  You'll just have to read the article.

 

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 Targeted Site for Usability

The User Experience Monitor is now part of the "pond" known as the UX Pond.  This interesting new site has a targeted (they call it "acute") sesarch feature that lets you find listings of usability-related blogs, discussions, articles, events, tools, and other resources.

Or, as UX Pond puts it, "why search the ocean when the answer's in the pond?"

Next time you're looking for an answer related to User Experience, check out UX Pond's specialized usability search feature.

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.