User Experience Monitor

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.

 

 

Case Study: Using Designers for Problem Solving

I can't think of a more impressive testimony to the use of designers - and by extension the design process - in problem solving than is pointed out in an article by Justin McGuirk in The Guardian about some processes happening overseas - in Finland, to be exact.

The Finnish Innovation Fund advises governments on ways to solve pressing social problems (and Finland has its share). What's unique about this group is that it  incorporates designers (whether from web and interactive, urban planning or architecture) into its process for their ability to redesign systems and improve the user/customer experience - and keep their eye on the long-term picture through implementation.  It may be a way of avoiding the kinds of social disasters we're all so familiar with, when policies are implemented by bureaucrats who don't think through problems.

It's all about human-oriented outcomes.  As McGuirk points out:

"While strategic design can't necessarily find the perfect answer, it at least begins by asking the right questions.

Read more at The Guardian

How Many Users Are Sufficient for a Discussion Group?

LinkedIn recently reported as part of its initial public offering package that most of its members don't use the site on a regular basis.

The fact was picked up by Jim Edwards in a recent article on bNET, recently. It's an interesting issue on at least two levels:

1) First, because LinkedIn is revealing they can't differentiate between active, inactive, and even dead members

2) Secondly, because (I would posit) it does not impact the user experience of an active member - at all.

If you actively participate in group discussions on LinkedIn, does it matter if there are only 10-20 active participants?

Would you rather have 40-50? Or 200-300?  I don't think it impacts the user experienc within a discussion group.  I currently belong to both national and regional discussions. This story was reported on in a regional discussion group of which there are less than 700 members.  There are probably "lower limits" below which a discussion group seems to become a bit lame, but I'd be hard pressed to say what those limits are.

I think quantity and quality are two wholly different aspects of any online discussion, and I for one am perfectly happy having 40 intelligent users in the conversation provided the conversation "works for me."

 

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.

QuickLook: Google's New 'Search as You Type' Feature

Google has recently launched a new feature that may shake the Web industry, from how search happens on sites, to how users across the Web get to sites, and it looks like this:

The feature, known as Google Instant allows a user entering a keyword term to see a dynamically changing screen as s/he types in the search text field.

Unlike other iterations of "type ahead" search that simply show the user most popular search terms through a pull-down menu, this feature has much more going on under the hood: the entire screen of search results change as you type.

Now, a dynamically changing screen can either be a great thing, or a not-so-great thing. Will users adapt to it? Like it? Hate it? The good aspect is that you can instantly fine-tune your search to get something...well..different than you had originally intended.  The negative aspect is that users may or may not understand what is happening right away.  Also, my experience in usability testing has shown me that many adult users are bothered when an interface changes rapidly, especially if they don't understand why it is changing.  It could potentially make some users nervous.

Nevertheless, I believe Google's latest feature  will have many long-term implications for search engine optimization and search advertising, as well as how competitors view the whole "search animal."

Follow more coverage about Google Instant on: PC World

 

 

What the Search Engine Wars Teach Us About Web Design

Recently, Google and Bing have been feeding off each other's design work. Well, let's say Google has been feeding off of Bing. The New York Times, among other publications, have been in turn feeding off the "Search Engine Wars."

Case in point: Google "lifted" the idea for the left-navigation of results from Microsoft's Bing a few months ago. My question is: is this so bad? I think this kind of derivative one-upmanship is at the core of the growth of the Web - everybody uses everybody else as a stepping stone to get where they want to go.

In the case of the Internet, that kind of strategy advances the collective user experience of the Web, provided the features and design used represent a good user experience. 

 

via www.nytimes.com

 

A Contrarian Technologist Sounds Off about Web 2.0

Jaron Lanier's, new book,"You are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto" is just that. Some might call it a rant, but I found it an enlightening read. It's refreshing to find a technologist whose main goal is humanism plain and simple.

Lanier's successfully bludgeons a lot of prevalent concepts, including: the wisdom of the "hive mind" (online crowds); the  concept that the Web itself is an intelligent "organism" in its own right; as well as the whole idea that "information needs to be free" - a clear threat to intellectual property rights. How will creative individuals make a living if everything they produce needs to be free?

He is not a fan of many aspects of social media and Web 2.0, particularly the tendency to hide behind anonymous screen names and viciously attach people without being accountable. Additionally, he makes a good point that the template-approach to social media sites limits the presentation of self in a way that the early days of the Web did not.

This book may raise more questions than it answers, but it's an excellent wake-up call for creators of technology products, as well as the users of technology products.  We all need to remember that technology  (Web included) os here to serve us  - not the other way around.

The Growing Pains of Facebook

In considering two recent articles: PC World's recap of stats: Facebook Rules the Web and the New York Times enumerating of: How Privacy Can Vanish Online, I am stuck with the size of the inherent conflict in the two sets of data.

Here are the facts in a nutshell:

1) Facebook is so big, it's outpaced Google for the first time for an entire week. Facebook visits grew at a rate of nearly 200% in the last year, compared with 9% growth rate by Google.  Facebook is, especially during holiday seasons, the first stop for Web visitors.

2) The  privacy issues surrounding Facebook are just as staggering. It is, according to some recent experiments, relatively straightforward for college students (in a now-famous class project) to analyze "who's who" within the Facebook database.  Who you are, and what you do, is not nearly as private as users may think.

So what's the implication for organizations utilizing Facebook as part of their marketing strategy?

Perhaps it is to consider that, as big and alluring as the basket is (FB, that is), perhaps don't put all your eggs in it.

How Usable is Twitter?

One of the best-kept secrets of the past year is that many social networks are not quite as usable as they would have us believe. I was glad to see this research study by the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University, then, on the usability of Twitter for first time users.

The research found several issues Twitter users had, primarily in the areas of: 1) signing up for a new account, 2) site terminology, and 3) basic communication.

Of particular interest is the language of Twitter. One example of this is that first-time participants found the "followers" and "following" links confusing, and did not understand the difference between "Profile" and "Settings."

What's the learning here? As businesses adopt social media for marketing and promotion purposes, be aware that apparently "simple" services like Twitter may have issues of their own.  Just because it's hyped as "simple" doesn't make it so.