Category Archive » User Experience

Google doesn't deal with transient content blobs.
[ January 13, 2004 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

One problem with the Communiblog section on the right side of the page here is that text in there is transient, but still gets indexed by Google. So words in there will match this page, but when the Communiblog is actively being pinged, those terms eventually disappear from the page, and searchers land here for no good reason.

One example of that is people looking for "qttask" in Google, who find this page which doesn't mention that term. but when Google indexed that page last, the was a Communiblog entry with that term in it, so people land here. That's not a great user experience, so I'm going to mention qttask here, so it gets indexed in this page (and for the record, the home page here has a "no index" rule, and tells robots to follow links to individual archives and index them) and people can follow this link to directions on how to remove/disable qttask.


I need a PDA.
[ November 13, 2003 | Permalink | 5 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

This is the acceptable form factor I have been waiting for when it comes to cell-phone/PDA combo units. I hate to say it, but holding a N-Gage, Sidekick or a Treo 300 to your head just looks dumb, and for some pathetic reason, that matters to me.

Just recently I have discovered the need/utility of a PDA and how it can help me out at work. This is a pretty big jump for me, because i have always considered an electronic note pad and phone book to be pretty useless, but there's certainly more to it than that, right? These days I have the need to know many more phone numbers, who they are attached to, and what tasks those people are currently working on, and what's coming up next. that screams out for a PDA.

Unfortunately, I have few limbs left with thumbs that can carry and manipulate devices. They are currently juggling an iPod, a cell phone, a Gameboy Advance and a digital camera (all of which I carry with me to work every day in what my mother-in law-calls my "carry all"). Adding a PDA to that mix is unattractive, especially when going to meetings, which is why I have some pretty severe techno lust going on over the Samsung SPH-i500. One of the big reasons is that it combines two devices I need (want?) into one device that doesn't make me look like a dork when I use it (I don't need any help on looking dorky, thank you).

Too bad the unit costs $600! The un-dorky form factor is probably worth an extra $75 to me, and the PDA is worth $150 to me, all over the typical $150 I usually pay when I do a handset upgrade. That's only $375.


Taking control.
[ September 24, 2003 | Permalink | 6 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

This idea of going wireless with the iPod and removing the hard drive is the least consumer oriented music idea I have seen so far (outside of lawsuits). What follows is a totally knee jerk reaction to a manufactured business model that seems to me to be an effort to take control away from consumers and place it in the hands of of industry.

Riddle me this: What would you get if you crossed a BlackBerry with an iPod? The answer: The future of the music business. Let me explain. Imagine, if you will, an iPod as a wireless digital ladle. It would dip into a nearly bottomless stream of continual music, scooping up any song you wanted, when you wanted, where you wanted. There would be no need for CDs, hard drives, or any other storage device. And trying to capture such music would be about as easy as trapping mist in a jar. Every song would contain a digital expiration date, so, over time, they would evaporate.

Riddle me this buddy, what happens when people see that there is a subscription model (no ownership) and the music is transient (again, no ownership, and this time no control) and no one buys into the business model? What then? Oh yeah, the Invisible Hands bitch slap you.

What happens when programming your digital, wireless only music device needs to be done in the field. Well, we can deal with by making a nice iTunes like interface that makes playlist editing easy beyond compare.... but.... this is a wireless only device, right? Oh yeah, indeed it is, and thus we'll need a nice QWERTY keyboard to edit our playlists, and demand new music when we want it... oh wait, I'm out of the service area? I downloaded that track yesterday, and I want to listen to it again, and I can't? Why can't I just store the music I bought on this thing and listen to it when ever I want?

Good luck answering those questions Mr Recording Industry. In the meantime, my iPod and I will do exactly what we want, when we want to do it, and wherever we please to be.


Not so simple remote TiVo scheduling.
[ September 22, 2003 | Permalink | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

As noted last week, I've got a network going at home, and have probably radiated my family into sterility by now, but it's worth the benefits. Namely, the TiVo can be remotely scheduled from my AOL account now.

First, I bought one of the Linksys USB/Ethernet adapters and gingerly put the cat-5 cable into the port which uses a pretty flimsy piece of plastic as the backing. The adapter went into the USB port, and the other end of the CAT5 went into the switch, which connects to a wireless bridge, which talks to a wireless router, which talks to a wireless access point, which talks to some crazy/expensive looking wireless gear two miles away, which talks to the internet somehow.

Instantly, the TiVo grabbed an IP, told me what the MAC address is (I filter by MAC address at the router) and was completely configured. Two minutes later, the TiVo was hapily telling me it connected to the mothership, and I turned off phone line based access. I pretty much have no use for the land-line now.

AOL subscribers can remotely schedule their Series 2 TiVo's for free, assuming they have the unit online thru a network, such as the one mentioned above. I like free, but the interface and user interactions for doing the scheduling need to be fixed.

Searching AOL for TiVo scheduling doesn't help out, but if you go to AOL Keyword: "tv" and then look for the TiVo link on the right (who knows how long that will be there) and then tell it where you are, and who your cable operator is, and what service you have, you can get listings. Click on a listing, and then click the 'Record on my TiVo DVR' link, then log into the TiVo service, agree to the Terms of Service, and then submit the scheduling request. Whew.

The next time your TiVo pings the mother ship it will try to schedule the show you scheduled. Yes, that's right, the remote scheduling doesn't push the data to the TiVo, the TiVo has to ask for it, and then be told there's a scheduling request, and then it tries to figure it out.

Looking back on everything I have in place to make this possible, I wonder how many people actually use this feature...


Does convenience trump quality?
[ September 02, 2003 | Permalink | 8 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

In what seems like a desperate attempt to get some press, Forrester has declared that "The end of physical media is nearing." When I read statements like that, I think back to the wired Magazine cover from several years ago that declared that the further is 'Push' technologies. Both statements, were and are utter crap.

I have always understood generational transitions of media technology will (hopefully) achieve the two following goals; increase data density and increase quality (the former usually supports the latter)...

• Cassettes did indeed increase density by making music more portable, but the quality wasn't that much of a leap forward, if it was a forward movement at all (I'd argue it wasn't).
• Compact disks achieved both goals, with the added benefit of perfect reproduction at each iteration. 74 minutes of portable music, with no tape hiss and no degradation of the signal after each play. Sweet.
• DVD's offer us even more data density allowing us to enjoy everything a CD can offer, but with even higher quality and more quantity of material, such as full length movies (with multiple audio tracks for the international crowd).

Streaming data does NOT offer us any advances in quality, but doesn't help out with data density. Streaming is a transient experience, with no ownership after the fact. For many of us, the delivery mechanism for this streaming media is transient, which means that external forces may interrupt the experience as it is happening. When that becomes a cognizant fact, the experience degrades.

Downloading MP3's and dumping them onto CD-R's or iPods is a good way to cram tons of media into a very small physical space. But Forrester is talking about streaming and downloading. The streaming part will indeed make money, but it isn't going to kill physical media. My car doesn't stream.

Downloading will likely enforce and expand the physical media market by forcing consumers to offload their music and movie files to CD-Rs and DVD-Rs so their hard drives don't get packed full. Also, hard drives in computers aren't very portable, and in a way, represent lower data density (due the fact that large box with data in it essentially lowers the density of the data load within it).

If we think forward for a minute, we might see the following occur. The convenience of media downloads offsets the lower levels of quality, and people buy the content. I'm not sure that convenience does indeed trump quality, but let's pretend it does. People download lots of music and movies, and quickly realize that the downloaded movies don't look so great on their computer monitors. So they try to move it to their TV, and realize that their 34 inch Sony Vega's makes it look even worse, and they go back to buying DVD's like "A Bug's Life" which is a pure 100% digital transfer, and is utterly gorgeous in progressive scan.

Do you get my point? Downloading has its place, but so does portable, static, high quality, extremely dense, media formats.

[Note: I was at the beach last week. It was great.]


One device to rule them all, please.
[ May 22, 2003 | Permalink | 6 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I bought a new iPod the night they were released, and I think I was the first one to complete a sale at the Tyson's Corner Apple Store that night. Some tall Apple nerd with a camera saw fit to document the event on a silver substrate, so I'm guessing the guy next to me at the other register came in second.

Regardless of who won (me) a new personal habit has formed as a result of iPod ownership. I actively try to wear shirts that have a breast pocket. This is of course for the iPod to have a place to perch while I walk around the office with my headphones blaring Phasmid. Unfortunately, the iPod really is just another gadget that I carry around with me every day, and it's getting ridiculous...

Things in my bag that I carry around...

• iPod
• Nikon 4300 digital camera
• Motorola Two Way pager
• Samsung N400 cell phone
• 550 mhz tiBook
• various and sundry cables and adapters for connecting stuff to other stuff

Eventually, my daughter will laugh at me for carrying around so much mass and matter to achieve acceptable results in the things these devices do. Hopefully that future date is closer than I think, because carrying around all this stuff is just stupid. for what it's worth, I think I want most of this uber device to be centered around my iPod.


Choosier geeks choose Adium.
[ March 24, 2003 | Permalink | 6 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

O'Reilly has a short article about the instant massaging competition between Adium and iChat, and much of it has to do with usability. The conclusion of the article is ...

Adium seems to be the power user's choice seemingly for being unobtrusive and handling many chat sessions at once. iChat integrates with other iApps and handles the wireless and power settings for which Apple's portables are known for.

In particular though, this is the most important aspect...

Its interface is clean and simple, and I find the tabbed conversations to be immensely easier to manage than separate windows.

I can't overstate the importance and utility of a clean, targeted, non-shovelware application. The mere fact that Adium makes Instant Messages less annoying is a good thing (I get MANY instant messages every day, all day, and it adds up) and this is something iChat has been unable to do. iChat just feels like it is gobbling up my transient work mindshare.

"transient work mindshare" - What I mean is, that as I work, interruptions are costly because they divert, and STOP the progress I might be making in a UI design, or a JavaScript function (or whatever). New IMs in Adium are non obtrusive (partially because I replaced the sounds with less obtrusive sounds) whereas in iChat, the scrolling, and bubbles, and the generally more kinetic interface make the interruption more powerful than what I experience with Adium.

[via macslash]


Dishonest links must die.
[ February 27, 2003 | Permalink | 8 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Like most web surfers with more than day or two of experience under their belt, I hover over links all the time, and look at the status bar to gain a clue about what's on the other side of that link. Such was the case when I was at this page yesterday and hovered over a link that says "Viewtiful Joe Video Preview, 400x300 QuickTime, 30MBs".

The URL that showed up in the status bar ended with ".mov" so I thought a click would result in some delicious full motion video. Instead, I got a new page with a registration form asking me for money. Not delicious.

Now, I'm not against capitalism, or paying for original content in the form of huge Quicktime video downloads, but when a link lies to me, it annoys me. The last time I checked, annoying your users wasn't the best way to get more subscriptions, even if the content behind the annoyance barrier is a video preview of Viewtiful Joe (a game I anticipate with much drooling).

So screw it, I used Google to get what I want.


A Monkey in a Ball.
[ February 06, 2003 | Permalink | 5 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Super Monkey Ball 2 for the Gamecube is one of the better games I've played recently, and most of that is due to the fact that it involves monkeys. Also, the controls in the game are perfect, easy to learn, and tough to master, making it a classic game. The cross marketing [see inset picture] is brilliant, even if the price was cut by 75%, and someone else bought the game figure and gave to me. She kept MiMi though. Heh.

Nintendo understands franchises. Sega does to, and so should all of you bloggers out there. There are too many blogs out there with the same basic UI that does nothing to differentiate the site in my mind. And with the volume of blog content pouring forth, differentiation is more important than ever. But don't take my word for it, I'm just very sensitive to branding and logos (being an Apple, Nikon and Nintendo fetishist).



A 'good basis for a positive customer experience' helps the deal get made.
[ December 30, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I'm sure Carmax is soon going to make some good money off of me, but it's worth it. I sold my dependable little Honda Civic to them yesterday after 6 good years of service and 95k miles. The part of the process was the speed at which a price came back from appraisal. It's wasn't a great price, but it was fair, and the ease and speed at which the offer was made makes the good price feel better than it is.

Carmax apparently has people who do nothing more than buy cars all day, so that's the first 'good basis for a positive customer experience,' preparedness. I walked in the door and the sales guy, who I expected would pass me to a buying agent, helped me thru the process. No pass off! That was 'good basis for a positive customer experience' number two, consistency. 20 minutes later the offer price for the car was handed to me including the appraiser's comments on the car. This is our third 'good basis', speed.

No price would have been good enough, because no amount of money is ever enough. But the offer was within range of what I was expecting. After giving me the offer, they left me alone to make a decision, telling me to go to the business desk if I wanted to accept the offer. This is 'good basis for a positive customer experience' number four, customer control (and no pressure).

Too bad paper work can't be done away with, because that part of the process was endless and annoying. Fortunately, I walked out of the door with a check in my hands, and this constitutes the last 'good basis for a positive customer experience,' full delivery at request time.

How many failed dotcoms can you name that had none of these points going for them?


Self evaluations suck.
[ December 20, 2002 | Permalink | 4 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

In terms of the experience of completing a self evaluation for you work performance, I have to say it's not much better than gall bladder removal surgery. In fact, my experience with that exact surgery has taken less time and about as much pain. Too bad I can't take a few Vicodin to make the evaluation from go away.

Bleh.


Is this site credible? You make the call.
[ December 11, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

While perusing a backlog of WebDesign List messages, I came across one post about a report on website credibility and what effects it. I particularly like how they define the notion of credibility...

In this paper we adhere to the definition of credibility outlined by Fogg and Tseng (1999), with the following discussion drawing largely from this work. In their view, credibility can be defined as believability. Credible information is believable information. It's important to note that credibility is a perceived quality. It is not a property of a Web site, such as how many words the site contains or how many links are on the page. Instead, when one discusses credibility, it is always from the perspective of the observer's perception.

The part where the perspective of the observer is especially important in any user interface design or user experience modeling. Thom Haller talks about the 'disease of familiarity' in terms of the developer of a given web site and how their familiarity of the product/connect clouds their ability to take on the perspective of the intended audience. This paper gives us (ie, web developers) a chance to reset our perceptions.


Tough market conditions make way for less-than-perfect user experiences.
[ December 10, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

AOL is now playing Time Warner music artists on the customer help line, and in related news, people are saying things like the following...

How can other companies turn today's interactive platforms to their advertising advantage? First, a company should map all of its interactions with customers through advertising, call centers and retail outlets.

In terms of the user experience, when looking for help, sales pitches aren't considered to be helpful (by me anyway). I like the idea of using downtime in a productive way, but is this the solution? Does a sales pitch meet the user's needs? If they were playing up-to-date ambient and IDM music, I'd be all for it, but they'd need to have that profile info, and be able to act on it. That can't be easy.


HCI: Human Car Interaction
[ November 08, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Lest we forget that Humans interact with things other than computers, here's an example of HCI pulling double time, the BMW iDrive... uh... thing.

The driver slides the dial to choose between multiple control menus displayed on an in-dash LCD screen. The driver rotates the dial to move through lists and pushes the dial axially to select a list item.

After reading that I didn't feel like I had any sort of idea what 'axially' meant, but I suppose this video helps. What concerns me about this is the interaction with this little nubbly device requires the driver, hurtling down the road, to look at a screen. They say there is force feedback that indicates the menu, but that's only half the equation, because there are things in the menus. So, I'm guessing the driver needs to memorize the menus, which are sure to be short, so think about the mental modeling here.

To really keep your eyes on the road, you have to be able to do everything by feel and pattern. Is this easier than hot-cold air sliders, vent selection buttons and radio dials? If I drove a BMW 7 Series, I might be able to tell ya.


Shopping cart patent.
[ October 18, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Is the experience and process of using a shopping cart like mechanism on a web patentable? Well, yes it is, and has been, and is discussed in this C|Net Perspectives article. It's worth a read.


User centered design sanity.
[ October 10, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

IAslash linked over to an interview with Merholz and Shedroff covering user centered design. Merholz makes a point that I've been aware of since my first commercial client engagement...

The primary problem of user-centered design is that people engage in it at the expense of all else. Oftentimes, what is *most* useful, usable, and meaningful to the end-user is untenable from a business perspective, and the product, while maybe popular, is a financial failure. Additionally, UCD can often get bogged down in process, in needing to verify every design choice with users, unnecessarily encumbering progress.

I've noticed over the last year or two that there has been a lot less bullshit about completely kissing the users ass to get the best requirements and make an application or site that completely matches the users needs and desires. I tend to believe that the user often doesn't know what is best for them and an experience professional (what I pretend to be) should be able to design, create and program systems that match the business needs with the users reality. This balance is what the User Centered Designer can bring to the table.

In other cases, just making the web app you are building not look like crap is user centered enough.

[Also, it's worth noting that Digital Web magazine does not put time stamps on their articles. The only way I can figure out of this article was current was by seeing "2002-10" in the url which I'm guessing is October 2002. Forced deductive reasoning is not User Centered Design.]


Computer junkies reveal universal truths.
[ September 19, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Names changed to protect the innocent. Profanity not removed.

him: redhat sucks ass
 me: sweet
him: fucking microsoft of linux
him: they deliberately broke compatability with sys V init scripts in their distro
 me: heh, there's only one Apple of Macintosh
him: then they get 3rd parties to write shit for them
him: then you try to install the stuff on any other distro
him: and all the init scripts break
him: because they refuse to follow fucking standards.
 me: that's the nature of The Unseen Hand of Commerce
 me: heh
 me: play bombing run in ut2003
 me: very cool game
 me: in general tho, i am disapointed in ut2003
 me: it's basically no different
 me: looks way better
 me: but the weapons are 90% the same
him: yeah
him: its very quake 3 feeling to me
 me: the game play, 90% the same
him: I'm going to buy 
 me: the maps are cool tho
him: and the game is awesome
him: its worth the money
 me: heh
 me: costco is selling warcraft for $39
him: hehe
him: damn I forgot I had costco is selling warcraft 3
him: been too busy with gta3, hehe
 me: junkies tend to do that
him: i blew up like a whole block in gta3 last night
him: stole an armored car
him: police finally cut me off
him: got in a huge shootout and killed like 8 or 9 cops
him: swat showed up and started shooting
him: i hit behind a cop car, swat shot it all up
him: cop car blew up
him: the explosion from it blew up 3 more cars
him: when they blew up they killed like 20 or 25 people walking around on the sidewalk
 me: hehehe
him: I was running away and looked back and all you could see
him: was fire, and burned out pieces of car
him: and bodies all over the place and smoke
him: hahaha

Real-y frustrated.
[ August 14, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Real finally came out with a Real Player for Mac OSX, but do I really care? Sort of. This (incredible) music video by Royksopp is only available online as a Real Media One file, and of course, there's no way to download the file and keep it locally for network free (read: smooth) play. I wanted to show the video to my wife, at home, but had to attempt a stream thru my modem, which was a disaster (read: choppy playback and many dropped frames). IMHO, the Real Player user experience is weak.

If anyone knows of an MPEG of the video, or a way to get the Real file to download to a local file, please let me know.


Personal investment affects the value of the experience.
[ July 29, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I was on vacation last week at Disney with my wife (and we had a good time, even if it did cost us too much money). It occurred to me while getting off of a few rides that the ride was not worth the wait.

Most, if not all Disney rides, are designed to be full experiences, with "transitional experiences" leading to the core experience (the ride itself). All of which eventually leads to the horrible Gift Shop experience, with tons of merchandise and people in your way.

Nathan would have us believe that the entire experience, from beginning to end, is important. Disney clearly believes that as well. But the investment of time by the people in line needs to be more carefully considered, by those in the line. Disney has done their part, imho, by creating employing "transitional experiences" and more importantly, a Fast Pass system where you go to the ride and get a pass with a time stamp on when to return for the ride. When you return, your wait will be significantly less, and lowers the personal time investment and increases the value of the ride (and it seems to be inversely proportional). Too bad all of the rides are so short that even a 10 minute wait is often too long.

To be honest, the huge wave pool with a real, breaking, 6 foot wave coming out every 90 seconds was the highlight of the trip.


Email Spams, Scams and Virii
[ July 15, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I receive email scams at my work account from time to time, and some of them are horrible. Often you can tell the author isn't a native english speaker by their borken langwage and mistaken speling [sic]. Other times, they are almost perfect and make me question all the other email that I have recently responded too. I have never before been the target of an attempted scam like this, and it's weird that mere employment at AOL will make you a target.

One of the core scams is getting someone like myself to hand over user names and passwords and other vital bits of data under the guise that my HR department needs to update their records, or that an account is about to expire. Some people even go thru the effort to build elaborate and physically (ie, the UI) accurate scam sites to fool the user into going thru a re-registration process that snarfs the desired data.

I have also been getting many more .exe and .bat file extension files recently at my MacConnect email account. This is one of the core reasons why I am a Mac user, WAY fewer virii. It's the social engineering and thought virii that you have to watch out for. The pure Japanese spams can be pretty confusing too...



Audion is more User Centric than iTunes.
[ July 15, 2002 | Permalink | 5 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Audion is the dark horse of Mac OS MP3 players. SoundJam got more advertising than audion, and was then swallowed up by Apple and contorted into iTunes. Now, iTunes gets all the press, but Audion remains the superior player. Here's why...

The over all interface

iTunes gives you two interfaces, one big, one small (minimized). Many folks have lauded the big iTunes interface for allowing a single screen interaction architecture (you can do everything without going thru multiple screens). I agree, that's a good thing, but it forces the interface to be big, if forces a full screen of buttons, lists, and chrome elements.

Audio on the other hand is skinnable, tight and simple. The main interface is an MP3 player, and nothing more. It allows you to organize your playlist(s) and view info about the currently playing track. If you want to do other stuff, you bring up the console. While audio does not allow access to most/all functions from one screen, it doesn't bury those functions. Everything is still easily accessible and lets the main interface remain simple. simple is good. Simple = minimal interface.

User Centricity

Like I mentioned before, Audion is skinnable, iTunes is not. Score one for Audion. There are many good skins out there for Audion, and they are all free, so score another for audion. Also, because audion's main interface is simple, the skins can be uber small which is great when you keep the player up all day while you work.

Audio can link a playlist to a directory, so when you put new MP3's into a directory, the playlist updates. Very cool.

There's even a cross fading interface allowing you to mix tracks like a turntablist.

I could go on an on with this list, but Panic already has, so why repeat it here?

Speed

I wish I had real data for this, but all I can offer is anecdotal evidence. I've run both iTunes and audion for long periods of time, and Audion feels like it sucks up less CPU cycles than iTunes. I've done some quasi-scientific analysis in top in the Terminal, and my best guess is that Audion takes up about a third fewer cycles than iTunes. Panic claims the new 3.0 version now takes even less CPU time than the 2.x versions. Less is more.

ID3 tag editing.

Audion 2.x and iTunes both pale in comparison to MP3 Rage when it comes to editing ID3 tags in MP3s. End of story.

Price

iTunes is free, but Audion is worth the cost, if you get my meaning. You get more flexibility and less brushed metal, plain and simple.

In completely unrelated news, the Dell guy got spanked by the Screen Actor's Guild. Bahahaahahahahaa!


Back to Entourage.
[ June 26, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I've made the switch back to Microsoft Entourage from Apple Mail.app for all of my emailing needs. Why? Because Mail.app has a really weak filter system, and no anti-spam features. The rumor is that the next rev of Mail.app will come out with the next rev of MacOSX, but even then, I won't be switching back to Mail.app.

Back in the day I used Eudora Lite on my MacOS 7 machine (a 16 mhz LCII with 4 megs!) while SLIP'ing my way onto the Internet. I stuck with Eudora for years, until the Mac version of Outlook was robust enough to pass as a real Macintosh application. I like the three pane view over Eudora's method of individual windows for mail boxes (the usefulness of the single window interface is proven imho). Then Entourage came around and had a calendar, notes, kickass filtering, and so I went for it.

Mail.app is for two types of users, those who buy Macintoshes because they are easier to use and that person needs that kind of help, and power users who are procmail'ing their mail and just using Mail.app as the interface (which is a pretty cool way to go about it actually). But I don't know procmail (I'm a UI guy, and I've picked my battles) and need something more robust than Mail.app, so hello again Entourage, I hardly knew ye.


Cool toy, horrible website.
[ June 18, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

The Z-car is the coolest toy, ever. But the website set up by the manufacturer is absolutely horrible and violates pretty much every usability and visual design rule known by man.

Do your self a favor, and get $20, run down to the nearest Zany Brainy (if there isn't one near you, I have no recommendation on where to go) and buy this tiny, fully functional, remote controlled car (your cat will love it). The actual product requires a little assembly, but is a 100% winner in terms of integrated design and ease of use, which makes the website look that much more inadequate.


Deep linking to printer formatted pages.
[ June 10, 2002 | Permalink | 3 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Quite a few site have caught on to the idea that a printer friendly version of a given page is a nice, user-centric thing to provide. After all, it helps/enables the consumer to enjoy content in a nice, eye friendly, familiar and random access format (paper!). However, I think deep linking (the act of linking directly to a page behind a welcome screen on a given site) to these printer pages might be a bad idea. MacNN did this recently by linking to a Forbes article.

It was established two years ago that deep linking is legal (beyond the fact that it the very basis of this thing we call the web). The original argument against deep linking was that one company could be hurting another by leading a user directly to some content or service without the user going thru the advertising laden pages between the home page and the payoff page. I thought that was b.s. when I first heard it because most/all pages from commercial web sites are drowning in adverts anyway.

The advent of printer pages directly linked to by a third party completely denies the host of the content of any possible revenue from that page view. If that practice becomes truly systemic, one of two things will happen; another law suit will arise (not likely due to a precedent) or, more likely, printer friendly pages will eventually contain more adverts.


Experience design goes beyond interface design.
[ May 21, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

A few weeks ago I decided to buy my tickets for the opening night of Star Wars via Moviefone. The site wasn't beautiful, perfectly easy to use, or memorable in anyway. But I did get my tickets without too much fuss, which is exactly what I wanted. The beauty of this process played out when I got to the theatre Thursday night. I was instructed by Moviefone to bring my credit card to the theatre, so I did, and handed it to the person in the ticket booth. She did the swipey thing, and a few seconds later, out came my tickets and a receipt, and I was on my way. No fuss, no muss.


WebMercials suck more than pop-under ads.
[ April 28, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

Gamespot is running an Flash intro-esque commercial when you go to gamespot.com. It works just like any other site with a Flash intro, but there's no 'skip intro' link, so you have to sit and wait. At least with pop-under ads, the content you asked for is actually loading (and some browsers let you turn un-solicited window.open events OFF).


Fear and Loathing in OS land.
[ April 03, 2002 | Permalink | 1 Comments | 0 TrackBack | TB URL ]

I see more and more of these non-scientific survey's covering the Mac/Windows divide, and they always show more people willing to give up their WinTel boxes. But, the retail (and market share) numbers never materialize.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are more and more people out there who are getting tired of the bug-fix-as-service-pack business model coming out of Redmond (read: pay for fixes to bugs that shouldn't have been released in the first place). These folks get to use surveys as a way of complaining without having to give up their Windows habit or actually spend their hard earned money on over priced hardware.


SmarterChild is my buddy.
[ February 06, 2002 | Permalink | 26 Comments ]

I had forgotten just how cool SmarterChild was, but this News.com article about its creator reminded me. If you are an AOL Instant Messenger user, make a new buddy, give it the name "SmarterChild" (or just click here) and send a message saying hello. Don't be afraid, it won't bite, even if you tell it where you live by typing "set location your zip code". After that, ask for the weather, or for movie information, or just talk to it and see what happens.

It really is a great thing and here's why. I like the interactivity when trying to find info on things like movie listings. The experience of using the phone book and listening to phone recordings is labor and time intensive. SmarterChild makes that experience shorter and easier, and since it's a text based medium, I don't have to write down showtimes in the corner of the page in the phone book. Sweet.


Buying a CD is a bad experience.
[ January 02, 2002 | Permalink | 0 Comments ]

At home right now, I have many CD-Rs that have MP3s on them. Like everyone else in the world, I found that if I rip my CDs into MP3s and then dump those onto a CD-R, I could get six to ten full albums crammed onto one disk. Even better, if I just leave them on my Mac (or my Dell) I can have a playlist that is two days long. My MP3 player even tells me what song is currently playing which my console CD player can't do.

So, I consider the MP3 experience as a good one. But you might ask, "what about the long downloads?" Well, in my opinion, the pain of downloading an MP3 is less than or equal to the pain of sifting thru the bins at Tower, waiting in line, slapping down a $20 and driving home in awful Northern Virginia traffic. In fact, I suggest that the user experience of procuring MP3s is now far more acceptable than the experience of buying a CD. And then the follow-on experience of playing the MP3s is better since I don't have to swap a CD every 45 minutes (yes, I listen to a lot of music)

Recently there's been some discussion about the price of CDs falling to about $10, which is a good step towards a better User Experience. But since my TV plays MP3s and I can route that to any place in my home, I won't be buying $20 CDs anymore.


Flow as a replacement in the Form follows Function equation?
[ November 24, 2001 | Permalink | 1 Comments ]

After reading this article at doorsofperception I find that I can remember very little contained in the article, other than database experiences may be a new form of human experience with beauty (aka, function morphed into form in a positive state).

I'd argue the network experience or the interaction experience, regardless of the tech behind it, should be the topic. Another point to think about is that people don't surf databases without some sort of interface. Some people use SQL directly (programmers), but most of us (consumers) have interfaces between the database and our eyes (websites) that are designed by people as representations of the data they wish to present.

Data without designed interfaces (which could be heard or seen of felt, take your pick) is like the sound of one hand clapping.