03.10.08
Posted in Users, Technology at 10:28 am by Theo Mandel
Very interesting article in the New York Times on the shift from telephone calls in the workplace to e-mail correspondence and cell phone conversations. While it makes the office a quieter workplace, workers have lost the fine art of handling the telephone conversation:
“At first glance, there are reasons e-mail seems a boon. It leaves a paper trail. It allows you to formulate responses, rather than having to think on your feet. And if anything has gone wrong, we prefer not to be aurally assaulted. Every time you answer a phone call, you introduce uncertainty into your day.
But this attempt at self-preservation is counterproductive. What else is lost when we skip the call? It’s not just institutional knowledge, but also all the information conveyed through the attendant rituals of phoning.”
View the article
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02.25.08
Posted in Web Usability, Users, Technology at 8:41 pm by Theo Mandel
FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that’s available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music. This is the new consumerism on the Web. Read about it at http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/.
FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers’ ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.
Expect FREE LOVE to become an integral if not essential part of doing business.
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02.21.08
Posted in Users, Technology at 10:05 pm by Theo Mandel
Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, wrote a recent article in The New York Times about the recently passed tax rebate bill.
Basically, he says that calling the money taxpayers will receive as a “rebate” will encourage them to save the money. To stimulate the economy by encouraging people to spend the money, Epley suggests it be called a “bonus” rather than a “rebate.”
Interesting article on human behavior and the words we use to encourage consumer behavior.
Read the full article at The New York Times (no registration required)
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01.31.08
Posted in Usability Bloopers, Technology, Marketing Usability, Usability Humor at 10:54 am by Theo Mandel
You knew it was coming…move over iPhone!
Here is a cellular phone that *really* can multitask! The Sumsing Turbo 3000 Xi mobile phone!
View the video!
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01.04.08
Posted in Marketing Usability, Healthcare Usability at 4:00 pm by Theo Mandel
Usability and comsumer experience are not only important for computer hardware and software. Consumer medical devices must not only be usable - they must be visually and physically appealing:
“Today, a medical device must be more than functional; it must also look and feel sophisticated. Device designers can use refined touchpoints to influence users’ perceptions of the quality of a device.”
This article describes many of the industrial design techniques used in designing consumer medical devices. A very interesting read!!
Refined Touchpoints Drive Quality Perceptions by Michael Wiklund
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01.01.08
Posted in Usability Consulting, User Centered Design (UCD) at 5:37 pm by Theo Mandel
US News & World Report on Best Careers for 2008: Usability/User Experience Specialist listed as one of the best careers!
We continue to gain recognition for our contribution to the IT industry. The article notes one drawback about our industry, as we continue to face push-back from our (potential) clients:
A potential downside of this career is that shortsighted companies believe they can make products without a specifically trained usability expert, so you may have to spend considerable time justifying your service’s value. Another drawback is that you may need to make efforts to avoid being typecast as someone who can help design only one kind of product.
Link: http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2007/12/19/usabilityuser-experience-specialist-executive-summary.html
Comments?
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11.14.07
Posted in Web Usability, Application Usability, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD), Web 2.0 at 9:28 pm by Theo Mandel
I conducted eye-movement research on reading comprehension in my graduate work on my M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology back in the early 80’s. Eye-tracking hardware and software have come a long way since then and they provide very interesting analyses of user experiences with applications and websites.
This article summarizes some results of eye-tracking studies on the web. Nice summary, but I wish they had included references for each of their lessons.
Take a look at the article!
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10.28.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:08 pm by Theo Mandel
Microsoft’s HealthVault (HV) beta was launched October 4, 2007. The launch was a classic Microsoft launch: big, dramatic, expensive, and well executed, right down to the goody bags (you had to be there to get one).
Read more about Microsoft’s Healthvault:
- Microsoft HealthVault: Device Connectivity
- e-CareManagement Blog
- Medtalk: Doctor Geek, M.D.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 7:52 pm by Theo Mandel
Interesting article on future UI research going on at Microsoft. They are even filing patents on the technology.
- Read the article
- Microsoft’s Patent application
Companies that develop some of the world’s most well-known user interfaces, such as Microsoft and Apple, already know this, but it’s still difficult at times to know exactly what the user might be thinking when navigating through a UI. And while someone has yet to invent a mind-reading device (which would no doubt be used to enhance people’s love lives more than the usability of UIs), Microsoft wants to get closer to it by using an electroencephalograph (EEG) to read brain states of a user.
The company filed for a patent last year, titled “Using electroencephalograph signals for task classification and activity recognition,” which describes a method for analyzing EEG signals as they correspond to different elements of a UI. The problem with EEGs, however, is that the signals are often muddied with extra data—the blink of an eye or the insatiable urge to scratch an itch can be enough to introduce some curveballs. Microsoft acknowledges that this can be a problem, and notes that there have been some efforts to filter out extra noise in EEG readings. This filtering is not always effective, though, and can be expensive to perform.
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10.22.07
Posted in Application Usability, Technology, Usability Humor at 9:50 am by Theo Mandel
Police excuse angry computer user for outburst
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the night, was let off for disturbing the peace by police who sympathized with his technical frustrations.
Police in the northern city of Hanover said they would not press charges after responding to calls made by residents in an apartment block who were woken by a loud crash in the early hours of Saturday.
Officers found the street and pavement covered in electronic parts and discovered who the culprit was.
Asked what had driven him to the night-time outburst, the 51-year-old man said he had simply got annoyed with his computer.
“Who hasn’t felt like doing that?” said a police spokesman.
While escaping any official sanction the man was made to clear up the debris.
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10.11.07
Posted in Technology, World Usability Day 2007, Healthcare Usability at 9:31 am by Theo Mandel
Very illuminating interview with Stanford doctor, Christopher Longhurst, a general pediatrician who works in the IT department there. Recorded from the Scoble Show, a video blog about “geeks, technologists and developers.”
The most interesting thing? Just how many mistakes get made in hospitals and how information technology is being used to keep those errors from happening.
- View the original 47-minute version
- View the 7-minute digest version
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07.21.07
Posted in Application Usability, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD) at 1:28 am by Theo Mandel
Good interview with Larry Tesler, one of the innovators from Xerox PARC who created the early GUIs with icons and folders on the desktop. After the Xerox PARC years, he worked at Apple on the early GUI products, the Apple Lisa and the Macintosh.
This was an exciting time in user interface design. I was at IBM, working on research and guidelines for Windows and OS/2 on the PC with new UI models of GUIs and OOUIs (Object-Oriented User Interfaces).
View the 15-minute video interview with Dan Farber, vice-president of editorial at CNET Networks and editor in chief of ZDNet.
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07.15.07
Posted in World Usability Day 2007 at 1:05 pm by Theo Mandel
World Usability Day 2007 kicked off the year with a special session at the Usability Professionals’ Association conference on June 13 in Austin, Texas. The focus for World Usability Day (WUD) 2007is healthcare. Healthcare usability affects every individual throughout his or her entire life. Every day, issues of medical illnesses and diseases, health insurance, nutrition, prescriptions and supplements, healthcare professionals and medical facilities affect how we experience our world and the quality of our life. Our daily “user experience” is critically affected by healthcare and the usability of all aspects of healthcare.
The WUD 2007 kickoff event was attended by close to 100 people, many of whom have participated in the previous 3 World Usability Day events. Theo Mandel, Ph.D., the healthcare chairman for WUD 2007, presented a brief introduction followed by four case studies of successes in healthcare usability.
Visit the World Usability Day website for the event summary and to view the following presentations:
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06.24.07
Posted in Technology at 6:57 pm by Theo Mandel
Very interesting article! The idea has been around for over 40 years (see below), but is now possible with modern materials and construction techniques…Just think of the possibilities!
In 1956, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, a noted proponent of small, squat buildings, unveiled a design for a mile-high skyscraper. Wright acknowledged that construction materials available at the time were inadequate for his vision. “But it’s certainly possible now,” says Joseph Colaco, president of CBM Engineers in Houston.
View article
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06.21.07
Posted in Usability Humor at 8:18 pm by Theo Mandel
It’s always great to see examples of how important the consumer experience is. Here’s a great video parody about the consumer experience. Enjoy!
http://dailymotion.com/video/x1zv6w_the-break-up
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06.17.07
Posted in World Usability Day 2007, Healthcare Usability at 12:24 pm by Theo Mandel
As healthcare chairman for World Usability Day 2007, I’m very interested in advances in consumer healthcare on the Web.
Northeastern University computer science professor Timothy Bickmore has created a virtual health coach called “Laura” that can help patients remember to take pills on time or encourage them to get out for a walk. Bickmore hopes that as the population of baby boomers continues to age, virtual coaches such as Laura will be able to bridge the gap between the growing number of patients and the insufficient number of health care professionals.
Other online health care experiments include tailored voice messages delivered to a person’s phone coupled with Internet sites and chat groups to help people exercise or quit smoking. A portable pill box called Med-eMonitor chimes when it is time to take a pill, can sense if the patient took the pill out of the box, has a screen that can ask patients questions, and can connect to a phone line to send data to trained health coaches who can then send messages to patients or contact their doctor.
Such high-tech health care programs are particularly useful for today’s complex medical regimens, which frequently require patients to take a half-dozen pills or more per day. Bickmore says that in some cases research has shown that patients actually prefer dealing with a computer than an actual health care professional, as they feel less intimidated asking questions and less guilty about using a computer’s time. He says people are also more honest with computer when disclosing “socially undesirable behaviors” such as drug and alcohol use. Nevertheless, Bickmore says the most essential aspect of health care is human-to-human interaction, and although technologies such as Laura are not a replacement, they can help deal with the limitations in the current health care system.
View the complete article
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05.05.07
Posted in Technology, World Usability Day 2007, User Centered Design (UCD) at 2:27 pm by Theo Mandel
Theo Mandel, Ph.D. has been named the healthcare chairman for World Usability Day 2007. World Usability Day’s focus for 2007 is on healthcare. The theme is, “We can make a difference.” Mandel will present at the kickoff event at the UPA Conference in Austin, Texas on June 13. Here is the initial press release for World Usability Day 2007.
| World Usability Day Announces 2007 Healthcare Focus |
Press Release |
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 Third Annual Global Event To Create Awareness for Usability and Healthcare
(Boston, Massachusetts) May 4, 2007
The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) has announced World Usability Day 2007 takes place on November 8, 2007. This year’s focus will be on healthcare.
World Usability Day was founded in 2005 with a mission to increase the public’s awareness of the need to make the services and products important to human life easier to access and simpler to use.Global issues such as healthcare, education and government are addressed through expert forums, exhibits, events and initiatives in numerous locations throughout the world.
A kick-off for 2007 will take place at the UPA International Conference in Austin Texas on June 13th with a program entitled ” Healthcare Usability in the Trenches.” The program will feature Jason Rossback, Zoll Data Systems, Theo Mandel, Ph.D, Interface Design and Development, LLC and Janine Purcell from the Veterans Health Administration.
“The importance of user-centered design in healthcare is truly about life and death” noted Elizabeth Rosenzweig, Founder and Director of World Usability Day. “Whether it’s new medical devices or technologies; drug research, approval or delivery; patient forms or medical record sharing; emergency disaster planning or increasing the functionality of hospitals and everyday healthcare delivery, everyone is effected in some way by the intersection of usability and healthcare. There are many commonalities, yet each region of the world faces its own set of unique challenges. We believe that focusing World Usability Day 2007 on healthcare will create a stronger awareness of these issues and lead to initiatives that have long term impact on the quality of everyone’s life.”
World Usability Day 2006 was a tremendous success. UPA, along with its allied organizations coordinated 225 events in 175 cities in 35 countries that attracted over 40,000 attendees and volunteers at worldwide site locations, as well as through webcasts online at the World Usability Day website, www.worldusabilityday.org.
The goals for 2007 include growing the number, size and types of the events worldwide. This includes: adding more events that not only provide education about usability, but work to effect change by taking the message to the average citizen, offering additional webcasting features that enable World Usability Day to be even more accessible and increasing the volunteers, supporters and sponsors for the event. In order to accomplish this, we need more event leaders and volunteers as part of the World Usability Day team.
Sponsors to date for World Usability 2007 include: Apogee, Axure Software Solutions, Constant Contact, Dell, Different, FatDUX, Google, Intuit, Microsoft User Research, Mitsui-Links, Ovo Studios, SirValuse, VKI Studios and Usability.ch.
Any organization or individual with a general interest in user-centered design, healthcare or related areas, is invited to participate in this event. Details for volunteering, submitting a local event, sponsorship or general information is available at www.worldusabilityday.org or by contacting Caryn Saitz, Executive Director at caryn@worldusabilityday.org or 617.905.5691.
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04.10.07
Posted in Technology, User Centered Design (UCD) at 8:43 pm by Theo Mandel
PALO ALTO, Calif. — A panel of experts on “ease of use” whose experience ranges from technology design to behavioral psychology agreed rather ruefully Wednesday (April 4, 2007) one of the most complicated challenges in electronic engineering is simplicity.Their conclusions echoed the irony of one audience member—an attorney with Silicon Valley law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati—who defined “technology” as “something that doesn’t quite work yet.”
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Ease-of-Use Critics: Designers or ‘Feature Creeps’?
David Benjamin, EE Times (04/05/07)
[Short Abstract]
A recent “ease of use” forum held in Palo Alto, Calif., brought together experts to debate the merits of engineering for simplicity versus the potential to maximize features. “Every possibility you add to an interface increases your likelihood of failure” in the commercial world, said Stanford University’s Persuasive Technology Lab founder B.J. Fogg. Others agreed that, in interaction design, making a device that everyone can use is far more difficult than making something that only the highly-skilled can use.
Ease of use has become a “grave issue” in engineering, said EE Times editor Junko Yoshida, citing an “SOS from consumers.” Bill Moggridge, author of “Designing Interactions,” a book focusing on complexity and ease of use, said the best way to avoid ease-of-use issues is to build a prototype and test it out on everyday users. In support of complexity, Moggridge called attention to the status workers can achieve through their mastery of intricate devices. “We feel proud that we’ve gotten past a barrier of difficulty,” he said.
The forum then turned its attention to Japan’s I-Mode mobile phone platform, which included watching a video of a consumer spend 30 minutes using their phone’s electronic payment system to buy a can of tea from a vending machine. Yoshida said there is a growing trend toward usability, but Fogg replied that the tendency for designers to believe that “more is more” rarely leads to the “best user experience [being] the initial winner.” Moggridge explained how Web 2.0 concepts could allow users to “go, converse, and manipulate,” without the restrictions of hardware or software that is designed for a specific device.
Read the complete article at EETimes.com
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04.09.07
Posted in Technology at 7:42 pm by Theo Mandel
The Helvetica font is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss graphic designer Max Miedinger. Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk, the typeface’s name was changed in 1960 to Helvetica — derived from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland — in order to make it more marketable internationally.
Here’s how popular the font has become:
- The U.S. Individual Income Tax Return Form (1040) uses the Helvetica font family.
- Helvetica is a default typeface for the Mac OS system.
- Helvetica is used for the subway and mass transit systems in Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC. Helvetica recently replaced Akzidenz Grotesk as the typeface used for signs for New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority subway system
Read a good article, “Helvetica, ‘official’ typeface of the 20th century, going strong at 50,” written by Frank Jordans, AP writer.
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04.06.07
Posted in Marketing Usability at 5:38 pm by Theo Mandel
To highlight the wacky side of usability, here’s a CNN/Money article on the wackiest product warning labels. With the stupid things people do and the litigious society we live in, you have to wonder how we came to arrive at this point in time.
Toilet brush wins wacky bowl
Michigan anti-lawsuit group gives out “awards” for wackiest warning labels on products.
January 6, 2005: 2:09 PM EST
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A toilet brush with a tag that says “Do not use for personal hygiene” has taken top prize for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year, according to an anti-lawsuit group.
The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, whose main mission is to reveal how lawsuits and anxiety over lawsuits have created a need for overly obvious warnings on products, sponsors The Wacky Warning Label Contest each year.
Other top finishers this year include:
- A scooter with the warning “This product moves when used.”
- A digital thermometer with the advice “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”
- An electric blender used for chopping and dicing that reminds users to “Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating.”
- And a three-inch bag of air used for packaging that read “Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device.”
Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times,” said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. “Plaintiff’s lawyers who file the lawsuits that prompt these warnings argue they are making us safer, but the warnings have become so long that few of us read them anymore– even the ones we should read.”
The group hopes the contest will remind us all to read the warnings on our products more carefully and motivate judges to stop what it says are frivolous lawsuits.
The winning labels were chosen by listeners of a popular morning radio show in Detroit, the group said.
View the original article at CNN/Money
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