Theo Mandel’s Usability Blog

Mark Hust of Good Experience runs a wildly successful and informative conference, Gel, every year that focuses on user experience. One of the key speakers was Alex Lee, president of OXO.

From Good Experience’s blog:

Product developers everywhere could learn a lesson from OXO’s angled measuring cup (shown here), which was born out of some very simple, very smart research.

In the video below, the president of OXO International, Alex Lee, tells about how his researchers observed ordinary consumers using their (non-angled) measuring cups. Users would fill up the cup part way, then bend over to check the level – then fill some more, then bend over again to check the level. This pointed the way for OXO’s innovation: showing the amount-markings at an angle, so users can easily read the amount as they fill the cup.

But here’s the thing about the research: customers never said they wanted an angled measuring cup. In fact, users weren’t even aware that there was a problem to be solved. Consumers didn’t say, “I wish I could read the markings more easily.” They muddled through without complaint. And yet the innovation came directly from observing customers. How?

Simply by observing the customer experience. The job of any product developer, any innovator, is to identify an unmet need – a pain point – a market opportunity – and the best way of doing that is by observing customers. Which means their actual real-world behavior – what they do, not what they say they do. This reveals the genuine customer experience.

Good research like this doesn’t ask customers leading questions, and it doesn’t have to ask customers to design a solution. It simply requires watching and listening. Once you observe that “customers seem to spend a lot of extra energy to read the amount,” the stage is set for the solution.

Here’s Alex Lee, talking about research, product design, and other processes at OXO: Watch video

Have we become too dependent on our mobile computers and devices? This article answers the question: “E-mail and smart phones were supposed to liberate us. So why does it feel like we never have any free time?”

Things may have gotten worse than we thought:

“There’s been a lot written about how the beeping and flashing gadgets with which we now surround ourselves keep us from sleeping, keep us from concentrating, keep us, ironically, from working. The thing that I have noticed of late is how often they seem to keep us from living.”

Definitely worth the read, especially if you know you can’t put down your iPhone or Blackberry for more that 15 minutes!

<< View the article >>

This is a wonderful community effort! The Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge was launched on June 2nd, 2010 at the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) meeting at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), with support from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Here’s what it’s all about:

Health 2.0’s original tag line of ‘user-generated healthcare’ contains the germ of a compelling idea—patients are using new tools to guide their own care. And now those tools are starting to integrate with the health care system. Doctors, patients, and health care organizations are all starting to use a new generation of online and mobile technologies which are fundamentally changing the way health care works.

The Health 2.0 Conference is the leading showcase of cutting-edge technologies in health care, including Online Communities, Search and lightweight Tools for consumers to manage their health and connect to providers online.

Check out the Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge Website!

P.S. I’ve just joined the Challenge as an expert. View my Member Page.

User interface design patterns are common researched and reusable solutions to frequent user interface problems. There are a number of user interface pattern repositories. This article in Smashing Magazine lists over 40 resources for user interface design patterns. Here’s what they say about it:

In this article, we share with you the best of the best, cream of the crop sites, galleries, online publications, and libraries devoted to sharing information and exploring concepts pertaining to User Interface design patterns. Use these recommended sources to gain knowledge about a particular UI problem or to gain inspiration and insight on best practices, techniques, and examples of exemplary UI designs. Great thank-you goes to Pavel Konoplitski for providing us with related resources.

<< Here’s the article >>

Finally, technologists provide enhancements to healthcare usability! Usability of medicine pill bottles, that is!!

I work on the usability of healthcare software systems. I’m glad to see that usability professionals are also working on medical devices and other areas of people’s life impacted by their health. Here’s a summary of the study:

Experimental electronic pill bottle caps prompted up to 99 percent of the participants of a study to stay on their medication schedules, says the Center for Connected Health. The pill bottle covers send wireless signals that activate a glowing light, a tune, automated calls, text messages or e-mails to notify patients that it’s time to take their medication.

Here’s the eWeek.com article

ATM banking systems haven’t kept up with touchscreen technology. Look what you can do on an iPad and then look at your bank’s ATM screen. There’s no reason an ATM needs to have an out-dated on-screen with buttons on the frame of the hardware.

Ideo created an new ATM user interface and interaction concept for a Spanish bank, BBVA, that is now being implemented.

Take a look at this very interesting video:
http://futureselfservicebanking.com/

Beats the heck out of your current ATM interface, doesn’t it?

Since the introduction of the iPad, everyone has wondered if this is the ultimate tablet platform. However, one industry that has been using tablet computers for many years – the healthcare industry – does not necessarily think the iPad is the bee’s knees. Here’s the survey results from February 2010:

“Last week, during the fever pitch surrounding the announcement of Apple’s iPad tablet, Software Advice surveyed 178 physicians, nurses, medical students and healthcare IT professionals about what the healthcare industry’s ideal tablet would look like. This isn’t our first time talking tablets and healthcare. In April of last year, we wondered if the Apple tablet would become the ideal device to run electronic health record (EMR) software.

Our goal with this survey: Find out what healthcare professionals want in a tablet and how well Apple’s iPad fulfills those wants. Unfortunately for the iPad, as we found out last Wednesday when Steve Jobs unveiled the tablet’s features, it only has a few of the top “must-have” features for healthcare use.“

This chart shows how likely respondents are to purchase a tablet for healthcare use in the next year. 

<< View Survey >>

Theo Mandel, Ph.D. presented a session at Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association’s (RMDMA) Direct Marketing Day conference in Denver on May 19, 2010. The session was titled, “The Golden Rules of Usable Web Design.”

Each year, the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association hosts DM DAY, the region’s most comprehensive, best-attended direct-marketing event. The 2010 event was no exception, presenting a full day of authoritative speakers, timely seminars and substantive workshops that addressed the wide range of skills and expertise direct marketers need to stay competitive. Visit the Conference Website.

Mandel created a webpage for session attendees, providing links and materials, including the presentation, the “Golden Rules” chapter of his book, and charts and checklists for reviewing your websites. Visit the Golden Rules of Usable Web Design webpage.

Now that the iPad is out and people are using the new apps supposedly designed for the iPad, their usability falls short of the expected Apple usability experience.

 Jakob Nielsen, in his Alertbox, May 10 2010, summarized his findings:

“iPad apps are inconsistent and have low feature discoverability, with frequent user errors due to accidental gestures. An overly strong print metaphor and weird interaction styles cause further usability problems.”

Many apps approached the iPad as just a big iPhone:

“But from an interaction design perspective, an iPad user interface shouldn’t be a scaled-up iPhone UI.

Indeed, one finding from our study is that the tab bar at the bottom of the screen works much worse on iPad than on iPhone. On the small phone, users are likely to notice the muted icons at the bottom of the screen, even if their attention is on content in the middle of the screen. But the iPad’s much bigger screen means that users are typically directing their gaze far from the tab bar and they ignore (and forget) those buttons.

Another big difference between iPad and iPhone is that regular websites work reasonably well on the big tablet. In our iPhone usability studies, users strongly prefer using apps to going on the Web. It’s simply too painful to use most websites on the small screen. (Mobile-optimized sites alleviate this issue, but even they usually have worse usability than apps.)”

<< View Nielsen’s Alertbox >>

A video by Cisco shows how new technologies and user interfaces can totally change our real-world common experiences. Even tasks such as trying on clothes in a store can become a more enjoyable and satisfying experience, especially for guys who hate to shop and hate to accompany their wife or girlfriend shopping!

<< Check out the Video >>

You knew this would happen sooner or later. Now that there is a large touch-based tablet, little kids and pets are now experimenting with this new user interface!

YouTube is now getting flooded with videos of pets playing with an iPad. Here’s one of many. Enjoy!

<< View Iggy using an iPad >>

It’s official – “PowerPoint makes us stupid.”  In an article for the New York times, many high-ranking officials are taking shots at Microsoft’s PowerPoint program. Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.

Interesting article about how the military has become so dependent on PowerPoint that it’s a standard joke among the highest levels of our government.

“Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making.”

A PowerPoint diagram meant to portray the complexity of American strategy in Afghanistan certainly succeeded in that aim

<< View the Article >>

Good article by Design For Use on web design for seniors. Here’s the summary:

“With the aging population and increased reliance on internet resources, improving the online experience of senior and retired users can facilitate greater success and knowledge about the web. While the common practices of increased text size, button size, and simplified layout contribute to online retiree success, the real key is developing confidence in senior users by improving their mental models of websites. By requiring self-identification, providing a shallow page structure, and limiting the use of PDFs, senior and retired users can grow more adept at completing online tasks quickly and successfully.”

<< View the Article >>

In the spirit of the developer’s credo – “That’s not a bug, that’s a feature!” – Microsoft has created a game that gives users points for finding and using commands on the Office Ribbon toolbar.

Usually companies don’t point out their usability issues and problems, but Microsoft’s manager of Office programs, Jennifer Michelstein decided to try using a game to help train users (See Jennifer’s post).

Here’s CNET’s post on the interesting strategy.

Here’s Microsoft’s Ribbon Hero game.

What do you think of this strategy???

As I looked closely at the different form styles in the previous blog entry, I noticed there are a number of differences, in addition to the different form layouts. Any or all of these changes could have contributed to the reported test results.

 Here’s a well-written counterpoint blog post:

Lesson from Madlibs Signup Fad: Do Your Own Tests

 What do you think?

UI designers are always looking for new ways to do common tasks better and faster. This new style of filling in forms may prove to be one of those new twists that makes people think, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Luke  Wroblewski writes about some new websites that lay out registration forms in a narrative format rather than a standard grid format. Here’s an example:

 A/B user testing showed that the narrative style form increased conversion rates by 25-40%. This new style goes against conventional UI guidelines of trying to lay out forms to enhance scanning vs. reading. This new style follows the reading style, which may prove better for common registration forms that ask information such as, “Who are you, what’s your e-mail address, where do you live, etc.?”

It is too early to see who wins this contest, but it is refreshhing to see new, innovative ideas in UI design!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

<< View Luke W’s blog >>

Very nice overview of heuristic evaluation guidelines for websites.

<< View Blog >>

Google has announced a new mobile tool that enables users to search using pictures instead of words. Called Google Goggles, it uses the phone’s GPS and compass to help determine search results. This free app works only on Google Android mobile phones.

Goggles can also recognize faces, but Google has decided to block facial recognition until they understand the implications of this new technology.

This is just the beginning of new augmented reality and search technology. Watch for more in 2010!

Google Goggles Review: http://revision3.com/appjudgment/an_ron_ggoggle

News Article: Le Web: Google Goggles to exclude faces

Just in time for the Christmas Holiday! Very thorough list of gifts for UX geeks!

http://www.nickfinck.com/blog/entry/gifts_for_user_experience_geeks_2009/

Interesting blog about Mark Coleran’s futuristic computer user interfaces for movies and TV shows. It’s not always about usability!!

<< View the Blog >>