Pat’s Point of View

I read with interest, some of the great ideas in trendwatching.com’s Innovation Avalanche. As someone at work commented, there are definitely some services ripe for reproduction in other markets, for example:

Parkingspots.com connects those who have parking spots to rent out with those who need them on a monthly basis…[full article]

Though more ‘intention economy’ than crowd power, Dutch ING Bank’s WoonWaarUWilt (”LiveWhereYouWant”) initiative is too much fun to not include: the service lets clients make an offer on houses that aren’t on the market, but that they’d love to own…[full article]

…Located in the Britomart (a public transport hub) in Auckland, BikeCentral offers bicycling enthusiasts and commuters a welcoming place to park their bikes and transition into the next part of their day. In addition to safe, secure bicycle parking, BikeCentral members have access to private lockers, showers and changing areas. Coffee, fresh food and free wireless internet are also available, as are rental bicycles and an on-site repair service for minor repairs…[full article]

The authors top and tail the list of ideas with their own editorial on subjects such as coming up with your own innovative ideas and how to make money off those in the list. Good stuff.

Despite the great ideas discussed in this article, I must say I don’t like trendwatching’s design. The graphics are too big and poorly coupled to the text—it’s actually difficult to tell which belongs with which—and overall it’s quite hard to scan because there are no headings for each of the 41 innovation ideas. The overly large headings that pepper the page, such as “hyperlocal” and “tryvertising”, add to the confusion because it’s not clear that these are actually category headings (for lack of a better word) that group together the ideas. A clearer content, and visual, hierarchy would be good.

Popularity: 8% [?]

A recent discussion at work revealed some cracking quotes that are worthy of sharing. The ones I like best are those that were originally coined in an entirely other context, but ring true when applied to something like website usability. And what the heck, having all these here will probably help with SEO :)

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

- Mark Twain, author

Pay attention to what users do, not what they say.

- Jakob Nielsen, usability guru

Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.

- Benny Hill, comedian

The most common user action on a Web site is to flee.

- Edward Tufte, information design guru

We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are.

- The Talmud

Make it idiot-proof and someone will just make a better idiot.

- Unknown

Most software needs to be spanked.

- Alan Cooper, persona guru

Perhaps something a bit longer?

Consumers cannot readily tell us what they are thinking. It is assumed knowledge. Which is to say, consumers know things about the world they do not know they know. There is assumed knowledge on the corporate side as well. The corporation and its engineers hold certain assumptions so deeply they can no longer see them.

– Grant McCracken, business anthropologist

Your customers are not you. They don’t look like you, they don’t think like you, they don’t do the things that you do, they don’t have your expectations or assumptions. If they did, they wouldn’t be your customers; they’d be your competitors.

- Mike Kuniavsky, user experience guru

Update: couldn’t resist stealing some from Chris‘ private stash (I wonder what else is in there?):

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.

- Douglas Adams, author

This is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of [IBM's] Galaxy-wide success is founded…their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws.

- Ted Nelson, hypertext pioneer

The essential division in the (computer) industry between hardware and software represents the organization of computing from the system designer’s viewpoint, not the user’s. In successful mature technologies it’s not possible to isolate the form and function. The logical design and the mechanical design of a pen or a piano bind their mechanism with their user interface so closely that it’s possible to use them without thinking of them as technology, or even thinking of them at all. Invisibility is the missing goal in computing.

- Neil Gershenfeld, technologist, physicist, author

A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.

- Mitch Ratliffe, technology journalist

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.

- Andy Rooney, actor

Computers should work the way beginners expect them to, and one day they will.

- Ted Nelson, hypertext pioneer

Popularity: 11% [?]

It’s on again, Web Directions South will hit Sydney in September.

From past experience, particularly last year, I’d say WDS is the best web industry conference held in Australia—and I’m not just saying that to win an iPhone :)

There’s a great line-up and a healthy dose of user experience discussion for what is a general web gathering. It’s definitely a sign that usability and the like have been embraced by your average web designer and developer. In particular I’m looking forward to, and recommend to you, sessions by Ruth Ellison, Donna Spencer, Jeff Veen and Mark Pesce (I mean who wouldn’t after last year’s closing keynote?).

If you need more convincing, check out the executive summary what might get your boss to send you.

See what people are blogging about: web directions south

Popularity: 11% [?]

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This afternoon I presented my session at WebDU on the topic of information architecture for designers and developers. In the particular case of WebDU, these designers and developers mostly specialise in Flex and Flash.

I’m fairly happy with how it came together in the end, hopefully I gave the audience some insight into the field of IA, and user experience in general. Apologies for the messy looking slides on SlideShare, when it was converted from Powerpoint all the embedded fonts had to be replaced with Arial!

Other than my contribution, there was of course a whole conference, and a great conference it was. My initial impressions were that it’s a great location (level 2 of the Darling Harbour Conference centre) which is nicely laid out and spacious. The over all feel is pretty slick, and they gave out some excellent swag, I know it’s quite trivial but a great t-shirt, conference bag (with good stuff inside including a selection of relevant magazines from sponsors) put the finishing touch on an event such as this. Much better than the wads of marketing crap you usually get.

The conference proceedings book is a good idea, with the slides (or at least initial summary slides in my case) from each session, and information on speakers and the conference in general. Sadly there was no agenda for quick reference to the sessions, when and where. There was an A4 sheet with this info on it, but not in the bags or proceedings book. I still think having this in the back of the name tag lanyard is the best approach.

A rather novel thing they did was have trading cards with the avatars for each conference organiser. At first I thought they might have had a card for each presenter too, which sent me into a mini panic at the thought of people trading my face around the place thinking who the heck is this guy? :) It’s a good networking idea and builds a sense of fun around the event, after all it’s not some stuffy academic conference, these are people who make cool websites and apps, it should be fun.

And of course there was the crucial, especially for this audience, free wifi. I used to roll my eyes upon hearing geeks whinging “aww man, no wireless!” but I must admit I now expect it of any conference or seminar. I hate people typing and surfing during sessions, but in between or if you need to get a bit of work done during the course of the day (like I did) then having internet access is crucial.

(At first my laptop didn’t see the free network, and this made me think that it could be a neat little business opportunity for buildings within range of conference centres that don’t offer free wifi, setup a Meraki mesh for a cheap rate…or free)

While there were some interesting topics being presented on the first day, and I was pleased to see the current state of the art in terms of RIA and interactive interface development, I had to take a bit of time out to put some finishing touches on my presentation.

So there are certainly some cool things being wheeled out of Adobe and the like, with the possibility for highly advanced and integrated web apps and desktop apps. Adobe’s AIR in particular is looking pretty good. But of course, as a user experience person, I can see there being many opportunities for all this technology to become a usability nightmare. The ball is definitely in our court, though, so far as we need to work out how we can be part of this new generation and create consistent and useful experiences across browser, desktop, device and all the different usage scenarios that that entails.

See what people are blogging about: webdu, RIA, information architecture

Popularity: 18% [?]

Yesterday I attended the half-day WIPA Usability and Eyetracking Seminar, and found it fairly good use of a few hours of my time. Largely because it helped confirm some things in my own mind.

First up was Challenges for Usability in Agile Development presented by John Eklund of UX Research. There has been much talk about agile development methodologies in recent, and probably as much talk about how user experience practitioners can remain valuable in such an environment.

To paraphrase John, my summary of the discussion is as such:

• Agile is about “bringing design forward” (I like this definition)
• It’s about less documentation and specification up-front
• Acknowledge that requirements will not be fully correct, complete or fixed in stone; learn to live with it rather than boxing requirements gathering into one neat discrete step that must be finished before anything else can begin
• Agile is also iterative or incremental development
• Partial prototypes help elicit requirements and specifications from the client
• Clients rarely read spec documentation and often can’t articulate what they want until they see it (you know it’s true!)
• Creativity is less bounded by specification when the specification is yet set (this is not just in terms of visual creativity but also the overall design directions)
• For UX to fit into this methodology it needs to be embedded, flexible, fast and practiced by an experienced practitioner
• For best results in agile environments, UX expertise should be independent of designer (and client)
• Additionally, UX practitioners must play the “expert advocacy” role (providing ad-hoc advice on simple issues without the need for a costly ‘engagement’ or bulky reports)
• Generally faster turn-around is needed for activities like usability testing

I enjoyed John’s perspective on this topic, and a few of his points in particular are closely aligned with my own views on UX practice. I’ve used mentoring in the same way as John’s “expert advocacy” where UX or IA expertise is bought by the hour, allowing for much greater freedom to add value to the design team without having to get approval for a project each time they want to ask a question.

Next up was Eyetracking - Applications in Digital and Media by Peter Brawn of Eyetracker. I was impressed by Peter’s presentation of eyetracking as part of UX practice, as opposed to how I have seen it pitched in the past (that is as the answer to all your problems). This makes sense, since there is a lot that gaze paths and fixation data can not tell you about the usability of a website, and vice versa there are some things you can’t really get out of traditional usability testing and ethnographic research techniques.

For example, a certain section of a website is not receiving much traffic. Usability testing might tell you that users are interested in the content in that section, but perhaps not why they aren’t getting to it. Eyetracking can tell you that users simply don’t look at the obvious, big, fat link that goes to that section, but not why they don’t look at it. Combined you are getting a more complete picture.

That said, I still believe that, dollar for dollar, other methods are better value than eyetracking. For the cost of the hardware and software (or consultants to do it for you) quite a lot of low-tech testing and research could be done. Ideally, you’d do both, but going back to John’s topic, if you want to ensure UX keeps its foot in the door in agile environments—or any other—the approach needs to be lean, mean and cost effective.

I do understand that many clients want the snazzy visualisations you get from eyetracking, not to mention the snob value, but this is only going to be realistic for big corporate clients. Smaller clients should save the cash and use other methods.

See what people are blogging about: agile, eyetracking, user experience, usability testing

Popularity: 15% [?]

It’s so typical for usability professionals to point out the un-usability of everyday things they encounter, and I normally try to resist, but I just have to comment on the Bonds EasySuit.

You’ll no doubt have seen the ads on TV, cute lil buggers wearing stretchy one-piece numbers. They look good and feel good—no seams or buttons—but damned if they are decidedly not easy to put on!

It looks like it’s easy enough, you just open the hole on the lower back and slip it on. Yeah, good luck. You need to bend baby in half and then simultaneously insert arms and legs into the corresponding holes and somehow they’re supposed to spring back into shape, fully clothed.

Grace gives me a slightly perplexed look and emits a short ‘humpf’ as I bend her in half like a pretzel. The look on her face seems to say “you sure you know how to do this?”.

What’s needed is a suit fitting system like in Iron Man :)

Popularity: 14% [?]