tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24262707308565234342024-02-06T19:20:14.022-08:00thisUserdesign & usabilityRoy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-49162840879675290522014-01-23T17:58:00.000-08:002014-01-23T17:58:08.751-08:00Time on Site is the DenominatorA major media company recently did a major redesign of their web site. When users complained about all the problems, and there were many, the sites (re)designers said the problems were the users' fault for not being familiar with the changes, and they pointed to an increase in the time users were spending on the site as proof that the redesign was successful.<br />
<br />
It didn't occur to them that there was another very likely reason for the increased time on the site, namely that users were spending more time on the site because the site was harder to use and harder to navigate. In fact, parts of the redesign increased the number of steps needed to perform a number of common actions, sometimes significantly.<br />
<br />
Underlying all this is that this major media company seems to not understand what time on site represents. It's not really their fault. <i>Time on site</i> is a phrase so prevalent these days that it gets <i><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+on+site%22" target="_blank">138 million hits</a></i> on Google.<br />
<br />
But here's the pivotal question: does the company get value from users spending more time on the site? In fact, they do not. Think about it this way. Which of the following two customers is more valuable to a clothing store?<br />
<ul>
<li>Alex goes to the store, spends an hour trying on pants to find one that fits and looks good, buys the pants and leaves.</li>
<li>Pat goes to the store, tries on one pair of pants and discovers that they fit and look good, so buys them and leaves five minutes later.</li>
</ul>
The answer is obviously Pat, who left a happier customer. Because they hadn't spent an extra 55 minutes trying on pants, they are far more likely to buy other things, even before they leave, and they are more likely to tell their friends about their good experience.<br />
<br />
If the store had measured <i>time in store</i>, they would have thought that Alex was a happier and better customer!<br />
<br />
Time on site is still useful to measure — but in a different way. Here are two straightforward equations:<br />
<br />
<table style="text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td> </td><td><u> value received by users </u><br />
time on site
</td><td> </td><td><div style="text-align: center;">
<u> value received by site (e.g., ad revenue) </u></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
time on site</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Notice that time on site is the <i>denominator</i> in both equations. The first roughly measures how well you're satisfying your users while they're on your site, while the second roughly measures income over time.<br />
<br />
Having visitors to your brick and mortar store costs you money, in terms of employee costs, utility costs, etc., even if the visitor buys nothing. The more visitors you have, the more employees you need, even if the visitors buy nothing. The same is true of your web site. Every minute somebody spends on your web site costs you for server time. Although the absolute cost may be smaller, it is not zero. The formulas above are obvious when you think about that plus the old standard ROI, or return on investment. If you measure and worry about about the return on investment for time on site, you'll have a much better understanding of how your site is doing.<br />
<br />
<div>
What if you have an entertainment property? My company, Puzzazz, is a puzzle technology company that has built a popular <a href="http://www.puzzazz.com/free-puzzle-app" target="_blank">free puzzle app</a> for iOS. You might think we should measure <i>time in app</i> because more time in the app must indicate happier users. Nope. Take the people who solve just the <a href="http://www.puzzazz.com/info/new-york-times-crosswords" target="_blank">New York Times crossword</a> in Puzzazz. Some people can solve a Sunday NYT puzzle in a few minutes; others take an hour or more. Can we draw any conclusions about a user's happiness from the time it takes them to solve the puzzle? No. Different users are not comparable to each other for many reasons and doing things like averaging their times across different puzzles to determine value is not mathematically sound. Instead, we can look at things like puzzles per session and puzzles finished divided by puzzles started. Whatever your site or product is, you should spend the time necessary to figure out what the relevant metrics are.<br />
<br />
It's certainly true that measuring your site's value and effectiveness is far more complicated than I lay out here. But it is even more complicated than measuring a number like time on site and expecting it to tell you much by itself. Especially when you use it as the numerator instead of the denominator.</div>
Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16120240595362341255noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-26308417085246758302012-03-22T23:23:00.002-07:002017-01-11T21:15:07.382-08:00Lose the Landing Page, ReduxI while back I wrote a blog post titled <a href="http://www.thisdev.com/2008/10/19-days-lose-landing-page.html">Lose the Landing Page</a>. Today, I posted a link to it on a mailing list of tech startup entrepreneurs and discovered that some people didn't understand what I was saying.<br />
<br />
So... some clarification.<br />
<br />
When you get a new visitor on your site, what you do with them has nothing to do with how they got there, whether it cost you money to get them there (through a paid ad or however).You should want to convert <b><i>every</i></b> new visitor to a customer or repeat visitor (depending on what type of business you have). You just look worse if you don't convert a visitor you paid for.<br />
<br />
I am not saying you should not do anything special depending on the source of the user. This can be appropriate, for example, you could do something different if a user comes via a particular ad campaign or through a particular search or from a partner site. But <b><i>every</i></b> such page has the same goal -- get the new visitor to become a customer or repeat visitor.<br />
<br />
Every thing you show a new visitor can do one of two things: give them a reason to stay or give them a reason to leave. You want to maximize reasons to stay for people who are potential customers (and, it's also a good idea to give people who are not potential customers reasons to leave, so you <a href="http://www.thisuser.com/2009/05/does-mint-want-unhappy-customers.html">stop wasting time on them</a>).<br />
<br />
One of the best things you can do is provide immediate value and one of the worst things you can do is waste the visitor's time with irrelevant information. Guess what an awful lot of "landing pages" do?<br />
<br />
To cite a recent example, it's undoubtedly true that pictures of families perform better on a "landing page" than dancing squirrels, it is extremely likely that actually providing value to visitors would preform better. What is that value? Well, it depends on your business. Note the use of the word "business" there, not "site". You're running a business, right? Your web site is just a manifestation of your business -- it is not your business.<br />
<br />
And what is the genesis of a typical landing page? It usually goes like this: "<i>Gee, we don't know what to show people when they arrive at our site. Let's show them a page full of information.</i>" The process you should use goes like this "<i>When somebody arrives at our site, what are they looking for? How can we provide value to them so that they turn into a customer of our business?</i>" (again, notice the use of the word "business").<br />
<br />
If you're building a landing page just because you think you're supposed to have one, stop debating between families and squirrels. Lose the page instead and focus on giving your visitors value.<br />
<br />
Caveat: yes, there is a bit of oversimplification here. But not much.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16120240595362341255noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-89287859425740739872011-02-03T15:08:00.000-08:002011-02-03T22:55:04.378-08:00The Business Card ExperienceOne of the first experiences that many people have with your company is with your business card. In Japan, there's an art to presenting a business card -- you hold the card with both hands on one of the short ends and present it forward. When appropriate, give a deferential bow with your head.<br />
<br />
While we don't do things so formally in the US, you can can either make a great first impression or you can blow it. Last night, somebody handed me a business card with an unreadable name on it -- it was his signature digitized. It didn't help that the card also told me nothing about what his company did. A card like that can be an obstacle, rather than an aid.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, designing a good business card isn't hard:<br />
<ul><li>It has to be readable. No yellow on green or psychedelic backgrounds.</li>
<li>Leave breathing room between elements. If it's all jammed together, it's not readable.</li>
<li>Cluster similar elements. Don't put your phone number in one corner and your fax number in a different corner.</li>
<li>A very common layout for business cards is a triangle, with information in three areas. For example, name and title in top middle, company logo in lower left, and contact info in lower right. Triangles are common because they work -- they allow people to focus quickly on each area. Other layouts work too -- just think about how people will read your business card.</li>
<li>Don't right-align text that's hard to read that way -- for example, a street address.</li>
<li>Usually, your name and your logo should be the largest elements. Put another way, whatever is most important should be the most readable.</li>
<li>The larger the logo, the smaller the company. Look at cards you've gotten from people at Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc. If you want to project a bigger image, downsize your logo. The worst thing you can do is fill your card with your logo.</li>
<li>Unless you're a company the size of Microsoft, avoid putting multiple logos on your card.</li>
<li>Downsize the text too, but not so small that people need glasses to read it. I've gotten business cards with which they should have supplied a magnifying glass.</li>
<li>There's nothing wrong with a tagline, especially if your company name doesn't immediately tell people what you do. A tagline is not a paragraph.</li>
<li>If you want to do something unusual -- a photo of your product, an array of images, a QR code -- the back of the card is a great place to do this. Don't clutter the front. If you can make the back useful all the better. Many optometrists have space for your prescription on the back. Puzzazz business cards have a puzzle on the back.</li>
<li>If you're a normal business, don't go with an off-size supplier. Moo cards, cool as they are, are bigger than standard business cards. Use them for personal cards to show off your kids or your photography. Vistaprint cards are smaller than standard, which is a bit less of a problem. While you're at it, business cards are a different sizes in Europe, Japan, etc.</li>
<li>Ignore most of the blog posts on cool business cards -- aluminum, origami, little boxes, etc. If you're an artist, a designer, or Woz, these are great options. The rest of us should stick with something a bit more normal. There are plenty of simple ways to stand out, such as a color choice, an impressive back, a paper choice or even a cut corner. Puzzazz cards have eight different logo colors, so people can choose a card with their favorite color (and there are ten different puzzles that go on the back).</li>
<li>At least one side must be matte in a light color with room to write on. Everybody writes on business cards (except in Japan, where it's a major <i>faux pas</i>). While we're at it, glossy business cards are generally harder to read.</li>
<li>Did I mention it has to be readable?</li>
</ul>And, if you're still working on a logo for your company, check out these posts:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thisuser.com/2008/03/one-thing-about-logos.html">One Thing About Logos</a><br />
<a href="http://www.thisuser.com/2008/09/designing-puzzazz-logo.html">Designing the Puzzazz Logo</a>Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-77039568244842655542010-08-30T19:47:00.000-07:002010-08-30T19:51:24.738-07:00Delivering UXIn April, I ordered a pizza from <a href="http://www.papajohnsonline.com/">Papa John's web site</a> for carryout. And why is that important today?<br />
<br />
Their web site isn't very well done, but, though clunky, it mostly works. This post is about one small but significant flaw.<br />
<br />
You see, four months ago, I chose carryout instead of delivery. And today's order automatically defaulted to carryout as well. So, while we were waiting at home for the pizza to be delivered, it was sitting on a shelf at the restaurant getting cold.<br />
<br />
I wouldn't be surprised if the Papa John's web staff thinks it's my fault. After all, the menu page has a small box off to the side that says "Carryout" on it. It's so in-your-face that I only noticed it when I went back to the site. It's sandwiched between the boxes for the shopping cart, Papa's Points, and an ad for their mobile ordering app -- on a page with more than 70 ordering options and tons of tiny text. It's also equally ignorable on the shopping cart page, and not prominent on the Checkout page (it's at the top, with my address, not at the bottom, next to submit order). Did the developers really think that this information was that unimportant? And did they really think that almost everything on the page should be the same font size?<br />
<br />
And, aside from all that, is it actually true that people order the same way every time? Should have a default rather than a choice on the checkout page (like two buttons "Order for Delivery" and "Order for Carryout")?<br />
<br />
There are so many ways to fix this problem that I'm going to leave it as an exercise for the reader. Pick one or two or three -- but there's no excuse for lack of clarity.<br />
<br />
On the positive side, the Papa John's staff was quite courteous. They remade the pizza and delivered it, no extra charge. But the problem could have -- and should have -- been avoided.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-62435170980679207132010-01-16T18:00:00.000-08:002010-02-06T01:36:31.199-08:00When is Bad Good?I frequently give people conflicting advice in both my UX consulting and my <a href="http://j.mp/uxofficehours">UX Office Hours</a>. What's right for one product is frequently wrong for another product.<br />
<br />
Case in point: two people, one after another, one of whom I told that he should get rid of all his icons and use text, and the other who I told to get rid of all the text and use icons.<br />
<br />
Person 1 had an interface where each icon appeared exactly once. All were cryptic. The icons needed to be large because they all represented complex functions, so there was no text with the icons (even if there had been, it would have been tiny). Better to use just text and lay things out neatly as in an on-screen menu.<br />
<br />
Person 2 had an interface that included a monthly calendar. Inside the days, there were one- and two-word indicators that applied to the individual day. A small calendar filled with small words just becomes a big mess, hard to see what's going on. But, since there were only a half-dozen different things in the calendar, and each was easy to represent by a simple, highly recognizable icon, switching to icons would instantly make it less cluttered and more usable.<br />
<br />
But, yesterday, I gave some advice I've never given to anyone before. For a commercial product, I told him his input format should be a text file.<br />
<br />
Why? Well, his product has two classes of users, like many crowd-sourcing products. The millions (hopefully billions) of people who will flock to his site to use it, and the thousands (and hopefully millions in the long run) who will provide the content for the first group. Initially, the people in that second group is probably tens of people. Every bit of energy he spends on them is time he didn't spend on the group that matters more, the visitors.<br />
<br />
Is there a risk? Certainly. There's always a risk, and we talked about how to minimize the risk by what the text file looks like and how it's used. And we did spend time talking about a design for a "v2" that would be a step up from the text file. But I think the risk of not shipping while trying to build the perfect product for the content providers, or even trying to build the v2 we talked about is greater. Shipping is about focus and, in this case, I think focus is about delivering the right product for the people that matter the most. If he hits his goals of billions of visitors and millions of people putting content up, then he'll have ample time for v2 and v3 of the content provider tool.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-52877244001228360372010-01-15T18:19:00.000-08:002010-01-17T15:02:24.536-08:00Enabling ExperiencesSomething great happened during my free <a href="http://j.mp/uxofficehours">UX Office Hours</a> at StartPad yesterday.<br />
<br />
Usually, I help people, then they go off and I never get to see what's happened. Occasionally, I see a product launch (like <a href="http://www.pictranslator.com/">PicTranslator</a>). The same is largely true in my consulting practice, though there have been a few notable exceptions with <a href="http://www.ibm.com/services/">really big companies</a>.<br />
<br />
This isn't by accident. As you might expect with a UX consultant, it's by design.<br />
<br />
I've noticed that many consultants see it as their job to make their job take longer. And many companies see consultants in that role -- they hire consultants to fill chairs. Instead, my number one goal as a consultant is to enable my client -- enable my client and then leave. We've all heard the old saw, with apologies to vegetarians, "Give someone a fish and they eat for a day; teach them to fish and they can eat for a lifetime." <i>I want to enable my clients to build their product without me, rather than convince them that they can only build their product with me.</i> It's probably not the business-savvy way to build a thriving consulting practice, but I sure feel better about it and I have happy clients.<br />
<br />
Enabling is even more important when you only have an hour, which is what you can get for free in my monthly office hours. I can draw you a pretty picture or design some piece of your system, but then what?<br />
<br />
Back to the great thing that happened yesterday.<br />
<br />
A few months ago, somebody came in and asked me to critique the design he'd been working on. I told him to throw it out. Sounds harsh, I know, but it was completely wrong for what he wanted to do, the customers he wanted to serve, and how he hoped to enable them. I'll could go on. We spent most of the time talking about UX strategies that would work for his customers. I even drew some pictures on the whiteboard showing some examples.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, he came back and showed me his new design. It bore almost no relationship to what he'd brought in earlier -- it was light years better. Honestly, it didn't look like the stuff I'd drawn on the whiteboard either. He learned something and then applied it, and he applied it in the way he thought made the most sense for his customers. I told him that he could ship with his design as-is and be ok. Yes, we could make it better (and we spent the hour discussing how to do that), and, yes, if he spent oodles of time on it (which I recommended against), he could make it way better, but the difference between the first and second versions was great to see, and it looks like he's on a good path.<br />
<br />
It was one of those rare instances where I got to see what happened, and it felt pretty good.<br />
<br />
<i>Tomorrow, I'll write about another lesson from the same session: When is Bad Good?</i>Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-87674808114887687322009-12-02T20:24:00.000-08:002009-12-02T20:24:19.266-08:00OpportunitiesOne of the speakers at Ignite Seattle 8 was <a href="http://twitter.com/wendyabc">Wendy Chisholm</a>, who works for the UW and is co-author of <a href="http://j.mp/5UiURQ">Universal Design for Web Applications</a>. Her talk was about incorporating accessibility into design. I won't go over what she said here -- it'll be up on YouTube soon enough and you can watch it for yourself (I recommend it).<br />
<br />
But I want to write about the following equation that she included in her presentation:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Inclusion = Innovation<br />
</div><br />
Her point was that many things that are done for the purpose of inclusion (to make things more accessible) result in innovations from which far more people benefit. It's a good argument, the same one made for the space program and I agree with it completely. I would go further, though:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Constraints = Opportunities<br />
</div><br />
This statement is fundamental to the way I design things and the way I approach many things in life.<br />
<br />
One of my favorite personal examples is the competition to design a memorial for the World Trade Center. I entered, along with more than 5,000 other people. There were a lot of <a href="http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/about_guidelines.html">requirements</a> given for the memorial, including such things as boundaries, elevation, and required ramps and staircases. I looked at each of the requirements and asked myself how the requirement was an opportunity. How could I design a memorial such that not only was the requirement met, but it was essential? What design would make it so that people visiting the memorial could not even imagine it being any other way? Maybe they'd even think the requirement was my idea rather than something forced on me. This is one of the hallmarks of great design -- when the design is so obviously correct that you can't imagine how it can be otherwise.<br />
<br />
My <a href="http://www.wtcsitememorial.org/ent/entI=858271.html">design</a> met every single requirement and it did so organically, embracing the requirements, not fighting them. I was particularly proud of the way the ramps (that were complained about by entrants) were the linchpin of the experience my design would have provided. In contrast, every finalist ignored many (sometimes most) of the requirements. And in the other entries that I looked through -- and there were many great entries beyond the finalists -- the ramps requirement was the most ignored. It turned out that the requirements weren't really required, something I might have known if I had any background in architecture. To state the obvious, no, I didn't win the competition, not even close. As was clear from the finalists, they were looking for something monumental and my entry wasn't monumental -- I designed an experience, not a monument.<br />
<br />
It shouldn't have been too much of a surprise that the constraints were fluid. This happens all the time in the world of computers. But that shouldn't stop us from embracing the constraints as we know them. By turning constraints into opportunities, we get innovation.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-12423467004738764372009-12-01T11:38:00.000-08:002009-12-01T11:38:47.074-08:00Yes, Companies Do ListenIn October, I <a href="http://www.thisuser.com/2009/10/does-tullys-want-customers.html">blogged</a> about a major flaw in the Tully's web site, <a href="http://tullys.com/">tullys.com</a> -- basically, there was no way to find a Tully's location unless you knew about their secondary site, <a href="http://tullyscoffeeshops.com/">tullyscoffeeshops.com</a>. Yesterday, Tully's fixed it, not only providing the link but making it prominent. Yes, it could be better still, but now it's a lot better than plenty of other sites.<br />
<br />
The surprising thing was the post on their Facebook page (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&suggest&note_id=190372747021&id=53471143639">The Power of User-Generated Feedback for Companies</a>) where they credited me with inspiring them to action. That's great to hear. Helping people improve the experience for their users and customers is why I write it. When I help people in my UX consulting practice or for free in my monthly UX office hours, I get to see the benefit firsthand. But, with my blog, it's hard to see the direct impact.<br />
<br />
Thanks, Tully's.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-37732638787842921822009-10-29T11:44:00.000-07:002009-10-29T11:44:00.314-07:00Why You Need Anecdotal EvidenceHave you ever heard the phrase "That's just anecdotal"? Usually, it's used to discount somebody's opinion about the way something should be. In UX terms, if you've observed a user, saw them have a problem, and want to respond to what you saw, you may have someone tell you it's just anecdotal -- in other words, you don't have hard, objective, statistical evidence, so forget it.<br />
<br />
But there's a contradiction here. There's a belief that, if you gather enough anecdotal evidence, it magically becomes hard evidence. You can even see this in the latest ad campaign for Windows. Millions of people sent in their ideas, or were surveyed or studied, and their opinions -- anecdotal evidence -- is now real evidence. How does this magic work? Well, it can't. Two people who said different but similar things, or even the same things under different conditions, can't be lumped together in some statistical box.<br />
<br />
But that doesn't mean that anecdotal evidence is worthless. Quite the contrary. It's invaluable (and Microsoft should be commended for actually listening to users). Anecdotal evidence provides you with something that hard data can't -- feelings. In a typical usability test or, these days, a web site A/B test, success is measured by whether or not somebody succeeds in a task. How about whether they frowned or smiled, tapped their fingers on their desk impatiently, hummed to themselves, or cursed at their computer?<br />
<br />
I recommend that you gather as much anecdotal evidence as you can and let it infect your world view. Try to feel what your users feel, think like they think, and use that to design your products. And, after that, gather hard evidence on whether you were right or wrong and move forward from there. But, if you don't start with a feeling about what's the right thing to do, no amount of hard evidence will help you.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-60488083330155283322009-10-25T11:23:00.000-07:002009-10-25T11:23:00.685-07:00Can UX Swing an Election?In 2000, the infamous "Butterfly Ballot" probably threw the election to George W. Bush, costing Americans more than a trillion dollars and who knows what else. Can it happen again? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Right now, in King County, Washington, an abysmally designed ballot runs the risk of driving the state into the ground. The problem has two parts.<br />
<br />
First, the State of Washington is unfortunate enough to have an idiot named Tim Eyman who makes his living on proposing initiatives. He doesn't do anything else. Initially, he denied that he was making money off the initiatives that he proposed, but enough information was made public that he had to admit it. When he proposed his first initiative, he apparently sold watches, but I think that business is long gone. His first initiative was a "$30 car tab initiative." Eyman picked that number out of thin air (literally, it came from Colorado, with no relationship to the cost of anything in Washington). Some of the people who voted for it who promptly lost their jobs after the election because of all the programs that were slashed, but they didn't see the connection. And Eyman, who said repeatedly that the initiative wasn't about him, went out and bought an expensive SUV right after the election. Amazingly, Eyman managed to garner a following of people who'll vote for anything that will supposedly cut their taxes without regard to what it actually means. This year, Eyman's initiative, I-1033, is one more poorly thought-out proposal. Pick the worst state budget in ten years, in the midst of a recession, and force the state to stick with that budget, essentially, forever.<br />
<br />
So what's this have to do with UX? Well, Eyman is only thinking about himself. What provocative initiative can he propose to guarantee that he's still paid a salary? He doesn't care about the experience of the average Washingtonian. I don't even think he cares if the initiative passes. If it fails, he's got another one to propose to pay him through the next election. This is no way to design a government that works for all the people. With good design, you need to think about the whole range of people that will be affected -- and, funny thing about it, that's what our whole legislative process is designed for. Gadflies and devil's advocates can be extremely useful and have a long, rich history in this country. If Tim Eyman actually cared about the state, he would work with our government rather than against it, but, alas, there's no profit in that.<br />
<br />
On to the second issue.<br />
<br />
King County royally screwed up the ballot, literally marginalizing I-1033. Take a look:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://no1033.org/images/king_county_ballot_vote_no.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://no1033.org/images/king_county_ballot_vote_no.jpg" width="263" /></a><br />
</div><br />
The first column of the ballot contains the instructions that nobody reads, and the top of the second column looks like the start of the ballot, not the middle. This means that some King County voters, perhaps many, will start in the second column and miss voting in I-1033.<br />
<br />
The naysayers argue that it's trivial and that, even it's not, it doesn't matter because both people voting for and against the initiative will miss it. On the trivial argument, go back to the top and think about the Butterfly Ballot and what an effect it had. On the second argument, that would be valid if every ballot in the state had the exact same problem, but only King County has the problem. And it is not the case that voters in King County and the rest of the state vote for and against initiatives in approximately equal percentages. In fact, King County voters are more likely to vote against Eyman's initiatives. Combine that with the fact that King County is the most populous county in the state and you definitely have the possibility of a fraudulent election. Despite a large push by the <a href="http://no1033.org/">No On 1033 campaign</a> to alert voters to the problem, I am sure that we will see significantly fewer people voting on I-1033 than on other ballot items.<br />
<br />
In summary, design really matters and bad design hurts. The only question here is whether the bad design will be big enough to swing the election.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-89777070504187482092009-10-13T10:47:00.000-07:002009-12-01T11:40:28.660-08:00Does Tully's Want Customers?Suppose you want to go to Tully's. You know how this works. You just go to <a href="http://www.tullys.com/">tullys.com</a> and type in your zip code, perhaps your address, and you'll get a list of nearby Tully's. Or at least that's how it's supposed to work. Give it a try.<br />
<br />
Can't figure it out? Neither could I. It turns out that there is an entirely separate web site, <a href="http://www.tullyscoffeeshops.com/">tullyscoffeeshops.com</a> for that purpose. And tullys.com does not contain a link anywhere to that site. Do they want customers?<br />
<br />
This is a surprisingly common problem. Usually, it's just sites trying to be too subtle, favoring conforming to some style sheet over actually being usable. Look at <a href="http://www.bestbuy.com/">bestbuy.com</a>, for example, where Store Locator is mixed in with the non-parallel Weekly Ad, Outlet Center, Services, and Gifts. or <a href="http://www.costco.com/">costco.com</a>, where it's even smaller and in an even bigger list.<br />
<br />
But Tully's has taken it to a new level by removing the link completely!<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b>: Yes, Tully's does want customers. <a href="http://www.thisuser.com/2009/12/yes-companies-do-listen.html">Read what happened</a>.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-48280166697315712992009-10-11T10:52:00.000-07:002009-10-11T10:52:00.242-07:00Does T-Mobile Want To Steal My Identity?It can be hard to tell real companies from scam artists sometimes. I got a call the other day from T-Mobile about my bill. They had overcharged me by $24 and I was late paying the bill because I wanted it fixed (and, in this economy, they call the day after it's due!). The discussion of why they would possibly think I wanted text messaging turned off on my account when I switched from a BlackBerry to a MyTouch is a topic for another post in the future<br />
<br />
The T-Mobile agent who called me asked for part of my social security number to verify that I was who I said I was. I refused. <i>Hey, you called me! How do I know you're not a scam artist?</i> He told me that he was from T-Mobile and I should believe him, that, if I didn't give him my social security number, he couldn't help me. All things a scam artist would say, of course. The fact remains that I had no proof he was who he said he was.<div><br />
<div>I tried to explain to the guy that T-Mobile should never, ever ask a question like that because, to the extent that people answer it, you're training them that it's OK to give your confidential information to somebody who calls you on the phone. You're enabling scam artists. Unfortunately, he just didn't get it.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The rules are simple. In the world of client-server architecture, it's known as "never trust the client". In the real world, it's "never trust somebody who calls you."</div><div><ul><li>Never, ever give confidential information to somebody who calls you, even an innocuous thing like an account number. You don't know that they are who they say they are.</li>
<li>If you call somebody, never, ever ask for confidential information when you call somebody. If you need confidential information, ask them to call you back at a number which is posted prominently on your web site or which is well known (like 1-800-T-MOBILE).</li>
</ul><br />
<br />
<br />
</div></div>Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-67127492401179040622009-10-10T18:06:00.000-07:002009-10-10T18:06:13.296-07:00Is Comcast Helping Scammers?Comcast wants to fight scammers, but they're inadvertently going to help them.<br />
<br />
Comcast, like all Internet service providers, is directly impacted by so-called botnets, machines that have been hijacked by viruses and other malware to serve as robots in the service of scammers. The botnets are useful to the scammers because it allows them to send spam and launch attacks from many locations instead of a single location, which makes them much harder to catch and shut down.<br />
<br />
Comcast's idea is to inflict popup ads on their customers that appear to be compromised. which provide them with information. According the the <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33247421">AP article</a>, the ad says "Comcast has detected that there may be a virus on your computer(s). For information on how to clean your computer(s), please visit the Comcast Anti-Virus Center."<br />
<br />
There are a couple of problems with this:<div><ul><li>To the extent that it works, it trains people that popup ads that claim to be helping you clean your computer are legitimate. The problem is that, with this sole exception, none of them are.</li>
<li>It trains people that clicking on a link in an unexpected popup ad is an ok thing to do, when it almost never is.</li>
<li>It trains people that something like this can be trusted, when it's very easy to fake it.</li>
</ul><div>I don't like the popup in any event, but, if they're going to do it, I think there are a couple of things they must do:</div><div><ul><li>The popup shouldn't look at all like an ad and it certainly shouldn't mimic any OS feature.</li>
<li>The popup should contain no (that's zero) links in it. Just to be clear: None. Instead, the ad should say "... please visit comcast.com in your browser and click on the xyz link ..." Train people not to click on links like that and train people that the only way to know for sure that they're actually on the comcast site is to go to comcast themselves, not to trust a link.</li>
<li>The popup should not have any button in it. No close button. Nothing to click on at all. Just "Close this window after you've read it." Don't train people to click buttons in unexpected popups.</li>
</ul><div>And how about thinking if there's a better way to attack the whole problem, like doing something in concert with Microsoft and Apple (OS vendors), or Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google (browser vendors).</div></div></div>Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-53388149571037857902009-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:002009-06-22T22:42:31.021-07:00Heads I Win, Tails You LoseI couldn't believe this question that I ran into on the T-Mobile site:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfaUydguUaykDcko-UtsNu5P5BdwsJT8WL5qiKd-j9DZ02qhss5EEuoAwp2lETUmePT6jCTpZyRYtRQJozsNUQ0KVhVb0L6r7v21dkjCOrbgL5rvmPF6Ujxtf4Yabwtn1VLZ-meWukWkG/s1600-h/disagree-or-no.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIfaUydguUaykDcko-UtsNu5P5BdwsJT8WL5qiKd-j9DZ02qhss5EEuoAwp2lETUmePT6jCTpZyRYtRQJozsNUQ0KVhVb0L6r7v21dkjCOrbgL5rvmPF6Ujxtf4Yabwtn1VLZ-meWukWkG/s400/disagree-or-no.png" /></a></div><br />
Which would you choose?Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-40612966210511997112009-06-16T00:00:00.000-07:002009-06-16T11:35:57.179-07:00Android Annoyances, Yet ...I had the opportunity to use a Google I/O phone for about a week. I found a lot of things not to like about Android, but I'm getting an Android phone anyway.<br />
<br />
The I/O phone is the same HTC phone that is supposedly shipping later this month as the T-Mobile myTouch and is also known as the HTC Ion. It's a great phone -- rock solid hardware, quality touchscreen and buttons, a great shape for my pocket.<br />
<br />
Google's Android operating system is pretty good too. I had played with Android briefly before, but this is the first time that I'd spent any significant time with it. Overall, I'd rate Android as comparable to the iPhone. There are some things I like better, some things I don't like as much. Here are some of the big things that I think are wrong with Android:<br />
<ul><li>To turn the speakerphone on during a call, you have to press the Menu button, then choose speakerphone from the menu which shows 9 items. Since a big reason you might want to turn on the speakerphone is that you're driving, this should be an operation you can perform without looking at the screen. <i>My suggestion: Pressing and holding the Menu button during a call turns on/off the speakerphone.</i></li>
<li>To get the numeric touchpad during a call, you have to drag up the touchpad, an awkward action when you're in the midst of a call (or driving). <i>My suggestion: The menu button shows the touchpad. At the bottom of the touchpad is a More button which shows the other, less frequently-used menu items. Or, the menu button could cycle between neither, touchpad, menu, then back to neither.</i></li>
<li>The voice dialing is worthless. What's the point of voice dialing, if you have to look at the phone to see whether it recognized the name?</li>
<li>Did I mention that voice dialing is worthless? To start it, you have to unlock the phone and run an application. Why doesn't the button on my Bluetooth headset work like it does on most phones?</li>
<li>The messages that appear when you get a second call when you're on a call already don't actually tell you what to do. This is particularly odd since they did such a nice job with the main call UI. I figured out that the green (answer) button switches between calls, but what about the other functions, like hanging up the first call to take the second? There's no need to be subtle.</li>
<li>You can't put a button on the home screen that makes a phone call -- you can only put a Contact, so making a phone call is a minimum of two steps (after unlocking the phone). Fortunately, the third-party app AnyCut fixes this.</li>
<li>The Gmail application can't be configured to work with more than one email account. I know I'm far from alone in having multiple email accounts.</li>
<li>Android does include a separate Email application for other accounts. But, the second application isn't nearly as good, even when using a Gmail account. Setup is far from ideal. Although it automatically configures Gmail and Hotmail accounts, other accounts require you to select either POP3 or IMAP and provide server settings. I was not able to configure a Google Apps account properly, but apparently it does work. Why don't they provide a third option for Google Apps or, better, recognize Google Apps domains automatically?</li>
<li>When you save bookmarks to the home page, they all look alike. If the site has a large favicon associated with it, why doesn't it use that, like Google Chrome does? Or enlarge the small favicon? Fortunately, the third-party app Bookmark 2 has this one taken care of. It's not very elegant, but, for the most part, setting up home page bookmarks is something one does infrequently.</li>
<li>Why are the backgrounds of all the home screens the same? It would be great to be able to make them different as a means of instant orientation. Also, why are there only three home screens?</li>
<li>Android has a very nice predictive text feature while you're typing. It makes the touchscreen keyboard bearable. But, it doesn't work everywhere -- like when you're typing an email message.</li>
<li>When you swipe, sometimes things stay selected afterwards. I think they're not really selected -- it just looks like it. This one's just a bug.</li>
</ul>Despite these complaints (and there are additional, less important ones), I'm planning to get a myTouch. For my purposes, it's better than the iPhone. I don't care about the iPhone's big advantages, like handling music really well. I have an iPod Touch for iPhone games (including the ones I'm writing). And, I think the myTouch is a better <i>phone</i>, though I know in these days of text messaging, actual phone usage seems to get short shrift. <br />
<br />
Google has a good track record of updating their products and they already shipped one major upgrade in the first six months. I have confidence they'll fix these problems and, unlike older phones, I'll get the fixes and new features automatically. And, the fact is that my list of annoyances for the iPhone is just as long.<br />
<br />
The final trump card is that the T-Mobile rate plan is $30 a month cheaper than the equivalent plan on AT&T. And that's not counting the fact that calls to my family are free on T-Mobile, so the AT&T plan might well turn out to be $40 or $50 a month higher. Over two years, that's an extra $720+ for the iPhone.<br />
<br />
But, all this brings up the biggest issue that irks me about this phone: <i>I can't buy one yet.</i><br />
<div><br />
</div><b>Updated</b>: I had said that the Email application didn't work with Google Apps accounts. Apparently, it does, but the setup could be improved.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-24306789208376057542009-05-10T01:23:00.000-07:002009-05-22T11:04:22.796-07:00Ignore All Data<blockquote>"Data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions."<br />
<i> -- Douglas Bowman, Creative Director, Twitter (formerly Google)</i></blockquote><blockquote>"We let the math and the data govern how things look and feel."<i><br />
-- Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience, Google</i></blockquote>These quotes are from an interesting <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10ping.html">article</a> in Sunday's New York Times. Marrisa Mayer is a very smart woman, so it's disappointing how dumb that quote makes her look. I don't want to jump into the middle of this argument (oops, I already did), but the fact is that, despite the title to this post, neither of them is right. Real data about usage can be really useful, but over-relying on data can be a disaster. Over and over again, I've seen companies (and UX consulting clients) so buried in data they they couldn't figure anything out.<br />
<br />
The data might tell you where users clicked, but it won't tell you why. The data might tell you whether users accomplished a task, but it won't tell you if they were happy . The data might tell you whether users clicked more or less on ads, but it won't tell you how they felt about the advertisers.<br />
<br />
More importantly, the data might tell you what's broken, but it won't give you any hints as to how to fix it. No matter what the data tells you, it can't give you inspiration to boldly go new places (yes, the new <a href="http://www.startrekmovie.com/">Star Trek movie</a> just came out).<br />
<br />
I'll admit that I probably should have titled this post "Ignore Most Data" but that's not as provocative.<br />
<br />
Data can be amazingly misleading. It's garbage in--garbage out, but the garbage going in is the questions. Unless you really know what questions you should be asking for, what you should be looking for in the data, what options you should be considering, and what the differences are -- unless you really understand the feel of what you're trying to figure out -- all the data in the world is worthless.<br />
<br />
And guess what? If you know all that stuff, if you understand the feel of what you have and the feel of what you want, you're 80% of the way toward figuring out what you should be doing. And 80% of the way is pretty good.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-10353669958928328622009-05-07T01:17:00.000-07:002009-05-07T01:17:11.421-07:00Does Mint Want Unhappy Customers?Imagine you go into a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0">cheese shop</a> trying to buy some cheese. You just want some Cheddar. You ask if they have it, but they won't tell you. Instead, they want you to sign up -- give them your name, contact information, bank and credit card accounts, and only then will they answer your question. OK. You do it, you give them all that information and then the answer is, no, they don't have any Cheddar, they've never carried it, and have no idea if they'll ever carry it. But they'll make a note of it as a suggestion.<br />
<br />
Sounds preposterous, doesn't it? Well, it's Mint.com, a site which touts themselves as "the best free way to manage your money." But, if Mint doesn't support your bank, they can't very well help you manage your money, can they? They can't support you as a customer -- they shouldn't want you as a customer. But, they'd rather you go through the bother of signing up to discover you wasted your time because there's no way to find out if your bank is supported before you sign up.<br />
<br />
But, wait, it gets worse. Mint seems to think this is a good idea. Their support staff argues that they can still help you with your other financial institutions and that tracking some of your financial institutions is better than tracking none. What?! The number one financial institution that most people have is their bank (or credit union). If they don't support your bank, Mint is probably useless to you. They should realize that. But, even if that wasn't the case, Microsoft Money or Quicken probably does support your bank, so tracking just some of your financial institutions is certainly not better than tracking all of them in Money or Quicken.<br />
<br />
Does Mint really want unhappy customers? Apparently so, but it's a bad business practice.<br />
<br />
If there are customers you can't make happy, you should send them away and you should send them away as early as you can. Don't spend your time and resources or waste their time if you know you can't make them happy. Send them to a competitor who can make them happy.<br />
<br />
The fact is, customers who you cannot service are going to go away sooner or later -- your goal should be to make sure they don't go away mad.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-77705621508845003832009-04-27T15:51:00.000-07:002009-05-10T00:01:28.599-07:00Ignite Seattle Looks Promising (and I'm giving a talk)I'm talking at <a href="http://www.igniteseattle.com/">Ignite Seattle</a> on Wednesday. It's about UX, but it's pretty different than any UX talk you've seen before -- and it's only 5 minutes long. Here's the blurb:<br />
<blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer's</span><br />
When the time came to move my father-in-law into an Alzheimer’s facility, I approached the problem as I approach any technical problem -- I needed to meet the needs of the user, even if he didn’t know them and couldn’t express them. I crafted an experience (a UX) for him in his new home which meets those needs and I worked to make sure that the actual move itself did the same.</blockquote>Obviously, I think my talk will be interesting and entertaining, but, from the titles and <a href="http://www.igniteseattle.com/2009/04/ignite-seattle-speakers/">descriptions</a>, it promises to be a great evening.<br />
<br />
Here's the full lineup:<br />
<br />
<strong>8:30 - First Set of Talks </strong><br />
Hillel Cooperman (<a href="http://twitter.com/hillel" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@hillel</a>) - The Secret Underground World of Lego<br />
Dawn Rutherford (<a href="http://twitter.com/dawnoftheread" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@dawnoftheread</a>) - Public Library Hacking<br />
Roy Leban (<a href="http://twitter.com/royleban" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@royleban</a>) - Worst Case User Experience: Alzheimer’s<br />
Shelly Farnham (<a href="http://twitter.com/ShellyShelly" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@ShellyShelly</a>) Community Genius: Leveraging Community to Increase your Creative Powers<br />
Dominic Muren (<a href="http://twitter.com/dmuren" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@dmuren</a>) - Humblefacturing a Sustainable Electronic Future<br />
Jen Zug (<a href="http://twitter.com/jenzug" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@jenzug</a>) - The Sanity Hacks of a Stay At Home Mom<br />
Ken Beegle (<a href="http://twitter.com/kbeegle" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@kbeegle</a>) - Decoding Sticks and Waves<br />
Maya Bisineer (<a href="http://twitter.com/thinkmaya" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@thinkmaya</a>) - Geek Girl - A life Story<br />
Scott Berkun (<a href="http://www.scottberkun.com/" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">Scottberkun.com</a>)- How and Why to Give an Ignite Talk<br />
<br />
<strong>9:45 PM - Second Set of Talks</strong><br />
Scotto Moore (<a href="http://scotto.org/" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">Scotto.org</a>)- Intangible Method<br />
<strong>Secret</strong> Guest Speaker from Ignite Portland<br />
Mike Tykka - The Invention of the Wheel<br />
Jason Preston (<a href="http://twitter.com/Jasonp107" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@Jasonp107</a>) - Goodbye Tolstoy: How to say anything in 140 characters or less<br />
Chris DiBona (<a href="http://twitter.com/cdibona" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@cdibona</a>) - The Coolness of Telemedicine<br />
Ron Burk - The Psychology of Incompetence<br />
Katherine Hernandez (<a href="http://twitter.com/ipodtouchgirl" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@ipodtouchgirl</a>) - The Mac Spy<br />
Jamie Gower <a href="http://www.jamiegower.com/" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">JamieGower.com</a>) - I Am %0.0002 Cyborg<br />
Beth Goza (<a href="http://twitter.com/bethgo" style="color: #0066dd; text-decoration: none;">@bethgo</a>) - Knitting in CodeRoy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-52216123849617088262009-03-14T11:22:00.000-07:002009-03-14T11:23:15.519-07:00Matching User ExperiencesAt Thursday's <a href="http://startpad.org/events/office-hours">UX Office Hours</a> , a funny thing happened -- somebody came in wanting to talk about user experience. The reason I say that's funny is that, most of the time, people come in wanting to talk about their <span style="font-style: italic;">user interfaces</span>, not their <span style="font-style: italic;">user experience</span>. They bring in mockups, screen snapshots, prototypes, and actual products and web sites. And they want to know what to do to make it better. Almost always, I have to pop the conversation up a level, to talk about what they want to accomplish for their users, rather than how they should move pixels around. Part of what I try to do is to educate people so that, when they walk out, they're better equipped to move forward. So, what's the difference between UI and UX?<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, you want to give your users a good <span style="font-style: italic;">user experience<span style="font-style: normal;">. A good experience means they'll be able to accomplish what they want, they'll be happy with your product, etc. One of the ways to get a good user experience is to have a good </span>user interface<span style="font-style: normal;">. You might think that makes no sense -- how can it be that UI is only one of the ways to provide a good UX? What other ways can there possibly be? Well, here are a few:</span></span><br />
<ul><li>Provide functionality or content that your users can't find anywhere else, that they absolutely need</li>
<li>Do things automatically for your users, so they don't have to see any UI</li>
<li>Build a system that is fast, that, once learned, allows your users to do things faster than they can anywhere else</li>
<li>Same, but replace "fast" with "better" in some context specific to your business</li>
<li>Pay your users money (yes, this is real -- look at Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, or Ebay)</li>
</ul>And what should you do? You should work to understand your users and then do those things that will give them the experience that you think will accomplish your business objectives.<br />
<br />
Back to the guy who came in yesterday. It was a great discussion and I hope I was able to help him better understand what he needed to do. One slightly surprising thing was that his company has two very distinct classes of users and he was trying to figure out how to craft an experience that met both of their needs. Unlike a system like Ebay, where buyers and sellers are largely similar people, or Monster, where the point of the site is for job seekers and job posters to interact with each other, his two classes of users weren't similar and weren't going to be interacting with each other. I told him that he should build two completely separate UIs for these two groups, that to try to build one interface would end up serving nobody well. After he left, I thought of some great examples:<br />
<ul><li>Google provides completely different experiences for people placing ads, for people putting ads on their sites, and, of course, for people seeing ads on the net.</li>
<li>Amazon Associates provides a completely different experience for associates than they do users who see associates' links.<br />
</li>
</ul>While his business is different from these, the same rules apply. And the bar for the quality of the UI is different for these different classes of users -- the interface for people creating and placing ads,or creating associate links is so much less important than what the people seeing ads or an associate link get. The first group of people are making money, so they're incented and a bad UI won't stop them from using the service. But, if the ad or link UI is wrong, nobody will make any money.<br />
<br />
To provide the best product for your users, you want to create an experience that matches them. Sometimes, that means figuring out the classes of users you have and building different experiences for them.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-55585242159564147622009-02-01T11:32:00.000-08:002009-02-01T11:32:00.394-08:00What's in a Name?My son tells me that Kinko's is crazy to change their name to FedEx Office. When they bought Kinko's, FedEx changed the name to FedEx Kinko's, and now they've changed it again, to FedEx Office. They're not completely done with the brand changeover, so you can still see the Kinko's name in some places.<br />
<br />
Why the change? Well, FedEx management apparently believes that "Kinko's" is a weak name, that doesn't adequately reflect the "broader role of providing superior information and services." This branding expertise comes from the same company that insisted on being Federal Express, not FedEx, long after everybody but company insiders used the short name. But even an 11-year-old can see that Kinko's is a unique, original, memorable name. And the name has a long history, starting from when the company was founded in 1970, through the expansion to 1400 stores, right up until FedEx bought them for $2.4 billion dollars. Couldn't part of that value have been in the name?<br />
<br />
It seems that FedEx wants Kinko's to be something more than it is today. That's all fine and good. They bought the company for synergy, with the hopes that the sum would be greater than the parts. But, you make that synergy work through products and services, not just the name. When I go into a FedEx Office store, with the exception of the shipping counter, it's pretty much the same way it was before, so all the new name does is buy customer confusion.<br />
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As if all this wasn't bad enough, FedEx has compounded it by doing something truly stupid. If you look in the phone book for Kinko's, because you're familiar with them and you want to use their services, you'll be out of luck. You see, FedEx Office can't be found in the K's. This doesn't help customers learn the new name. Rather, it takes customers who know the old name and it sends them away. At least www.kinkos.com redirects to an appropriate place on the FedEx web site.<br />
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Companies can get this right and Macy's is a great example. Macy's parent company, Federated Stores, bought The Bon Marché (a Pacific Northwest clothing chain) a few years ago. Macy's similarly changed the name to Bon-Macy's, and then to just Macy's. But Macy's is already known nationwide as a clothing retailer, whereas the FedEx name is still not associated with office services. And, when you look for The Bon Marché in the B's in the phone book, you'll find them, three years after the final name change. They're not sending customers away.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-23840779688056764502009-01-01T21:26:00.001-08:002009-01-01T21:27:01.543-08:00Avoid Fictitious Use CasesI have a stereo hidden in my kitchen cabinet, with wires that run to speakers in the wall. It's nice that the stereo's hidden away, but it's a pain to use. I wanted to connect it to the iPod on which we have all our music, and I recently discovered that <a href="http://www.creative.com/">Creative</a> makes a wireless device that seemed perfect. I could put the iPod in a wireless dock on the counter and attach a wireless receiver to the stereo. Or so I thought. It turns out that Creative didn't really think things through.<br />
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The system consists of two parts, the Xdock and the X-Fi Receiver. There are only two ways you can possibly use this system, but the system doesn't really support either way.<br />
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The first way is to use the Xdock by itself and connect it to your stereo. But, there are no standard RCA audio connections to do so. The only outputs are S-Video, video, and audio optical. And, oh yeah, there's a headphone jack on the front. So, they've substituted an audio optical connection (and a mini one at that) for the universally standard RCA jacks. Just to make sure that I wasn't out of touch with the current state of the art in receivers, I checked on Amazon. Sure enough, the majority of stereo receivers that I looked at did not have audio optical connectors. RCA jacks are still the standard. So, even if you want to connect the Xdock to your stereo, the vast majority of people will be unable to do so. And, for me, there's nothing in my house that I can connect the Xdock to.<br />
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The second way is to use the Xdock as a transmitter and the X-Fi Receiver as a receiver. This is the usage that I bought them for. If you read Creative's web site, it sounds like you can control the whole thing from the Receiver. And that would be great. You tuck the X-Fi Receiver away in a cabinet or behind your stereo and just use the Xdock. Unfortunately, the very first thing that I wanted to control -- the volume, duh! -- can't be controlled by the Xdock. Only the volume control on the Receiver itself controls the volume of its audio output. It's as if the folks at Creative hadn't even thought of the obvious use of the transmitter/receiver pair.<br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Interestingly, the volume controls rotate continuously -- they're soft controls with the true volume level being set in firmware. So, of course, I expected both volume controls to work, and my initial assumption was that I had missed something in setup (the documentation is rather scanty). Sadly, there was nothing to miss.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><br />
So, how do the people at Creative think their devices are used? According to the support staff at Creative, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the sole purpose of the [X-Fi] Receiver is to be used by a user who would like to listen to the same music being played on the Xdock but not on the same volume level.</span>" What? The sole purpose for the X-Fi Receiver to exist is so that two separate people can listen to the same music, in different rooms, at different volume levels?! Yeah, there's a product need crying out for a solution!<br />
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I wouldn't have faulted Creative if they hadn't put volume controls on the product at all -- after all, the output has to go to an amplifier and most amplifiers have volume controls. If that had been the case, or if the sentence above had been on Creative's web site, I simply wouldn't have bought them and I wouldn't be a disgruntled customer. But, to provide controls that only work to support a fictitious use case, in a product that doesn't support multiple, obvious use cases -- that makes no sense.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-26640074588920122212008-12-23T09:15:00.000-08:002008-12-23T09:15:02.398-08:00Why I'm Switching From Chrome To FirefoxWhen Google Chrome came out of Beta, I switched to it as my primary browser. I like Chrome very much, but now I'm switching back to Firefox. There are a couple of reasons. The biggest pain is that I see this message a lot:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9FN0iQ3e9W1I1GqDHHUnmb9N9AWzCFvXAEJy1Y46aODIiOI-WzcjIycyVTu3uBGeCd-iykU-QHlNr4CIG3mWkF3EYPlV0fbW7Pzphd6usBrfvksNJONBOgA38tUJdogUo3KdbBxSLKpm/s1600-h/chrome-resubmit.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9FN0iQ3e9W1I1GqDHHUnmb9N9AWzCFvXAEJy1Y46aODIiOI-WzcjIycyVTu3uBGeCd-iykU-QHlNr4CIG3mWkF3EYPlV0fbW7Pzphd6usBrfvksNJONBOgA38tUJdogUo3KdbBxSLKpm/s400/chrome-resubmit.gif" /></a></div>There are a lot of sites that routinely use forms as you navigate through them. Amazon, one of the biggest sites on the internet, is one of them, but they are hardly alone. When you go Back in Chrome, you frequently see this page. I <b><i>never</i> </b>want to see this message again. I don't want Chrome resubmitting the form for me. It's almost always the wrong thing to do and that politely worded message is almost always incorrect. I want it just to show me what was on my screen 3 seconds ago. For example: when I add something to my wish list on Amazon, Amazon adds the item to the wish list and shows me a bunch of suggestions. If I click on something that looks interesting, then go Back, Chrome wants to resubmit the form that I didn't even know existed. If I don't, I can't see the suggestions again. But, if I do, Amazon tells me that the item is already on my Wish List and still doesn't show me the suggestions. How about this instead: a message that says "This page may be out of date."<br />
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But, wait, there's more.<br />
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I was in the midst of giving a demo of <a href="http://www.groupthink.com/">Groupthink</a> using Chrome and a page simply didn't work. It loaded, but nothing was live in the page. What's going on? It turned out that one of the JavaScript files I needed wasn't loading because I didn't have a network connection (everything else was loaded from the server I was running locally). Had I been using Firefox, I would have seen a note about errors in the lower right corner of the window. But Chrome showed me nothing -- it just made me look bad.<br />
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I use <a href="http://www.faves.com/">Faves</a> for permanent bookmarking (if you haven't tried it, it's the best bookmarking service out there, bar none). This means that I don't have very many browser bookmarks. But, I do have about a dozen that I use all the time. One obvious one is the Fave It! bookmarklet, but I also have a bunch that I use every day (<a href="http://www.puzzaz.com/">Puzzazz</a>, draft.blogger.com, App Engine Local Admin and App Engine Server Admin are my top bookmarks). In Firefox, these are easily accessible from the Bookmarks menu. In Chrome, I have two choices -- permanently give up screen real estate for an ugly bookmarks bar, or use the bookmarks dialog. How about a Bookmarks menu?<br />
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Those are the biggest items, but there are other nits:<br />
<ul><li>I run Chrome in full screen mode. When I drag out a tab, I'm doing it because I want to see it, not because I want most of it to be off-screen.</li>
<li>When I don't have very many tabs, how come they're not wider? It's not uncommon for me to have five tabs that are all named "Amazon.c..." and, of course, I can't tell the difference between them. Even better, provide a way to show little thumbnails underneath all the tabs, either as an option or as a temporary state.</li>
<li>Chrome conveniently will only auto-enter addresses that I've actually typed. I like that. But, it will also auto-enter incorrect addresses that I've typed and there doesn't seem to be a way to get it to stop doing that.</li>
<li>Why doesn't the History show me the URLs of the pages? There are lots of sites out there on which every page has the same name. And why can't I right-click on an item in the History to open it in a new tab?</li>
<li>If the cursor is positioned over a Flash control (which I have never clicked in), Backspace doesn't work to go back. If the cursor is positioned over an image which has been opened, Backspace doesn't work to go back.</li>
<li>When I open a link from another application (like Outlook), Chrome opens a new window instead of a new tab. That is, unless it's already done that once, in which case it uses that window. But, in either case, I still end up with two Chrome windows instead of one.<br />
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<li>It seems to me that Chrome expires cookies early sometimes. As a result, I'm logged out of sites that I expect to still be logged into. I've had Chrome suddenly stop accepting cookies, for no apparent reason (fixed by quitting and relaunching).<br />
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<li>Pages that look like they're complete sometimes continue to have a spinning disk indicating the page hasn't loaded.<br />
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<li>What was the idea behind not having visible buttons for the prev/next menus? I will say this is better than the brain-dead single history menu that Firefox 3 introduced, but is it really necessary to be so minimalist that there isn't even an affordance for a common action?<br />
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</ul>There are also a few features that I'd love for Chrome to have:<br />
<ul><li>Narrower window mode -- unfortunately, there are still lots of web sites that stretch all the text to full-width on my 24" monitor, making it harder to read. Amazon, one of the most popular sites on the Internet, is one of these sites. I'd like to be able to tell Chrome that certain web sites should be given a narrower window width. Yes, I can drag the tab out and shrink it, but it would be great if it could be done automatically whenever I visit the site.</li>
<li>A real debugger. I'll settle for having Firebug work, but I think the devs at Google can do a lot better.<br />
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<li>Support for the Web Developer toolbar, or something like it. I'm not a big fan of the Web Developer toolbar (it's pretty clunky), but I use it in Firefox because there are a bunch of really useful features. The ones I use most often: Disable Cache, Disable JavaScript, control over cookies, form overrides, and View Generated Source.</li>
<li>I'd like a master password like Firefox has and I'd like the saved passwords actually encrypted with that master passwod. Instead, I tell Chrome to not remember passwords.<br />
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</ul>If it weren't for the problems, I actually prefer Chrome over Firefox. It's faster and it's less cluttered. It's elegant. I like how it automatically updates. But problems like this make Chrome look a lot like a Beta product, despite the fact that Google pulled off the Beta label.<br />
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I look forward to switching to Chrome again when it <i>really</i> launches.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-77718922949051561832008-12-11T23:59:00.000-08:002009-03-19T23:35:55.511-07:00UX Office Hours Takeaways On thisDevI <a href="http://www.thisdev.com/2008/12/more-ux-office-hours-takeaways.html">blogged</a> about a bunch of takeaways from my once-a-month <a href="http://startpad.org/events/office-hours">UX Office Hours</a> today on my thisDev blog. Some tips on focus, pain, priorities, competitors, and stickiness.<br />
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Check it out <a href="http://www.thisdev.com/2008/12/more-ux-office-hours-takeaways.html">here</a>.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-59929139793862179852008-11-13T23:57:00.000-08:002009-03-14T00:37:25.999-07:00Look At Your Own ProductI had <a href="http://www.startpad.org/events/office-hours">UX Office Hours</a> at StartPad again today. Two of the people that I talked with today were building very different products, and we had very different discussions about them, but the takeaways were very similar. I promised not to publish details, so what I write today will be a bit vague.<br />
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The first person is building a web service for Windows users that is supposed to be an integral part of their workday. He'd built a lot of behind-the-scenes infrastructure plus a Windows application for his users. The good news was that it all worked pretty well. But the bad news was that he had built an interface that is similar to some of the parts of Windows and Office that users find the most confusing.<br />
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The other person is building a Facebook application. The good news was that he has a unique value proposition which I think will go over really well with users. But, before new users get to the value proposition itself, he's asking them to refer their friends, then he was giving them lots of messaging about the value before delivering any actual value.<br />
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Both developers had made the assumption that what was good for somebody else was good for them. Yes, Windows and Office are very successful, but that doesn't mean that any particular pieces of their interfaces are good, nor does it mean that emulating those pieces is good for another product. Similarly, there are tons of Facebook apps in which the very first thing you do is invite your friends -- send them imaginary chocolates, virtual flowers, or make them a knight in your kingdom. But, that doesn't mean that's the right thing to do for all applications. In both cases, the result of these assumptions was a number of unnecessary obstacles placed in front of potential users. And, as I've said before, every obstacle is a reason for users to go away. Instead of looking at how other products do things, they need to look at their own product -- put themselves in their users' shoes and think about what will drive adoption.<br />
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On the positive side, both products had resisted the temptation to broaden their reach. They were both focused on doing one thing really well and I have to say that it's great to see it (one of them had even implemented and then removed a de-focusing feature). As a result, I think both of them will have a relatively easy time modifying their products to better reflect their users.<br />
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My next office hours are December 11th, 2:00-6:00PM.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2426270730856523434.post-39265763103475849892008-10-31T17:30:00.001-07:002008-10-31T17:31:36.721-07:00Twittering PuzzlesThis is really cool to see in my Twitter stream:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRqJteazC3SPTotAMWrXz4ZdYdoquH4zGEqCakN6666ucEb_hDi7REm2nw5uJp7Sd7YvrHVBUR62C4X5uZj5N1xcqQ7lNNh7oxz_nR8ehXMmfzWQFqCZAqmy_GTXv1cjqy2hYjf35QUmJA/s1600-h/puzzazz-twitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaq38_WJeRzW3gPSR2W6V-YdvKqf4XPoiigs2pF4GJoA1ZXtUlWdYwqozAN9jKZbbuJcMJZcrmQo4RBppKWULzLoahocskURSgdralpNAg15eru_YzD3SNbGfVcWqudFDtObcn0x81CT3D/s400-r/puzzazz-twitter.png" /></a></div><br />
I like this because it's a very nice, simple way to spread the word about Puzzazz and increase viral signups. Simply set up twitter in your <a href="http://www.puzzazz.com/prefs">Puzzazz preferences</a>, and you'll automatically get a tweet each time you solve a puzzle. I don't tweet misses, only solves, so you never get embarrassed.<br />
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There are two other recent changes to make Puzzazz even friendlier. You can <a href="http://www.puzzazz.com/feed.xml">subscribe</a> to the Puzzazz feed in your blog reader, or you can <a href="http://www.puzzazz.com/puzzlesbyemail">sign up</a> to get puzzles emailed to you every morning.Roy Lebanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749140682886637193noreply@blogger.com0