Partial Recall

IA Summit 2008 Recap - A Week Later

This was the second IA Summit that I’ve attended. Last year I took my wife. It was great because, as parents of twin toddlers, it was a welcome vacation and respite from the responsibilities that parenting entails. Although I willingly chose to spend free time with my wife, I wasn’t able to connect with people in my professional network as much as I would have hoped. This year I attended on my own, and I found the “conference” part of weekend much richer as I was able to participate in extended conversations with colleagues. I also found that Twitter became an easy substitute to the obligatory business card for creating connections. “Hello” to all of my new friends.

Resources

There are already a number of photos, slides, and podcasts available from the event. Podcasts are supposed to be uploaded to Boxes and Arrows, but I haven’t seen anything yet (I will update this post once I see them available).

Program: Main Conference Presentations
Social Network: Crowdvine
Photos: [Flickr Group: IA Summit 2008 | By Flickr Tag: IASummit2008, IASummit08, IASummit]
Slides: [SlideShare Event: IA Summit 2008 | By SlideShare Tag: IASummit2008, IASummit08, IASummit]

Quick Takeaways

There are already a number of recaps popping up everywhere, so I will try to post a little bit about what I learned at the sessions I attended. I’ll try to provide as many links as I can. Note that the sessions below are not the complete list - only those sessions I was able to attend. Please refer to the resources above to view the entire listing of sessions.

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Blackboard’s User-Centered Design

One of my posts made it to the corporate blog.

Tags: [Blackboard, Partial Recall, usability, interaction design, information architecture, ui, ux, ixd, user experience]

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ACU To Go Foward With iPhone Application Development

As a follow up to my previous post, Abilene Christian University announced that they will give iPhones or iPod touches to incoming freshman next year. What this announcement likely means is that there will be considerable pressure put on the university’s web developers to successfully integrate existing systems and external tools into one seamless experience for users. A demo is provided at acu.mobi (which they explain is best viewed in Safari as itâ€™s designed for the iPhone).

I am heartened to read one quote from Christopher
Gibbs, a programmer at ACU, when he states:

“There are a number of challenges when it comes to creating applications for the iPhone. I wonâ€™t go into all of them but the biggest is usability. Some people say content is king, well I say usability is king. This is true with any program or website but especially true on the iPhone, where you have a very limited interface.”

Some pressure might come from the administration on down in terms of what should be available, but I hope the team gets a lot of bottom up participation (i.e., students, non-tenured faculty, etc.) when they try to work on the how - how to implement features and functionality in both a usable and desirable way.

The United States is playing catch up with Europe in terms of our level of maturity with mobile devices, but this trend will certainly play out nicely in the education arena, particularly given the high rate (45% of teenagers of teenagers in 2005) already using mobile devices for a variety of needs.

Tags: [Abilene Christian University, iPhone, ubiquitous computing, e-learning, educational technology, Partial Recall]

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A Vision of Ubiquitous Computing

I know I am an Apple fanboy (still holding out for the 3G iPhone), but I was inspired by the vision put forth by Abilene Christian University. Here’s a portion of their vision:

“In the spring of 2007, a group of educators, technologists, and administrators at ACU crystallized these ongoing discussions, producing a case for a new emphasis on mobile learning based on ubiquitous information access through powerful, portable, converged devices. Made possible by the broad capabilities offered by a new generation of these devices, we see the future of the university coalescing around the new opportunities that mLearning is bringing…”

The University is in the process of testing the iPhone to determine if the device helps students gain knowledge and get the most from their collegiate education.

As part of this vision, the University posted “Connected: The Movie”, which portrays the following:

“What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone? Connected is one possible vision. This fictional day-in-the-life account highlights some of the potential benefits in a higher education setting when every student, faculty, and staff member is “connected.” Though the applications and functions portrayed in the film are purely speculative, they’re based on needs and ideas uncovered by our research - and we’ve already been making strides to transform this vision of mobile learning (mLearning) into reality.”

Frankly, the possibilities put forth by this video make me want to go back to school! This vision also seems more readily achievable than Apple’s famous Knowledge Navigator concept video from 1988.

Tags: [Apple, iPhone, Abilene Christian University, ubiquitous computing, user experience, e-learning, educational technology, Partial Recall]

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IxDA Presentations Online

A bunch of videos and slides are popping up from the recent Interaction Design Association conference. This is a good way to get some free training. Remember, it is free to join the IxDA.

Tags: [IxDA, interaction design, user experience, Partial Recall]

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Apple Home Page Search

This morning I went to the Apple home page to find one of their commercials. I went to search and noticed that the behavior mimicked Apple’s own operating system and the “suggest” features available in browser search boxes. What I liked is that it not only offered suggested terms but displayed media previews along with the term. I realize this isn’t especially groundbreaking, given the amount of AJAX development in recent years. However, it reminded me that as Peter Morville analyzes search patterns, another to add to the list is the behavior of providing suggestions before a user has even executed a search. This might remedy the need to distinguish between a basic and advanced search, or the need to revise a search after seeing results. Notice the screen capture image (click image to see original) where I entered “ads” as my search term.

Tags: [Apple, search patterns, search, Peter Morville, Partial Recall]

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Desirability Heuristics

One of the criticisms of the UX field is that often the concern is to have a product that is usable, but is that all that is needed? Shouldn’t people have a pleasurable experience as well? I haven’t quite found a way to measure this within a usability test (other than through self-report). However, a recent proposed heuristic attempts to answer the question of how a product makes users feel by observing the emotional response of users during testing.

Although I am a firm believer in the power of nonverbal communication, I would have liked the authors to include more indicators of positive responses. This attempt, however, has inspired me to come up with my own heuristic for “desirability.” Right now I’m also beginning to look at the article referenced recently by Victor Lombardi. More to come…

Tags: [heuristic, emotion, desirability, user experience, usability, Victor Lombardi, Partial Recall]

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User Experience Professionals are Here to Stay

I’ve decided to pour through my Gmail account to delete and archive old emails that I’ve been too busy to move from my inbox. Sure, I really don’t have to perform this task when I can just archive everything, but I’m pretty anal about categorizing my emails, even if I am not prompt at performing the task.

Today I stumbled across an email a colleague of mine sent out last July. He referred to a YouTube video that highlighted MS Vista’s speech recognition. All I can say is that while it performs admirably at times, quite a few times I found the video both painful and funny to watch (see below). It really confirms that the usability and user experience professions are here to stay.

Microsoft Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting

[Runtime: 10:33 | Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed on your computer to watch this video. To download it, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/]

- Hat Tip: Ari Weissman

Tags: [Vista, Windows Vista, voice recognition, user experience, usability, Microsoft, Partial Recall]

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LinkedIn Hover Behavior

I’m not a huge LinkedIn user, but I am impressed that they iteratively work to make their product better and better by targeting better social connection and better user experience.

The other day someone invited me to connect (no, not my wife, like the picture depicts), and I was impressed with both the use of dynamic button names and the behavior of providing help text when I hover over one of the buttons. Notice that the button dynamically includes my wife’s name (click picture to view larger image). Also, note the hover text.

I like this method of providing contextual help, particularly because it explains what the resulting action will be when the user clicks the button.

Tags: [LinkedIn, web design, ui, information architecture, usability, user experience, Partial Recall]

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Information Architecture Summit 2008

This year your peers and industry experts will speak about how topics such as social networking, gaming, patterns, tagging, taxonomies, and a wide range of IA tools and techniques can help as users ‘experience information’.

- April 10-14, 2008 (Miami, Florida USA)” - (About the Summit)

I went to last year’s summit and found it very informative. You might consider checking it out - it’s in Miami!

(hat tip: InfoDesign)

Tags: [iasummit2008, information architecture, Partial Recall, user experience, usability, interaction design]

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Edward Tufte iPhone Critique

Edward Tufte offers a critique of the iPhone’s interface design (includes video).

Tags: [Edward Tufte, Tufte, iPhone, Partial Recall, Apple, interface design, GUI, interaction design, HCI]

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Apple Ad Blurs Old and New Media

An inspiring ad in todayâ€™s New York Times.

Click play and see how the lines between old media (NYTimes â€˜paperâ€™ style view of front page) and new mix together beautifully.

In case the ad moves, I tried to do a screen capture of it, but the voice is lost. Just focus on the ad and the paper’s headline.

Tags: [Apple, Leopard, Vista, NYTimes, advertisement, Partial Recall]

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World Usability Day

Today is World Usability Day. World Usability Day was formed “to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.”

I was fortunate enough to be able to make a brief presentation to my company about the importance of usability. I referred to Peter Morville’s “User Experience Honeycomb” and Peter Merholz’ “Experience is the Product” visuals:

It is true that clients care about features and functionality, but a company’s true ROI occurs when it focuses on a holistic view of the client. It is, after all, the experience that drives client retention and referrals. It is the product usability that reduces customer service calls, reduces enhancement requests, and allows the company to focus on innovation rather than maintenance.

Tags: [Partial Recall, Peter Merholz, Peter Morville, user experience, World Usability Day]

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The Neverending Scroll

I’m not a big fan of the page scroll, unless it is absolutely necessary. The reason I oppose it is that it hasn’t tested well with children. According to Nielsen,
“Children rarely scrolled pages and mainly interacted with information that was visible above the fold.”

Armed with that knowledge, I am curious to see how successful the following site is: http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go

It’s attraction is constant discovery and continual scroll. I wonder who the target audience is.

Tags: [Jakob Nielsen, Partial Recall, usability, scrolling, children, page scroll]

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13 Usability Guidelines for Using Tabs

Today, Jakob Nielsen published an article on how to properly use tabs. He uses Yahoo! Finance as his case study.

Of note is how Nielsen contrasts guidelines from Apple OSX and Windows Vista. Personally, I too prefer title-style capitalization.

Tags: [usability, Jakob Nielsen, usability guidelines, user experience, ux, web design, Partial Recall]

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UPA’s User Focus Conference

Just a quick note that the Usability Professionals’ Association (DC Chapter) is organizing a one day conference on Friday, October 12 in DC.

http://www.upa-dc-metro.org/conference/2007/index.php

This local area usability conference will allow attendees to:

LEARN about important trends, cutting edge methods, and case studies in usability and user-centered design.
NETWORK with folks who do what you do…
LEAVE motivated to create user experiences that drive results with a toolkit of techniques and best practices.

Tags: [UPA, usability, training, web design, Partial Recall]

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Primary and Secondary Actions in Form Design

Forms guru Luke Wroblewski recently discussed the concept of primary and secondary actions in form design: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/PSactions.asp.

After conducting some user testing, it seems as though button placement had more effect than using color to contrast primary and secondary actions. Although there was no clear winner, my vote would be for the left-align button placement with contrasting colors.

Tags: [Luke Wroblewski, web design, usability, interaction design, user experience, Partial Recall]

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Alpha, Beta, Gamma…Love?

Many bloggers are familiar with Flickr, a fantastic photo sharing site. They and many web 2.0 companies use the “beta” label, seemingly to avoid responsibility if there are bugs or customer complaints. Beta is fine, in my opinion, if the service is limited to a specific customer base and if it is free, but once a customer has to pay, all bets are off.

As Flickr has matured, it changed its logo labeling from “beta” to the “gamma” level of maturity. Today I noticed that their logo no longer contains this cautionary label, but now reads “loves you,” as in “Flickr loves you.” See below.

So, what does this have to say about the Flickr? What, no love at first site? Did you have to get customer commitment before you learned to love us?

In all seriousness, have you been involved with products that used the “beta” label? If so, what were the reasons?

Tags: [alpha, beta, gamma, flickr, social software, Partial Recall]

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What I Learned at Usability Conferences 2007

Yesterday, the local UPA DC chapter hosted,”What I Learned at the Usability Conferences â€“ 2007.” I was part of a panel that represented the following conferences:

Information Architecture (IA) Summit
March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Conference
May 2007, San Jose, California, USA
Society for Technical Communication (STC) Annual Conference
May 13-16, 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Annual Conference
June 11-15, 2007, Austin, Texas, USA
University of Maryland HCIL Open House

Here are some of the notes I had prepared:

What I Learned at the IA Summit - 2007

Resources:

Opening Keynote: Joshua Prince-Ramus

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/prince_ramus_joshua

Joshua is best known as the architect of the Seattle Central Library. In his keynote, Joshua outlined issues surrounding limitations of space, resources and differing business goals and provided a glimpse into how his firm pushes for the best solution given these constraints. He had presented a similar talk to TED in February 2006:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/49

Closing Plenary: Rashmi Sinha

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/sinha_rashmi

Rashmi is the creator of SlideShare. She discussed how her team bucked traditional usability methods to rapidly deploy a social web site product in beta mode. Her slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/rashmi/ia-summit-closing-plenery/

Creating the Adaptive Interface: Stephen Anderson

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/the_conversation_gets_interest

Stephen offered an inspiring presentation by arguing that the desirability of an application can be related to the adaptability of the interface. â€œMore than removing unused menu options or collaborative filtering, this would include functionality that is revealed over time as well as interface elements that change based on usage.â€ His slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa/the-conversation-gets-interesting-creating-the-adaptive-interface/

Best Practices for Form Design: Luke Wroblewski

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/best_practices_for_form_design

Luke takes the seemingly insignificant â€œformâ€ and argues that clearly presented information, interaction, and feedback can make all the difference when a user needs to communicate with a company (i.e., commerce, access, engagement). His slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/psykoreactor/best-practices-for-form-design/

Rich mapping and soft systems: new tools for creating conceptual models: Gene Smith and Matthew Milan

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/rich_mapping_and_soft_systems

Gene and Matthew explain that Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a holistic problem solving framework that can be used to design and model interactions between organizations, people, environments, products and services. Identifying the CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transformative Process, Worldview, Owners, Environmental Constraints) helps to add context to any project by articulating the â€œroot definitionsâ€ of the problem. Their slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/gsmith/systems-thinking-rich-mapping-and-conceptual-models/

Tags: [usability, iasummit2007, CATWOE, Gene Smith, SlideShare, Rashmi Sinha, Joshua Prince-Ramis, UPA, user experience, Stephen Anderson, Partial Recall]

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UMCP HCIL Symposium

The University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab is hosting a symposium on May 31 and June 1.

Check out the event!

Tags: [UMCP, HCI, Partial Recall, ontology, folksonomy, social networks, Jenny Preece, Ben Shneiderman]

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Rob Fay is a user experience architect making sense of an information age. He is passionate about the “I” in IT and strives to evangelize that information is a resource on equal footing with an organization’s human, financial, and physical resources.