The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : User Experience

User Experience – The Kettle.

scbarnes — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:55:13 GMT

How many kettles have you owned over the years? is it more than one? has it always been the same one? It’s a pretty straight forward device, you fill it up with water, it heats up and then you tip the contents out into a container. Why then are...(read more)

Apple vs Microsoft – Web Usability.

scbarnes — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:39:49 GMT

I recently found a site via a colleague today, which basically outlines the way in which we approach our customers/consumers via the web compared to Apple.com

[ Click here to view the post ]

At first I just simply groaned, and waited for the beating, as I know internally I've moaned about our approach, so i was expecting to see us slaughtered in a pro-Apple fashion. The Author however, did approach the post from an unbiased perspective in my opinion, and i don’t see anything outrageous about the post (other than the stupidity in the comments in parts).

I happen to agree with the majority of the points and have arrived in many ways at similar conclusions to the author.

For me, I recently (early this month) took ownership of our Microsoft.com/Silverlight site (specifically the User Experience) and it’s a site I've agonized over for weeks on how to fix. The current version of the site is not one we as a team are content or happy with. We can do better, and we will, but its posts like this that help me navigate the best approach with regards to user experience and information architecture.

Silverlight is one of these products that we are keen to simplify more in terms of understanding of what it is, why its important you invest in and lastly what the possibilities are in using it.

Keep it Simple, Don’t make me think – are the mantra for my next version of the site and it was blog posts like the one mentioned that simply help.

I love this kind of open raw feedback, we need to see more of it.

Send me your vision of how we should build Microsoft.com 2.0, i.e. what is it we can do better, what we aren’t doing, lets paint a vision of the future? If you feel in the mood to redesign the sites and want to pitch your design to that team, PLEASE DO SO.. I will walk your pitch to the team(s) myself personally.

Don’t abuse the Desktop.

scbarnes — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:11:40 GMT

If you’ve read any book on design patterns, prospective memory is bound to come up. A lot of folks may read it and go “ahh, nah, i don’t know what to do with that” and i state this as i constantly wonder as to why applications continue to hassle users to “Save this to the desktop”.

The desktop inside windows in my mind is like your desk in your office. It’s your surface area where you keep things that you can recall at a later date - “I’m going to put that TPS report in the upper right of my desktop surface, so i know where it is later”.

Problem today in software land is everyone keeps asking you to keep their TPS Reports on your desk and either you’re too lazy to agree/disagree or you didn’t notice they just did it. Pretty soon your desk is cluttered with lots of paper and it’s hard to find your chosen items vs.. everyone else's.

Don’t abuse the desktop.

At present I’ve not seen an installation experience that tackles this problem other then a weak check box that is default checked (like somehow its important that you clutter my desktop) and that’s essentially your way out of this installation spam.

It doesn’t work really, as firstly you’ve got to be conscious of the fact that the checkbox is asking you “Would you like me to add to the clutter” and secondly making things “default checked” is an assertion really, much like “Push Polling” – it casts a prejudice up front and rarely have i seen actual self selection work.

Instead we should approach it differently. Instead of approaching it as a default checked item, allow the users to opt in manually and educate them on the power of the desktop itself and why it exists – as often I'd argue folks assume its simply part of the vortex of “things i don’t understand about my computer”.

e.g.:

Would you like to save this application shortcut to your desktop? Yes/No

The desktop is where you keep important information on your computer that helps you remember where things are – treat it like your desk in your home/work office.

Something like that anyway.

I’d argue the desktop today has fast become the wasteland of “icons that i’ve long forgotten” or “those icons that get in the way of viewing my desktop background”.

The Wow Effect (10secs vs. 10mins)

scbarnes — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:37:25 GMT

The explosions of plug-ins today have brought innovative ways to visual experience online in ways that are both exciting and dangerous. I say dangerous, as on one hand they are visually appealing they are at times useless and typically can end up becoming a trend.

The Muse.

I had the pleasure of being a part of a workshop at MIX09 with Rick Barazza in which he highlighted a point called the 10second vs. 10minute wow. I must admit I didn’t pay all that much attention as I was in/out with customers, but I felt I understood his point he was attempting to make. In my own words I’ll echo where I think this point could go?

If you see a solution and in the first 10seconds, you get immediate feedback of emotion (meaning wow, this rocks) it’s easy to then grade that as “this is the best of the web”. If after 10mins however your feedback with the said experience begins to degrade and it’s simply this cool effect that has little or no functional purpose, it’s not past the crucial 10minute wow.

Essentially you have 10seconds to make an impact, you then have the next 9mins 50 to retain that impact and should you still score high post the 10minute mark, your ability to produce an effective experience has greater potential.

Let’s look at a WoW Effect Matrix.

Got to a site on FWA and pick 10 sites. Now grab a pen and paper, and rate your experience after 10 seconds of usage (allow for loading etc).

At the 10second interval, I want you to then rate the experience in two categories.

Form (0= Average and 5=Outstanding).
Form is about the user experience, was it fun to use, did you find it easy to navigate, was it rewarding etc, all emotive feedback you can muster and allocate a score against that connects via UI.

Function(0=Average and 5=Outsanding)
Did this experience have a purpose, did you retain any information that helped you? Was it able to provide you with anything beyond a visual connection?

Write down your score for both. Now proceed to repeat this again after 10mins of using the said solution (should you even feel compelled to stay for the full 10mins. If you don’t then they automatically are rated 0).

Now using the WoW Effect Matrix below for each score per category, you’ll see what WoW effect you potentially could have per category.

If you score high meaning the darkest blues, you’ve done a great job in each category and stand to retain your audience beyond the initial viewing. If however you score low, your ability to retain the audience maybe high risk and consider balancing out the Function vs. Form aspect of your experience.

If you score in the middle, then it’s not that bad, but it could go either way and so it would reduce your risk of abandonment by optimizing in either category that you feel is weak.

Why is this important to those whom create with Silverlight?

There’s this myth floating around on the web, that unless you have ubiquity, people won’t install plug-ins. It’s actually false, and look at either Flash or Silverlight download rates and you’ll see that people are willing to install a plug-in should the experience or solicitation of the said experience be worth the install.

The reason this myth is being portrayed is because folks tend to look at their failure to install rates and go “ahah! See, plug-ins are bad..long live AJAX”. I see this all too often and shake my head, as typically they failed in soliciting the end user to actually install – “Get Silverlight” isn’t solicitation, its laziness.

Assuming they do install or have the said plug-in, the next argument is “ahah! See they didn’t stay, people don’t like plug-ins” which is also incorrect. You didn’t hold up to your end of the bargain, meaning you didn’t produce a compelling experience.

As chances are, you scored low on the WoW Effect. You didn’t provide the end users a compelling experience and just because you spent 30k+ on a compelling solution, doesn’t mean you automatically get 30k+ retention in end users. It’s no different to any medium out there and it ranges from TV, Movies, Games, and Websites etc.

When you produce a Silverlight experience, you simply need to balance between great visual effects and UI feedback whilst at the same time ensuring the functionality of what you’re producing has meaning. Going nuts on Deep Zoom isn’t enough as great, I can zoom in and out, so what? What else do you have for me? Why am I even here on this solution and so on?

Out Of Browser whilst being hailed an immediate success already, is going to be also quite dangerous in terms of WoW Effect. As whilst it’s great I can take my experiences online and offline, the reality is why should I even bother? Just because I can, doesn’t mean I will.

It comes back to balancing the function vs. form.

I have no idea if this was what Rick wanted to convey, but that’s my take on The WoW Effect anyway.

Using your mind to control UI.

scbarnes — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:03:18 GMT

Rick from Cynergy Systems has found a way to borrow a headset which enables you to control WPF UI with your mind.

You can watch Rick’s video here, and read the back-story but all i can say is it will be interesting to see how this combines with interactive experiences like Playboyarchive.com and mind control.

Ok, that was uncalled for and apologies to any whom were offended by that moment of immaturity :)

You can view more about this amazing accomplishment here:

http://www.cynergysystems.com/blogs/page/rickbarraza?entry=emotiv_thought_control_wpf_and

Why invest in UX?

scbarnes — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 10:56:28 GMT

I often get asked the question around how one is able to return an investment on User Experience. It’s as if the person asking the question is somehow expecting some random piece of research data that outlines how one could grow their business by x% because of UX?

The reality is that you’re unlikely to get such an accurate answer as ultimately any answer you are given is somewhat flawed. I say this, as to derive at an answer around the ROI for UX is to assume that you had two solutions in the market today.

First being legacy, one that you have today in its AS-IS state and the second being the new improved user experience enhanced version. You then approach your potential customer and ask them to buy one or the other, depending on the purchase you then derive your answer.

The reality however, is this will never happen as most companies approach UX from a migration or virgin state. If it’s migration, you’re typically moving an existing user base from the old to the new, in which case you’re going to find yourself in a delicate balance of great user experience and uphill battles in habits requiring rehabilitation.

The wrath of Legacy.

An example comes to mind in my past, where we had a green screen reservation management system. It was used by hundreds of call centre employees and the purpose of the new improved version, was simply to increase efficiency in fiscal responsibilities whilst at the same time providing the said company an entry point into the eCommerce market.

It was an utter disaster, not only did the software introduce a mouse to the users workflow, it also reduced their productivity resulting in a massive budget blowout (which from memory caused the project to be abandoned and we all went back to the market for new bids).

Investing in UX is not just about replacing the old with the new, it doesn’t actually start at the technology level it goes right back to the business process or workflow level. You really need to dissect the before (AS-IS) and after (TO-BE) before you commit to change.

TO-BE vs. AS-IS

Change has impact, it’s never an easy pill to swallow and it always has enemies. The larger the company, the more disruption you will introduce and this is critical point to convey, as trust is going to be the one emotion you project. Trust doesn’t mean you focus in on the executive branch and assure them that the investment is worthwhile, trust occurs at the grass roots, where the folks you are about to impact the most feel empowered by your choice.

Failure to gather their trust will result in hostility towards your change, and whilst some would assume this as employees just being difficult it’s not the case at all. You’re being difficult, as you’ve just impacted their work life and you didn’t even bother to ask them first.

The way to garnish their trust while at the same time get an accurate picture of the problem is to simply map out their workflows or business process. It’s quite a liberating thing to monitor as once you understand how people have been adjusting to software, you’ll no doubt uncover where the breakdowns occur – meaning which points a user stops using the said software and seeks an alternative process in either another piece of software or worse, paper.

Once you understand this, you’ll identify more closely with their pain points and so when it comes to deciding on user experience, you are looking through their eyes and not what you preconceived as being both the problem and solution.

That ultimately is the heart of quality user experience. Connecting to your end user through software and establishing an emotion reward to areas in which they are feeling the most pain within.

Ok, this convinced me UX is a waste of time, why invest in it then?

My intent is not to scare you away from UX; it’s more to the point drawing your attention to the parts of the brochure you won’t read. User Experience is not a once off deal; it’s a start to much longer conversation with your targeted users.

The investment in User Experience is simply this, you now get to measure and listen more intently to your current user base, only this time your goal is to ensure they are getting more efficient in their tasks and spend less time inventing workarounds to bad functionality or worse, form.

Your actual investment in user experience starts the day you accept the fact you’re first release to your old and new audience is a rough draft. I say this, as your journey has just begun and you need to now listen intently to what your targeted end users are going to do next.

Using the latest revisions of our UX Platform provides you more features and abilities to measure how users interact with your solutions. You want to listen to them, as they will tell you everything you need to know and more by not only their actions but also their direct feedback.

Measure once, cut twice.

As you build out your new improved user experience, think about how you’re going to measure their experiences and what areas are of great concern. Focus groups and beta testing will only do so much, it’s after long periods of time that you’ll eventually uncover where the death points occur.

Death points? You ask?

In TeamFortress 2 Valve Software measure where people die the most on any given map. Based off this data, they are then able to ascertain where areas of concern may arise. In tracking this data, it then provides them with enough data to decide on how they can next impact the said map to improve future gaming experience. As maybe increasing a bridge by 2inches will reduce the poor experience or maybe introducing a barrel near a door way will give enough cover fire and so on. Death points.

It’s no different with software and process, as in the end you’re looking to decrease the poor experience of an end user so that they can carry out their given tasks with efficiency and ease.

Measure where death points occur and then look at ways to implement two possible solutions to the problem. Access the end users whom triggered these death points and play a trick on them, give half solution A and the other half solution B. Focus on the overlap, and not on what you perceive as the perfect solution to the said problem.

UX != Forms.

All too often, I’ve seen customers show me their form based solutions and I simply groan, as all I see is a sea of fields being presented to the end user. I often ask, is it absolutely necessary that the end user fill out every field? The typical response is “oh yes, it’s critical!”.

This is where progressive disclosure techniques often play a role, but I often can’t but help wonder if the data is really that critical. As surely there’s a process going wrong in the system outside the software that needs fixing? In which case is software rewarding this bad behavior or solving it?

The only way to answer this is to start measuring what roles/personas are accessing this critical form and ascertain what fields are being frequently used the most. Then look to establish better display techniques to ensure that the most important fields get visibility upfront, whilst the less important are used in a fashion that adheres to whatever exit criteria you set in place.

Overall though, you may find that those critical fields suddenly aren’t that critical and it’s highly likely that based on the roles they fluctuate per persona – or maybe the company in question continues to reward a broken business process by impacting all users with large forms to fill out.

One-stop shop that fits all.

Having large forms on a screen per role is somewhat questionable and this kind of fits into the progressive disclosure bucket as all too often I also see software being built for the entire company to use and less per user role.

It fascinates me as with WPF or Silverlight you have the ability to dynamically display UI in a manner that befits the role at the terminal and less about covering all roles off at once. As once you can start to provide contextual meaning to the end user, they in turn will receive a focused user experience and here’s the best part, the owners of the software start to see areas in which efficiency could be improved with the said roles.

It’s really about give and take, and working with the personas/roles for given software both before and after is critical to a return of investment in user experience. As now, you have data to support the “why” meaning, why was adjusting user experience worth the effort?

Summary

Like I said, your end user has a lot to say, you just need to listen and in return you’ll get information on how to not only improve broken processes but also improve the quality of life for that said end user. This is the reality of your return of investment, as it actually is data you can’t buy!

If you already have the answers to the above, then well you aren’t asking why invest in UX but now why keep investing in UX?

User Experience isn’t simply about better UI; it’s about encouraging an easy, natural and engaging interaction between user and system. It just so happens to look amazing at the same time.

UX lessons from game design

scbarnes — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:35:36 GMT

I just attended the Seattle Chapter of Interaction Design Association (IxDA). Tonight the topic was "UX lessons from game design".

It was an awesome event and you can catch the video later this week. What struck me as really great about this, was the discussion of how to map some of the lessons in Game design with Software in general.

I've talked about this many times in the past, that exploratory learning is something I have high hopes RIA will crack wide open. In that, if the users continue to explore the software parts are revealed or rewards are given, that sort of thing.

An example of putting the fun in software, is the Postpone dialogue when Windows Vista updates. This occurred during one of the presentations so it got me thinking about the concept of what it represents and why.

In that, firstly, why does it ask me to restart? Is it that important I need to be prompted to restart Windows Vista? Why is it important that operating system tell me this anyway, to me, I really don't care just do what you have to do whenever you restart later.

It's a frustration point for me, and it was kind of an annoyance when the person is also in "Presenter" mode. What if, we had fun with the dialogue, what if we gave Windows a personality, a bit of emotion and fun:

Seems very serious right, let's click on Postpone shall we.

Oooh, I've upset Windows Vista.. I mean, I didn't mean, to, what's going on, somethings not right here.. Let's talk this out Vista, tell me more..

Who's fighting, I understand. Sometimes the Drivers aren't certified by Microsoft and no matter how hard you try to be nice to them, they simply ignore your polite advances. I now understand what your needs are..

I agree, we should restart... But Not right now.. I mean, you're a computer..as if I'm going to stop what I'm doing to keep you happy, suck it up and let me get back to work..

So on..

Obviously this would be very painful user experience, but the point is you can take a serious situation and give it personality, keep it minimal but slowly expand on the situation, interrupt the mainstream and see what the end users will enjoy vs hate. I'd wager the conservative approach isn't always right.

Windows 7 Multi-touch: Think beyond your Notebook of today.

scbarnes — Wed, 28 May 2008 20:51:27 GMT

I like the rest of the world read about our Windows 7 Multi-touch capabilities and personally thought it was brilliant move on our part. As this paves the way for mainstream use around multi-touch devices, something that the next generation of applications should consider more.

That being said, one journalist (ZDNet's Mary Jo) comment did catch my eye. She states - "..I am still a non-believer. Do you want touch on your Windows notebook? I, for one, do not..."

hmmm... Yes, I agree, I don't want multi-touch on my Macbook Pro, as well the ergonomics just don't suite it, yet if you believe that the industry is going to rest on current designs as being the future templates for laptops going forward.... think again.

As multi-touch is one of these components that still in many respects needs wide-spread adoption if you will. In that if you were to seed the market with Windows 7 (hypothetical here) and say 70%+ were to have multi-touch capabilities, what would that signal for hardware vendors?

Apple for example has proven in many respects that consumers are attracted to the multi-touch component found within user experience. Nintendo Wii also has proven that with a "hands-on" form, consumers will and have enjoyed the experience.

What is the next generation of laptops likely to look like? well take the below picture.

It's a future design concept (LG eBook), but essentially the notion that today's laptops will exist tomorrow is something I just don't put a lot of stock in (Apple's made some strong hints in this space with Apple AIR).

If you take the sleek thin design found within the LG eBook and combine it with multi-touch, well, some interesting fusion between function and form can take shape here.

Still not convinced?

Ok, well let's look at the theory behind the XO Laptop as surely it hints at the value add of multi-touch?. It's design centers purely around the existence of a laptop combined with multi-touch capabilities - that's it in it's distilled form.

Getting the point now?

The future of tomorrows laptop has not been defined, and if you think the Windows 7 Multi-touch is something to just gloss over as a wasteful feature with little consumer demand? Think again, it's being prototyped today in many labs and is high on the wishlists of many technologists.

That being said, having a dream to own the next hollywood style multi-touch device is one thing, but we here at Microsoft are actually quite serious about this space.

An example, let's look at what the Microsoft Future Health folks are cooking up in their labs. Could you name one hospital anywhere in the world that would not want this vision of the future? What impact could such a technology have on sustaining human life? How could it improve accidents within hospitals?

View more here

Now's the time to get your head into the XAML Game..

Have we made UX to complex?

scbarnes — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:09:27 GMT

I was giggling at this Video I found on Google Video. It's basically a PR video for the Wang Freestyle. I initially made a joke that it's Adobe's new PR video for LiveCycle (heh sorry couldn't resist).

One thing that did stand out about this video however was the simplicity of the way folks were thinking in 1988 around workflow.

For example, the person doing the demo walks the viewers through a scenario where he wants to markup a document using a electronic Pen (think WACOM). He then rights on top of the cover sheet "Pat $$$". He then clicks on an icon, which resembles his new documents, and drags them onto the desktop. He then clicks on a stapler icon and drags it also across to the paper, and then begins to put it into a mailbag.

The mailbag then accesses an address book, select whom you wish to send it to and then it's sent out. Now how it get's sent out is something he doesn't cover (I'm guessing it's all digital and not physical).

What he just described was Email in today's standard, where I grab a Document from my computer, attach it to an email and push it on by and of course 90% of my TO: and CC: address will no doubt ignore the email - since we are all busy folks now days.

There are two sides to this story. Firstly, the approach taken in putting this into a "mail bag" was simple, in fact most if not all office workers would grasp that concept and it would probably take on a whole new meaning in terms of context.

Secondly, which workflow is faster, efficient and more focused on the end user?

One other thing also came to mind, is that with more and more electronic software coming to the forefront of modern business, is there still a need for Email? Why haven't we evolved beyond email and into more decision making scenarios. I think way to much business practices and decision making are done via email, and less around form technology.

Are we going to look back on this entire technology world we live in and laugh at how crazy people were getting, just like the Wang Freestyle?

Thoughts are, we often make User Experience overly complex and my homework for you is, "what would you do differently with the WANG Freestyle in 1988"