Robin Good wrote a mini-guide to social bookmarking, addressing underlying issues and comparing the advantages and disadvantages of some main social bookmarking services: del.icio.us, Stumble Upon, Blue Dot, Ma.gnolia, Digg, Simpy, BlogMarks, Reddit, Furl, BlinkList, Spurl, de.lirio.us, Linkroll, Shadows en Yahoo-MyWeb.
As we are moving towards a semantic web, with more dynamic, user-generated content, social bookmarking is a valuable tool to structure that apparent chaos. The main weakness is that the wisdom of the crowds is not always the truth (but often close enough).
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Friday, December 01, 2006
Media overload
Long long ago, life was simple. Fewer options, easier choices. Less information though. This picture illustrates the differences between the media landscape in 1960 and in 2004 nicely.
Monday, November 13, 2006
In the news: tv-channels and medical errors
In the Calgary Herald: confusion about cable channels among TV users. Cable company Shaw keeps shuffling, adding and removing channels and viewers start to complain they can't find their favorite programs anymore. Interesting numbers: according to Yankee's research group more than 50 percent of TV viewers find out what's on by simply flipping channels. With close to a hundred channels in a full-cable package, and frequent commercial breaks, it's easy to miss programs you'd really like to watch.
In the National Post: fatal medical errors attributed to confusion about names. Losec sounds and looks a lot like Trosec, so the two different medicaments can easily be confused. This kind of human error can cause fatalities. Health Canada has now come up with guidelines for analyzing the safety of drug names.
In the National Post: fatal medical errors attributed to confusion about names. Losec sounds and looks a lot like Trosec, so the two different medicaments can easily be confused. This kind of human error can cause fatalities. Health Canada has now come up with guidelines for analyzing the safety of drug names.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
A case of affordance
Earlier this week I went to an ATM to deposit a check. The procedure on the new Green Machines is pretty straight-forward. Select 'deposit', enter the amounts, choose account to deposit to, put your deposit items (checks or cash) in envelopes and feed those envelopes to the machine.
In this procedure I found two minor problems, both problems with affordance. Affordance is "a goal-relevant description of the world that describes an opportunity for action defined with respect to the capabilities of a particular actor" - definition found in 'Cognitive work analysis' by Kim J. Vicente, originally from J.J. Gibson. The key term here is opportunity for action. Affordance describes what an actor can do with an object (and related: what one thinks one can do, and what one cannot do). A classic example is pushing or pulling a door: if there is no handle but only a plate the door doesn't afford the action 'pulling'.
Back to my ATM. The first problem came up when I was asked to which account I wanted to deposit. I was given three options: checkings, savings and visa. Upon selecting 'savings' I got an error message: "invalid account". I tried 'visa' and got the same message. Fortunately, the checkings account was not considered invalid.
My second problem was a little different. I put my check in the envelope, sealed it, and found the right slot on the machine. So far, so good. But when I watched my envelope disappearing into the machine I noticed there where 3 little arrows printed on it, not facing the machine's way but mine. It clearly suggested I had done something wrong! The good thing is that it didn't come back and I got my money. The bad thing is that the machine gave me wrong expectations, I really expected having to give it another try.
Lessons taught by this green machine:
In this procedure I found two minor problems, both problems with affordance. Affordance is "a goal-relevant description of the world that describes an opportunity for action defined with respect to the capabilities of a particular actor" - definition found in 'Cognitive work analysis' by Kim J. Vicente, originally from J.J. Gibson. The key term here is opportunity for action. Affordance describes what an actor can do with an object (and related: what one thinks one can do, and what one cannot do). A classic example is pushing or pulling a door: if there is no handle but only a plate the door doesn't afford the action 'pulling'.Back to my ATM. The first problem came up when I was asked to which account I wanted to deposit. I was given three options: checkings, savings and visa. Upon selecting 'savings' I got an error message: "invalid account". I tried 'visa' and got the same message. Fortunately, the checkings account was not considered invalid.
My second problem was a little different. I put my check in the envelope, sealed it, and found the right slot on the machine. So far, so good. But when I watched my envelope disappearing into the machine I noticed there where 3 little arrows printed on it, not facing the machine's way but mine. It clearly suggested I had done something wrong! The good thing is that it didn't come back and I got my money. The bad thing is that the machine gave me wrong expectations, I really expected having to give it another try.
Lessons taught by this green machine:
- Please give your users only valid options to choose from! Invalid options will only cause frustration. (Unless you are absolutely confident they will never choose them, reminding me of the waiter scene in the movie 'La vita รจ bella').
- When multiple actions are allowed, reflect this in your design. Do not suggest they are not allowed.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Skype 3.0 beta
Skype 3.0 has just been released in beta. Featuring skypecasts, clickable links in mood messages, a button for calling non-skype phones, and of course the changelog lists "change: UI redesigned". According to Skype, it is an "Easier to use, more powerful and personal interface."
I'm usually not a fast upgrader, and I'm still using Skype 2.0.0.something. Easy to learn, easy to use, I like it. However, a little while ago I was surprised by a confusing warning message:
"Are you sure you want to cancel the file transfer?" Choose between "OK" and "Cancel".
Somehow, the "Do not ask me again" option was very appealing!
This kind of mistake in warning messages is not uncommon. I found almost the same dialog, with the same problem, in an early Dutch version of Gmail. "Wilt u de wijzigingen annuleren?"
It's not that difficult to solve though. The main problem lies in using the OK/Cancel dialog, which can often be easily avoided. Use descriptive options instead. "Are you sure you want to stop the transfer?" "Stop transfer" / "Cancel"
I'm usually not a fast upgrader, and I'm still using Skype 2.0.0.something. Easy to learn, easy to use, I like it. However, a little while ago I was surprised by a confusing warning message:
"Are you sure you want to cancel the file transfer?" Choose between "OK" and "Cancel".Somehow, the "Do not ask me again" option was very appealing!
This kind of mistake in warning messages is not uncommon. I found almost the same dialog, with the same problem, in an early Dutch version of Gmail. "Wilt u de wijzigingen annuleren?"
It's not that difficult to solve though. The main problem lies in using the OK/Cancel dialog, which can often be easily avoided. Use descriptive options instead. "Are you sure you want to stop the transfer?" "Stop transfer" / "Cancel"
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Click testing
GMI, a company in market research, offers a product for click testing, which according to their claims can be used to '[accurately measure] what consumers notice on the [web] page'. Test subjects are shown a couple of pages and are asked for each page to click on the 5 elements that first grab their attention. The software uses these data to generate a so-called 'heat map'.
It's nice software to play with, and the heat maps it generates are certainly appealing and interesting. A little critical note though. We know from cognitive psychology that there can be great differences between what users think and what they claim they think. This is one of the reasons why 'thinking out loud'-tests have only limited value. GMI's software does not measure which elements grab the user's attention, but can provide valuable insights on what users think they focus on, in an easy manner and at relatively low cost.
It's nice software to play with, and the heat maps it generates are certainly appealing and interesting. A little critical note though. We know from cognitive psychology that there can be great differences between what users think and what they claim they think. This is one of the reasons why 'thinking out loud'-tests have only limited value. GMI's software does not measure which elements grab the user's attention, but can provide valuable insights on what users think they focus on, in an easy manner and at relatively low cost.
Balancing cognitive load
Your brains like to work, else you get bored, lose attention and start making mistakes. Not too much at a time, though. When cognitive load is too high, you get stressed and start making mistakes as well. Fortunately, we do a pretty good job at giving ourselves just the right amount of brain activity: a phenomenon called load balancing.
Air traffic controllers have been found to give themselves more challenging tasks when air traffic is slow, i.e. optimizing routes for particular kinds of planes while all they have to do is keep them withing certain limits. Senior drivers get into fewer car accidents than one would expect regarding their performance on cognitive tests. They turn off the radio when driving in an unfamiliar environment, and mostly drive in areas they are familiar with and during daytime.
At my temporary job in a coffeehouse, I noticed I am balancing my cognitive load the whole day through (even there!): taking multiple orders from multiple customers or waiting until one is served, using the cash register calculator or doing it by heart, making different espresso-based drinks and keeping wait times as low as possible, etc. Periods of cognitive stress are thus followed by cognitive rest, while it never gets dull.
What does this mean for user interface design? In fact it's pretty straight-forward. Allow for both easy and cognitively challenging use and let your users do the rest. Sometimes this means allowing different strategies for the same task. Sometimes it means facilitating switching between demanding and less demanding tasks.
Air traffic controllers have been found to give themselves more challenging tasks when air traffic is slow, i.e. optimizing routes for particular kinds of planes while all they have to do is keep them withing certain limits. Senior drivers get into fewer car accidents than one would expect regarding their performance on cognitive tests. They turn off the radio when driving in an unfamiliar environment, and mostly drive in areas they are familiar with and during daytime.
At my temporary job in a coffeehouse, I noticed I am balancing my cognitive load the whole day through (even there!): taking multiple orders from multiple customers or waiting until one is served, using the cash register calculator or doing it by heart, making different espresso-based drinks and keeping wait times as low as possible, etc. Periods of cognitive stress are thus followed by cognitive rest, while it never gets dull.
What does this mean for user interface design? In fact it's pretty straight-forward. Allow for both easy and cognitively challenging use and let your users do the rest. Sometimes this means allowing different strategies for the same task. Sometimes it means facilitating switching between demanding and less demanding tasks.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
November 14: World usability day
Just one more week to go, November 14 will be World usability day. There will be events in 35 countries all around the world, ranging from meetings to demonstrations to the world's largest card sort.
This year's theme is "Making life easy!", with a focus on inclusion and accessibility. Making life easy, that's what usability is about.
This year's theme is "Making life easy!", with a focus on inclusion and accessibility. Making life easy, that's what usability is about.
Apple and Microsoft interface guidelines
Today I found some time to look at the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for Mac OS X. Microsoft's latest guidelines are the Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines (still "preliminary documentation" though).
A few thoughts:
A few thoughts:
- The Vista guidelines are quite technology-driven sometimes, top rule number one is "Use the Aero Theme and System Font (Segoe UI)"
- Apple places more emphasis on the design process and stresses involving your users in early stage development and
- The Apple guidelines are clearer and easier to work with
- I really hope the final version of the Vista guidelines will be better
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