This afternoon I opened a science kit that my 7 year old received for his birthday and saw, quite possibly, the worst designed (if you can even call it “designed”) set of alternate language directions ever. So bad that I felt compelled to share them here.
The worst “alternate language” directions ever
Published February 6, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a CommentI love Wegmans. Its the grocery store to top all grocery stores. I even take visitors from the UK to the one in Allentown to marvel at their selection of fish, meat and baked goods (my mum and dad in particular love looking around it). I’ve always had one criticism of the Allentown store though – while its a very nice brick building – it’s a few years old and is always very crowded, the aisles are quite narrow and the store has a somewhat haphazard layout. So I was very excited when they opened a new store in Collegeville, just 20 minutes away (and another one is planned right next to my work in Valley Forge).
When I went to the Collegeville store yesterday though, I was actually a little disappointed. Oh the food is just as good i’m sure, but as I was shopping I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me, then it hit me as I was leaving … you see the new store feels much bigger, there’s more room in the aisles, its a big, square, modern building (steel with a brick face i’m sure) with a high roof, its layout is very straightforward – no little corners with specialty food hidden away – and I found that I was missing the crowded aisles, the pleasant surprise upon rounding a corner and finding an unexpected section of international food, the lower ceiling and more intimate decor. In fact, on reflection the new building felt a bit like an (albeit nice) warehouse, and I really don’t think that’s the image Wegmans is going for. Be careful Wegmans, think about your overall experience … a lot of people don’t go to your stores just to buy nice food, they go for the experience!
Its not often that I fall in love with a piece of technology, especially office equipment! However, I recently fell head over heels with something we’ve just introduced at work. A while ago our photocopiers were replaced with newer models – but when it happened they behaved the same – just dumb copiers (although I do like the automatic stapling!). A couple of weeks ago though, they enabled them as fully functional Multifunctional Devices (MFD) – I can now print from my computer to a single print queue and then go to any MFD in the company, swipe my ID card and get my printouts (collated and stapled!) – duplex, full color (great quality!) and 11×17 as well. I love this! Wow I need to get out more.
Here’s a quick UX analogy that resurfaced at work today (I think I first used it a year or two ago). “Don’t use the fishing net with small holes first, you might catch the dolphins by mistake.”
Lets say you have two sets of users – the “experts” who don’t want help and just want the data, and the “beginners” who need help, but might not realize it. You want to satisfy them both on the same page with (a) the data and (b) some help – which of the two – (a) or (b) do you put in the most prominent position on the page?
Of course there are no absolutes in UX design, but if the beginners are the dolphins and the data is the small net, putting the data in the most prominent position will satisfy your experts but will also catch your beginners who think they want it. However, if you put your big net (the help) first, it’ll catch the dolphins (beginners) and let the experts who know they don’t want it through to get to the data.
Ok, I decided to create a new blog, charUX.com to explore this idea of the Characteristics of UX and to provide case studies and examples (the first case study is up now). If you have ideas or suggestions for examples that you’d like me to explore, check it out and leave me a comment! (oh and I created a twitter account too).
The Characteristics & Principles of User Experience
Published July 22, 2009 Uncategorized 5 CommentsTags: ux
Design is iterative, right? While creating part two of the two-part “characteristics” diagram (part one: The Essential Characteristics of User Experience), I realized that it was actually a three-part diagram and that what I had created first, was actually last! So now it reads:
- An introduction of “characteristics” and “principles”. (pdf | jpg)
- The characteristics. (pdf | jpg)
- The principles – formerly part one, “essential characteristics”. (pdf | jpg)
My thanks to Rob Weening, one of my colleagues at work, for helping me see this “re-frame”. His flash of inspiration was that the characteristics are the building blocks of an experience (the “what”) and principles are how an experience is put together (the “how”). The dodgy DNA analogy in the diagrams, however, is all my fault.
P.S. Dave reminded me with his comment that the ten characteristics are almost certainly not an exhaustive list, they’re just a start.
The Essential Characteristics of User Experience
Published July 2, 2009 Uncategorized 20 CommentsTags: ux
There has been some discussion in the past few months about establishing a “language of critique” for user experience design. Jesse James Garrett may have started it with his closing plenary at the 2009 IA Summit in Memphis, it filled the IAI and IxDA mailing lists for a while and Erin Malone and James Melzer, among others, have blogged about it.
Here is my contribution (see the pdf), yes its a diagram. Its the first half of a two part diagram called “The Characteristics of User Experience”, this first part being the essential characteristics – the second part, coming soon, will be the secondary (or auxiliary, or periphery, I haven’t decided yet) characteristics.
Useful, Usable and Desirable have been touted for a long time as the hallmarks of a “good” user experience but they’re too generic and abstract. I think the five characteristics in this diagram are essential to any user experience being “good”. I’d love comments to stress test this!
So Bank of America seem to have embraced the “User Experience” term. (thanks to Chuck Haeberle for finding this).
During the closing plenary of the IA Summit on Sunday, Jesse James Garrett said that “Information Architecture is not a profession … and neither is Interaction Design … we have and always will be User Experience Designers”. I’m paraphrasing a little from memory (the podcast isn’t out yet) – but the gist is there.
I’m a big believer in this viewpoint (and I chaired the IA Summit last year!). I believe that both IA and IxDA are disciplines or “fields” – but are inseperable enough that the “job” is User Experience Designer. This puts the emphasis on the end product rather than the tools we use to achieve it.
So … to see if I can start some kind of grass roots movement i’ve set up itsjustux.org – go there and sign the petition to show you believe too!
Just a quick update (for both of my readers – lol). I’m getting ready for my trip to the IA Summit in Memphis. I leave on Tuesday and I still have to polish the two posters i’m taking, The Foci of User Experience and the Context of User Experience. I’m hoping to get some great discussion and feedback on them – so if you’re going to the summit, stop by the reception on Friday night and i’ll see you there!
