Andrew Wirtanen » Usability

So why don’t you slide?

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:36:59 +0000

Despite efforts like the reCAPTCHA project, we still hate CAPTCHAs.

Famed web form guru Luke Wroblewski posted on his blog about an alternative from They Make Apps. All you do is slide to submit a form. I can’t believe this would actually work. It’s pretty simple, but Luke notes that we still need an accessible alternative for those that can’t use a mouse. Anyway, this technique already has a theme song:

Do you wake up on your own/and wonder where you are? You live with all your faults/../So why don’t you slide? (Goo Goo Dolls – “Slide”)

If Mario Was Designed in 2010

Andrew Wirtanen — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:56:45 +0000

This blog post by a game designer was intended to poke fun at contemporary trends in games. But, I think it also applies to a trend in usability. In usability, it’s cliché now to joke about putting something in the manual. Everyone in the field pretends that manuals don’t exist when they’re designing products (unless, of course, said product is the manual). But, I’ve never heard anyone discuss providing too much help or guidance. Sometimes when you don’t provide any guidance, the end user has the most fun and they learn more quickly how do things (like in Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros.).

My suggestion: Provide visual cues when appropriate. Allow for some exploration if it’s not a one-time-only or walk-up-and-use interface (like an ATM or grocery self-checkout). Users are smart and will figure some things out on their own. Don’t interrupt them frequently with tips–put all the help you want in a sub-menu.

Experience Is The Product

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 15:53:44 +0000

Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path) posted on his blog this week that his slidecast “Experience Is The Product” hit 400,000 views. Peter gave the talk at dConstruct 2007 in Brighton, UK. The presentation argues for focusing on the experience rather than technology and features. It’s a great talk that uses examples of good user experience design that we still use today, three years later (e.g. Nintendo Wii, iPhone, iPod, Tivo, etc.).

By the way. Slideshare doesn’t give you valid XHTML for embedding, but I found this tutorial that shows you how to embed valid slidecasts.

The Fable of the User-Centered Designer

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:42:13 +0000

It’s hard to explain what I do, and workers in my field have many different titles. I am a Human Factors Specialist, but I could just as easily be a User-Centered Designer, User Experience (UX) Designer, or Usability Specialist.

David Travis from Userfocus authored a simple and easy-to-follow short story called The Fable of the User-Centered Designer that follows one man as he attempts to learn what User-Centered Design is. It’s a free PDF that’s a quick read on the computer screen, but a printed copy is only $14.80 on Blurb, with all proceeds going to Room to Read.

[The Fable of the User-Centered Designer via Usability News]

Magic Highway USA

Andrew Wirtanen — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 23:08:00 +0000

What did we think the highways of the future would look like? Here’s a video from a 1958 episode of Disneyland TV. Surprisingly the first couple minutes are focused on human factors and safety concerns. For example, the video shows much larger, dynamic, and higher contrast highway signs. The rest of the video enters Jetsons territory, but it’s still an amusing vision with some good ideas.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via Neatorama]

Products with multiple uses–selling them in stores is a challenge.

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:22:06 +0000

Designing a product with multiple uses is always a delicate balance between overwhelming the customer and providing bang for their buck. As one of my colleagues noted on our blog at HumanCentric, you need to make sure the feature fits the product, take time to design, and don’t forget about the main use cases.

But what if your product has multiple use cases without having to change a thing? Case in point: the “shredsors” and the herb scissors. Both of these pairs of scissors can do either task, but they’re both marketed to do different things.

This is a very interesting problem. How do you sell the scissors? Can you sell them as one device or do you have to market them separately? Do they go in the kitchen aisle or in the home security aisle? Can you unify the packaging to convey both uses? Or, is that even necessary (i.e. would users appreciate both features?). With the Internet, you could tag the product to be in two categories, but in physical stores you have to divide the inventory.

[Shredsors via Neatorama / RSVP Herb Scissors via Outblush]

CRISTAL: Control your living room with your coffee table

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:00:53 +0000

Researchers at the Media Interaction Lab of Upper Austria University have demonstrated an alternative use for Microsoft Surface tables. It’s called CRISTAL: Control of Remotely Interaced Systems using Touch-based Actions in Living spaces. In the demo video, you can see how the interactive table controls the entire living room, from the TV to the Roomba. It’s a pretty cool idea that is aimed at improving the living room user experience by consolidating remote controls and making devices more interconnected.

My concerns are that interactive tables are very pricey and the angle of control could be awkward for the user. Also, you can’t exactly keep magazines on your living room table any more, and kicking your feet up on a $10,000 multi-touch computer just doesn’t seem like a good idea… maybe someday these things will be more affordable and CRISTAL will be a reality.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Wired via Gizmodo]

Redesigning an ineffective healthcare flowchart

Andrew Wirtanen — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:40:43 +0000

Republican John Boehner recently presented a very ugly chart that outlined the Democrats’ health plan. From a graphic design standpoint, it is a disaster. Intentional or not, the chart clearly evokes negative feelings into the reader who most likely will be overwhelmed by words in ALL-CAPS, different and competing colors, shapes, and sizes.

Over on Flickr, a graphic designer took it upon himself to write a letter and redesign the chart. Much better.

[flickr.com via information aesthetics and washingtonpost.com]

Chroma-Hash makes confirming your password easier

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:53:56 +0000

One of the most frustrating things on the Internet is when you have to type in a password twice. Sometimes, a website will force you to hit the “submit” or “log in” button before it tells you that the passwords don’t match! Chroma-Hash is a jQuery plugin that securely generations a color bar for each password field. If the color bars don’t match, then the passwords don’t match.

I love this idea, but of course it wouldn’t work as well if you are color blind (or blind, for that matter).

[Chroma-Hash Demo via information aesthetics]

Texting While Driving–the Flash game!

Andrew Wirtanen — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:04:02 +0000

The New York Times has released a driving simulation Flash game that tests your ability to multitask. It’s far from scientific (and so was the NBC driving experiment) since the game requires a constant rate of lane switching and has a constant rate of incoming text messages, but it’s fun and educational nonetheless.

While I initially thought that banning texting while driving was ridiculous (i.e., why not ban eating while driving too?), I am seeing it more frequently. Also, it is more challenging to text with touchscreen phones because they lack tactile feedback.

[New York Times via Waxy Links]