Re: [IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
Hi Steve, I found this article on Johnny Holland very helpful: http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/02/deconstructing-analysis-techniques/ Best, Soo -- “Simple design, intense content.” Edward Tufte Soo Basu Interaction Design Masters Programme K3 Malmö Högskola Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
On Apr 30, 2009, at 11:30 PM, Soo Basu wrote: I found this article on Johnny Holland very helpful: http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/02/deconstructing-analysis-techniques/ Soo, You might want to check the author on that article. :) Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
A discussion about application personas (as opposed to user personas) touched IVRs earlier this year on my blog http://blog.genstart.dk/2008/11/25/what-would-reality-do/#comment-216751 I googled up some extracts from the mentioned book http://blog.genstart.dk/2008/12/12/bringing-web-apps-to-life-with-application-personas/ and found it on Google Books http://books.google.dk/books?id=PI_n2EcJfT0Cpg=PA98lpg=PA98source=webots=qQRv15P5f6sig=oc883RhnwqikRlSQFI0JDtLL0qUhl=ensa=Xoi=book_resultresnum=1ct=result#PPA96,M1 Hope this helps, Morten On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 12:50 PM, j.eric townsend j...@flatline.net wrote: I'm doing a really quick, one-off project for a class involving interactive voice response (IVR) systems. What I'm looking for is detailes on one or two really bad IVR systems, or maybe a study pointing out the N most egregious flaws of IVR systems. So far g5/Y! isn't getting me anything meaty, just obvious customer-relations things like, don't apologize for doing something you shouldn't do. I'm wondering if maybe there's some IVR-speak that I should be using in my searches, or if this tech goes by some other name that I should be searching for. If you (collective) have any advice/pointers, I'd appreciate them. (And if you reply off-list I will consolidate responses into a single post or two.) thx, --jet -- J. Eric jet Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09 design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 Reply to this thread at ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41631 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Best, Morten Just +45 26 999 891 Sent from København, Hovedstaden, Danmark Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
oops :) Sorry, Steve! On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 8:48 AM, Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com wrote: On Apr 30, 2009, at 11:30 PM, Soo Basu wrote: I found this article on Johnny Holland very helpful: http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/02/deconstructing-analysis-techniques/ Soo, You might want to check the author on that article. :) Jared -- “Simple design, intense content.” Edward Tufte Soo Basu www.inktales.wordpress.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Bill Moggridge says IxD is over. ; -) (not really, but its nice and provocative)
I'd be interested in hearing more about what existing roles Bill contends would be the representatives of what IxD represents. I know that here at MS, the IxD community is steadily growing, but the principles we represent are light years away from being pervasive in other disciplines. I still think IxD roles are needed and useful in sheparding the diverse disciplines together while contributing the additional knowledge of psychology and visual design that folks in management or programming disciplines aren't generally able to provide in detail. (That said, you don't need a hojillion IxD folks on a project to make a difference - even just one or two per product can mean positive change.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41610 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preview of SketchFlow prototyping in Expression Blend 3
I'm really excited for this new functionality. I've been using the Blend 3 preview and *finally* see the value it provides for functional prototyping (especially if you're doing a console app and not a web app, imho.) This is just really tasty icing on the cake. But I do hope I can disable the nav pane during testing... I want the benefits of the state-based prototyping without allowing participants to jump out of the flow during testing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41613 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
You may want to check out this book: The Art and Business of Speech Recognition: Creating the Noble Voice. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Business-Speech-Recognition-Creating/dp/0321154924 It was written by a former professor of mine and it gives some great examples of both greatly and poorly designed IVRs. It also gives a good overview of when speech rec systems may be more appropriate over touch tone ones and vice versa. I've spent a few years as a UI designer at Nuance designing speech recognition systems if you have some more specific follow up questions. Good luck. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41631 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Has anyone done user testing on a site including Google search solutions for internal site search?
I can tell you how frustrating it was to us Google Search for an educational institution - it was free at the time, but we couldn't get access to the internal search data. Aack! Our population of users was mostly college students and they were able to successfully craft a search string to find results in testing. Most subjects tried to use the webpage menus first, though. Later I tried to get a large company to change their complicated search pages to a simple Google search box - no luck. The simple (and usable) solution wasn't complicated enough to represent the underlying complex rich data for the CEO. Also they didn't want to pay a third party for the search technology. Bottom line: Just because your subjects think it's a good idea, and you think it's a good idea doesn't mean you'll be able to convince your upper executives. Make a stunning demo tape, and try to get them into testing for best results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41606 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Has anyone done user testing on a site including Google search solutions for internal site search?
A few months ago, we converted to their application for internal site search. Our first 3 users all were irritated because they felt it was a Google search of the internet with our header on the page. (though the styles are different and it uses our site header) The results are all listed with our website address. We are now looking at ways to make search more useful. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41606 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Job: UI Designer (NYC)
If you're interested in this position, please email me directly at is...@adtuition.com. Adtuition is seeking an innovative, self-motivated UI designer. The ideal candidate will be able to create usable, coherent and beautiful user interfaces in a variety of mediums including standard and rich media ad units, websites and web applications. An unfailing passion and capacity to advocate on behalf of your users is an absolute must; you will be their representative. You will work closely with world-class product managers and engineers in order to ensure that we create highly usable, on-message products. You are a jack-of-all-trades, straddling the visual and UX/IA aspects of the design discipline. You are comfortable developing process flows, wireframes, mockups and visual specs in order to effectively conceptualize and communicate high-level design strategies and detailed interaction behaviors. Candidates interested in this role should provide a link to their portfolio in their cover letter. QUALIFICATIONS Required: * At least 5 years of work experience in Interface or Interaction Design * A strong portfolio demonstrating past work experience and relevant, user-centered design solutions * An innate capacity for creating fun, highly usable designs and layouts * Experience with designing end-user, web-based applications * Fluency in best practices for Information Architecture and Interaction Design * The ability to quickly turn around rigorous wireframes and mockups in an iterative environment * The ability to provide detailed specifications for our developers and engineers to work from * A general understanding of how Design impacts Development (and vice versa), along with a knack for constructing dynamic, interactive designs that are technically feasible/prudent * A strong awareness of common Usability methods and principles * A lucid sense for how individual components and features impact their larger applications, and how to optimize accordingly * Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and analytical skills; the ability to communicate complex, interactive design concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization * The ability to manage ambiguity, work autonomously, and multi-task in an agile environment * Effectiveness in working across organizational boundaries to manage and prioritize work * A clean sense of design aesthetics, and a natural propensity towards simplification over complication * An aptitude and honed intuition for tasteful, visual design details * An enduring sense of humor Desired: * Proficiency with web standards and accessibility compliance * The ability to prototype in HTML/CSS, JavaScript, and/or Flash ABOUT ADTUITION Adtuition is a venture-backed Internet advertising technology company based in New York City. We offer services that enable online publishers to increase their advertising yield by working with online retailers to create micro-targeted ad units. Learn more at adtuition.com. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
Hi, I'm in a transition stage, moving from developer to business systems analyst. In this new role, I'm trying to incorporate some usability guidelines and improve user interaction. I get quite a bit of push back from the developer team members. They claim certain things cannot be done. However, being a developer, I know some things can be done. There was even a point, since I still have access to the environment that I wrote some code to prove it. I cannot go on doing that for the rest of my career. But, I would hate to give up the fight, and allow good interaction design to take a backseat to quick, dirty, cheap development. How do some of you, who have been in my situation, handle these types of resistances, so that your application can be a good and usable one? Thanks, Elle Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
I geek out on this. Don't know why. I guess I see IVRs and call centers as the easiest opportunity for designing great experiences that provide an immediate impact on the bottom line. We've audited some IVRs as part of a larger sonic branding and identity initiative for clients. I'm not an expert (they've already been referenced in this thread), but here's some of the high-level stuff we look at: 1. Multiple voices are the sonic evidence of a messy operation. It's really easy to deconstruct a company's haphazard call-center operations when, over the course of a few minutes, you hear seven different voices, each of them with varying personalities. (Hmm, that was Texas...there's India...back to Texas...New Jersey.) 2. Discontinuous music is a discontinuous interface. Callers will inevitably be transferred from one center to the next. As with voices, music styles affect our perception of performance. Music and and should fit the moment; skip the Stevie Wonder in your company's mission-critical hotline and stick with something that's contextually appropriate. Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at how often companies screw this up. 3. Unattended hold times. This one's obvious, too -- nothing says 'Screw You' like being put on hold. But the low-hanging fruit here isn't necessarily to shorten those hold times (easier said than done)...rather, use a human being right from the start and have them pop in intermittently so people don't feel ignored. Adrian North's research backs this up -- customers are willing to stay on the line longer if they're 'messaged' on a regular basis (even with a prerecorded announcement) as opposed to being stuck with a disingenuous, looping collection of pop tunes. Just skimming the surface here, there's much more...it's really a matter of designing for engagement. Versus not. Historically IVRs have been the domain of engineers, and until we see more brand teams or UX groups involved via corporate edict or funding power, it's likely to stay the same. (On that note, great timing for that Buxton piece in BusinessWeek.) By the way, one of my favorite audits revealed 7 voices, 8 styles of music, and over four minutes of hold time before I hung up...and that was me acting as a highest-tier customer. Add that up to X callers per day and the business case is relatively simple. Noel Franus noel.fra...@sonicid.com 415.577.6016 Sonic ID US+UK Web: http://sonicid.com Blog: http://intentionalaudio.com/blog On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:50 AM, j. eric townsend j...@flatline.net wrote: I'm doing a really quick, one-off project for a class involving interactive voice response (IVR) systems. What I'm looking for is detailes on one or two really bad IVR systems, or maybe a study pointing out the N most egregious flaws of IVR systems. So far g5/Y! isn't getting me anything meaty, just obvious customer-relations things like, don't apologize for doing something you shouldn't do. I'm wondering if maybe there's some IVR-speak that I should be using in my searches, or if this tech goes by some other name that I should be searching for. If you (collective) have any advice/pointers, I'd appreciate them. (And if you reply off-list I will consolidate responses into a single post or two.) thx, --jet -- J. Eric jet Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09 design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
Hi Elle, I like your approach, saying: if you (mr developer) can't do it, I will do it myself. In my experience you only have to say/prove it once or twice and professional developers will take the challenge the next time. Nothing is impossible. Some design solutions are expensive, unsecure or for some other reason not perfect. Invite developers to criticize your design. Let them explain what the technical consequences are and -important- ask them to think of alternatives that are more desirable from a technical view point. In most cases a compromise within the functional and technical constraints is possible. The end result will be a piece of teamwork all team member are proud of. If this strategy doesn't work, I can only advise to hire better developers ;) Don't give up the fight, it's your responsibility to create a solution with the best interaction possible. - Yohan. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
Noel's story of that horrible IVR reminded me of an IVR usability study we ran a few years ago which actually made someone cry and made another user slam down the phone and say she couldn't take it anymore. The test involved asking Walmart employees to call an IVR for a well known investment company and attempt to change the allocation of the mutual funds in their 401k. A few things to keep in mind in this crazy study: 1) Most employees that Walmart provided for the study were not aware that Walmart even provided them with a 401k and had no idea what a mutual fund is...nonetheless understand reallocating their mutual funds 2) The IVR was ridiculous. It confirmed everything three or four times for no reason making you start doubting your sanity. 3) At the beginning of the interaction, if you chose Path A, this process might take you 5 minutes. If you chose Path B, you feasibly could still complete the task but it would take you a minimum of half an hour. It turned out Path A and Path B did basically the same thing...Path B just did it in a convoluted crazy fashion. And, initially Path B presented itself as more appealing. 4) People using the IVR were presumably looking at a statement from the investment firm for the 401k. However, the IVR used language that did not match anything written on the statement resulting in mass confusion. You can only imagine the madness that ensued in this study. Let's just say that the by the end the day the client couldn't watch the train wreck anymore. Although I am sure you can draw your own conclusions from this exercise, here are a few key points: - If your users is going to be looking at artifacts while using your IVR, review the artifacts and make sure you are using the exact same language - Be very clear about each path in the IVR and do not create strange meandering longcuts to entrap users - Although confirmations are good for natural language interfaces especially, do not overconfirm -- you offend your user's sanity. - When designing the system, keep in mind the knowledge level of your users and ask yourself if this is really an appropriate use of IVR for your target audience Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
The real stunner in my experience is to say ... The criteria that you are using in order to determine what to do are different from the criteria I'm using. Your criteria are based on technical insights together with your beliefs about what would work for the user. There's a whole discipline devoted to figuring out what users do, what they want, and what we should do for them. There are a whole lot of surprises that come out of looking at things from the users' point of view. For example, in our situation, ... Let's talk about things from both points of view: what experience the users would find most beneficial and compelling, and what we can do for them. I'll keep user behaviors uppermost in my mind, and you can keep technical considerations uppermost in your mind. But we each have to turn to the other to make this work, because we are developing complementary expertise. Here are some things I've laid out that provide a framework that we can work in ... Best wishes, Bruce On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Yohan Creemers yo...@ylab.nl wrote: Hi Elle, I like your approach, saying: if you (mr developer) can't do it, I will do it myself. In my experience you only have to say/prove it once or twice and professional developers will take the challenge the next time. Nothing is impossible. Some design solutions are expensive, unsecure or for some other reason not perfect. Invite developers to criticize your design. Let them explain what the technical consequences are and -important- ask them to think of alternatives that are more desirable from a technical view point. In most cases a compromise within the functional and technical constraints is possible. The end result will be a piece of teamwork all team member are proud of. If this strategy doesn't work, I can only advise to hire better developers ;) Don't give up the fight, it's your responsibility to create a solution with the best interaction possible. - Yohan. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] New Site: Feedback?
Nina/Big Wheel dot Net Can you clarify your potential user(s)? Perhaps a mini profile for your top 3? This will help with feedback. Thanks! Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41640 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Bill Buxton just might be my design management hero
Bill has become a recent hero in our design/development studio. If you have 20 minutes I would suggest watching this. http://videos.visitmix.com/MIX09/KEY01 It is just worth it to see him physically demonstrate why it is so important to focus on transition from Step A to Step B versus just focusing on Step A and Step B. It was a lightbulb moment for me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41637 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Number of results displayed per page on mobile device
I wonder what the numbers of people using WAP browsers for your function really are. Are you building with the iPhone in mind? That would seem to be the stronger, growing, market for mobile web. And it doesn't have this concern. I've been doing search pages with variable sets of results for year. I'm assuming you aren't considering 5 because you think it is too small? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41643 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
On 30 Apr 2009, at 12:49, Elle wrote: [snip] How do some of you, who have been in my situation, handle these types of resistances, so that your application can be a good and usable one? [snip] The best way I find to get out of these situations is to ask Why? - possibly several times (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys :-) Some of the reasons I discover have included things along the lines of * Time constraints: Well of course we could do Foo if we had 3 months - but it needs to be released next week. * Multi-tasking problems: Well of course we could do Foo, but I'm working on projects X Y too. Boss says project X wins. * Feature prioritisation issues: Well of course we could do Foo, but at the moment that bit of the system is functional - if ugly - and OtherImportantFeature still needs finishing for sales to meet their promises * Skill issues: You can do Foo? How? (just coz _you_ can do it doesn't mean they can :-) * Budget constraints: Of course we could do Foo, but we only have three days of money left * Reward structures: Of course we could do Foo, but that's not a new feature - that's just a UI fix - and we lose our bonus if we don't ship another new feature this month * Organisational issues: You can tell me to do Foo all you like, the only person who can get me to switch from my current task is my boss * Previous experiences: Every time a designer tells me to change something, it comes back to bite us with bad customer reports failed projects (There are a lot of bad designers out there unfortunately. Some really good developers have only worked with bad designers. This can colour their view of the group...) ... and so on ... More often than not I find that the underlying reason for the no makes perfect sense to the person saying it. More often than not the root cause turns out to be a business/organisational issue rather than anything related to the ux/dev folk. Sometimes no turns out to have been the right answer given the whole context. Do your devs have reasons for their no? Cheers, Adrian Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
One thing that may help in building IVR's is better tools to do it. Check this out: http://www.twilio.com/ Super disruptive as anyone can now build telephony with simple web dev skills, and it scales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41631 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
Sounds like less of a technical issue, and more of a respect issue. You could be a clown transitioning to ringmaster; you could experience the same thing. Read an I/O Psychology book for understanding motivations and finding possible solutions. On Apr 30, 2009, at 12:49 PM, Elle wrote: Hi, I'm in a transition stage, moving from developer to business systems analyst. In this new role, I'm trying to incorporate some usability guidelines and improve user interaction. I get quite a bit of push back from the developer team members. They claim certain things cannot be done. However, being a developer, I know some things can be done. There was even a point, since I still have access to the environment that I wrote some code to prove it. I cannot go on doing that for the rest of my career. But, I would hate to give up the fight, and allow good interaction design to take a backseat to quick, dirty, cheap development. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any IVR experts in the house?
I've used voxeo to build IVR prototypes in the past. Free hosting, and you can dial into a US number (with a PIN). It was very easy to make a push button IVR in VXML. Voice activation also looked a bit easier than you'd expect... http://evolution.voxeo.com/ Twillo's mark up language looks pretty impressive, never tried it myself though... -- Dr. Harry Brignull User Experience Consultant http://www.90percentofeverything.com On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 8:49 AM, greg greg.petr...@sap.com wrote: One thing that may help in building IVR's is better tools to do it. Check this out: http://www.twilio.com/ Super disruptive as anyone can now build telephony with simple web dev skills, and it scales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41631 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Bill Buxton just might be my design management hero
Nice piece. That happens a lot with clients/colleagues in other disciplines asking for simple black and white answers to issues that have a lot to do with context and many other factors. On the other hand, I would be careful about seeing usability as something that requires a lot of specific training. Even in this article Buxton talks about how usability practices do not have to be the exclusive domain of usability specialists. While having a deep background in human factors and cognitive sciences can help, this does not have to be the exclusive realm of people with specific qualifications. In fact it can be a lot better as engineers, designers, marketing people, and poets listen to each other and learn to speak the same language. . . . michael kay . . . buenos aires / http://www.peep.org On 30/04/2009, at 17:53, j. eric townsend wrote: FWIW, that's an excellent write-up of why I went back to school to study design... Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Bill Buxton just might be my design management hero
You can slice design into lots of small issues, skills, and knowledge sets... none of which are exclusive domains. I think Bill's point is that design is not one of those. While everybody relates to design and believes they have some capacity to design, not everyone has a comprehensive toolset. We are extending this conversation within my group to the topic of professional consideration. We should all be very familiar with the skillsets, responsibilities and tasks of those we work with (PM's, PJM's, SEO folks, Usability, Researchers, Visual designers,Dev guys, and Engineers all come to mind) but to presume that I can do their job with just a few rules or by reading a book is arrogant and frankly insulting. On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Michael Kay mike...@peep.org wrote: Nice piece. That happens a lot with clients/colleagues in other disciplines asking for simple black and white answers to issues that have a lot to do with context and many other factors. On the other hand, I would be careful about seeing usability as something that requires a lot of specific training. Even in this article Buxton talks about how usability practices do not have to be the exclusive domain of usability specialists. While having a deep background in human factors and cognitive sciences can help, this does not have to be the exclusive realm of people with specific qualifications. In fact it can be a lot better as engineers, designers, marketing people, and poets listen to each other and learn to speak the same language. . . . michael kay . . . buenos aires / http://www.peep.org On 30/04/2009, at 17:53, j. eric townsend wrote: FWIW, that's an excellent write-up of why I went back to school to study design... Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Bill Moggridge says IxD is over. ; -) (not really, but its nice and provocative)
Speaking of Bill, anyone notice he just won Cooper-Hewitt's Lifetime Achievement Award? http://www.nationaldesignawards.org/2009/category/Lifetime- Achievement/ Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Number of results displayed per page on mobile device
Dev, I'm actually reserving the asterisk and pound keys for zoom functionality with our integrated map (users may swap between list view and map view). William, this is definitely for WAP-only users (we have separate products for iPhone, Android, J2ME). As for using 5 results per page, it's something I've thought about... 5 may be too few, though. In the end, maybe users just don't care about whether they see 9 results per page? They're more concerned about actual results, not whether it shows 9 or 10 on a page, right? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41643 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Number of results displayed per page on mobile device
In the end, maybe users just don't care about whether they see 9 results per page? They're more concerned about actual results, not whether it shows 9 or 10 on a page, right? Right, the critical information is the Page # for backtracking and landmarks. A simple solution is to say Page 1 of 14 and ignore the result count alltogether in the UI language. -A Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Feedback on IxDA Los Angeles Yahoo present Personas SUCK / Personas RULE!
On Wednesday, April 29th IxDA Los Angeles presented Personas SUCK! Personas RULE! at Yahoo! Heartfelt thanks to our speakers: Jill Strawbridge, Adam Korman, all of our amazing local volunteers who made the night possible, and the super helpful facilities team at Yahoo! They are seriously on the ball! The presentation portion was heavily borrowed from the Death to personas! Long live personas! slides that Elizabeth Bacon and Steve Calde delivered last year in Portland, so special thanks go out to those two as well! To all 60+ of the IxDA Los Angeles community members who attended, YOU ROCK! It would have been nothing without your participation! Best of all, the whole presentation and the Go Rogue! workshop have been recorded for a video podcast! We will share it as soon as it's ready. In the meantime, please share your feedback about the event at our new local site: http://ixdala.ning.com/forum/topics/feedback-about-the-personas What did you like and what could be improved? Kind regards, IxDA Los Angeles Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] New Site: Feedback?
The first thing I clicked opened a new window. So I stopped clicking. It was a string of what seemed like gibberish. This will likely be the result for anyone else who doesn't care about you. Which, unless you are making this for your friends, is your target. People who don't care about you. The goal is to make them care about you, and then hire or follow you. I was offended and left. Going back (cause you asked nicely) I find myself confused by the interaction more than I am intrigued. I don't really understand the difference between mostly interaction and mostly visual. I don't know why the interface pokes under/through the content, This almost seems broken. I know it is intentional only because I have a natural respect for people. Again, someone who doesn't care about you will just assume you are a bad designer. Also. Absorb the spam, make accessing you easy. Use a bayesian spam filter, don't force people to decipher an email address or fill in a captcha... I hate captcha. I don't tend to use sites that use them. I love the idea of the repeated sub-nav in the resume. I hate the implementation. I almost missed it, it was dumb luck that I rolled over them and realized they were links. Also. It bothers me when sites are shunted to the left or right. But I realize I have a large monitor. But I think it is worse to only support 1280 widths. Come on... You can't shrink under 1280 with CSS? And you can't wrap in a div and center? Finally. JAWS seems to choke on your nav. (That is a screen reader, for the blind) But I do have an older version, and you have some funky JS (Dreamweaver?) that might be confusing it that a newer version might handle. (JAWS is expensive) Also, designer not: 2.0 pink looks really dated and obvious these days. Thanks flickr. (Anything insulting was meant to be humorous, yay lack of inflection online) Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41640 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
There are no such things as technical limitations. That is a cop-out phrase that people use to avoid change. That said. There is such a thing as financial limitations. It is technically possible to build something JUST LIKE a google search appliance but that returns a REAL total number of results. It would require a lot more power than a GSA comes with, and a lot more thought, and millions of dollars in RD. When a GSA is 1/100th that cost. So it is better to just not have a 'go to the last page' button. Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41665 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
On May 1, 2009, at 3:32 PM, William Brall wrote: There are no such things as technical limitations. That is a cop-out phrase that people use to avoid change. Huh. Someone better tell the poor electron, which has spent all of its existence trying to move faster than the speed of light and never quite getting there. I would think, at some point, you run into limitations of the space- time continuum. That said. There is such a thing as financial limitations. Now, that's interesting. I guess it's been somewhat proven by the federal debt, though not quite. I don't think either of these approaches of declaring what are limitations are really helpful to someone. I'd suggest you look for something that actually holds proverbial water. Jared Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
On Apr 30, 2009, at 12:49 PM, Elle wrote: How do some of you, who have been in my situation, handle these types of resistances, so that your application can be a good and usable one? Elle, What you're describing is an adversarial relationship with developers. You say it can be done. They say it can't. This is a classic opinion war. And, in my experience, opinion wars can not be won. So, if you take this approach, you will always lose. In our research, we've found the best teams step past opinion wars by having a solid experience vision and a good feedback mechanism. The team collaboratively creates a vision of what an aspirational experience could be, sometime in the future. Imagine what it's like to use the design without today's frustrations -- what would that be like? (Note: this isn't 'What would the DESIGN be like?', but instead 'What would the EXPERIENCE be like?') The team then measures the current experience (using techniques like usability testing and field studies). Then it talks about what baby steps could move them in the direction of the vision. This is very different from the You-Must-Do-This/We-Can't-Do-This approach of the opinion war. It's a collaborative and iterative process, where the entire team explores the options. You can see more about what I'm talking about in this article: The 3 Q's For Great Experience Design http://www.uie.com/articles/the3qs/ Hope that helps, Jared p.s. This is also what we're talking about in the upcoming UIE Roadshow: http://is.gd/gxwe -- I'll have a discount code for IxDA folks shortly. Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: jsp...@uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: @jmspool UIE Roadshow: Seattle, Denver, DC in June: http://is.gd/gxwe Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Technical Limitation Arguements
moving from developer to business systems Internal move or company to company? I only ask because if it was internal you would know who you are dealing with. They claim certain things cannot be done.If they cannot be done and they have been employed and have say you can be absolutely certain they know what can be done to secure their position. There was even a point, since I still have access to the environment that I wrote some code to prove it. You are totally undermining their authority. I've totally done this before. Or I've done it with out showing then asked if it could be done and when they say no I say how did I make this happen (with that total I am f*cking retard look on my face). Or my favorite is to ask if it is okay if you do it because you know how. Hell no do that want that to happen. I guess you should ask for their advice or alternative solutions even thought you know they are full of sh*t. Their is always more than one way to do something, might as well hear em out. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Books or articles that cover analysis of user/design research data well.
Hi Steve Steve Mulder's book, The User Is Always Right: A Practical Guide to Creating and Using Personas for the Web, is excellent. The title doesn't do its depth on analysis justice, but it's the best of the books I've read on analyzing user research, and I've read several of the books on your list. For a taste of his viewpoint on the topic, read my review of his IA Summit 2006 talk, Bringing More Science to Persona Creation, here: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2006/04/my-ia-summit-2006-experience-part-3-the-conference-day-2.php (The conference reviews I've written for UXmatters are true reviews, more than critiques, and impart as much salient information as I was able to capture in my notes.) Quite a few articles on UXmatters, in addition to your own and Lindsay's, cover this topic. I particularly recommend Michael Hawley's column, Research That Works. You'll find a list of all UXmatters articles on user research here: http://www.uxmatters.com/topics/user-research/ The description of the CHI 2007 Workshop Beyond Current User Research: Designing Methods for New Users, Technologies, and Design Processes includes a good bibliography: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1241097 Regards, Pabini _ Pabini Gabriel-Petit Principal UX Architect Spirit Softworks LLC www.spiritsoftworks.com Publisher Editor in Chief UXmatters www.uxmatters.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] New Site: Feedback?
Agree with Kelly and William. A few questions that you should consider. 1. Your intended goal is to promote yourself, Nina Eleanor Alter or Bigwheel.net (company)? 2. Did you consider the usability or heuristics when you're designing this site? It has a serious UX in the site. Better watch out if you're calling yourself an interaction designer. If this is just a graphic site, then still OK. Just like what William commented, it is really put off and confuse when first look at the site. no offense here :-) regards, Donny On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 6:56 AM, Nina Eleanor Alter ninav...@bigwheel.netwrote: Hey Folks: I just re-did my personal/portfolio site, and would love love love some feedback! I've already gotten some very clear feedback that some key issues need to be addressed, though the rest of the stuff I'd also like advisement on. There's a surveymonkey.com link on the homepage, or an email would be swell. Primary unknown that I'd love feedback on: What are your thoughts on how the IxD/IA projects are presented within the portfolio, and what might you recommend be done differently to provide either quicker or more compelling or just plain better narratives/content/etc. http://www.bigwheel.net Thanks in advance!!! - n Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
