Re: [IxDA Discuss] Monopoly board gets redesigned - IxD rationale?
Todd, that's not entirely fair. You can't deny that there are many board games out there that are much better than Monopoly. And in general, the folks at Board Game Geek (and yes, I am one of them) are pretty much spot on with their overall rankings, just like the folks at IMDB are pretty good with movies. However, one thing that you need to know is that there are a LOT of board game snobs on the Geek, and especially a lot of Eurogame snobs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-style_board_game). To them, any game that involves rolling a die equals a bad game and good games must be almost entirely strategy-driven. Hence, you will see the rankings on the site severely skewed in that direction. But I have as much fun playing Puerto Rico (#2 on BGG) as I do playing Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot (#2967 on BGG). Yes, Puerto Rico has significantly less luck involved, and as such I typically win or at least have a chance at winning much more often, but winning isn't the most important thing when you are playing a game. Heck, most of the time, it shouldn't even be in the top five (definitely if you are playing with at least four other people). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49093 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] Monopoly board gets redesigned - IxD rationale?
Sorry David, but I know LOTS of people that actually like to play Monopoly. It even has national and worldwide tournaments that draw in lots of people that love the game (both watching and playing in the tournaments). Even if marketing has a lot to do with it, the game is popular because people like to play it. Horrible games with great marketing are not going to survive for 70 years. And like I said (and you conveniently avoided responding to) the primary design objective of a game is for the players to have fun, so if the millions of people that play Monopoly have fun doing so, how is it not designed at least reasonably well? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49093 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] Monopoly board gets redesigned - IxD rationale?
David, While I agree with you that Monopoly is not a very "FUN" game, saying that it is poorly designed because a large number of gaming snobs (yes, we are all snobs there) give it a low rating is not really fair nor is it necessarily accurate. There are a few things to consider - In the world of game design, Monopoly is ancient. You can't really compare a game conceived over 70 years ago with games made in the last year, just like it isn't fair to compare the Model T to the latest BMW. Advancements in so many areas as well as increased knowledge and intelligence overall have changed how we all think about what makes board games fun. For ANYTHING to be able to survive 70 years on the market with little to no functional changes, it has to be pretty well. For every copy of those games sold in the top 10 (or 20, or even 50) games, how many copies of Monopoly are sold each year? I would say its at least 10 times (and that's being VERY conservative). That means that a very large number of people MUST think that the game IS fun. And since the main design concern with making a game is that it is fun for the players, I would hardly call it a failure in design. And the last point I'm going to make for now is the same point I make when people on Board Game Geek get into a fit like this about Monopoly (or its "wargame" counterpart - Risk) - how many of the great games available now would even exist if it weren't for these classic, yet very dated (in terms of mechanics) games? Almost every "well designed" game out there now owes itself to one of these "classic" games in one way or another. Even great games like Settlers of Catan (at one time was #1 on Board Game Geek, now all the way down to #45) and Puerto Rico (#2 on Board Game Geek) can trace some of its mechanics to Monopoly. The game was revolutionary for its time, and is still a very important game in the history of board games, no matter how much snobs no longer like it. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49093 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] Monopoly board gets redesigned - IxD rationale?
I think it is very, very odd. The electronic banking, as the article states, has been an available item for several years, and that part of it is fine, but the round board just doesn't make any sense. As a board gamer, games like Monopoly haven't appealed to me in years anyways, but there was still something comforting about the classic square track. Also, the "wheel of fortune" style pie slices don't seem big enough to convey what things are as well as the rectangles and squares. One thing to note - they tried the opposite way of "updating" Monopoly not too long ago - didn't change the board shape, but this time did change all of the property names, based on internet voting. I'm pretty sure that didn't go over too well either. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49093 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] Open Office V's MS Office
I have repeatedly tried to use OpenOffice in the past as a replacement for MS Office, and each time it has come up incredibly short. For VERY basic document editing, it is fine, but it can't really handle advanced layouts very well, and it doesn't have most of the keyboard shortcuts for formatting that you really need to be efficient when writing large documents (at least that I've been able to find). Calc vs. Excel isn't even a comparison. Calc is like using a spreadsheet program from 15 years ago. It has a much more limited set of functions and when you have an error in a cell, it is significantly less helpful than the error messages that Excel will give you, which means that it is almost useless in this regard, since Excel's error messages aren't really all too useful either. OpenOffice doesn't even have a mail client that I know about, but Outlook is so far beyond every other mail client out there as it is, I don't think OpenOffice would ever be able to compete in that realm. I haven't used any of the other comparable apps to what Office provides, so I don't actually know how they compare, but if it can't even come close to the two main apps I need to use, then there's no reason to even bother with the rest. Also, the last time I used OpenOffice, it couldn't open the .docx and .xlsx files that Office 2007 generates, which limits its usability even further, since most businesses I deal with have moved to that version by now. My position is - if you are an individual looking to just be able to read the occasional document or generate something very basic, OpenOffice works fine. But if you are a company or someone that needs to make use of advanced features, MS Office is the only way to go. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=49045 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] iPad.
It doesn't replace my phone, and it doesn't replace my computer, so the only need that I see it fitting for me is the e-reader that I don't currently have (and don't really see a need for yet either). So unless it can do eBooks better than the Kindle or Nook, I really don't see the point. If I really want to watch videos on the go, I can do it on my phone or my laptop, which are both already with me pretty much everywhere I go (hence the reason I don't have an e-reader yet). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48704 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] Web: Modals on a form
I think it is really dependent on the context of the form. A registration form? No, I don't think you should use modal dialogs. But in that case, I also think the form should be as simple and minimal as possible, because your goal is to get them to register for your site, not to get them to provide their life story to you. To me, modal popups should be limited to things where the action is not really a part of the flow that the user is trying to accomplish. For example - asking someone to log in to post their comment on a page. Logging in isn't really part of the flow; the flow is typing the comment and submitting it. After they've clicked submit, if they aren't logged in, popping up a small box to log them in rather than taking them to another page to log in is a good user experience. Popping up a box to ask for the user's State after they select United States as their country is not a good user experience, but changing the State/Province/Region text box to a dropdown with all US states after they select their country is. Charles Boyung Owner & Software Architect Nexus Technologies, LLC. http://www.nexustechnologiesllc.com Phone: 414-467-8019 Skype: charles.boyung -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Oleh Kovalchuke Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2:17 PM To: Michael Caskey Cc: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Web: Modals on a form Inline, in dynamic expandable panel. Modal for legal, license etc. agreements. Oleh Kovalchuke On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Michael Caskey wrote: > > What are your thoughts on employing modals on a form. > > In addition, should modals be used for inputs that are required for one > particular context of the form, whether certain criteria is met? (In which > case, the modal would be shown automatically, based on the user's context > and input.) > > Might it be better to just put the fields inline with the form, but grayed > out, depending on the context? > > Or better to insert the fields inline, near the UI elements that might > trigger the need for those fields to be present? > > Any options I might be missing here? > > Thanks! > > Mike Caskey > > > > 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 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] PINs for passwords
They are only secure enough because you can't easily write a program to automatically run through them in the physical world like you can on a computer. If you created a website that uses 4 to 6 digit numbers as passwords, I could get into the site in a matter of hours. A good hacker could probably do it in minutes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from ixda.org (via iPhone) http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48149 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] Online tools (Possibly free ware) that we can use to create a knowledge base of glossary
You answered your own question when you stated that you wanted collaborative content creation across your teams. That is exactly what wikis are for, as people have already stated. As for the ease of use of wikis (or lack thereof), there are plenty of easy to use wikis out there. If you don't already have a great intranet, you can go with an all in one package like Telligent Evolution (based on what used to be called Community Server). It has all sorts of great intranet tools including wikis and SharePoint support. Otherwise, there are plenty of free and commercial wikis to choose from. It really isn't too hard to learn basic wiki syntax, regardless of which wiki you choose to work with. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48080 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] Checkboxes: Should the action of "checking" present the user with options/settings?
Regarding #1 - I agree with Jan that displaying something inline could be okay, but displaying a popup is a bad idea. Regarding #2 - The label on your checkbox should perform the same action when clicking on it as when you click on the checkbox - i.e. checking or unchecking it, along with any actions associated with that state change. This is a standard usability and accessibility practice, primarily because a checkbox is relatively small, and a label is that much easier to click. This is why the "label" element in HTML has a "for" attribute that you can associate with a form element, so clicking on the label provides focus to the form element. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48097 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] Trust and URLs
I'm going to have to agree with Jared here (I never seem to agree with you when listening to your podcasts, but when you're writing here I always do for some reason). Most users are not going to notice. Also, how do you know that people are not going to know that pear.com is related to fruit.com. There is absolutely no way that you can know that. Maybe the users know perfectly well that pear is a sub-brand of fruit. For example, when we folded the various child cooking magazines into the banner website of http://www.tasteofhome.com (check http://www.quickcooking.com and http://www.simpleanddelicious.com), no one really had any complaints about it, and some people even commented that they had no idea that there was so much more content available to them as a subscriber of one of the child magazines. We also used all sorts of marketing and contest domains that redirect to domains on a main site (both going to sub-pages on tasteofhome.com and rd.com) that again posed absolutely no problems with our users. Your example of banking sites makes a good point, but it is a very limited case. Most sites out there are not dealing with this sort of situation. If you are dealing with a page showing content and not a page asking for secure credentials, it really isn't going to matter. On Dec 28, 2009, at 4:14 PM, live wrote: Yes, that completely erodes trust because the user has no idea that fruit and pear are related companies. Additionally, with all the phishing scams out there consumers are more and more being taught to pay attention to the domain. Heck, even my credit union is reminding us that it doesn't matter what the page looks like, it matter what the domain says . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48094 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] A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the URL
My question is - why are you saying "you're welcome" in Spanish in the middle of your post? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from ixda.org (via iPhone) http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47988 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] on-line sticky notes
I have used Protonotes on several occasions for design reviews: http://www.protonotes.com/ It requires you to add a little bit of javascript to your page, but works really well. A couple more that I have found but have not tried yet: http://www.mystickies.com/ http://mysticky.net/ Not sure how these work, or how "shareable" they are. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47853 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] Best Practices and/or Examples of Search Results for Mixing Password Protected (members-only) content and Public Content
Shivan, Good point about the gallery view - I'm guessing the designers just left it off for look and feel purposes, not for any valid reason (I wasn't involved in that aspect at all). As for the plus icon, the reason we used that is purely for branding. The site (and magazine) has used the concept of "Taste of Home Plus" as additional web content for magazine subscribers. I personally would have loved to use something more clear, like you said, but again, it was purely a branding decision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47242 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] Faceted Search Stats
Are you absolutely sure that faceted search is going to improve their users' experience? It may not be necessary unless they have hundreds (or even thousands) of products that they are selling. There's no need to make things overly complex. Also, if you have a good, intelligent search, faceted search really isn't necessary, even with a lot of products. Faceted search is very difficult to accomplish, and even more difficult to accomplish well, so you really need to spend a lot of time researching the value of adding it to a site. I would recommend researching the client's traffic patterns. The key question is - how often are the users searching and then NOT clicking on a specific result and comparing that to how often they are searching and ARE clicking on a specific result. Then extend that to the number of purchases from searches. If there is a lot of searching going on and people are finding the products and buying them, then there really isn't a need for faceted search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=47029 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] Firefox tilting web pages
Erik, I was just thinking the same thing as you - I'm really glad that they're focusing on garbage like this rather than making FireFox an actual, usable browser for me. As for its use, unless they start writing more browser-specific garbage into their rendering engine (thus moving them even FURTHER from true w3c compliance for HTML and CSS), it really won't have much use beyond rotating full pages, which doesn't honestly mean much, and after playing with it for a few minutes, even the biggest hardcore FireFox nerds are going to abandon it and turn the feature off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46731 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] Mega Drop-Down Navigation menus
"another nice use of these mega nav dropdowns is including callouts, promos, featured items as part of the space " I guess your definition of nice is different than mine. I personally hate it when my navigation has all of that extra junk there, both as a user and as a usability analyst. It really does very little to add to the user experience. It may be good from a marketing perspective, but from a purely user-based perspective, they have little to no value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46723 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] Mega Drop-Down Navigation menus
"Why must navigation and structure be 1:1?" Um, because contrary to what you said after this, navigation and structure are not just related, they ARE the same thing, at least in terms of this discussion. You have a navigation tree to follow from one page to the next. If that isn't structure, then what is? Pages belong in a hierarchy, and that is how you get where you want to go. Yes, navigation can have cross-links to go from one related area to another, not necessarily in the tree, but you still need to have that tree as the primary means to get around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46723 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] Mega Drop-Down Navigation menus
"If you decide to skip building category pages, incorporate categories in breadcrumbs. For instance: Home Sports: Windsurfing " What would your links be here? "Home" and "Sports: Windsurfing" or "Home Sports:" and "Windsurfing"? I could potentially see a case for what you are saying if you use the former, but not if you use the latter. I think you are skipping out on the potential value of those category pages. Your argument about having the "what else is here" content on the target page is not a good one, because it really clutters the page. Yes, I know that Amazon does it all over the place, but in that instance, it's one of the times where Amazon does things very poorly from a user perspective. Amazon product pages are one of the worst designs out there in my opinion. All I want is to see the product I chose, not 50 other products. As for the value of the category pages, I really do think it's there. Check out this page: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/ And then check out this child page: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Holiday---Celebration-Recipes Yes, the former is probably the blandest of the bland when it comes to category pages, but the holiday page actually has some additional content. Not only is this useful to the users, but it will also help your search engine optimization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46723 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] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
"Yeah blame it on the process. Sorry but process don't save you from bad design decisions. " No, but having a good process in place makes it much easier for those bad design decisions to be rectified much earlier in the project. I'm guessing you either haven't been part of a good project process or you haven't been part of a bad project process to be able to see this. If the former case, that really sucks for you; if the latter case, you are really lucky and I hope it holds out for you. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46278 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] Mega Drop-Down Navigation menus
If you are going to categorize pages in those drop downs based on the parent item, then the pages for those categories should exist. And likewise, if you choose to use breadcrumbs, that category should be in the breadcrumbs and should be a link to the page. You can't make the "/sports" a 404 or go back to the home page because the former is just bad usability practice, since URLs that look like a folder structure ARE going to get treated that way, and the latter is very confusing to the user. In addition, since you are creating the category pages, then you should make those top level navigation items links as well. This is actually good design practice because it makes things a lot easier and accessible for those that have disabilities and even for those (admittedly very few people at this point) that turn off javascript or otherwise stop your menus from working. You need to think of those landing pages as not just "category" pages, but also as a means to increase your site's visibility and also it's ability to help your users. A "sports" page can provide a lot more information than just a list of subcategories or pages. If you have a good strategy for your content, you can use that page to drive search traffic to your site and also provide some great content for your users that manage to get to that page by whatever means. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46723 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] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
Todd, I do want to add that I do agree with you completely, though, about how Remedy and its many competitors are absolute garbage when it comes to user interfaces. I'd like to add most CMS applications to that list as well. I also agree with your point here: "This is a methodology issue, not an issue with usability testing. If that's how your testing is done then change it. If you don't like the way it's conducted, then change it. It's up to you." It really is the process that is the problem, not usability testing (which is different than UCD, by the way, for those of you that seem to be using them interchangeably). If you don't have a process in place to make use of the testing results, then of course the testing itself is a waste of time. You need to PLAN for usability testing at the beginning of a project. It isn't something you can tack on at some point and expect it to improve your application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46278 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] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants
Todd Zaki Warfel wrote: "Most of these tools are horrible from a UX perspective. They were designed by engineers, focused on the technology first and slapped some lipstick on it to make it look tolerable." Hey Todd - don't go saying that engineers provide poorly designed interfaces. GOOD engineers definitely take the time and effort to come up with a good user interface when the product being engineered is going to be used by a user. I would say that programmers and computer scientists may fit your statement a little better, but a true engineer takes the entire package into consideration. Engineer is a professional term that gets thrown around way too much in the realm of software development. Engineers are trained to perform that role, and part of that training includes designing things properly, which includes the UI when designing an end-user product. I would guess that 90% of the people in the realm of software development that are called engineers should not be based on training alone. Now, of the remaining 10%, I can't really comment, but I would guess that more of those people actually perform the role admirably. Sorry, but as an actual engineer, it really bugs me to see the term misused as often as it is. :) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46278 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] 10gui responses?
Hey Jerome, good to see you here. I've seen that interface (or a very similar one) before. The biggest problem in my mind is that most users have enough problems using a mouse, where they only need to use one hand and (at most) a couple of fingers on that hand. Now forcing them to use all ten fingers to work with their applications and manager their workflow? That would be a disaster. Also, from an accessibilty point, this causes serious problems. What if a person has lost a finger, or a hand? Or doesn't have good mobility in fingers/hands/arms? The standard X/Y coordinated plane with windowed applications, provides a much simpler interface where other input devices can be created and mapped to allow for better accessibility to those that may have a handicap. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46673 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] profit centered design
I think you just about hit the nail on the head here. Apple really does not care about what users may or may want. They never really have. Apple depends on their following to do everything for them, and telling outright lies in the marketing that they do do. Most Apple consumers are so completely out of touch with what they are buying, they would never think twice about upgrading their iPhone instead of replacing the battery like you wanted to do. That's why they don't offer any sort of battery replacement on the iPhone. Why try to make a $10 profit on a battery replacement when they can make a $100 profit on a new iPhone? There are probably more people that are just going to take that second option rather than do what you did and look for third-party solutions just because they don't know any better and trust Apple because they think that they are the "good" guys. On top of that, just look how many people upgraded to the newest iPhone at full price when their existing phones were still perfectly good. When you've got people drinking the Kool-Aid like Apple does, you're bound to take advantage of it as long as you canl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45216 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] Social media and potentially offensive material....how/do you mediate?
Traci, To me, this really depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your social media, forums in particular. Hopefully, you have some control over who your bloggers are, so you can dictate to a point what they can and cannot write about. Forums, however, have users that you have no real control over. For a forum, it needs to be made clear from the start what is and is not allowed. If you give them free reign over what they say at the beginning, you are just asking for disaster. It will likely get very bad, and someone at your organization will want to start enforcing some order, which then causes problems with those users that want to be able to do and say whatever they want. For example, I used to work on the website for Taste of Home magazine and worked quite closely with the manager of their customer interaction group. If you take a look at the forums on tasteofhome.com, particularly the forum called Kitchen Chat, there are all sorts of random discussions going on. If you look at some of the older topics (more than a year old) some of them get pretty nasty and vile. About six months ago, the person in charge of the forum moderation retired, and was replaced by someone that wanted to bring things back to a more civilized discussion. He started banning people who violated the terms of service, and started locking and deleting threads that did the same. Then, several of these people that were friends with the people that were banned started yelling and complaining about censorship and violation of freedom of speech. It was a very ugly situation, which really hasn't actually cleared up yet, but it's getting there. If they had understood that there needs to be some sort of moderation in this sort of environment from the beginning, this would never have been a problem. The thing that you need to remember about moderation and social media is this: how is your website and your company going to look to a new (or prospective) user when they check out your website for the first time and are taken to a page where someone is spewing out vulgarities left and right and disparaging other users just because they can? To me, it is definitely worth losing those users (or never getting them to begin with) that are going to make the entire experience unenjoyable for the majority of the group. Also, as for freedom of speech, the rights provided to us in the United States by the Bill of Rights have NEVER allowed for the right to say anything to anyone, anywhere, anytime. You aren't going to allow someone to start swearing at you or verbally abusing your children in your own home, correct? More than likely, you'd throw that person out of your house and never let them come back. The same should hold true on your company's website - some things should not be allowed, and you need to be able to enforce that. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44836 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
