Re: [IxDA Discuss] Specific kind of faceted search example?

[Will Gaus]

Take a look at CareerBuilder.com. Once you submit a search you can
filter on a number of categories.  

Even better is BestBuy.com.
(http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=abcat0101000&type=category)
After you select a department, Televisions for example, you can filter
on 'Types of Televisions', 'Top Rated', 'Screen Size', 'Price
Range' & 'Brand'. I know BestBuy utilizes FAST Search.

I would also suggest taking a look at the advanced filtering
Recommind allows. Not suggesting you need to buy the product, but
they have a real nice interface for exposing very complex faceted
searches. 


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should Interaction Design control/influence user behavior?

[Lisa Trager]

The behavior of the targeted audience should influence UxD.  That is
why it is so important to do due diligence by researching and
interviewing users in order to incorporate their "Mental Models"
(ref Indi Young).  For me good design is about integrating the tasks
of the users with the messaging and CTA of the business.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Feedback on Redesigned BART Ticket Kiosk Interface

[Todd Diemer]

Good work so far.  I am also from out of town, but rely on the Chicago
public transit system to get around.

A couple of comments from the outsider's perspective:

1. When selecting a certain destination, there is an increased
cognitive load when the user moves from a spacial representation of
the entire system down to a straight line for the individual
stations.  You all probably made this choice to help keep the
selection of individual stations more standardized.  Could you run
some usability tests to see if users are more comfortable with a
zoomed in map instead of the straight line?

2. I am always nervous when traveling in an unfamiliar city.  For me
it would be great if on the purchase ticket screen, where you have
the "Origin" station and "Destination" station listed with an
arrow between them, to have a listing of all the stations in between
and color code it for any changes of trains I might have to make. 
This would reinforce my understanding of how to get around the city.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] What is a mobile phone called in your country?

[Suffian]

Adding to Boon Chew's reply, a mobile phone is called 'telefon
bimbit' in Bahasa Malaysia, the official language of Malaysia.
'Telefon' is of course the word for telephone, while the word
'bimbit' means 'to carry around'. 


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best Practices in Usability Testing of Search Results Page

[Rohn Jay Miller]

If you can afford it I think this is problem than can truly benefit
from an eye-tracking quantitative survey--30  candidates.  I'm
assuming that you're trying to solve for the basic flow and not
trying 4X versions of solutions, etc.  I don't use quantitative
eye-tracking personally but saw an example with my vendor at the U of
MN where it was very useful to get insights about the action/reactions


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should Interaction Design control/influence user behavior?

[Christopher Monnier]

I think it is the interaction designer's responsibility to ensure
that any influence on behavior is done so without misleading the user
to their detriment.  I explored this idea in greater detail on my
blog* (see below), but I think it comes down to ensuring that the
cost to the user associated with a given behavior is proportional to
the amount of transparency given to the user in facilitating that
behavior.  In other words, if the cost of following a particular
behavior is low, then the designer's burden of providing sufficient
transparency is also low.  However, if the cost associated with a
particular behavior is high, it is incumbent on the designer to
ensure (via transparency and an unambiguous mental model) that the
user is making an informed choice to participate in that behavior.

* Blog post mentioned above:
http://everythingsdynamic.blogspot.com/2009/04/product-design-ethics.html



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any data on users making use of Help?

[Mary Constance Parks]

I'm a Voice User Interface (VUI) Designer at Nuance Communications. 
I too have heard it bandied about that users don't use Help. 
You'll sometimes hear that almost no one asks for it.  Usually the
percentages are more than almost zero though, say from 1-3%.

However, I've also seen applications where people are asking for
Help much more than that, going from 5% to 15% usage.  In fact, in
one application, they were asking for Help around 40% of the time.

Why the discrepancy?

In the case of low Help usage, people don't know that Help exists. 
It's often not advertised (real estate is quite small in a
non-persistent UI).  And if it is advertised, it might only be
introduced once interaction has gotten quite bad.  In fact, there's
a trend among some VUI designers to not design Help messages any
longer, instead depending on error handling to get people out of
difficulties.  They might advertise Help in only certain contexts
where they think it might be needed.

In those applications where Help usage is higher, it's because it's
advertised more frequently.  But usage varies depending on the domain,
who the users are, and other contextual factors.

I personally think it's a good idea to advertise it consistently. 
And in the case where people are highly distracted, I think it's
essential.  People are not always listening.  If they learn that
there is something that can help them get re-oriented and that will
let them know what is needed to complete a task and achieve their
goal, they will use it when they need it.

One other thing.  You probably already know this, but just in case,
in a speech UI, it's not a good idea to advertise Help as "Help." 
I%u2019ve heard "More info" used, or the longer "More
information."  Though you may find something better suited to your
situation.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Label location

[jerome ribot]

Here's an interesting eye-tracking study that was done recently by
Chui Chui Tan that highlights some good guidelines for form design:

http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/web_forms_design_guidelines_an_eyetracking_study.htm

Cheers 

Jerome


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Label location

[Bill Barany]

Check out Luke's presentation at

http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/WebForms_LukeW.pdf



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Label location

[Caroline Jarrett]

Jerome Ribot
 
> Here's an interesting eye-tracking study that was 
> done recently by
> Chui Chui Tan that highlights 
> some good guidelines for form design:
> 
> http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/thoughts/
> web_forms_design_guidelines_an_eyetracking_study.htm

Hi Jerome

Thanks for drawing my attention to this study. It's a nice piece of work but
it's also the last straw.

/start of rant
I'm just so *tired* of seeing a study of rather trivial web forms (in this
case, four registration forms) used as a basis for making claims for *all*
forms.
/end of rant

/start of more considered discussion

This study carefully, and thoughtfully, investigated small differences
between four quite good registration forms. I'm not sure I'd totally agree
with every guideline, but you probably wouldn't go far wrong in following
these guidelines IF, and only IF, these assumptions apply to your forms:

- your organisation is a massive, brand-name web presence that every web
user knows

- your users are strongly motivated to fill in the form because it allows
them to make use of crucial features that are only offered by the specific
organisation

- your form confines itself to straightforward questions that are
appropriate in the context of the relationship between your users and their
current goals, and your organisation and its current goals, and anything
slightly unusual is justified appropriately right on the form

- your form is appropriately legible and properly marked up for use by
people using assistive technologies and/or amending the display of the form
in their preferred browser

I'll just unpick one of the recommendations in this piece: "Use coloured or
shaded grouping headers ONLY if they are important"

This isn't bad advice. It's quite good advice - if you know how to judge
when the grouping headers are important. That judgment arises from
considering the users, their goals, your organisation, its goals, and the
overall conversation of the form (as well as its appearance).  This study
said "From the eye-tracking study, we found that the participants did not
pay much attention to the headers". Well, no, they wouldn't. These forms
were quite well designed, rather simple, and appropriate to the relationship
and conversation. Grouping devices, such as these headers, are rarely needed
by people in these circumstances - so they don't look at them. 

But: think of a more complicated form, with more difficult questions, in a
more complex relationship. Users may need to break out of the form to find
answers and then return later. They may need to ask someone about something
in the form. In those circumstances, the grouping of the form can be really
important, as a locating device and as a way of helping users to talk about
the form to someone else. The grouping can also make the form appear less
daunting, which is worthwhile.

I know we all want simple rules that we can apply easily, and we all want to
avoid yet another 'it depends' answer. Trouble is: we really do have to
*think* about what we're designing - not exactly a surprise to IxDA people,
of course, but not the easy answer.

Oops - gone off into a rant again. Hope you understand why.

Best
Caroline Jarrett
www.formsthatwork.com
"Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability" foreword by Steve Krug




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[IxDA Discuss] IxDA Nederland: Call for conference team members

[Yohan Creemers]

This autumn the third edition of the Design By Fire conference will take place 
in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This one day event strives to be the incubator for 
the newest ideas on interaction design.
http://www.designbyfire.nl/

After two successful editions in 2007 and 2008, we are now starting the 
preparations for the 2009 edition. 
 
As always this conference will be organized by volunteers. Please contact me if 
you want to be part of the 2009 conference team!

Looking forward to hear from you,
Yohan.

IxDA Nederland
nl-lo...@ixda.org

Ylab
design for interactive media
yo...@ylab.nl
+31 30 2980087


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[IxDA Discuss] No UX Challenge 2009 at Svalbard

[Lillian Medby]

Dear Friends,

We are sad to announce that there will be no UX Challenge at Svalbard
in October 2009.

It seems like the financial crisis has hit our target group harder
than we hoped for. Indeed we have received a lot of feedback on the
project, where people tell us that they love the idea, but they have
a hard time finding the necessary resources to attend.

At Svalbard we need 200 participants in order to break even, and we
don't seem to be able to recruit that many this year.
Unfortunately!
 
However, we will not let this idea die. We strongly believe in the
concept and that we actually can contribute and use our skills for
something good (and learn a lot while meeting lots of interesting
people doing so).
 
Our next step is to find out the exact reasons why too few people
tried to qualify. Was it solely due to the financial crisis? The
location, or the concept? The fact that we asked people to send in a
presentation or a video? We hope these questions will be answered in
the 2 minutes questionnaire that we kindly ask you to submit:
http://web.refleks.com/?surveyid=36344 
 
When the results are analysed we will find out how to postpone this
conference.
 
We are sorry for having to announce this.

Warm regards from the cold North,

The UX Challenge team
Jostein, Lillian, Andreas and Even

http://www.uxchallenge.com
http://www.netliferesearch.com

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[IxDA Discuss] FW: Label location

[Caroline Jarrett]

Hi all

Dr Kathryn Summers of the University of Baltimore replied with her advice on
label location on forms for low literacy users. Please make sure that you
attribute the following to her when you use it, thanks.

Dr Summers's consulting web site is at: http://www.userresearch.com/

"We found that the shortish labels worked 
above or to the left. We didn't do any testing 
focused on which placement was marginally better. 

The labels definitely don't work at all to the right. 
We put short labels to the left, but right-aligned. 
Longer labels, of course, must be above or left-aligned.
Really long labels (full questions) must be above.

We found that a single column worked best for low literacy users, 
except for fields that "logically" felt like a group: 
specifically city, state, zip, 
which could be laid out horizontally (but didn't need to be).

Name should be all one field if possible. 
If not, then have three fields in
a row: first _MI _ last ___
We added the single letter size box for the middle initial 
just so that there was a visual rather than text clue 
that the first and last name was split between boxes. 

We noticed that low literacy users generally abbreviated
short form labels to just one word 
(they would read just one word), so email
address became "address" and first name became "name." 

All text associated with the form should be 14 pt in size. 
The font size makes a big difference in readability generally 
for low literacy users (the text size in the website should 
really be 14 pt also, although I've seen 12 pt work. 

On another occasion, we did a text size comparison but 
the form was tested in the context of a web site that
was a prototype designed for 12pt. When users clicked 
on the link to see the 14 pt version the page looked "broken". 
It seemed natural to me that they did not therefore 
"prefer" it. Plus it was a preference test--
which one do you like best--rather than a comprehension test, 
which is what we did to come up with
the original 14 pt recommendation.

MOST IMPORTANT: all elements of the form 
should be above the fold, especially for 
older users, even if that means lots of screens. 
The longest form we tested was 16 screens of questions, 
but that was a pretty long form, and it was 
crucially better than having form pages that
required scrolling. Use a clear progress indicator that 
shows how much is left, and next and back buttons".

Best
Caroline Jarrett



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA Nederland: Call for conference team members

[Thomas Daly]

Hi Yohan,

I would love to know how I can help from the NYC area. Thanks for any
info...

Peace,
Tom Daly


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Ungraceful degradation of HTML emails and conversion rates.

[Adrian Howard]

On 11 May 2009, at 07:07, Harry wrote:

I agree that security is worthy concern, but I expect that it's  
something
that only relatively technical users think about. For most people, I  
think
having to click a link to see images is just a "strange" extra step  
that

many don't bother doing. (I'm guessing.)


Other reasons I've encountered for people rejecting HTML mail include:
* legibility (this is the reason I read text parts by default)
* accessibility.
* primitive spam detection (I've met a couple of folk who bin it  
automatically coz most is spam/marketing.)

* ability to read off-line


Email is stuck in the dark ages.


Sometimes I think that. More often I think e-mail is really very, very  
good at what it does do - and a lot of folk are trying to use it for  
something that it's unsuitable for :-)


Cheers,

Adrian

--
delicious.com/adrianh - twitter.com/adrianh - adri...@quietstars.com




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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any data on users making use of Help?

[Mary Connor]

It is a contentious topic. I summarized multiple sessions from the Software 
User Assistance conference just held in Seattle:

UA2009: Documentation's changing world (has Help research results) 
http://www.cleverhamster.com/clever_hamster/2009/04/ua2009-documentations-changing-world.html

UA2009: Embedded user assistance (help in context) 
http://www.cleverhamster.com/clever_hamster/2009/04/ua2009-embedded-user-assistance-help-in-context.html

...and we're taking this to heart and (with our R&D change to agile/scrum) are 
making it job one to have the writers improve the interface/flow itself and the 
"hidden" help: labels, titles, tips, examples, on-screen guidance. Much higher 
ROI.

Hth!
Mary Connor

-Original Message-
From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of Bill 
Marshall

Help functionality is a recurring point of contention in nearly every project I 
work on. I do Voice UX design, and very often our products are used in-car 
where users can't or shouldn't be looking at a screen for cues. 

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[IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Jonathan Abbett]

Can anyone recommend resources (or offer advice) addressing how best to
paginate data on the web?  Specifically looking for info on when to paginate
and how many items to show per page.

There may have been a time when retrieving more than 10 items from your
database at a time was too much of a load, but there's no technical reason
why we can't show the user 100+ items per page.

Is it easier for the user to click "next" 10 times, rather than scroll down
a long list?

Thanks in advance,
Jonathan

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[MAurice Carty]

http://kurafire.net/log/archive/2007/06/22/pagination-101

-mo-


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Jordan, Courtney]

In theory, I prefer scanning a longer list to clicking next 10 times, as
it seems like it would take less time and it gives you a better overall
picture. However, when I tried Google's 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 results
preferences, it was much easier for me to scan through 10 results,
didn't require as much scrolling (which is painful to people with
repetitive stress injuries, fibromyalgia, arthritis, etc.), and made me
feel like I was making progress, which I don't really feel when I'm
scrolling through 50-100 results (I felt no difference in the length of
time or frustration with either of these). So, in practice, although I
am annoyed when I have to click next so soon, it gives my scrolling hand
a break, which makes a big difference in how long I can continue
searching. 

On the other hand, if I get 10 pages (100 results at 10 a page) into a
google search, I've pretty much given up on finding whatever it is I'm
looking for. 

What about just going Google's route and show 10 at first, for easy
viewing and to reduce scrolling, especially for small displays, but let
those advanced, oft-times younger users with faster hands, set their
preference for # of results? Something like this:
View 10 20 30 50 100 results per page, with 10 being bold black text as
the default selection and the rest being blue underlined links

Thanks,
Courtney

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Abbett
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 12:07 PM
To: IXDA list
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

Can anyone recommend resources (or offer advice) addressing how best to
paginate data on the web?  Specifically looking for info on when to
paginate
and how many items to show per page.

There may have been a time when retrieving more than 10 items from your
database at a time was too much of a load, but there's no technical
reason
why we can't show the user 100+ items per page.

Is it easier for the user to click "next" 10 times, rather than scroll
down
a long list?

Thanks in advance,
Jonathan

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Rob Enslin]

Hi Jonathan,
If you're looking for some inspiration I've started a Flickr set (
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doos/sets/72157612901305343/) of various
pagination styles and patterns from around the web.

Good luck.

-- Rob

2009/5/11 Jonathan Abbett 

> Can anyone recommend resources (or offer advice) addressing how best to
> paginate data on the web?  Specifically looking for info on when to
> paginate
> and how many items to show per page.
>
> There may have been a time when retrieving more than 10 items from your
> database at a time was too much of a load, but there's no technical reason
> why we can't show the user 100+ items per page.
>
> Is it easier for the user to click "next" 10 times, rather than scroll down
> a long list?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Jonathan
> 
> 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
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>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[gMulder]

Serverload is one thing to be taken into consideration - client load
another. Depending on what you are displaying, some of the more
run-of-the-mill clients (older laptops, older browsers, etc.) may
have difficulties displaying a too large amount of search results -
which means users have to wait, wait, wait.
That's why I always found the 10 / 20 / 50 / 100 (or similar) option
with 10 results as the default the most useful (the default of course
depends on the type of search results - is you have videos, for some
10 may also be pushing the limit). 



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Joanie McCollom]

I think it depends on what the actual task is and what users need in order to
make a choice. It might not serve you well to make a decision based on best
practices and rules of thumb rather than actually addressing the particular
set of assumptions and expectations at  hand.
-joanie


-- Original Message --
Received: 09:06 AM PDT, 05/11/2009
From: Jonathan Abbett 
To: IXDA list 
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

> Can anyone recommend resources (or offer advice) addressing how best to
> paginate data on the web?  Specifically looking for info on when to
paginate
> and how many items to show per page.
> 
> There may have been a time when retrieving more than 10 items from your
> database at a time was too much of a load, but there's no technical reason
> why we can't show the user 100+ items per page.
> 
> Is it easier for the user to click "next" 10 times, rather than scroll down
> a long list?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Jonathan
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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> 
> 
> 




   


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Nasir Barday]

Very weird-- was just asking about a pagination pattern on Twitter earlier.
There's another concept, which it looks like we're calling "inline
pagination," in which our intrepid user clicks a "Next 30 results" button or
link, and the items add to the current scrolling list. So instead of
navigating back to the first set of results, they're right there in the
scroll list. See Twitter's "More Tweets" feature (scroll to the bottom of
your timeline page), as well as iPhone's "load more SMS messages" button
while looking at lengthy SMS history.

Just another pattern to add to the toolbox. Apparently Bill Scott and
Theresa Neil cover this (thanx @ilowelife):
http://is.gd/gmkc

- Nasir

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[IxDA Discuss] Organizing files and folders

[plnelson]

I want to come up with a better scheme for organizing files and
folders on my PC and networked drives.   I do photography plus  sw
and web design, so the file types are varied, including raw, TIFF and
JPEG images, text and Word files, spreadsheets, C# and C++ source
files, HTML, CSS, javascript, icon, and other sw development files,
plus audio and video files in various formats.   As of this morning I
had about 40,000 files on my desktop PC and maybe another 100,000
files on networked storage, and I really DO need to search these from
time to time.  A typical example is that I'm writing some code and I
know I once wrote a class to  do something similar awhile back so I
want to find it.   This morning I wanted to find all the high-key
studio shots I've done in the last few years to get ideas for a
model shoot I have next week.

I am NOT looking for personal advice here -  there have been several
threads on this topic in the archives on ixda and invariably they are
met with advice that begins with "Here's what I do . . . "   I'm
not interested in anecdotal accounts (yet) -  

What I AM looking for are sources of rigorous academic research on
information organization and searching that I can use in developing a
solution.  A good solution should involve human factors and
interaction design, information theory and information architecture,
and data representation. Presumably I'm not the first person to
try to apply some real science to this problem so I'm wondering what
researchers have discovered.

Thanks in advance.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Kelly Baker]

Hi Jonathan, 

I think it's important to consider the content of the page that
you're paginating. If you're displaying thumbnails, it is easy
enough for a visually inclined user to scroll through a large list
and mentally keep track of what they are looking at. If you're
scrolling through a ton of textual summaries however, it's going to
be a lot harder for that user to keep track of what they're looking
at, or even find what they're looking for.

I like limiting the number of items per page to around 20. I think
it's a good amount for a user to process and manage in their memory
and it doesn't feel like you're clicking "next" every two
seconds.

Best of luck!
- Kelly


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Brian O'Neill]

I am in the Tufte camp here around data density. Most pages are way
too short with not enough data. There is no such thing as too much
information; just badly designed information. 

Data is much easier to compare if it's within the same viewport - by
requiring clicking to paginate, you remove the ability to compare as
simply as you can with with scrolling (or reducing font size or other
tricks to bring more of the current document into the viewport). So, I
am a big fan of larger result sets. That said, I think there are
arguments to be made about context - most people don't view past the
first page (and even less the second page ) of search engine results. 
This is a different situation than say, comparing a table of portfolio
stock positions where all of the rows tend to have meaning and add up
to a larger "picture." In the search engine situation, the user
goals are different (help me navigate or answer what the temperature
is right now - very concrete tasks). 

Phone books give a lot more than ten results per page - way higher
data densities than more web pages. I think this is a good thing to
think about (another Tufte-ism).

I also don't entirely buy the accessibility arguments presented here
(and I'm a big fan of universal design by the way). If you really
need to paginate, there are ways to create keyboard shortcuts to
facilitate scrolling and pagination.  And, by putting more data on
the page, you can put less interface on the page - that's almost
always a good thing. 

Anyhow, that's my attempt at an answer which doesn't rely mostly on
"it depends"!

cheers!

Brian

www.rhythmspice.com
Rhythmspice Media

p.s. all this said, it depends.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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[IxDA Discuss] Examples of Good Customer Support Sites

[Stephanie Hom]

When users can't find the help they need contextually and land on a
customer support site, how can we create a good experience for them?

I've been looking at:

Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/support/

Apple
http://www.apple.com/support/

Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/2wwact

Does anyone have examples of effective customer/technical support
sites?

I'm interested in best practices on surfacing relevant help
topics/tools to users so they can self-serve with ease. 

Thanks!

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] No UX Challenge 2009 at Svalbard

[John Vaughan]

Fi- faan.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Yohan Creemers]

In my experience users prefer scrolling a long list over clicking
through separate pages. 

If there's a reason for pagination, consider creating logical pages:
instead of grouping per xx items, it might be useful to group the data
-for example- per letter (A, B, C...), per month or per price
category. If the user can change the sort order of the data, then the
logical grouping will have to change according to the chosen sort
order.
 
- Yohan
 


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best Practices in Usability Testing of Search Results Page

[Shima Kazerooni]

We would like to test 5-6 different designs of a search results page
and want to know if users notice some elements or information on the
different designs.  Are there best practices (besides counter
balancing) in usability test of search results pages?   We have an
eye tracker that can be beneficial in the usability test.

Thanks!



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41852



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples of Good Customer Support Sites

[Victor Lombardi]

Hi Stephanie,

Get Satisfaction has a useful method for surfacing information -- a
dynamic search form that delivers answers as you type your question.
For example, try typing "custom bag" into the Timbuk2 customer support
area...
http://getsatisfaction.com/timbuk2

Get Satisfaction is an interesting example because it engages
customers beyond merely supplying them with information, so it's
possible for companies to use it for other activities, such as product
development in conjunction with customers.

Best,
Victor


On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Stephanie Hom  wrote:
> When users can't find the help they need contextually and land on a
> customer support site, how can we create a good experience for them?
>...
> Does anyone have examples of effective customer/technical support
> sites?  I'm interested in best practices on surfacing relevant help
> topics/tools to users so they can self-serve with ease.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples of Good Customer Support Sites

[Dan Harrelson]

I recently dove into the support section of Twitter's site to deal
with a problem. It's quite effective.

http://help.twitter.com/portal


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Organizing files and folders

[Fredrik Matheson]

What research have you done on available products and papers on information
organization so far?
Have you compiled a list or made a wiki somewhere that we could take a look
at?

- Fredrik

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 2:12 PM, plnelson  wrote:

> I want to come up with a better scheme for organizing files and
> folders on my PC and networked drives.   I do photography plus  sw
> and web design, so the file types are varied, including raw, TIFF and
> JPEG images, text and Word files, spreadsheets, C# and C++ source
> files, HTML, CSS, javascript, icon, and other sw development files,
> plus audio and video files in various formats.   As of this morning I
> had about 40,000 files on my desktop PC and maybe another 100,000
> files on networked storage, and I really DO need to search these from
> time to time.  A typical example is that I'm writing some code and I
> know I once wrote a class to  do something similar awhile back so I
> want to find it.   This morning I wanted to find all the high-key
> studio shots I've done in the last few years to get ideas for a
> model shoot I have next week.
>
> I am NOT looking for personal advice here -  there have been several
> threads on this topic in the archives on ixda and invariably they are
> met with advice that begins with "Here's what I do . . . "   I'm
> not interested in anecdotal accounts (yet) -
>
> What I AM looking for are sources of rigorous academic research on
> information organization and searching that I can use in developing a
> solution.  A good solution should involve human factors and
> interaction design, information theory and information architecture,
> and data representation. Presumably I'm not the first person to
> try to apply some real science to this problem so I'm wondering what
> researchers have discovered.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> 
> 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
>



-- 
|||  | | |||   | || |||   |||  ||   | | ||| |      || | | ||

Fredrik Matheson

fredrik.mathe...@gmail.com
+47 982 19 313
movito.net
twitter.com/movito

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[IxDA Discuss] [JOB] Senior or Mid-Level UX Designer - Citrix Online

[Kristen Johansen]

We're passionate about our "simpler is better" design philosophy, so we're 
looking for someone with a knack for creating clean, intuitive, and usable 
interfaces to join our team of talented and highly collaborative designers!

Responsibilities:

As a UX designer, you will be responsible for defining the user experience of 
award-winning Citrix Online software products including GoToMyPC, GoToMeeting, 
GoToAssist and GoView. The User Experience Designer specializes in visual 
design or interaction design, working within an agile user-centered design 
process to create intuitive and easy-to-use software and web interfaces.

Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in Graphic Design, Human Computer Interaction, 
Computer Science, Human Factors or related fields with at least 2 years 
experience in visual design, interface design, information architecture or 
interaction design for web or software applications.

You must have a strong ability and passion for the user experience, having 
created deliverables such as page flows, wireframes, UI specifications, web 
page mockups or software interface elements for complex web or software 
applications. E-Commerce and/or Internationalization experience is a definite 
plus, and you get extra points for obsessive attention to detail and a proven 
ability to communicate and collaborate with others.

About Citrix Online:

Citrix Online offers a casual work environment, flexible scheduling, and a 
generous benefits package including 401(k) plan; health, dental and vision 
insurance; relocation and other benefits to eligible employees. We're also 
located just a few blocks from the beach near Santa Barbara, California.

Apply online at www.citrixonline.com/jobs to Req. #6355. *Please include a link 
to work samples or an online portfolio.* If you are unable to submit through 
the website, please send your resume and work samples to 
kristen.johan...@citrix.com. This is a 
full-time permanent on-site position in the Santa Barbara area. No agencies or 
freelancers please.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pagination best practices

[Alan Salmoni]

I did some research on this a number of years ago - this began before
Google became dominant in search which gives you an idea! Towards the
end though, Google was a clear winner.

I found, quite reliably, that many search engines satisficed and
satisfied most user's needs within the first 10 links so there
wasn't so much need to present many more. This depends upon a) how
good a search engine is at extracting relevant information while
leaving non-relevant information, and b) the information requirements
of the user (is it a single, simple answer to a question like, "what
is the height of mount Everest"; or is it more complex such as,
"what is the history of the Beano comic" for which multiple sources
may be needed for an answer that at least satisfices).

This doesn't really answer your question as more information about
the specific tasks is needed before any kind of practical answer can
be provided.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Any data on users making use of Help?

[Mary Deaton]

I did user assistance for 15 years before I switched to focusing on
information architecture and usability. What is obvious to me from
both the research (which exists but is limited compared to may other
topics) is that the more the assistance is in the interface (labels,
examples in fields, little popups or expanding notes, and such) the
more people succeed in tasks and the less they want to look at an
independent Help page or application.

FAQ, in fact, are not a standard for good user assistance. As someone
mentioned last week at the STC conference, FAQ are not really the most
asked questions, they are the questions the site has an answer for.

Many people working on the Web do not appear to design the user
assistance into the site; they tack it on at the end. Help that is
accessed only by opening a new page in the same browser window, a new
browser window, or a new tab, are making it very difficult for users
to continue doing the task at the same time they are looking at the
Help. There is a reason that desktop applications open Help in a
separate window that the user can resize, reposition, and so on.

Even the Help authoring tool companies, such as Adobe RoboHelp, do
little to allow you to integrate user assistance into the actual page
where it is needed or make it usable alongside the page a user seeks
help with.

Good user assistance, like a good application, requires people with
expertise not only writing, but in information architecture (online
Help was very close to being the first hypertext environments
requiring what we now call information architecture) and interaction
design. It has to be part of the initial planning and design of a
site, not a last minute add-on.

Anyone who wants to know the value of embedded user assistance
(incorporated into the UI) should read Trevor Grayling's May 1999
report on usability studies of an app with embedded Help and without
it, in Technical Communications, which is available on Ingenta,
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc?originator=stc&identity=id22521367×tamp=20090511213425&signature=d7dca185bc7326477ec5fd7a92e62c7b.
There is also a special issue of TechComm from Feb 2001 on embedded
Help. STC members have free access to all content. Non-members pay a
$10 fee per article.

There is also information at the Web site of the Usability and User
Experience community of STC, of which I am the current manager.
www.stcsig.org/usability  Look particularly in the Bookshelf and
Topics in Usability. Some is dated, but good nonetheless.

WritersUA, http://www.writersua.com/rescontr.htm also has list of
consultants who specialize in help design and implement effective help
systems for desktop or Web.

-- 
Mary Deaton
Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community,
http://www.stcsig.org/usability
Principal, Deaton Interactive Design
http://www.mmdeaton.com
Associate, SodaBlue Partners
http://www.sodabluepartners.com


On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Mary Connor  wrote:
> It is a contentious topic. I summarized multiple sessions from the Software 
> User Assistance conference just held in Seattle:
>
> UA2009: Documentation's changing world (has Help research results) 
> http://www.cleverhamster.com/clever_hamster/2009/04/ua2009-documentations-changing-world.html
>
> UA2009: Embedded user assistance (help in context) 
> http://www.cleverhamster.com/clever_hamster/2009/04/ua2009-embedded-user-assistance-help-in-context.html
>
> ...and we're taking this to heart and (with our R&D change to agile/scrum) 
> are making it job one to have the writers improve the interface/flow itself 
> and the "hidden" help: labels, titles, tips, examples, on-screen guidance. 
> Much higher ROI.
>
> Hth!
> Mary Connor
>
> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of Bill 
> Marshall
>
> Help functionality is a recurring point of contention in nearly every project 
> I work on. I do Voice UX design, and very often our products are used in-car 
> where users can't or shouldn't be looking at a screen for cues. 
> 
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best Practices in Usability Testing of Search Results Page

[Mary Deaton]

I worked on usability testing of over 50 participants using the
knowledge base on a major software company's Web site and our results
should that a search results page that does NOT include the actual
page title, a page description, and matches the keywords used by users
when they create a search are unlikely to help a user find the
information they need.

This site accessed pages written by a variety of product groups within
this giant software company, but these groups were not consistent in
filling Title tags with titles that had meaning to users (not the kb
item #); including a clear, concise description of the pages content;
including synonyms in keywords; or making the version of a product a
prominent part of all three of these elements.

It is critical to make sure search is not simply matching the words
already on the pages, but that research is done to discover the actual
words and phrases users enter when doing a search. We also found that
giving users the option of limiting their search by product name,
product version, and other variables that can affect the relevance of
results was useful but only if users actually understood what their
choice of a variable (such as "filter") would do.

-- 
Mary Deaton
Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community,
http://www.stcsig.org/usability
Principal, Deaton Interactive Design
http://www.mmdeaton.com
Associate, SodaBlue Partners
http://www.sodabluepartners.com

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:47 AM, Shima Kazerooni  wrote:
> We would like to test 5-6 different designs of a search results page
> and want to know if users notice some elements or information on the
> different designs.  Are there best practices (besides counter
> balancing) in usability test of search results pages?   We have an
> eye tracker that can be beneficial in the usability test.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41852
>
>
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best Practices in Usability Testing of Search Results Page

[Mary Deaton]

Oh, and eye-tracking is not necessary if you ask people to practice
the speak-aloud protocol and to read the words of whatever they are
looking at on the page. If time-on-task is a consideration in your
testing, you can not use speak-aloud during the actual test, but
immediately after each task, sit with the user while they watch the
video you recorded and ask they to talk about what they were seeing
and thinking.

I share Jared Spool's skepticism about eye tracking's usefulness in
most usability studies of Web page use. Given the cost of the
equipment and how long it takes to actually understand how to
interpret the results, you can get the same results using tried and
true methods.

Mary

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 2:40 PM, Mary Deaton  wrote:
> I worked on usability testing of over 50 participants using the
> knowledge base on a major software company's Web site and our results
> should that a search results page that does NOT include the actual
> page title, a page description, and matches the keywords used by users
> when they create a search are unlikely to help a user find the
> information they need.
>
> This site accessed pages written by a variety of product groups within
> this giant software company, but these groups were not consistent in
> filling Title tags with titles that had meaning to users (not the kb
> item #); including a clear, concise description of the pages content;
> including synonyms in keywords; or making the version of a product a
> prominent part of all three of these elements.
>
> It is critical to make sure search is not simply matching the words
> already on the pages, but that research is done to discover the actual
> words and phrases users enter when doing a search. We also found that
> giving users the option of limiting their search by product name,
> product version, and other variables that can affect the relevance of
> results was useful but only if users actually understood what their
> choice of a variable (such as "filter") would do.
>
> --
> Mary Deaton
> Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community,
> http://www.stcsig.org/usability
> Principal, Deaton Interactive Design
> http://www.mmdeaton.com
> Associate, SodaBlue Partners
> http://www.sodabluepartners.com
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:47 AM, Shima Kazerooni  
> wrote:
>> We would like to test 5-6 different designs of a search results page
>> and want to know if users notice some elements or information on the
>> different designs.  Are there best practices (besides counter
>> balancing) in usability test of search results pages?   We have an
>> eye tracker that can be beneficial in the usability test.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>>
>>
>> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
>> Posted from the new ixda.org
>> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41852
>>
>>
>> 
>> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>>
>



-- 
Mary Deaton
Manager, STC Usability and User Experience Community,
http://www.stcsig.org/usability
Principal, Deaton Interactive Design
http://www.mmdeaton.com
Associate, SodaBlue Partners
http://www.sodabluepartners.com

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[IxDA Discuss] game design, ixd, and making people cry

[j. eric townsend]

Nice write-up of Brenda Brathwaite's return to non-electronic game design:



One of many things it has me thinking about is how (if?) I can create 
emotional responses using only physical objects that carry emotional weight.



--
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

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best Practices in Usability Testing of Search Results Page

[Alan Salmoni]

I have done a fair bit of usability research with web search engines
and how people deal with them. Curiously, our participants seemed to
make better relevance decisions using just the page titles alone than
the page titles along with something else. This implied that
abstracting information from the main text content (whether initial
mention, keyword embedded like Google, keyword extraction etc)
actually misleads searchers into thinking that the document is more
relevant than it actually is.

However, people disliked using titles alone more than using some
extra text from the document. Pictures didn't seem to play an
important role unless they were looking for a specific thing /
product / company and this was displayed.

So there seemed to be a balance: decisions of a document's relevance
to an information need were better made with less information, but
users were less happy with dealing with search like this.



. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41852



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[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] NYCUPA hosts Dan Brown presenting \"Difficult Conversations in Creative Environments\" on Tue 5/19

[Elena Melendy]

The New York City Usability Professionals' Association is pleased to
announce open registration at http://nycupa.org for the upcoming
event on Tuesday, May 19:

Difficult Conversations in Creative Environments

a presentation by Dan Brown, Founder and Principal, EightShapes

Every designer faces difficult conversations — defending design
decisions, explaining project mishaps, managing conflicting
requirements from different stakeholders. Good designers must
recognize their strengths and weaknesses not only in creative skill,
but also in their ability to interact with others day-to-day.

This presentation will establish a framework for evaluating and
understanding the interpersonal dynamics of common scenarios in
creative projects. With the theory as a backdrop, the second half of
the session will focus on skills and techniques for making
conversations easier.

Dan Brown is founder and principal at EightShapes, LLC, a user
experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Dan has been
practicing information architecture and user experience design since
1995. He is the author of Communicating Design (New Riders, 2006) and
a frequent contributer to Boxes and Arrows, UX Matters, the CHI
Bulletin, and Interactive Television Today. Dan is a popular speaker
at conferences and is an active leader in the DC information
architecture community.

Tuesday, May 19
Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Announcements begin at 6:30 p.m.
Non-members $15; Members $10; Students $5
Online pre-payment required at http://nycupa.org.

Special Notes:

Please help Dan and EightShapes by participating in the design
documentation survey: http://is.gd/u5Iq.

NYCUPA elections are coming up soon. Candidates for the offices of
President and Vice President will be taking a few minutes to address
the audience. Paid members are eligible to vote (and receive
discounted entry to events), so join the chapter!


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] game design, ixd, and making people cry

[Troy Gardner]

> One of many things it has me thinking about is how (if?) I can create
> emotional responses using only physical objects that carry emotional weight.

In this case she had to get them integrated into the story, so they
were an active participant.

If the pawns were cattle instead of people, or glass vases instead of
cattle. I doubt people would have the same reaction.

If anything, study movie trailers and beer commericals.  They have a
knack out pulling on those inner triggers to evoke emotional
responses.

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[IxDA Discuss] Good examples of branched flow

[Alan Mazzan]

Hello,
I'm looking for some good examples of web-based logic flow that guides  
a user though a series of questions that are branched based on  
decision. Along the lines of Product guides, troubleshooting apps, etc.


Thanks, Alan

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[IxDA Discuss] Any one from South Korea ?

[Deok Gun Park]

I am looking for my tribe in South Korea.
I wonder there is any Korean member in this organization.

If anyone, please signal me.

For I am so lonely.

If there is more than 3 person I want to organize IxDA Korean subdivision.

Thanks.



==

Park Deok Gun
Manager, Research planning team,
Polymer Division, NanoBrick

Address: Advance Institute of Convergence Technology C district 4th Floor ,
906-10 Eaw Dong Youngtong Gu Suwon, Kyunggi Do 443-270
Tel: 031-888-9425
Fax: 031-888-9430
email: intui...@gmail.com
Homepage: http://www.intuinno.com
==

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Voice interfaces aren\'t Visual interfaces WAS Any data on users making use of Help?

[Phillip Hunter]

William,

Actually, most of the ideas you mention are useful for and being used
in over-the-phone systems, which I've worked in for almost too long. 
Part of the problem you, I, and others face in using these systems is
the highly imperfect applications of expertise to the design issues. 
GUI designers who don't understand the linguistics involved, speech
engineers and linguists who don't understand design, etc.

But, foregoing the rant, rest assured that synonyms are heavily used
and in the best systems are driven by the data of actual usage.  And
that just-in-time contextual tips are a hallmark of good voice
design.

As you point out, if the system is called infrequently, the
individual user might not directly benefit, but later callers can.

Phillip


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41891



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Voice interfaces aren\'t Visual interfaces WAS Any data on users making use of Help?

[Angel Marquez]

http://www.tellme.com/about

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Examples of Good Customer Support Sites

[Daniel Szuc]

This may provide some direction - 

Customer Support on the Web: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You:

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/11/customer-support-on-the-web-dont-call-us-well-call-you.php

rgds,
Dan


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41923



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA NYC - RSVP deadline for Cindy Chastain's talk is Monday midnight ET

[NYC IxDA]

When the time comes, our live stream will be here:

http://tr.im/CChastainExpThemes

Cheers!


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=41897



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