date:20090901



On 1 Sep 2009, at 21:31, Alok Jain wrote:


Git and svn are comparable but git is better in some respects , for
e.g. handling branches (i.e. if you are  production version of the
code , and then you also are working on 1 or more new features. You
can keep one production branch and have another branch for other
features. This way if a hot fix is to be done to production then any
incomplete feature code does not come in the way.

[snip]

And git is worse in others (poor support on Windows boxes, lack of GUI  
apps for those who like GUI apps, more complex command line UI, etc.)


[and you can also do branches with Subversion - but the tool support  
for managing branches is better in git]


Cheers,

Adrian
--
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On 2 Sep 2009, at 05:27, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:

Agreed on both counts. And to further reminisce a bit let's not  
forget all the stories of people who bought Macs that had the power  
switch on the front just under the floppy drive, and they would  
press the button thinking it would eject the disk, but it turned off  
the machine.



Oh yes! Saw that one a lot :-)

Adrian

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Alok Jain

Git and svn are comparable but git is better in some respects , for
e.g. handling branches (i.e. if you are  production version of the
code , and then you also are working on 1 or more new features. You
can keep one production branch and have another branch for other
features. This way if a hot fix is to be done to production then any
incomplete feature code does not come in the way.

Hosting wise , you could have these installed anywhere. I use github
and like it. It has nice integration into other apps also, and then
it hosts a lot of open source code which is useful.


But these are more useful for code related files. for documentation I
had a media wiki locally installed and that worked very well for me.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]


On Sep 1, 2009, at 9:08 PM, Adrian Howard wrote:


For me the big advantage was
1) impossible to eject mid-read/write causing data loss and possible  
damage to drive & disk (folk were _always_ doing this in my  
experience)
2) Due to the covered nature of the disk - much harder to get crud  
in disk and onto drive - again avoiding damage to disk & drive


Agreed on both counts. And to further reminisce a bit let's not  
forget all the stories of people who bought Macs that had the power  
switch on the front just under the floppy drive, and they would press  
the button thinking it would eject the disk, but it turned off the  
machine.


--
Andrei Herasimchuk

Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. and...@involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On 2 Sep 2009, at 04:49, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:

* Implementing 3.5" hard disk floppies when they were not standard  
in the market, but contained more data storage. This was a product  
design and technology decision, and certainly did not help customers  
out of the gate since it could hard to find these disks when the  
first Macs shipped.


Just to be sad and techie for a bit...

More storage wasn't the only (or maybe not even the main) advantage of  
the 3.5" floppy (and the similar 3" floppy that I don't think ever  
made it into machines outside of the UK in the 80's.)


Indeed there were 5.25" floppy formats that met or exceeded the  
storage size of the 3.5" floppy at the time Apple stuck it in their  
machines.


For me the big advantage was
1) impossible to eject mid-read/write causing data loss and possible  
damage to drive & disk (folk were _always_ doing this in my experience)
2) Due to the covered nature of the disk - much harder to get crud in  
disk and onto drive - again avoiding damage to disk & drive


Cheers,

Adrian (who was very happy to see the back of 8" and 5.25" floppies  
back in the day :)


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On Sep 1, 2009, at 10:46 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:


On Sep 1, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
There's no "guidelines" beyond some vague notion of "involving  
users" which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be  
UCD followers do too.


For the record, I acknowledge that I design for people. What I don't  
do is people-centered design.


I misspoke. I apologize.

:)

Jared


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Jarod Tang wrote:

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk > wrote:
Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the  
product itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their  
products, their design choices, and their culture will tell you  
this is the case.


For e.g.?


Examples of Apple choices that involved more than just a focus on the  
user:


* Implementing 3.5" hard disk floppies when they were not standard in  
the market, but contained more data storage. This was a product design  
and technology decision, and certainly did not help customers out of  
the gate since it could hard to find these disks when the first Macs  
shipped.


* Subsequently, Apple also dropped external hard drives from their  
laptops first, aded in DVD enabled drives, and generally have always  
pushed the next generation connections on all of their computers,  
before they ever become standard in the general computing marketplace.


* Sticking to a single button mouse and clicking convention when the  
rest of the market uses 2 or more. Especially games and entertainment  
markets. The word on the street is that this decision has been  
reinforced by Jobs only, but no one knows why Apple refuses to adopt  
multi-button mice, especially considering it's pretty much required by  
gamers, creative professionals, 3D animators and architects, all  
markets that Apple should be trying to appease, one would think.


* OpenDoc, which never made it, but was not something that could exist  
outside of the engineering that was required to make it happen. In the  
end, it failed for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was  
that while a lofty design goal, it wound up being too difficult to  
make happen technically and often made the resulting interfaces more  
complicated, not less.


* The candy colored iMacs. Once again making Macs feel like toys. They  
were more of a business and branding decision to grab attention when  
Apple needed it most. If they were truly a great design decision aimed  
at what their customers really want, and not a fad (which I think they  
were), Apple would still be making them today.


* The entire graphical user interface system in the first place, which  
was viewed by business users back in the '80s to be too much like a  
toy. Apple didn't care. It claimed the GUI made more sense and was  
easier to use. That fight last at least until the late 90s. These days  
however, we have Google playing the role of being anti-aesthetic and  
more "machine" designed, so I guess Apple may not have truly changed  
the entire tech industry just yet.


* The Mac Cube. Expensive, but cool. People who own them claim them as  
status symbols. And while they are indeed cool, they certainly weren't  
aimed at even a large portion of their die-hard fan base.


* The iPod spin wheel. Not sure how the spin wheel is user focused.  
It's a technological solution to an interesting design problem of how  
to make easier access to long lists of items on a 3" screen. In fact,  
when you are presented new users an iPod and they had not seen one  
before, most people had know idea how to make the spin wheel work  
until shown. Also in fact, the spin wheel breaks down once you have  
very long lists to navigate. Still easy to use, but not the best  
design solution over all compared to other devices.


* The iPhone touch screen and interface. While it has it's  
cheerleaders, my daughter is like a lot of folks: they want the  
tactical keyboard for texting. Even after all this time, Apple hasn't  
come out with a solution for those people, who probably will not move  
over to the full touch interface. Quite frankly, the touch screen and  
the resulting interface are classic Apple: cool, new technology that  
allows for a new form factor and opens up a new interaction and  
business model that wasn't possible before. In this case, unique Apps  
that can only exist with a touch screen interface.


* The original Finder. As an operating system, it was one of the first  
that polled for user events rather than sit back passively. This  
allowed for the creation and concepts behind the feedback loop with  
interfaces. It was also, in fact, probably the genesis for pretty much  
everything having to do with software and interaction since. It was  
not created to solve a customer problem and if you asked, customers  
would still to this day have no idea what it is. It was a  
technological advance that allowed Apple to create new types of  
applications that could do more than what was being offered in DOS at  
the time.


I could go on and on. Apple has a long history of making products that  
are more often than not, a combination of technical, business, design  
and customer choices. Very rarely have I seen Apple make a choice  
based solely on "user centered" anything, and more often than not, the  
products people love most that come out of Apple are th

Re: [IxDA Discuss] profit centered design


Hi Eric,

On 31 Aug 2009, at 17:03, j. eric townsend wrote:


Adrian Howard wrote:
And, a Todd says, if the majority of your customer base isn't  
replacing batteries - is it customer focussed to add a feature that  
they don't want or need?


If you take away the choice before they ever have it, how do you  
know they want it?  What if what the majority wants isn't actually  
good, or is not good for the customer base as a whole?   Is every  
design nuance of the iPhone based on what the majority of the users  
wanted or what Jobs/Ives and the bizdev people at Apple wanted?


I've no idea. Making assumptions either way seems premature. There are  
costs as well as benefits to having a removable battery as I  
previously mentioned.


The Android G1 has a battery that's easy to replace, which means I  
can carry a spare on the road or buy an extra-capacity one.   It's  
an option I have, and there's enough people doing it that there are  
plenty of aftermarket batteries available.


And that's great. If you are somebody who is on the road for extended  
periods I can see that being an important feature for you.


I'm not. I've never needed an additional battery for my phone (which  
isn't an iPhone :-) Never needed to replace it either.


The fact that I have a removable battery has only every been a problem  
for me rather than a feature (accidentally become disconnected and not  
charging, getting lost, separating and disappearing under the sofa  
when I dropped it, etc.)


It doesn't make the phone any less reliable, I've dropped mine  
plenty of times and it's never fallen apart.  (It's certainly never  
caught on fire or imploded or any such thing.)


But it is more complicated to design and build. Almost certainly more  
expensive to build.  Possibly larger. Probably more fragile than a  
built in one.


(Just because your phone didn't break doesn't mean that over larger  
numbers it's not an issue. The product designers I've talked to in the  
past have all hated battery packs coz of the design issues I mentioned  
before.)


There are also enough iPhone owners interested in replacing the  
battery in their iPhone/iPod that there are outfits selling  
replacement batteries and upgrade kits online.


Yup.

There are also people who sell extra battery packs to plug in to give  
you an extended battery life. I don't think that means that Apple  
should have made the iPhone twice as thick/heavy with a larger battery.


Is it customer focused to make it difficult for the user to change  
the battery if the battery dies out of warranty and to make "upgrade  
to a new model" the repair option?   (And haven't we learn anything  
from the planned obsolescence model of the US auto industry?)


It's certainly good business sense to make repair difficult --  when  
the battery died in my 60G iPod, they wanted to give me %10 off a  
new iPod if I'd "recycle" the old one.   Let's see, I can pay $360  
for the current version of my iPod that holds slightly more music or  
replace a battery that probably costs $10.


Which is the better deal for me and which is the better deal for  
Apple?


Of definitely a better deal for Apple there. Doesn't mean that it  
isn't a better deal for the customer elsewhere though.


I'm really not trying to say that removable battery == bad. Or  
removable battery == good. Just that there are costs and benefits. For  
me (with my experiences of my built-in-battery iPod and replaceable  
battery phone) the costs of removable batteries outweigh the benefits.  
For you - the opposite seems to be true.


Who should Apple have designed for? No idea myself not having done any  
research on the number of potential customers out there, what their  
expectations are, what features they like/dislike, etc. Apple seem to  
be doing pretty well with their choices though :-)


(BTW this whole discussion reminds me of the stuff Kathy Sierra wrote  
about you only being in a good place with a product when you have folk  
loving _and_ hating it http://is.gd/2Mxxm)


Cheers,

Adrian
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]


On Sep 1, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
There's no "guidelines" beyond some vague notion of "involving  
users" which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be  
UCD followers do too.


For the record, I acknowledge that I design for people. What I don't  
do is people-centered design.


--
Andrei Herasimchuk

Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. and...@involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?



On Sep 1, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Audrey Crane wrote:


Their argument is that it's useful to reinforce where the user is,
and that since people don't focus on it unless it's needed
secondarily for navigation, it adds negligible to no visual noise to
the page.


Breadcrumbs are a design cop-out. That's my opinion.

http://www.uie.com/articles/breadcrumbs/

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: jsp...@uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com  Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks  Twitter: @jmspool


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?



On Sep 1, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Chad Jennings wrote:


Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify,
simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a
redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser),
headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving
page rank.


Actually, they are not. That's a myth. Their is no evidence to suggest  
that redundancy between those factors increases page rank.


Jared


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On Sep 1, 2009, at 6:34 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote:


But won't you agree that UCD follow a "certain" guideline?


No, I wouldn't. Dozens of interviews I've conducted with self- 
proclaimed UCD professionals shows there is very little overlap in  
what UCD means or what a UCD professional does.


There's no "guidelines" beyond some vague notion of "involving users"  
which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be UCD  
followers do too.


So, if I were to give you a pile of 10 folks who claim to follow UCD  
combined with a pile of 10 folks who claim to design without following  
UCD -- without telling you which was which -- I'm betting you couldn't  
pick out who was in each group by looking at either their  
philosophies, their activities, or their end results.


At which point, I ask, what makes UCD special? Why is it important?

Jared


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread pauric

Sasha, unless you are privy to the requirements for Kristen's site
you cannot make a guided decision on whether the choice of font will
directly impact the goals of the design.

Target audience, context of use, frequency of use.  Until we know the
design's requirements we cannot advise on direction.

"Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
brand in one way or another?"

McDonalds uses Bodega Sans.  Test: If you believe the choice of this
font conveys a message or meaning to the average McDonalds customer -
you're a designer. (o;


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] \"Way Out\" vs \"Exit\" - Signage usability and passenger experience



On 2 Sep 2009, at 00:17, Diana Wynne wrote:
[snip]
Only on an airline would you refer to "lavatories" and  
"illuminating" the

seat belt sign rather than using more common words.

[snip]

That reminds me of some rather uncomfortable times I had as a first  
time tourist in the US before I figured out that labels like "comfort  
station", "rest area" and "rest stop" meant "toilet".


("comfort station" in particular was a _very_ close call :-)

Adrian

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] \"Way Out\" vs \"Exit\" - Signage usability and passenger experience

2009-09-01 Thread Sascha Brossmann | brsma : designificance



On 1 Sep 2009, at 15:59, Calvin wrote:


Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called "Canada
Line" (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues
in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the
most is the exit sign: instead of printing "Exit", they use "Way
Out". My thoughts:

- "Exit" is almost the international standard word to indicate an
exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word
and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English.


I can't comment on numbers - since I don't have the stats - but I've  
certainly noticed "Way Out" used in France & Norway where there was  
signage in multiple languages.


It's the label I'd look for since it's the standard one in the UK  
("Exit" normally being reserved for "special" routes like "Fire Exit",  
"Emergency Exit", etc. rather than normal means of egress).


Cheers,

Adrian
--
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Kim Burgess

Subversion is pretty much the de facto standard as far as centralized
version control goes. It is a fantasic piece of software and there
are loads of tools round for easily integrating it into your
workflow.

Alternatively you may also be interested in looking into distributed
version control systems such as Git (http://git-scm.com/) and Bazaar
(http://bazaar-vcs.org/).


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

2009-09-01 Thread Jarod Tang

On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk <
aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com> wrote:

> On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote:
>
>  With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE
>> specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have
>> many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I
>> think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD
>> processes.  So I dont entirely agree with Andrei.
>>
>
> Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the product
> itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their products, their
> design choices, and their culture will tell you this is the case.
>
> For e.g.?

-- Jarod
-- 
@jarodtang
http://designforuse.blogspot.com/

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.

> sensible/ business issues here.)

Oops, false friend… s/sensible/sensitive/
I hope, they're sensible, nonetheless ;-)

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Ben Woods

I would keep the current page title at the end of the breadcrumb trail in
addition to the title.

Users may not mentally link a title that is separated from the breadcrumb.
It's a good 'you are here' tool, but without the current page at the end,
it's more like 'you're in this section'.

Putting 'You are here' at the beginning of the breadcrumb trail may be a
good idea - I think it depends on the ability of your users.

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Chad Jennings  wrote:

> Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify,
> simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a
> redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser),
> headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving
> page rank.
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45266
>
>
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Sascha Brossmann | brsma : designificance

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 23:32, Paul Trumble wrote:
> Actually we did an a/b test with an auto-complete feature, with disastrous
> results.  Personally I think the lack of an agreed upon vocabulary killed
> it.  While you know what your high school is called, there might be 25 ways
> to name your job.

hm… If the auto-completer just triggers suggestions based on more or
less literally matching terms: yes, certainly. But maybe it would be
possible to have it search within semantic fields instead? And how
about elevating the usefulness of suggestions further with some social
metrics of your users and the like?

Further: maybe drilling down through possibilities could get easier
when employing facets for classification instead of a taxonomy.

> Thanks for the ideas.  Let me know if you have any others.

Let's see. But I'd like to ask more questions first:

* What kind of information about the users do you already have at this point?
* Is it absolutely crucial to request this information exactly at this
time? Maybe it could be easier to collect the required information
later.
* How do the users come to register and what happens afterwards?
* Could you maybe outline the whole registration process as currently
planned? As far and detailed as possible?
* On a side note: a large multi-step/-screen form does not seem like
the optimal way to get good follow-through/conversion rates ;-)

To come up with better ideas for this would probably also require some
more knowledge about your prospective users, their goals, business
objectives etc. I don't know how much about those you are willing or
able to share without having NDAs signed, though. (Given the
importance you hinted at, I guess that we might touch some
sensible/strategic business issues here.)

Cheers,

Sascha
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] \"Way Out\" vs \"Exit\" - Signage usability and passenger experience

2009-09-01 Thread Robert Hoekman Jr

>
> - "Exit" is almost the international standard word to indicate an
> exit route.


In Australia, New Zealand, Dubai, and Korea, the standard appears to be
"Way Out". I don't recall if these signs were used *every*where, but they
were definitely used in airports and subway stations, and frequently in all
kinds of public places.

I don't know why there is a split, but I've wondered if it's because "Exit"
sounds like a *command* (as in "Get out!"), whereas "Way Out" comes across
more like a street sign, simply politely telling you where you are.

-r-

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[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Austin // Tues, Sept 22nd // Work Smart! Better Design Process with Sketching and Dynamic Prototypes with Sketchflow

2009-09-01 Thread Tori Breitling

Product design requires fast and light weight strategies, in order to make
decisions, changes and true innovation. Building prototypes in same medium
as the final product is something other industries have done for years. If
you want to learn how to push your design process with real collaboration,
and live solutions at every phase, then Sketchflow in Expression 3 is THE
tool to explore. Discover how to take the ‘fuzziness’ and uncertainty out of
your stakeholder meetings, with lo-fi, working sketches and prototypes.
Showcase the inherent value of your solutions with rich, tangible,
interactive, illustrative, working narratives that clearly demonstrate
success. By adopting a dynamic process you can: create and test ideas
instantly, FEEL the user experience and share it with your team and clients,
all while keeping the solution light and non-destructive. It’s time to take
the frustration out of your work!

The event is free of charge and open to all interested parties.

Sponsored by Microsoft Complimentary adult beverages and light snacks
provided
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -
- - -

RSVP:   http://ixdaaustin.ning.com/events/prototyping-panel
(If you are not already a member, you'll need to sign up first. It's
free)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -
- - -

WHEN
Tuesday, Sept 22nd, 2009
6:00 – 6:30pm Networking
6:30 – 7:30pm Presentation
7:30 – 8:00pm Networking and Conversation

WHERE
Cuba Libre
409 Colorado St, Austin, TX 78701
*www.cubalibreaustin.com
*
PRESENTER
Sara Summers is a User Experience Evangelist for Microsoft based out of
Austin, TX. Sara is currently coauthoring a book for experience designers,
entitled *Dynamic Prototyping*, expected to be on bookshelves by the end of
this year. She has a personal mantra of design democracy – happy, healthy
designers and developers working and playing together to create beautiful,
inspirational products.

Sara speaks often and loves to talk about big ideas, changing everything,
breaking your toys, throwing away your designs and capturing new ideas. She
reads everything she can get her hands on and prides herself in being an
armchair social and cognitive scientist and researcher. Academically, Ms.
Summers is trained as a technologist and visual designer, with a BS in
Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University.


IxDA Austin produces regular face-to-face community events to gather
professionals who design interactive systems and products of all kinds: web,
desktop, enterprise, mobile, consumer electronics, digitally-enhanced
environments, and more. All interested parties are welcome!  If you'd like
to learn more please email us: austin-lo...@ixda.org

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] \"Way Out\" vs \"Exit\" - Signage usability and passenger experience

2009-09-01 Thread Diana Wynne

Way Out also has the disadvantage of being a pun.
It might be fun and appropriate on a website, but as you point out, in an
airport, where people have plans to catch, the error could be a problem.

Note that at least in the US, FAA language is notoriously unfriendly to
regular people, let alone those who don't speak English as a first language.
Only on an airline would you refer to "lavatories" and "illuminating" the
seat belt sign rather than using more common words.

Diana

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Calvin  wrote:

> Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called "Canada
> Line" (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues
> in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the
> most is the exit sign: instead of printing "Exit", they use "Way
> Out". My thoughts:
>
> - "Exit" is almost the international standard word to indicate an
> exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word
> and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English.
>
> - Don't try to be clever and reinvent the experience. Using an
> example from Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think", one should use
> well-known terms like "home", "about us", "jobs" instead of
> "Learn More about Calvin", "Wanna get hired?"
>
> - According to Jhenifer Pabillano from Translink.ca blog, the
> decision of printing "Way Out" was made by the private contractor
> InTransit BC, who thought "Way Out" was more descriptive and would
> be easily understandable by an international ridership. (see #link1)
> I am curious what matrix or user study, if any, they used to support
> this argument?
>
> For more details of my thoughts you may visit my blog at
> http://calvin-c.com/blog/way-out
>
>
>
> #link1:
>
> http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2009/08/canada-line-roundup-even-more-pics-and-video-and-passport-stamp-info/#comment-19912
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Sascha Brossmann | brsma : designificance

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 14:58, pauric wrote:
> "Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
> brand in one way or another?"
>
> Depends on your target audience.  The only people who notice such
> things are the people who notice such things

I heavily disagree. People might not consciously notice (i.e. care
about) the choice of one typeface over the other but still perceive a
slight overall difference. Even if they cannot really lay their hands
on it. And in terms of fonts available cross-platform (without taking
@font-face & co. into account) the differences between possible
typefaces (i.e. CSS font cascades) cannot even be called subtle.

Sascha

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Sascha Brossmann | brsma : designificance

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 14:36, Kristen wrote:
> What is your favourite font and why?

Kristen, choosing a font should *not* be a matter of whatever one
personally prefers, but of what one wants to *communicate*. And to
whom.

> Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
> brand in one way or another?

Yes, definitely, though not solely. There's actually quite some
complexity offered by this matter. ;-)

If you would like to educate yourself on (very classical) typography,
you might want to have a look at Bringhurst's ‘Elements of
Typographical Style’
 (see
also ).

If the concerning website is not exactly just for private purposes, I
would very much endorse you requesting the professional expertise of
someone with a proper training in graphics design/visual
communication. Never forget that markets = communication (even though
branding on the web works somehow differently than in former print
times, IMHO).

Cheers,

Sascha
--
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[IxDA Discuss] \"Way Out\" vs \"Exit\" - Signage usability and passenger experience

2009-09-01 Thread Calvin

Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called "Canada
Line" (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues
in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the
most is the exit sign: instead of printing "Exit", they use "Way
Out". My thoughts:

- "Exit" is almost the international standard word to indicate an
exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word
and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English.

- Don't try to be clever and reinvent the experience. Using an
example from Steve Krug's "Don't Make Me Think", one should use
well-known terms like "home", "about us", "jobs" instead of
"Learn More about Calvin", "Wanna get hired?"

- According to Jhenifer Pabillano from Translink.ca blog, the
decision of printing "Way Out" was made by the private contractor
InTransit BC, who thought "Way Out" was more descriptive and would
be easily understandable by an international ridership. (see #link1)
I am curious what matrix or user study, if any, they used to support
this argument?

For more details of my thoughts you may visit my blog at
http://calvin-c.com/blog/way-out

#link1:
http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2009/08/canada-line-roundup-even-more-pics-and-video-and-passport-stamp-info/#comment-19912

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Jonathan Abbett

Try Dropbox -- for small groups, their folder sharing works pretty well.
Automatically syncs, accessible over the web, keeps historical versions.

http://www.getdropbox.com/

-Jon

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Tom Daly  wrote:

> I've suddenly found my team grow from one to three and it's clear
> that a centralized file system is needed, especially as the team
> grows.
>
> I'd love to hear how other teams are working, managing their
> documentation for both the UX/IxD/VD phases for projects.
>
> My aim is to have a central file repository that manages versions and
> is easily accessed on/off location.
>
> I appreciate any insights into this.
> 
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>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Chad Jennings

Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify,
simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a
redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser),
headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving
page rank. 


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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[IxDA Discuss] [Event] Call for participation: STC Summit, Dallas, 2-5 May 2010

2009-09-01 Thread Caroline Jarrett

Dear IxDAers,

There's been some recent discussion about how to design online help. Did you
know that there's a whole professional society, the Society for Technical
Communication, that's all about writing help (specifically) and helping
users (generally) and designing user experiences?

If you're working in user experience, usability, accessibility, or technical
communication in general: please think about coming to the STC Summit next
year in Dallas, 2-5 May 2010.

Our call for proposals has just opened at:
http://www.softconference.com/subs/stc/2010/

I'm manager of the Usability and Accessibility track, and I'm looking for
proposals that will really stretch us. What fantastic new techniques and
ideas are you burning to tell us about? What have you learned over the last
year or so that you'd like to share?

My aim is to get proposals in two specific areas:
- "Getting started" will be for technical communicators who are new to
usability or accessibility and who want to know how to... get started! (you
were ahead of me). What can you do with little or no budget, maybe no
knowledge, but a lot of enthusiasm? You might be an experienced person
yourself or you might have just got started yourself: share your experiences
and what you wish someone else had told you.

- "Advanced" will be aimed at the leaders of our profession. You can expect
people coming to your Advanced session to have many years' experience - but
they also want to be challenged, to learn new things, and to hear about your
successes and lessons learned. 

Please feel welcome to bounce ideas around, either here or offline to me. Or
just go for it and put those proposals in. I'm looking forward to a great
conference.

Caroline Jarrett
caroline.jarr...@effortmark.co.uk


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Paul Trumble

Actually we did an a/b test with an auto-complete feature, with disastrous
results.  Personally I think the lack of an agreed upon vocabulary killed
it.  While you know what your high school is called, there might be 25 ways
to name your job.

Thanks for the ideas.  Let me know if you have any others.

Paul

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Bryan Minihan  wrote:

> Go to berecruited.com and register as a high school athlete.  While
> doing so, you'll be asked to select your high school from a list of
> 25,000 of them.  You'll notice, though, that you have to type its
> name, and once done, your dropdown list narrows to show schools in
> your state, then just those in your area.
> --
>

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Jason Robb

Kristen,

You should take a look at www.typophile.com - the definitive
typographic community.

Read this before posting: http://typophile.com/design_readme

Cheers,

Jason R.

--
Jason Robb
Experience Design & Implementation

617-899-6400
ja...@jasonrobb.com
http://jasonrobb.com
http://uxboston.com
http://uiscraps.tumblr.com




. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Arthur Fink


I believe your designers have the right conclusion, but the wrong reason.

Bread crumbs are typically displayed as minor 
reference items, and should be complete.  The 
page title is typically more central.


So we might have a page that looks like this


Repairs | Plumbing | 
Toilets | Adjusting the toilet water level


Adjusting the toilet water level


Having just part of the bread crumb line would be 
confusing, violates an implicit standard, and 
really doesn't cut down on any clutter.  The 
bread crumb line as it stands show the user 
exactly how he or she got here -- not how they got almost here.


My 2c, for what it's worth.

(Of course the real test is user testing ... but 
I'd wager users really would be disturbed to find partial bread crumbs.)



---
How do users experience your Progress® application?
Are they productive?  Does it matter?  Do you care?
---
  ===
  ARTHUR FINK  art...@arthurfink.com   www.ArthurFink.com
  Listening to users, and designing interfaces that work!
  Consulting and Training in Progress®  Call 207.615.5722
  ===

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Audrey Crane

But if it isn't clear (that this is where you are), shouldn't there
be better ways of making it clear than providing a redundant
non-functional element?

Maybe with the You Are Here: and including that last >?

I might test this. I'll let y'all know if I can sneak it into a
usability study and what the results are.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread paul bryan

If version control problems are likely to cause serial heart attacks,
then I prefer Visual SourceSafe, even though it can be a pain.

In a recent project involving several parties we used Basecamp to
share docs and had no problems (http://basecamphq.com).

Paul Bryan
Usography
Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/uxexperts



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Jennifer R Vignone

You ask that question as though it perhaps is not conceivable to do so...
I think that is where the element of design comes into the decision process as 
well.
Part of the design process is what statement you want the overall impact to be, 
and that may factor into the selection of the typeface and where it is used.
But I do think it is fine to make a change from serif to san-serif, from one 
typeface to another, to render a design 
successfully/legibly/beautifully/usefully/usably.



-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com 
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Kristen
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 9:10 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

Does anyone have an opinion about changing the font from headers to
main text?  For example, using a cleaner, simple font for headers and
potentially one with a little more complexity through serif's to ease
the reader in the main text?


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Kristen

Does anyone have an opinion about changing the font from headers to
main text?  For example, using a cleaner, simple font for headers and
potentially one with a little more complexity through serif's to ease
the reader in the main text?


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread pauric

"Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
brand in one way or another?"

Depends on your target audience.  The only people who notice such
things are the people who notice such things

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1919127,00.html

/pauric


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Jennifer R Vignone

Two of mine (but I have more than two favorites):

Janson
Janson because the letterforms are beautiful and the italics are elegant.
I like the way the capital "J" dips on the baseline.
Janson also uses my favorite type of lowercase "a's.

Helvetica
You can do almost anything with Helvetica, and the weights it comes in is 
amazing.
Helvetica Inserat used to be my absolute favorite for headlines in newspaper 
ads.
Kern it right and it is absolutely wonderful to look at.

By the way, something that has suffered in design and web design is kerning, I 
mean real kerning pairs.
Having been a typesetter years ago, I am appalled by poorly kerned type on many 
sites and in print ads, which always saddens me.

I do think that sometimes you need to alter a letterform to get the logo design 
to do what you need. I recently designed a logo where I made a slight change to 
the descender in a lowercase "g" and it did make the difference in what I 
needed.




-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com 
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Kristen
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:37 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

I'm creating a web page and am having issues selecting a font.  I
recently watched a documentary on Helvetica, but it left me wondering
if that really is the best way to go.  Helvetica seems to be timeless
but also does not stand out.

What is your favourite font and why? 

Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
brand in one way or another?

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[IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page

2009-09-01 Thread Kristen

I'm creating a web page and am having issues selecting a font.  I
recently watched a documentary on Helvetica, but it left me wondering
if that really is the best way to go.  Helvetica seems to be timeless
but also does not stand out.

What is your favourite font and why? 

Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a
brand in one way or another?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread David Kozatch

The Buddha says, "wherever you go, there you are."  He also says
that very few users rely on breadcrumbs to navigate or get themselves
"oriented" within the site: they only care about a fluid nav to
where they need to go (present page) and to the next place (sometimes
back, sometimes not).  That said, I agree with Joe that redundancy is
good within this context.  Providing additional navigational
cues/links to allow the user to get back to any "main" pages is
even better.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Joe Lanman

I think that including the current page title makes it totally clear that
this is a trail to the current page. Breadcrumbs are sometimes prefaced by
'you are here' which is possibly redundant if you include the current page
title. Without the current title the breadcrumbs would mean 'these are the
levels above the current page' which isn't such a straightforward concept.

Joe Lanman

---

http://formd.net

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[IxDA Discuss] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?

2009-09-01 Thread Audrey Crane

I tried to make a change to a site I'm new to working on, to remove
the page title as the last element of the breadcrumb and simply treat
the title itself as the last element in the breadcrumb, including a >
last and keeping the title immediately below. I was surprised that
not only wasn't it a simple argument to make, but I met staid
refusal from the design team.

My argument was that repeating the page title is redundant, removing
anything that's redundant and isn't functional is good, especially
given the fairly busy nature of their pages, and that it's not
necessary to orient the user since the location information is clear
either way. (We have no research showing people lost or confused, but
we do have research showing people having difficulty finding things
near the top of the page, albeit only in wireframes.)

Their argument is that it's useful to reinforce where the user is,
and that since people don't focus on it unless it's needed
secondarily for navigation, it adds negligible to no visual noise to
the page. The other arguments are that it's better for SEO and we
have bigger fish to fry.

Nielsen says include it but doesn't say why
(http://www.useit.com/alertbox/breadcrumbs.html). A survey shows a
surprising lack of consistency on this issue. Apple, Don Norman's
site, and Ideo don't repeat the page title. Yahoo!, Google and
nngroup.com do.

I probably won't be able to make this change happen, but curious on
others thoughts?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Tom Daly

I reached out to the guys at EightShapes and Nathan Curtis responded
with a link to a post on their blog that speaks to this (Thanks
Nathan!)

Link to the article:
http://unify.eightshapes.com/efficiency-tips/8-tips-for-organizing-project-files-folders/

Headlines on the file management aspect:

Use Subversion   Beanstalk


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Jason Robb

Tom,

Great question, would love to hear what others are using for version
control. 

What about an SVN repository? I've heard from various front-end
developers, visual designers, and UX-ers that using a code repo
works. I haven't personally tried it, but it sounds doable to me.

Cheers,

Jason R.

--
Jason Robb
Experience Design & Implementation

ja...@jasonrobb.com
http://jasonrobb.com
http://uxboston.com
http://uiscraps.tumblr.com




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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]


On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote:


With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE
specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have
many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I
think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD
processes.  So I dont entirely agree with Andrei.


Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the  
product itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their  
products, their design choices, and their culture will tell you this  
is the case.


What I have been saying for years and people like you seem to keep  
missing is that UCD as both a philosophy and methodology is at best  
only a portion the overall product design process, and is incomplete  
even in the best circumstances where I've seen people practice it's  
guiding principles. It's incomplete precisely because as you stated so  
clearly above, the entire intent of UCD seems to focus on the user as  
the center of the universe, at the expense of equally important  
aspects of the product, like technology requirements and business  
needs. As such, I've never seen UCD succeed to my standard because  
it's simply not enough on its own to create what I would consider well- 
designed products.


Here's a visceral way for all those people who are so tied to UCD to  
get what it is that I'm saying: Go build your own prototypes.


And when I say build your own prototypes, I mean create all the pixel- 
perfect assets yourself with whatever tool you want to use, code up  
the HTML or MXML or whatever presentation language you want to use,  
hand code all your own CSS, and script all the interactions with  
JavaScript or ActionScript on your own. Feel free to fake data with  
hard coded JSON while you're at it.


I guarantee the single act of forcing yourself to learn how to code  
and build your own prototypes will show you without a doubt how  
focusing on the user as the center of everything is incomplete at best.


--
Andrei Herasimchuk

Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world

e. and...@involutionstudios.com
c. +1 408 306 6422


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPhone turnover (was We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)

2009-09-01 Thread David Kozatch

As fantastic the iPhone is - design-wise, app-wise, user
interface-wise -- it is still not optimum for heavy texting and/or
email.  Ali, perhaps your friends were disappointed with having to
type on iPhone's touch key pad which does not give the same tactile
response as other smart phones.  I switched from a BlackBerry to the
iPhone about a year ago and I still prefer the BB's keyboard.  I
believe that Apple is looking into making typing a more tactile
experience (e.g., vibrating response to touch, replicate feel of
raised keys on touch screen, etc.) because of this deficit.

As for the 99% satisfaction score mentioned, that's an impressive
number for any technology.  But keep in mind, Apple designed the
iPhone with such an impressive emotional, experiential benefit built
in that users often forgive its functional deficits (e.g., still no
MMS as promised in the US: http://bit.ly/z6Ahv).  That's an
important lesson for their competitors.

Ali, a polite suggestion: next time you post you may want to do some
research first among your friends as to why they decided to change
and the basis of their "complaints."   I think the trade-off of a
smart phone's appeal vs. it's deficits is a fascinating area of
discussion, especially when you consider how the "emotional"
benefits can outweigh the functional ones.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPhone turnover (was We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)

2009-09-01 Thread David Kozatch

As fantastic the iPhone is - design-wise, app-wise, user
interface-wise -- it is still not optimum for heavy texting and/or
email.  Ali, perhaps your friends were disappointed with having to
type on iPhone's touch key pad which does not give the same tactile
response as other smart phones.  I switched from a BlackBerry to the
iPhone about a year ago and I still prefer the BB's keyboard.  I
believe that Apple is looking into making typing a more tactile
experience (e.g., vibrating response to touch, replicate feel of
raised keys on touch screen, etc.) because of this deficit.

As for the 99% satisfaction score mentioned, that's an impressive
number for any technology.  But keep in mind, Apple designed the
iPhone with such an impressive emotional, experiential benefit built
in that users often forgive its functional deficits (e.g., still no
MMS as promised in the US: http://bit.ly/z6Ahv).  That's an
important lesson for their competitors.

Ali, a polite suggestion: next time you post you may want to do some
research first among your friends as to why they decided to change
and the basis of their "complaints."   I think the trade-off of a
smart phone's appeal vs. it's deficits is a fascinating area of
discussion, especially when you consider how the "emotional"
benefits can outweigh the functional ones.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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[IxDA Discuss] The Fly Me to Canux Contest-Deadline Extended - Go to Canux for practically FREE!

2009-09-01 Thread Mario Bourque

Here is a *tremendous *opportunity for a student or junior practitioner to
have access to one of the most amazing and intimate UX conferences in the
world!

The good folks at nForm are giving YOU the opportunity to go to Canux
with *free
conference registration*, including two nights accommodation and meals
during the conference, *plus $500 CDN* to help with your travel expenses!

Don't miss this incredible opportunity! Read below on how YOU can win!

-

Direct link: http://canux.nform.ca/2009/08/18/the-fly-me-to-canux-contest/

*Updated: new deadline Sept. 4th*

We’re going to bring one lucky attendee to Canux with some help from nForm.
We’ll give you a *free conference registration*, including two nights
accommodation and meals during the conference, *plus $500 CDN* to help with
your travel expenses getting to Banff.

*How do you get to be that lucky attendee?*

   1. Tell us why you want to come to Canux in a blog post or online video.
   Entries must be in English.
   2. Link from your post to the main Canux site at http://canux.nform.ca
   3. Tell us about your post by twittering a link to it with the hashtag
   #flymetocanux. This tweet should *not* be to anyone – we’ll use the
   hashtag to find it, not our Twitter handles, thanks. If you don’t
have a Twitter
   account, now is the time to get one [image: :)]

The nForm crew will choose our favorites from eligible entries, and Jess
McMullin  and Gene
Smithwill make the final selection. If the
selected winner has already registered
for Canux, we will fully refund registration costs (so you can register now,
and still enter the contest).

The contest is open until 11:59 p.m., Pacific Time, September 4th, 2009.
Winner will be notified on Monday, September 7th, via Twitter. One entry per
person, please. Multiple entries will be disqualified.

The contest is open worldwide to anyone above the age of majority, unless
prohibited by law. However, the winner is responsible for all travel costs
incurred. nForm will award one (1) cheque for five hundred dollars ($500.00)
Canadian on site in Banff. nForm will also register the attendee for one (1)
single accommodation event registration, a $999.00 value. nForm has no
responsibility for booking travel or making other arrangements. The winner’s
photo, copy, or video may be used by nForm for promotional purposes with no
further compensation. Depending on legal requirements in the winner’s
jurisdiction, a skill-testing question may be required to claim the prize.

*Tips for impressing us:*

Do tell us who you are, why you care, what’s important to you, what coming
to Canux will mean.

Don’t write more than a page of copy, don’t take more than 3 minutes in
video, don’t send multiple entries, don’t badger us on Twitter, spam us by
email or otherwise be annoying.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people must choose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Chris Heckler

Oops looks like Bryan already submitted the auto complete idea.  

:) Darn my distracted typing.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people must choose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Chris Heckler

It seems like having some kind of auto-complete text field to narrow
down choices based on a keyword input by the user might be a good
part of the solution.  For instance, someone could type in
"designer" and get back all titles that include
"designer"--interior designer, graphic designer, interaction
designer, etc.  It would also be nice if the search could present
possible other matches if nothing was found on the initial keyword. 
This would be in addition to a more structured presentation of
choices based on industry, etc.


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Bryan Minihan

Go to berecruited.com and register as a high school athlete.  While
doing so, you'll be asked to select your high school from a list of
25,000 of them.  You'll notice, though, that you have to type its
name, and once done, your dropdown list narrows to show schools in
your state, then just those in your area.

You could do something similar with the industry selection...perhaps
narrow your industries down to just five or so, then let people type
their occupation, displaying possible options via ajax below.  

I ran a site similar to berecruited, wherein we *needed* the user's
high school, but had a real hard time getting people to find it among
a huge list.  Seems similar to your problem...




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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (tw)ears. Vote in the 2010 SXSW Interactive Panel today http://ow.ly/ncYi

2009-09-01 Thread HK Bansemer

http://ow.ly/ncYi is your voting link. 


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Amy Jones

Have you thought of doing a survey and having people self-identify their
occupation?  No constraints, just a text field (or two- one for industry
and one for occupation).  You could even do it as a fill in the blank,
eg, "I work as a _ in the __ industry."  
You'd need a fairly large sample size, but it sounds like you may be
working with a well-defined audience.

Once you have a large list of how people think of their industry and
occupation, you can normalize it and that becomes your list.

You're never going to have a truly exhaustive list, though (unless
you're dealing with a very constrained system), so the choice becomes
having people not answer or answer incorrectly, vs having an optional
"not listed" selection and having them write-in their occupation if they
don't see it on the list.  The first means you'll get less accurate
data, the second means you'll get more data that will be hard to do
anything with, so there are trade-offs either way.

Good luck!

--Amy Jones


-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Paul Trumble
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 9:34 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people
mustchoose from.

All:

I'm looking for some advice, examples or even recommendations of who
might
be good at solving this particular problem for us.

In the context of a longish multi-page web form we have a need for the
user
to tell us at a fairly granular level what their occupation is.  the
total
length of the list is long, more than 1,000 choices.  The accuracy of
the
answer is pretty important to our business as is our desire not to stop
the
users flow through the application because of either the difficulty or
perceived intrusiveness of the question.  I should add that most users
don't
view the question as being necessary based on their understanding of
what
they are filling out.

Currently we use an introductory question (labeled currently 'industry',
but
in the past 'line of work' - the better version) to narrow down the list
of
occupations that are presented to the individual.  This approach may
well be
the best solution to a difficult problem, but it brings a little
emotional
and cognitive overhead with it.  Regularly when we observe users they
will
grumble that we are asking the same question twice, less so with the
'line
of work' label I believe.

Part of the problem with we have with this approach is that the choices
in
the industry list are not very good.  The selections for industry are
confusing and users don't always grasp that if their occupation is not
showing up as a choice the solution to the problem might be to choose a
different industry.  The actual list has some regulatory constraints and
a
fair amount of internal political baggage.

We are looking for a way to develop a new taxonomy that might make the
process more understandable to the user, while preserving the level of
detail the business requires.  Card-sorting doesn't seem like a good
tool
here since ultimately we need to know how individual users categorize
their
own occupation, not how they classify a list of occupations with which
they
have varying degrees of familiarity.  Because of the regulatory
constraints
we can't experiment with different versions of the list at any given
time.
We've used surveys to test particular taxonomies in the past.  Generally
surveys have proved a good way to rule things out, not develop something
that works well.

What thoughts do you all have on this?  I really haven't found any
examples
of folks who do something similar well.  I'm interested in advice, or if
you
know someone (or if you are someone) who could do a good job of putting
a
new taxonomy together that would be good too.  We may well have to bring
in
the magic aura of expertise that only consultants possess in order to
sell
any changes.

You can email me directly or reply to the list.  Thanks in advance.

Paul Trumble

-- 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. - Groucho Marx

http://www.trumbling.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/
http://www.twitter.com/trumbling

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

2009-09-01 Thread Jarod Tang

I guess you will to address  UCD as philosophy.

As previous gays said, there're two level for UCD in the design culture, one
from design philosophy perspective, other from process perspective. Design
cant avoid the former one, because all artifact is "by the people, for the
people and of the people", but that dosent means one should follow some
named UCD process ( most of the case, it more like a street to a dead end,
but it's not a reason to say design is not centered on people and people's
needs ).
On of Jared's argumentation is good design, or the quality of design, which
is the a very good topic, but that's a different perspective for design (
UCD is for the people from philosophy perspective ), good design is for the
quality perspective, they have no conflicts from the root,  treat them as
conflict or same level problem is a problem.

Regards,
-- Jarod

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:12 PM, Ali Naqvi  wrote:

> Jared:
> Okay I have been reading all your comments carefully. Also the ones
> you made in my post.
>
> You are against this term since you claim that "no two practitioners
> of UCD do the same thing".
>
> As humans we are different from each other and have a different
> creative mind. Following UCD doesnt mean that you HAVE to do the same
> thing as another practitioner of UCD. I bet, if you hand out a project
> to two different UCD practitioners, these will develop different
> solutions to a problem YET both will be acceptable and based on User
> Research. Does that mean that UCD is a useless term? I don't think
> so.
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169
>
>
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

-- 
@jarodtang
http://designforuse.blogspot.com/

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] Reminder - Chicago September Event on the 1st - Cultural Context

2009-09-01 Thread Chicago IxDA

One last reminder about our event tonight - we don't have food and drink
planned, so if you're the hungry type please grab a bite before the event.
Steve and I (Carolyn) will be at Exchequer across the street at around 5pm.

I'll be taking the RSVP form down around noon today:
http://tinyurl.com/m2xe76

>
> Join us on *Tuesday, September 1st*, when Steve Portigal will be in town
>> to talk about "Understanding Cultural Context". Steve will explore the
>> notion of social norms and share a number of examples of observed cultural
>> behaviors. This will illustrate the power and importance of noticing the
>> cultural context in which design research takes place.
>>
>> *Steve Portigal* is the founder of Portigal 
>> Consulting,
>> a bite-sized firm that helps organizations to discover and act on new
>> insights about themselves and their customers. In addition to regularly
>> speaking at design and marketing events, Steve has taught Design Research at
>> the California College of Art and the Involution Master Academy. He writes
>> regularly for interactions magazine, Core77 and the Portigal Consulting
>> blog, All This ChittahChattah. Steve is an avid photographer who has a
>> Museum of Foreign Grocery Products in his home.
>>
>> Date: Tuesday, September 1st
>> Time: 6:30-8:30
>>
>> DePaul University, CDM
>> 243 S. Wabash
>> Room 924
>>
>>
>> We do not currently have food or drink planned - if your company may be
>> interesting in sponsoring, please reply using this email address.
>> See you there!
>>
>
>

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[IxDA Discuss] UX Team Collaboration

2009-09-01 Thread Tom Daly

I've suddenly found my team grow from one to three and it's clear
that a centralized file system is needed, especially as the team
grows.

I'd love to hear how other teams are working, managing their
documentation for both the UX/IxD/VD phases for projects.

My aim is to have a central file repository that manages versions and
is easily accessed on/off location.

I appreciate any insights into this.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design --> Development pipeline/tools?

2009-09-01 Thread Michael Micheletti

Hi Billie,

In the project I'm working on now, I made a special effort to document the
important parts of our design and leave many details out of the
specifications. I added a disclaimer in all the documents that the specs
were like a jazz chart, that some improvisation was expected and encouraged,
and the specs would not be updated afterwards. No time (this is the 10th day
of my current work week, which I think may end sometime in October).

The other important part of this jazz performance thing is that I'm one of
the improvisers. I'm in every team meeting. I'm actively in the code styling
and setting dim timers on indicator lights. I drew all the production art,
and redraw a good deal of it once I see it in action. I refactor control
templates and debug events. We're a small tight dev team and our boundaries
are pretty fuzzy. And we're all ok with that.

This sort of arrangement obviously wouldn't work in a large formal
organization, or when you need to send work overseas, or when the team is
inexperienced, or or or... But it's working for us. I think of it as the
sort of structure you want to get to when three or four really good people
who work well together are all turned loose to do great stuff. Hope this
helps,

Michael Micheletti

On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Billie Mandel  wrote:

> Hey folks -
>
> What's your company's process/pipeline/set of tools for delivering
> and communicating designs (and associated visual design assets) to
> your dev team?
>
> *[Addressed particularly to "innies" in software development orgs
> though anyone's insights much appreciated]*
>
> TO be clear: I'm NOT asking the "Visio vs Illustrator vs Fireworks
> etc" conversation. I'm asking what happens *after* the design team
> has determined (at least a first cut of) both how the app should
> work, and how it should look. Do you have a tool or process that
> tells the developers which UI patterns/controls to use, where to
> place the art, how much velocity/decay there should be on animated
> transitions or gestural effects? Are they coding these things
> manually based on design team deliverables (wireframes/animated
> sequences)? Do you have a tool that you use in which designers can
> actually create the apps' front ends?
>
> I ask because I'm doing a bit of an audit of our processes, trying
> to streamline things and get more efficient. I'm trying to get a
> feel for the "state of the art" in UI development processes -- need
> to assess how behind/ahead my company is so I can decide how hard I
> need to push my "process innovation" agenda.
>
> Cheers
> - Billie
>
> PS - [waving hello] Haven't posted in ages - been a bit 'heads
> down' over here. Hope everyone's having a fab summer!
>
> ***
> Billie Mandel
> Director, User Experience
> Myriad Group AG
> www.myriadgroup.com
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

-- 
Michael Micheletti
michael.michele...@gmail.com

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[IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people must choose from.

2009-09-01 Thread Paul Trumble

All:

I'm looking for some advice, examples or even recommendations of who might
be good at solving this particular problem for us.

In the context of a longish multi-page web form we have a need for the user
to tell us at a fairly granular level what their occupation is.  the total
length of the list is long, more than 1,000 choices.  The accuracy of the
answer is pretty important to our business as is our desire not to stop the
users flow through the application because of either the difficulty or
perceived intrusiveness of the question.  I should add that most users don't
view the question as being necessary based on their understanding of what
they are filling out.

Currently we use an introductory question (labeled currently 'industry', but
in the past 'line of work' - the better version) to narrow down the list of
occupations that are presented to the individual.  This approach may well be
the best solution to a difficult problem, but it brings a little emotional
and cognitive overhead with it.  Regularly when we observe users they will
grumble that we are asking the same question twice, less so with the 'line
of work' label I believe.

Part of the problem with we have with this approach is that the choices in
the industry list are not very good.  The selections for industry are
confusing and users don't always grasp that if their occupation is not
showing up as a choice the solution to the problem might be to choose a
different industry.  The actual list has some regulatory constraints and a
fair amount of internal political baggage.

We are looking for a way to develop a new taxonomy that might make the
process more understandable to the user, while preserving the level of
detail the business requires.  Card-sorting doesn't seem like a good tool
here since ultimately we need to know how individual users categorize their
own occupation, not how they classify a list of occupations with which they
have varying degrees of familiarity.  Because of the regulatory constraints
we can't experiment with different versions of the list at any given time.
We've used surveys to test particular taxonomies in the past.  Generally
surveys have proved a good way to rule things out, not develop something
that works well.

What thoughts do you all have on this?  I really haven't found any examples
of folks who do something similar well.  I'm interested in advice, or if you
know someone (or if you are someone) who could do a good job of putting a
new taxonomy together that would be good too.  We may well have to bring in
the magic aura of expertise that only consultants possess in order to sell
any changes.

You can email me directly or reply to the list.  Thanks in advance.

Paul Trumble

-- 
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. - Groucho Marx

http://www.trumbling.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/
http://www.twitter.com/trumbling

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

Jared:
Okay I have been reading all your comments carefully. Also the ones
you made in my post.

You are against this term since you claim that "no two practitioners
of UCD do the same thing".

As humans we are different from each other and have a different
creative mind. Following UCD doesnt mean that you HAVE to do the same
thing as another practitioner of UCD. I bet, if you hand out a project
to two different UCD practitioners, these will develop different
solutions to a problem YET both will be acceptable and based on User
Research. Does that mean that UCD is a useless term? I don't think
so. 


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] profit centered design

2009-09-01 Thread Tracy Boyington

But I don't see that as indication that they are "drinking the Kool-Aid." One 
could just as easily say that someone who sticks with Nokia, for example, has 
"drank the Kool-Aid" if they refuse to even consider other phones, including 
the iPhone. People saw new technology, they liked it, they bought it. The fact 
that a small percentage of them were not satisfied, just as a percentage of 
people who buy *anything* are not satisfied, doesn't mean Apple somehow 
connived them into buying something they never wanted.

>>> Paul Nuschke  9/1/2009 9:02 AM >>>
Most people I know only upgraded their phones once their contract had
expired and they got a substantial discount on the next phone.

I've seen many iPhone users upgrade well before contract expiration at the
full device cost.That's a big difference.

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Tracy Boyington <
tracy_boying...@okcareertech.org> wrote:

> I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while
> they still had "perfectly good" phones because they were hopeless Apple
> addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people
> only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade
> because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And
> did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have
> owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither
> of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked.
>
>
> >>> Charles Boyung  8/31/2009
> 1:20 PM >>>
>
> 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.
>
>
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>

-- 
Paul Nuschke
Principal, Research & Strategy
ELECTRONIC INK©
www.electronicink.com

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

2009-09-01 Thread J. Ambrose Little

On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Jared Spool  wrote:

> Which makes it a practically useless term, since no two practitioners of
> UCD do the same thing and nobody can differentiate quality UCD from poorly
> executed UCD.
>

On the other hand, it may be its flexibility that enables it to succeed
where a more strictured methodology (or even just terminology) fails.  It
feels somewhat extreme to go from a recognition that the elements of UCD are
flexible and adaptable to saying it is useless.  I've seen the same thing
with Agile--folks are going to make it mean what they want, but that doesn't
mean it doesn't have core recognizable elements (that are valuable).  I
think Ali highlighted some of these.

Anyways, personally I'm not attached to "UCD" as a term, but it does seem to
resonate with a whole lotta people.  Jared, it sounds like you think that's
a bad thing, but it seems that when you're trying to get people together
from very different backgrounds, finding common ground and terminology, even
if imprecisely defined, is great place to go from towards finding the way
forward.

I think sometimes we get overly analytical when it comes to this stuff.

-a

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] profit centered design

2009-09-01 Thread Paul Nuschke

Most people I know only upgraded their phones once their contract had
expired and they got a substantial discount on the next phone.

I've seen many iPhone users upgrade well before contract expiration at the
full device cost.That's a big difference.


On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Tracy Boyington <
tracy_boying...@okcareertech.org> wrote:

> I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while
> they still had "perfectly good" phones because they were hopeless Apple
> addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people
> only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade
> because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And
> did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have
> owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither
> of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked.
>
>
> >>> Charles Boyung  8/31/2009
> 1:20 PM >>>
>
> 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.
>
>
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>



-- 
Paul Nuschke
Principal, Research & Strategy
ELECTRONIC INK©
www.electronicink.com

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] profit centered design

2009-09-01 Thread Tracy Boyington

I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while
they still had "perfectly good" phones because they were hopeless Apple
addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people
only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade
because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And
did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have
owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither
of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked.


>>> Charles Boyung  8/31/2009
1:20 PM >>>

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.



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

Jared:
But won't you agree that UCD follow a "certain" guideline? Poorly
executed UCD could for instancebe that not enough qualitative
research was conducted? There could be other examples...


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]



On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote:


UCD is not ONE
specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have
many different development processes with the focus on the USER.


Which makes it a practically useless term, since no two practitioners  
of UCD do the same thing and nobody can differentiate quality UCD from  
poorly executed UCD.


Jared

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

UCD has many other names and consist of these (and probably many
others): contextual inquiry, customer-focused design, empathic
design, participatory design, usability, usability engineering,
usability testing, user experience design, user-focused design,
user-friendly design. 
With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE
specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have
many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I
think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD
processes.  So I dont entirely agree with Andrei.

 




. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]

Apple's design process:
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/03/apples_design_p.html


. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] iPhone turnover (was We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)