Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to Get People to Answer Honestly

[William Hudson]

Don -

Here's an interesting article on how people's perception of being
watched affected their behaviour. I admit that it's not a web-based
study, but there may be more on this out there:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/3/412.full

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU


-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Don
Habas
Sent: 19 February 2010 20:57
To: IXDA
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] How to Get People to Answer Honestly

I'm designing a long application for a financial product.  We need
people to answer some personal questions ...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Personas: how many is too many?

[William Hudson]

I've not been following the whole conversation, but of course even 15
personas would be preferable to 15 market segment/user needs analyses.
The point of personas is that they promote empathy - or would do if we
make them 'believable', hence the need for seemingly unimportant
details.

I wrote a blog about this a few months back for a different reason, but
I think it's relevant here, too.

http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/blog/?p=89

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UML for UX?

[William Hudson]

Milan -

I discuss OVID in the Object Modeling and User Interface Design book I
mentioned earlier and update it to use UML notation (Scott Insensee,
Dave Roberts and co used one of the earlier OO notations, I forget
which).

The OVID book is still available, BTW:

OMUID - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201657899/syntagmltd02
OVID - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578701015/syntagmltd02 

Regards,

William

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Milan Guenther
Sent: 17 February 2010 09:59
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] UML for UX?

Have a look at IBM's OVID method...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UML for UX?

[William Hudson]

Hi, Gail. I wrote a book chapter on this very topic about 10 years ago.
The book is called 'Object Modeling and User Interface Design: Designing
Interactive Systems' (mine is Chapter 9, Toward Unified Models in
User-Centered and Object-Oriented Design).

You can find it at Amazon -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201657899/syntagmltd02 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
gail swanson
Sent: 15 February 2010 1:55 PM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] UML for UX?

My organization is moving toward UML for all of its documentation,
from requirements through development and maintenance...


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Can anyone point me to research about hidinginterface elements?

[William Hudson]

There is a long-standing design principle called 'progressive
disclosure'. The interface is kept to the basics for the majority of
users, with more advanced settings available through the use of an
'Advanced' or 'More' button. It has both benefits and drawbacks. The
benefits centre around simplicity for the majority of users. The main
drawback is that users may not realize that some features are available.

One particularly notorious application of progressive disclosure was an
earlier version of Microsoft Office where the menus shipped in the
'short' version. Users had to really dig (or be told by tech support)
how to turn on the full menus. (Coincidentally, TomTom is just now doing
the same thing with their in-car navigation systems, but at least the
button for making the change is not deeply buried.)

In answer to your specific situation, I would not encourage the hiding
of the features in unobvious ways. For example, a Adobe Air application
I was using (can't remember which) changed the photo area of a message
into four menu items when you moused over it. I found this accidentally
after about three weeks of fairly frequent use.

I am still a big advocate of self-explanatory design - you should be
able to tell what something does by looking at a screen shot, not
scrubbing over the whole interface with a mouse. (Also, if you have any
interest in accessibility, interfaces that *require* mice - that is
without keyboard alternatives - violate disability discrimination laws
in most countries.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Gabor Vida
Sent: 10 February 2010 09:02
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Can anyone point me to research about
hidinginterface elements?

A project that I am involved in has raised an interesting debate about
reducing clutter in an interface. 

...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Forms design / labels inside the fields

[William Hudson]

Maciej -

We just had a long discussion on virtually (but not quite) the same
topic here on IxDA. Look for '"help text" in input fields - bad?'

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org 
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU


-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Maciej Bieganski
Sent: 09 February 2010 03:13
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Forms design / labels inside the fields

Hi,

In the company I'm working with a discussion has just been started;


TOPIC: Whether placing a labels inside the fields is a good idea or
not. This pattern is spreading recently (i.e. facebook) a lot.

Personally, I'm not supporting this idea for many reasons
(accessibility, patterns in an eye fixation on form elements etc).

Though, I'd like to avoid religious debate on this issue and follow
up with some objective studies and/or research.

Have you analyzed this issue before or seen some interesting
findings? User studies? 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Sketching before the Wireframes

[William Hudson]

It looks like Jared needs one of them thar new-fangled sarcasm marks.
See
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6995354/Sarcasm-punctuation-m
ark-aims-to-put-an-end-to-email-confusion.html

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Jared Spool
Sent: 03 February 2010 14:48
To: Anjali Arora
Cc: IXDA list
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Sketching before the Wireframes


On Feb 3, 2010, at 9:36 AM, Anjali Arora wrote:

> I agree with Jared about cutting straight to the chase, & focusing  
> on just building things.



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[IxDA Discuss] Happy Birthday Macintosh

[William Hudson]

I wrote a little birthday anecdote about the Mac from 25 years ago.
Computer historians among you might find it interesting:

http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/blog/

 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 

skype:williamhudsonskype 

 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).

Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

 

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:

CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org

UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

 


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[IxDA Discuss] (Retaurant!) Menu Design

[William Hudson]

An interesting article on how restaurant menus are designed to encourage
purchase of more expensive items:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/21/menus-cunning-marketi
ng-ploys 

 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 

skype:williamhudsonskype 

 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).

Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

 

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:

CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org

UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

 


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] French shopping cart terminology...

[William Hudson]

Try www.amazon.fr!

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Bernie Monette
Sent: 30 December 2009 13:56
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] French shopping cart terminology...

Good day and Happy Holidays!

In the process of building a French/Enlgish shopping cart I am running
into
terms that do not seem to translate very well. So, I looked around to
find a
list of matching English/French terms. Like Checkout, Update Cart, and
so
on. However, I have not been successful. Has anyone found or know of a
list
such as this?


Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Bernie

-- 
Bernie Monette
InterActive Arts
Internet Presence Management
http://www.iaai.ca  mone...@iaai.ca 416 469 4337




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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Trust and URLs

[William Hudson]

Brian -

One issue you've not asked about (possibly because you already know the
answer), but what does that kind of URL redirect do to searches? For
example, is the Google search score (which relies to a certain extent on
inward links) to fruit.com diminished because of the pear.com redirect?

Regards,

William

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Brian McLaughlin
Sent: 28 December 2009 8:18 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Trust and URLs


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] on-line sticky notes

[William Hudson]

Michele -

There are at least two others I am aware of:
3M Post-It Digital Notes (not free, but inexpensive) -
http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/digital/digital_notes.html
Microsoft Sticky Sorter (free) -
http://www.officelabs.com/projects/stickysorter/Pages/default.aspx

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Attend our courses on Ajax design & usability, card sorting and web
usability:
CHI 2010 Conference (Atlanta, Georgia) http://www.chi2010.org
UPA 2010 Conference (Munich, Germany) http://bit.ly/8x9NU

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Michele Marut
Sent: 08 December 2009 07:24
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] on-line sticky notes
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] What's your pen top?

[William Hudson]

I *give* (company-logo-and-web-address-imprinted) pens to delivery
drivers in the hope that they will be left with someone who might be
interested. The last thing I want is for the driver to hang on to it.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Does anyone know of any good UK based UserExperience (UX)/User Centred Design (UCD)/ InformationArchitecture (IA) training?

[William Hudson]

Tom -

I do run courses on UCD and UX, but mostly within organisations or at
conferences. Assuming that you don't want to travel to Atlanta, Georgia
for next year's CHI conference, you should find a number of good courses
at the UPA conference in Munich in May (the first time outside of North
America, ever). I've got a couple of courses at both conference, but
like I said, there will be many others to choose from. See
http://www.chi2010.org and
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/conference/2010/index.new.html 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
http://www.designforusability.com

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales.
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Tom
Sent: 03 December 2009 4:56 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Does anyone know of any good UK based
UserExperience (UX)/User Centred Design (UCD)/ InformationArchitecture
(IA) training?

I'm UK based and looking to fill in a couple of gaps in my experience
with some short UX training ...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Soundex usability results?

[William Hudson]

Definitely not all the time! I had the pleasure of evaluating the people
search facility at the BBC a couple of years ago when the IT department
had decided to use Soundex all the time. It was a nightmare because it
produced a very large number of extraneous results. (It might work in
very small organisations but could still be problematic.)

Also, bear in mind that Soundex is based on English pronunciations and
so may not work effectively in large multinationals (although there are
modern variants that are more sophisticated - Soundex was originally
patented around 1905!).

Regards,

William Hudson ('H325' in Soundex)
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.



-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Alan Wexelblat
Sent: 02 December 2009 15:47
To: list IXDA
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Soundex usability results?

It's "me with another weird question" time...

One of our applications has a very telephone book-like UI.  I've
suggested that searching in this application be enhanced to use
Soundex ...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability & users with mental health issues anddisorders

[William Hudson]

I would make sure that the content was easy to read. Look into
readability metrics just as a quick way of checking that language is not
too complex. Text to be read by most adults should score between 60-70
on the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES). This can be calculated by
Microsoft Word (Tools->Options->Spelling & Grammar->Show Readability
Statistics in most versions) or by any number of free tools and web
sites. Note that readability statistics are just a crude check. Lewis
Carroll's poem, Jabberwocky, scores very well on the FRES but makes no
sense at all.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.



-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
charles Sue-Wah-Sing
Sent: 01 December 2009 11:20
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Usability & users with mental health issues
anddisorders

I'm in the definition phase of a site redesign for a mental health
and addiction association and rehab center...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Google added AJAX to Google Translate?

[William Hudson]

Heather -

You can use Ajax any time you want to get data back from a server
without reloading a page. As someone mentioned earlier, it is based on a
feature, now supported in all browsers, called XmlHttpRequest (fairly
inappropriately, since it has nothing to do with XML!). In your
client-side JavaScript you send some data to a server and get some other
data back. It poses some interesting problems for accessibility and
search engine optimization, but can be used very effectively to improve
the user experience. 

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of heather
> Sent: 26 November 2009 12:51 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Google added AJAX to Google Translate?
> 
> Do you have any idea of other functions of AJAX aside from above?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Google added AJAX to Google Translate?

[William Hudson]

Just a word of caution - don't try this at home. You need seriously fast
infrastructure (and many servers) to provide a good user experience on a
character-at-a-time basis. 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your experience trying to connect a Bluetooth device

[William Hudson]

Erik -

I've had lots of thoughts on this and wrote an article about it back in
2002:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/articles/wirelesschasm.htm


Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Eirik Midttun
> Sent: 21 November 2009 1:51 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Your experience trying to connect a Bluetooth
> device
> 
> Hi list,
> 
> I'm interested in hearing thoughts about using Bluetooth devices. In
> particular the part where you have just bought the thing and want to
> connect/pair it with a PC or mobile phone...

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[IxDA Discuss] EXTREMELY interesting e-commerce site (sort of)

[William Hudson]

Apologies if you've already seen this, but if you have a minute spare
(or need cheering up) have a look at
http://producten.hema.nl/
 
(I have no interests in this site other than it is interesting.)
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Functionality appearing below the mythical \"fold\"- what to do?

[William Hudson]

Nick -

They could do it horizontally as shown here (on the Zappos site) -
http://bit.ly/2eqro6

One thing I don't like about this design, though, is that it tends to
capture the mouse since the filters appear across most of the page.
Using a mouse wheel to scroll the page, you suddenly come to a halt and
are scrolling one of the filters instead.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Nick Sergeant
> Sent: 18 November 2009 5:37 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Functionality appearing below the mythical
> \"fold\"- what to do?
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm working on a filtering system that employs filters on the
> left-hand side of the results screen, much like rentals.com and
> newegg.com...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Human Centered Design or Technology CenteredDesign??

[William Hudson]

I teach a course (hopefully to be a book in the not-too-distant future)
which is about using Ajax for good (better user experience) rather than
evil (just making things more interactive for the sake of it).

One of my biggest frustrations/disappointments is to see Ajax applied
gratuitously to a page (to make the shopping basket more interesting,
for example) while inherent usability problems - like having to click
the 'Update' link if quantities are changed - remain unaddressed.

Anyway, this is a perennial problem in design that is not going to go
away any time soon. The best we can do is understand the issues (from
both the business/technology and user experience sides) and focus our
solutions accordingly.

[plug] For anyone that is interested I am running the course for NNG in
Berlin next week. If you would like to know more about the book as it
progresses, please drop me a line. (There are no plans for a movie as
yet.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Ajax design and usability course in November - Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/  



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Search select: after or before the search box?

[William Hudson]

Vinícius -

Certainly no problems understanding your English, so well done!

You can of course do this both ways at the same time. Have the search selector 
before the search field *and* give them a guided / faceted search interface on 
the results page. I think you would always show the guided / faceted search 
with results across all areas, but if they have selected a specific area (say 
'books' on Amazon), that would be the focus of the main results listing. (BTW, 
Amazon *doesn't* do it this way - if you select 'books' you get just books. If 
you decide that you also want to see DVDs, you have to search again.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon OX14 
2DS.

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of vinicius krause
> Sent: 10 November 2009 7:25 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Search select: after or before the search box?
> 
> Hi everyone!
> 
> I'm a Interaction Designer from a company called Midia Digital, at the
> city
> of Curitiba, Brazil. This is the first time that I'm trying to write to
> this
> list in English, so I hope all of you can understand what I'm saying.
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] E-Commerce Terminology Survey (Correction)

[William Hudson]

Wow, a "slanted placket with a concealed button fastening" (says the
text). And you cannot see a thing from the product photo. Oh well, maybe
they're hoping to sell it on the excitement generated by the name alone!

Regards,

William


> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of PhillipW
> Sent: 09 November 2009 8:15 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] E-Commerce Terminology Survey (Correction)
> 
> I guess it also depends on the amount of 'clothing expertise' /
> willingness to spend money in the target group of shoppers.
> 
> I think my own personal clothing vocabulary gives out after about 12
> words.  So there's no way I'll be buying clothes online in the
> first place.
> 
> Goodness knows what this is:
> 
> "Beagle slanted placket shirt"
> 
> http://www.bstorelondon.com/shopping/men/b-
> store/clothing/item10020477.aspx
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] E-Commerce Terminology Survey (Correction)

[William Hudson]

Phillip -

I did an analysis by IP address. Around 66% of responses came from US
locations (UK and Canada were 9% and 6% approximately). 'Placket' is a
word that is used in both American and British English. I am not sure
about 'French front'. I started by asking some American friends if they
knew what it meant, but they were as clueless as me (I was born and
raised in the US but have been living in the UK for 35 years). That was
the motivation for the survey (which was done on the CHI-WEB list as
well as IxDA).

In spite of other replies, I am not convinced that using unfamiliar
words in inconsistent ways is helpful to user experience (pictures or
no).

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of PhillipW
> Sent: 09 November 2009 4:02 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] E-Commerce Terminology Survey (Correction)
> 
> Were all the respondents American ? (given that its an Amercan site).


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Success criteria for accessability testing

[William Hudson]

Benjamin -

Some comments below. I hope these help.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.



> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Benjamin Davies
> Sent: 28 October 2009 9:37 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Success criteria for accessability testing
> 
> Hello. I am about to begin designing a usability study on a government
> website and evaluating the accessability of the site will be a big
> component. I'm looking for advice on comparing data from the
> visually disabled participants (using screen readers and magnifieers)
> to participants with typical vision.
> 
> 1. Is there an expected relationship between typical participants and
> the visually disabled (ie, is it possible to say that "if the
> disabled participants have time-on-task within 35% of non-disabled
> participants the task is considered to not have accessability
> problems"?) If so, what should be the percentage difference?

No. Because of the massive difference between the 'parallel processing'
that we take for granted when visually scanning a page and the
serialization that is performed by screen readers, there is almost no
correlation at all. Users with typical vision might find something
trivially quick to do while disabled users may find it impossible.

> 2. Should I create test tasks as I would normally and then adapt them
> as necessary for the disabled or should I have some or all of the
> tasks specifically designed for the disabled?

I would suggest that the tasks should be based on common scenarios (user
stories, use cases or whatever) for that site. If it's an important
task, everyone should be able to do it. There *may* be some tasks
specific to disabled users, but I would suspect these to be in the
minority.

> 3. Are there any common problems with installation and settings with
> JAWS, Dragon Reader, and Zoomtext (the software we'll be using) I
> have limited experience with them and while I plan to working with
> them. I plan to spend a lot time with them in preparation for the
> test but making sure I have the test environment propperly setup is a
> worry that I'd like to remove.

JAWS is pretty straightforward but advanced users may want to do some
customization. I am not familiar with Dragon Reader. Do you mean Dragon
Naturally Speaking? If so, the system needs some training for each user.
Allow around 15-20 minutes for this and make sure you have a good
quality headset microphone. (There are other solutions but a headset
microphone is the most reliable for many purposes.) I don't know about
Zoomtext.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UX trends for big corporations

[William Hudson]

Here's a big shock on the horizon: some big companies will move from
Internet Explorer 6 internally. (I've benchmarked almost 300
intranets including large multinationals like Shell and BP - I never saw
anything other than IE6, with the possible exception of the odd IE5 a
couple of years ago).

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Wouter Leistra
> Sent: 30 October 2009 3:35 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] UX trends for big corporations
> 
> Hello all IxD'ers I'm working on a new presentation on the area of
> UX trends for the near and not so near future...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best practices for global corporate site

[William Hudson]

Mary -

A UK company called Bowen Craggs benchmarks corporate web sites
internationally. I am sure you can get some ideas of what best practices
look like from their reports and the web sites they mention. See
http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Mary Tung
> Sent: 29 October 2009 7:37 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Best practices for global corporate site
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I'm wondering if anyone knows any research/paper that talks about
> best practices for how to build a global corporate site...


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[IxDA Discuss] Clothing Questions

[William Hudson]

I would like to know how well understood a couple of clothing terms are
(that are frequently mentioned on e-commerce sites) and have put
together a very brief survey (4 questions in total) which should take no
more than 30 seconds. The URL is http://bit.ly/8bbxu 
 
Please exclude yourself from the survey if you are an expert on content
for clothing sites! I will publish the results of the survey in a week
or so.
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Faceted Search Stats

[William Hudson]

Jennifer -

Send them to Zappos.com. If that doesn't excite them, they're probably
beyond redemption.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Jennifer
> Hoppenrath
> Sent: 26 October 2009 4:35 PM
> To: IxDA Discuss
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Faceted Search Stats
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Does anyone know of anywhere that I can find stats for the impact of
> faceted search functions on e-commerce sites...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Sparkline filtering

[William Hudson]

The LG site is using something called an attribute explorer, devised by
Robert Spence at Imperial College here in the UK around 15 years ago. (I
attended a session on information visualization at CHI in the mid 90's
where Ben Schneiderman did a section on it). I keep wondering why no one
is using it effectively (Amazon's diamond selector at
http://www.amazon.com/Loose-Diamonds-Diamond-Engagement-Rings/loosediamo
nds?_encoding=UTF8&productGroupID=loose_diamonds is half-hearted since
it does not show the result in real time). The LG implementation is a
great improvement.

There is an IBM demo of attribute explorer here:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/us-atex/ 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Ajax Design and Usability course - Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/ 

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of greg
> Sent: 22 October 2009 11:06 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Sparkline filtering
> 
> Any good examples out there of sparkline filtering? I pitched this
> concept to Delta 4 years ago and it did not go anywhere. I had yet to
> see it until this morning looking for a new refrigerator on the LG
> site.
> 
> http://www.lge.com/us/appliances/refrigerators/index.jsp
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] A minor follow-up on identifying credit cards'types

[William Hudson]

Calum -

You really want to know before your start shopping, let alone typing!

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Calum Benson
> Sent: 20 October 2009 6:14 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] A minor follow-up on identifying credit
> cards'types
> 
> However, this still doesn't solve the issue of being able to tell
> whether your credit/debit card type is supported, before you start
> typing.  (Unless they all are anyway, which is very rare.)
> 
> 
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=46563
> 
> 
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Persona Workshops

[William Hudson]

I've just been on Adlin and Pruit's personas course at NNG Usability
Week (while I was teaching a couple of courses there). Their book (The
Persona Lifecycle) is much more than just personas - it's a technique
for user-centred design based on personas. So it depends on what you
need. If it is just how to create personas, there are lots of useful
references (including several good web pages on the subject). But if you
want to know what to do with them after you've got them, I would not
hesitate to recommend Adlin and Pruit.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Ajax Design and Usability Course, Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/berlin/agenda.html

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
Audrey
Sent: 16 October 2009 12:27 PM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Persona Workshops

FWIW, I would definitely recommend Mulder's book over Adlin's. They
are both useful, but if you only have time for one, the former is
shorter and more specific and to the point.
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] A minor follow-up on identifying credit cards' types

[William Hudson]

Hi, Alan.

> ... I wondered what the experience would be like for blind
> users - would they hear that message after they finished typing in
> their number and tabbed forward?

Screen reader users will eventually be able to hear updates like that,
when WIA ARIA is supported, but at the moment it is very patchy. Firefox
3.5 and a public domain reader called NVDA (for Windows) currently
provide the best support for new features like this. Ironically, what
are called 'live regions in ARIA (that can be updated asynchronously)
weren't supported by NVDA when I last tried. They worked in with the
JAWS screen reader, though.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Alan Wexelblat
> Sent: 09 October 2009 4:48 PM
> To: list IXDA
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] A minor follow-up on identifying credit cards'
> types
> 
> Recently there was a discussion on the list about whether it was
> necessary to require users to select what type of credit card they
> were entering.
> 
> This morning I made a donation through the online service causes.com.
> As part of that process I entered a credit card number.  There was no
> field to select card type.  Instead the blank space directly below the
> input box for my CC number changed in mid-entry to display the message
> "Thank you for using your Visa card." The message was right where my
> focus of attention was but didn't seem too intrusive.
> 
> I thought this was a moderately elegant solution - it's not perfect in
> that it requires running code in the browser (Javascript or AJAX I'd
> imagine).  I wondered what the experience would be like for blind
> users - would they hear that message after they finished typing in
> their number and tabbed forward?
> 
> I also liked the fact that causes.com embedded my name in the URL I
> clicked to get to their page so it was pre-filled in the form for me.
> Again, not a perfect solution but it shows that they are at least
> thinking about the user experience and working to improve it.
> 
> Best,
> --Alan
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
> Unsubscribe  http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern

[William Hudson]

Sam -

Sure, go to www.jcpenny.com and add something to your shopping bag (all
US clothing retailers appear to have shopping bags rather than
baskets!).

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: Sam Menter [mailto:s...@pixelthread.co.uk]
> Sent: 09 October 2009 1:44 PM
> To: William Hudson
> Cc: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern
> 
> Great, thanks for the info - can you provide an example?
> 
> I had been considering a Buy Now button that on mouseover gives the
> user the option of Checkout or Add to cart and continue shopping...
> Feels a bit clunky, really I want one button, one click but I guess
> one size desn't fit all...
> 
> 2009/10/9 William Hudson :
> > Sam -
> >
> > I am currently benchmarking US clothing web sites. Many use Ajax to
> > inform users that the item has been added to their basket with the
> > option of choosing to go straight to the checkout or continue
> shopping.
> > (In fact, I discuss this and related issues in my Ajax Design and
> > Usability course in Las Vegas next week and in Berlin next month.
See
> > http://www.nngroup.com/events/)
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > William Hudson
> > Syntagm Ltd
> > Design for Usability
> > UK 01235-522859
> > World +44-1235-522859
> > US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
> > mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
> > http://www.syntagm.co.uk
> > skype:williamhudsonskype
> >
> > Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
> > Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road,
> Abingdon
> > OX14 2DS.
> >
> > Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study
(free):
> > http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm
> >
> > 12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
> > http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml
> >
> > Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
> > Berlin:
> > http://www.nngroup.com/events/
> >
> >
> >> -Original Message-
> >> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
> [mailto:discuss-
> >> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Sam Menter
> >> Sent: 09 October 2009 12:04 PM
> >> To: disc...@ixda.org
> >> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern
> >>
> >> (apologies if this appears twice on the list)
> >>
> >> Hi all
> >>
> >> Working on a project where a client is keen to implement a shopping
> >> cart design ...
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> New site: www.pixelthread.co.uk
> 
> Pixel Thread Ltd
> Spike Design,
> 133 Cumberland Road,
> Bristol, BS1 6UX
> 
> Tel: 07985 979 852

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern

[William Hudson]

Sam -

I am currently benchmarking US clothing web sites. Many use Ajax to
inform users that the item has been added to their basket with the
option of choosing to go straight to the checkout or continue shopping.
(In fact, I discuss this and related issues in my Ajax Design and
Usability course in Las Vegas next week and in Berlin next month. See
http://www.nngroup.com/events/)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/ 


> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Sam Menter
> Sent: 09 October 2009 12:04 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] shopping cart (basket) design pattern
> 
> (apologies if this appears twice on the list)
> 
> Hi all
> 
> Working on a project where a client is keen to implement a shopping
> cart design ...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Drag and Drop

[William Hudson]

Elana -

While I am not a great fan of drag and drop (because it is often
misapplied), I would not be too concerned about 30 items.

We routinely do online card sorts for navigation design, some with well
over 100 items that have to be dragged into groups (see, for example,
websort.net). 30 items is pretty much the minimum we use. I have never
had a complaint over the actual drag and drop process even with many
hundreds of participants.

BTW, Websort.net will let you sort photographs if you want to give it a
try (I have no connection with the site but it does output results in
the format our cluster analysis software uses).

[Plug - We will be doing both paper and online card sorting in my course
next week in Las Vegas. See http://www.nngroup.com/events/]

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/ 

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of elana glazer
> Sent: 07 October 2009 2:37 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Drag and Drop
> 
> Imagine presenting users with about 30 items of clothing and
> accessories and wanting them to build 7 days of outfits (costs are
> calculated per outfit as the output).
> 
> My team is thinking of presenting users with 7 rectangles, each
> representing a day of the week, and having users drag and drop items
> to these areas to build the outfits. (The target of the site are
> adults 35-65).
> 
> My gut tells me that this is too many items for drag and drop and we
> should explore other interactive options.
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

[William Hudson]

David -

Interesting suggestion, but I have to warn you that to a lot of people
technology 'just is'. They haven't thought about their own experience of
it. I say this because I start some of my UCD courses (usually within
commercial organisations) asking people to name their most or least
favourite piece of technology. While some responses will be very quick
and enthusiastic, for others it is like pulling teeth. Maybe it's the
idea of having a favourite and in my case it just an ice-breaker, but I
was surprised by some of the responses at first.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
David Mulder
Sent: 07 October 2009 8:38 PM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

I like Tom's approach. Showing is almost always better than telling. If
I
had to give a presentation meant to pitch UX, I would UX the heck out of
that presentation. The brochure/cold-call feel doesn't come off right.

"What's the best experience you've ever had with a piece of technology?"
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

[William Hudson]

David -

Thanks for your note, but that is not how I read the MS quote from
Victor. MS appears to think they are not cuttin' it because their
experience is not rich enough. I disagree - I think their experience is
just plain not good enough. I keep meaning to do a blog on Maslow's
hierarchy of needs - my feeling is you need to satisfy the basic user
experience requirements before adding gloss (although gloss does make up
for *some* deficiencies). If MS concentrates on making their experience
*richer* before fixing some fundamental problems (like simple profiles
for comms and sound), they will just be applying lipstick to the pig.

Regards,

William

-Original Message-
From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
dave malouf
Sent: 06 October 2009 10:15 AM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

I think that is Victor's point, William. That MS isn't cuttin' it
in the UX arena and thus can't compete.
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

[William Hudson]

Victor -

Interesting comment from Microsoft. Having been a Microsoft Mobile user
since the very early days (anyone remember Windows CE?), I would have to
say that the user experience still isn't great. 'Richness' for me would
be icing on the cake!

In fact, on my latest phone (an HTC Touch Pro 2), HTC have actually
engineered around some of the Windows Mobile clunkiness with their
TouchFlow3D interface. It's adequate, but not much more.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/ 

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Victor Lombardi
> Sent: 06 October 2009 7:18 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dear CEO:

... admitted that Windows Mobile isn't losing market
> share because of sales or marketing or distribution or feature set,
> but that, "Our experiences aren't as rich as they need to be."
> http://bit.ly/8jbod
> 
> Victor


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test Participants

[William Hudson]

Chris -

I wrote an article on this topic for the SIGCHI Bulletin (while it was
still a printed publication sent to all SIGCHI members). It's at
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/articles/howmany.htm

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Chris Ryan
> Sent: 01 October 2009 7:06 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Article on Number of Usability Test
> Participants
> 
> I have been looking, unsuccessfully, through back issues of
> interactions magazine for an article, published a few years back,


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is there a good reason to require people toidtheir credit card?

[William Hudson]

Jennifer -

This was mentioned earlier, but of course you need to let customers know
what credit cards you accept well in advance of the checkout. For
example, when we did not used to take Amex on our site, I had companies
contacting me because they had got to the checkout and could not use
their company Amex card. The purchases were large enough that they did
not want to use their personal MasterCard or Visa. We had to arrange
payment through another process (PayPal or similar). Getting all the way
to the credit card dropdown list only to discover that you cannot use
the card in your hand does not make for a good experience!

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: Jennifer R Vignone [mailto:jennifer.r.vign...@jpmorgan.com]
> Sent: 29 September 2009 4:00 PM
> To: William Hudson; Jared Spool
> Cc: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: RE: [IxDA Discuss] Is there a good reason to require people
> toidtheir credit card?
> 
> I think that a part of the reason for asking is to show the user what
> methods of payment and types of cards are accepted...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is there a good reason to require people to idtheir credit card?

[William Hudson]

Jared -
 
Ø  In shopping cart and checkout systems, things are rarely as easy as they 
seem.
 
You could substitute many things for 'shopping cart and checkout' but it's our 
job as designers to make this 'magic' happen with minimum inconvenience to 
users. Naturally, it's a trade off, but my feeling is that it just doesn't help 
very much to ask for the credit card type. It's virtually impossible to get a 
valid credit card number from a missed digit and you already have name, expiry 
date CCV, address and DNA sample to fall back on. (I was kidding about the DNA 
sample, but the guy who invented DNA fingerprinting apparently foresees a world 
where we would just spit into something to make a payment - it sounds 
unhygienic to me! See the current issue of New Scientist.)
 
Regards,

William
 
 
From: Jared Spool [mailto:jsp...@uie.com] 
Sent: 29 September 2009 2:18 PM
To: William Hudson
Cc: Amy Jones; disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is there a good reason to require people to idtheir 
credit card?
 
 
On Sep 29, 2009, at 4:56 AM, William Hudson wrote:



There are many sources for credit card prefixes (as well as check digit
algorithms) for validating credit cards. For example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_card_number
 
Part of the problem, as pointed out by the chart, is different cards have 
different number lengths. They range from 13 digits to 16 digits. For example, 
someone who accidentally leaves the first digit off of their mastercard or visa 
could look like a valid amex card.
 
Again, it depends when you're doing your authorization check. If you're 
processing immediately during the users' session, you don't need to ask for the 
card type because an entry error will be caught (assuming you've got a decent 
merchant processor).
 
However, lots of purchase systems do a deferred authorization check, to allow 
the seller to have a look at the transaction before its put through the system 
(often for additional fraud protection or inventory clearance). In this 
instance, it's better to ask for the card type to give you a piece of redundant 
information for the validity check.
 
In shopping cart and checkout systems, things are rarely as easy as they seem.
 
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] Is there a good reason to require people to idtheir credit card?

[William Hudson]

There are many sources for credit card prefixes (as well as check digit
algorithms) for validating credit cards. For example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_card_number

I think as long as users are clear what cards you accept there is no
need to ask. For me, it is almost always Amex that I have trouble with,
so I check that Amex is listed before I get too far. I have never known
a 'grown-up' MasterCard or Visa not to work. (My daughter has a teen-age
version which is so badly supported by some sites and stores, which say
they accept it and then don't, that she has actually lost her confidence
in using it. Part of this is the bank's fault for changing the name of
the thing so many times.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Jared Spool
> Sent: 28 September 2009 11:24 PM
> To: Amy Jones
> Cc: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Is there a good reason to require people
to
> idtheir credit card?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

[William Hudson]

Sorry, just remembered I wrote a blog on this! It's at
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/blog/?p=21 

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of William Hudson
> Sent: 24 September 2009 3:13 PM
> To: David Lambert; disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Useful Usability Findings and
Guidelines
> 
> Beware the 'users focus on faces' assertion. Tom Tullis and his
> colleagues at Fidelity found that put a person's face next to an item
> rendered the whole thing invisible. It was a kind of instant 'banner
ad
> blindness' phenomenon. I talked to him about it at their poster at CHI
> in Boston. It was a startling result.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> William Hudson
> Syntagm Ltd
> Design for Usability
> UK 01235-522859
> World +44-1235-522859
> US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
> mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
> http://www.syntagm.co.uk
> skype:williamhudsonskype
> 
> Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
> Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road,
Abingdon
> OX14 2DS.
> 
> Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
> Berlin:
> http://www.nngroup.com/events/
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com
[mailto:discuss-
> > boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of David Lambert
> > Sent: 24 September 2009 6:58 AM
> > To: disc...@ixda.org
> > Subject: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
> >
> > Interesting article from smashing.com:
> >
> > http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/24/10-useful-usability-
> > findings-and-guidelines/
> >
> > Topics:
> >
> > * Form Labels Work Best Above The Field
> > * Users Focus On Faces
> ...
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
> Unsubscribe  http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines

[William Hudson]

Beware the 'users focus on faces' assertion. Tom Tullis and his
colleagues at Fidelity found that put a person's face next to an item
rendered the whole thing invisible. It was a kind of instant 'banner ad
blindness' phenomenon. I talked to him about it at their poster at CHI
in Boston. It was a startling result.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/

> -Original Message-
> From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-
> boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of David Lambert
> Sent: 24 September 2009 6:58 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
> 
> Interesting article from smashing.com:
> 
> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/09/24/10-useful-usability-
> findings-and-guidelines/
> 
> Topics:
> 
> * Form Labels Work Best Above The Field
> * Users Focus On Faces
...

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[IxDA Discuss] The point of personas

[William Hudson]

I was at the Accessibility 2.0 conference in London yesterday and came
across some confusion over personas and accessibility. I've written a
short blog on the topic at http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/blog/?p=89
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.nngroup.com/events/
 
 
 

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[IxDA Discuss] Free UX benchmarking report + NNG courses in Las Vegas and Berlin

[William Hudson]

(Apologies if you receive more than one of these.)
 
Join our UX benchmarking email list for a chance to win a personal copy
of our first report (on UK mobile phone e-commerce). Click here to send
a subscription email.
<mailto:subscribe-uxbe...@listman.syntagm.co.uk?subject=subscribe> 
 
Also, just a reminder that we are running a full-day Ajax Design and
Usability course (including substantial coverage of accessibility) at
the NNG conferences in Las Vegas and Berlin plus Card Sorting in Las
Vegas (not card counting in spite of the obvious connection!). See
http://www.nngroup.com/events/ for details.
 
If you cannot make these venues, the courses can be run in-house and are
usually cost-effective for groups of 4 participants or more.
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml
<http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml> 
 
Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
<http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml
<http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml> 
 
 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] User Experience Research Issues

[William Hudson]

Ali -

Alexa.com provides free stats. I don't know how reliable they are
(anyone have a view?).

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Ali Naqvi
> Sent: 13 September 2009 2:23 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] User Experience Research Issues
> 
> I am reading a book about User Experience and came across the
> following in the Research Plan chapter:
> 
> "The competitors' design is a lot less polished and much more
> chaotic, yet they get twice as much traffic with a similar amount of
> advertising."
> 
> How can you find such information about the competitor's traffic?
> 
> Is such information available for everyone?
> 
> 
> 
> Reply to this thread at ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45553
> 
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
> Unsubscribe  http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] "Way Out" vs "Exit" - Signage usability andpassenger experience

[William Hudson]

Just a few thoughts on 'exit' versus 'way out':
 - 'way out' is not that uncommon in Europe
 - 'exit' is an unusual word in written and spoken English (I cannot
recall the last time I wrote it)
 - it is also impossible to work out what 'exit' means if you do not
already know (unless you happen to speak Latin!)

(For anyone interested, word frequency in English is inversely
proportional to word length in syllables. Naturally, that should not be
the sole criteria for choosing terminology!)

So, I can see their point.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

-Original Message-
From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
Calvin
Sent: 01 September 2009 4:59 PM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] "Way Out" vs "Exit" - Signage usability
andpassenger experience
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Best practise for adding items to comparison tool

[William Hudson]

Alison -

So far in the e-commerce benchmarking I've done, comparison features
have been few and far between. So I would suggest sticking with
something simple that is likely to get implemented. (You can always
improve on it later.)

>From a UX perspective, though, unlimited items (with adjustable column
order) sounds good. Horizontal scrolling would be much preferable to
paging in my view.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> alison austin
> Sent: 08 September 2009 11:33 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Best practise for adding items to comparison
> tool
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] shopping.rediff.com - too much simplicity?

[William Hudson]

Wow, what an, uh-hem, interesting approach. I can't believe they
actually did any usability testing on this.

Given that the Women's Accessories section has around 100 links, I
wonder how long they thought users would be willing to spend searching
it?

They have also done some extremely weird stuff with listing the same
things several times, like 'bangles'. You have to walk back up the list
to find out that they are made of different materials.

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Rajesh Sundaram
> Sent: 24 August 2009 12:45 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] shopping.rediff.com - too much simplicity?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] How do you make sure your design gets implementedright?

[William Hudson]

Martin -

My slightly controversial view is that this cannot be prevented. That is
why it is important that implementers understand about the need for
user-centred design. They don't have to be experts, but they do need to
know when to ask questions and to understand that subtle alterations in
implementation can have big impacts on user experience.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design - Las Vegas and
Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Martin
> Sent: 24 August 2009 3:14 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] How do you make sure your design gets
> implementedright?

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Fixed or rotating feedback icon?

[William Hudson]

Shima -

This unpromisingly named paper ('Matching Attentional Draw with Utility
in Interruption') lists ten methods of attracting user attention and how
long it took users to notice them. Your precise mechanism isn't listed,
but you might find it interesting -
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~joanna/papers/CHI2007_Gluck.pdf

(It is based on another paper by Bartram, Ware and Calvert - with an
even worse title.
http://interruptions.net/literature/Bartram-IJHCS03-BW.pdf) 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Shima Kazerooni
> Sent: 18 August 2009 6:26 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Fixed or rotating feedback icon?
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Website UI competitive analysis

[William Hudson]

Will -

You could have a look at our UX Benchmarking report description at
www.uxbench.com to get some ideas (or better still, buy the report).

Another benchmarking firm is Bowen Craggs & Co. Theirs focuses on
corporate web site effectiveness (while ours is specifically e-commerce
UX). Have a look at http://www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex 

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Willl Hacker
> Sent: 17 August 2009 8:25 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Website UI competitive analysis
...

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[IxDA Discuss] Half-day courses on Ajax and Card Sorting at HCI 2009 in Cambridge UK

[William Hudson]

(IxDA members within striking distance of Cambridge in the UK might be 
interested in the following.)

There are still places on the two half-day courses I am running at the British 
HCI Group conference in Cambridge on 1 September. They are 'Ajax Design and 
Usability' (how to get the most from dynamic web pages) and 'Innovations in 
Card Sorting', a hands-on workshop using examples from real web sites.

They are only £40 each, plus this year - for the first time - you do not have 
to register for the conference itself. (Perversely though, to sign up for the 
courses you have to navigate to the conference registration page.)

These are shorter versions of the courses we are running in London, Las Vegas 
and Berlin but at a small fraction of the cost. 

Visit www.hci2009.org for further details or to book.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon OX14 
2DS.



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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Eye-Tracker software/hardware recommendations

[William Hudson]

Kristen -

I attended a pro vs cons debate on eye-tracking a few months ago in
London. On the 'cons' side was Kara Pernice who is the MD at NNG. Her
main thrust was that eye-tracking was largely irrelevant for most
usability work, particularly given the expense.

I have since had a couple of conversations on this with heavy
eye-tracking users. Both confessed that it really was overkill for most
usability studies and that you did have to be experienced in order to
interpret the results correctly (so it wasn't something you would use
casually). On the plus side, it does some to be a good way to engage
technology-oriented clients!

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Kristen
> Sent: 13 August 2009 11:23 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Eye-Tracker software/hardware recommendations
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Latimes.com Redesign - No Link Colors

[William Hudson]

Steven -

I don't recall the previous site although I have visited it from
time-to-time. I agree that the current design looks much more print
based (being primarily black!), but the inability for users to easily
spot links slightly worries me. I know that most will work it out, but
my own feeling is that playing hide-and-seek with the mouse is only fun
for so long. I would much rather that people could quickly and
accurately mark all the links on a screen shot, without having to
mouse-around looking for them. Having said that, they are being fairly
consistent in making headings links, but their occasional use of colour
is sometimes for a link ('photos' for example) and sometimes for other
reasons ('7:30 am'). It's pretty, but not good UX design, albeit at a
micro level.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Steven Johnson
> Sent: 13 August 2009 8:00 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Latimes.com Redesign - No Link Colors

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Video Consumption - the good and the bad

[William Hudson]

Elana -

I have seen a lot of video content on intranets, and of course workplace
provides all of the problems you mention with audio and sometimes even
video (if lighting is not well-controlled near windows, for example).

Even though the WCAG says that sub-titles are adequate for accessibility
purposes, I always recommend that videos have text-only transcripts. As
you point out, these are much easier to skim than a 20 minute media clip
(audio or video). Plus, a content search will actually find them!

I think what a lot of web sites (and some employers) do not realize is
that they are violating anti-discrimination laws in most countries if
they do not provide some kind of text equivalent to media clips. But,
like I said, I think it needs to be text transcript as well as closed
captioning (some systems actually provide the CC from the transcript
which is an ideal solution in my view).

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Elana Glazer
> Sent: 12 August 2009 3:58 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Video Consumption - the good and the bad
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Real-time update examples

[William Hudson]

Thanks for the responses I had to this enquiry. Google and Yahoo finance
charts were offered as examples, but aren't quite as dynamic as I was
hoping.

I found that www.advfn.com has a real-time shares monitor that does
somewhat more exciting things with updates. However, you have to
register to use it and in its free-trial form, only let you see
real-time updates for around 10 seconds. Also, it is implemented with
Java rather than Ajax, but I suspect that is for historical reasons.

If you know of or find something similar, please let me know.

Regards,

William


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> William Hudson
> Sent: 11 August 2009 10:13 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Real-time update examples
...

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[IxDA Discuss] Real-time update examples

[William Hudson]

I am looking for some interesting (or at least usable) examples of
real-time data update using Ajax. I am particularly keen on seeing good
solutions to the problem of indicating data 'freshness', especially
where different parts of a display might be  updated at different times.
 
Please send any favourite examples directly to me and I will post a
summary to the list.
 
TIA!
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Dynamic graphics

[William Hudson]

Ian -

Could you give a specific example?

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> ian Carr
> Sent: 11 August 2009 4:44 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Dynamic graphics
> 
> hi, I am a researcher at the London College of Communication working
> on a information design project.
> 
> I am have come up with a range of different graphical concepts(
> designed in adobe illustrator) but I am struggling  to make them
> dynamic, animated and interactive. What I am looking for is a tool
> which will enable me to update a spreadsheet or data base and it will
> manipulate the graphics accordingly.
> 
> Can you recommend any software or scripting that might help me, in
> fact any suggestion would be good?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ian Carr
> 
> 
> 
> Reply to this thread at ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=44540
> 
> 
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to Get Useful Feedback from Customer Support?

[William Hudson]

Shima -

Why not consider doing an affinity diagramming session with customer
support and designers? Write all of their feedback on to cards or
post-it notes then, in a collaborative session, group all the similar
issues together into themes. You can steer the focus so that the themes
are problem statements (rather than modifications or solutions).

See Jared Spool's page on this (called KJ method by many) -
http://www.uie.com/articles/kj_technique/ or many other resources
including Karen Holtzblatt's books on contextual design.  

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Shima Kazerooni
> Sent: 10 August 2009 4:24 PM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] How to Get Useful Feedback from Customer
> Support?
...

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[IxDA Discuss] Greyed background for popups

[William Hudson]

Can anyone tell me where the convention of greying the background page
when showing a popup window came from? It seems to have become something
of a de facto standard - is it published as an actual standard or
guideline somewhere? (I could not find out on Google.)
 
Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
<mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk> 
http://www.syntagm.co.uk <http://www.syntagm.co.uk/> 
skype:williamhudsonskype 
 
Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.
 
 

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite "tour" on a website?

[William Hudson]

Tom -
 
I see your point, but I have been using the web since NCSA Mosaic and
have taken maybe three site tours in the intervening 15 years. Maybe
it's me. Anyone out there taken a site tour in the past 3 months?
 
Regards,

William
 
 
From: Tom Dell'Aringa [mailto:pixelm...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 August 2009 4:20 PM
To: William Hudson
Cc: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite "tour" on a website?
 
We discussed that approach a little bit. My concern about that is how do
you turn it off? If it based on a cookie, it comes back when they clear
their cookies. If it's a setting in their preferences, I suppose that
works but you need to make sure they find it. But really the main issue
is that in our case they need to get the value proposition up front
first, or they kind of go away.

So it's less about the how and more about the why. Why do I want to be a
part of this thing?

We're not going to force the tour, but it has to be right there so all I
have to do as a user is just click play, start or whatever to get it
going. 
On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 10:13 AM, William Hudson
 wrote:

Not a tour suggestion, but dynamic popup windows now make the
implementation of 'cue cards' a real possibility on the web.

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite "tour" on a website?

[William Hudson]

Tom -

Not a tour suggestion, but dynamic popup windows now make the
implementation of 'cue cards' a real possibility on the web. These help
to make the tour a little less necessary as they tell users what they
need to know when they arrive at a section of the site they have not
used before. When they don't need to see the cue card for a particular
page, they just close it (you need a small link to reinstate it if they
wish).

Cue cards had been used very successfully in desktop applications for
some time (by Inuit's Quickbooks and Quicken, for example). The
advantage they have over a tour is that tours are little like reading
the instructions. Unless you force people to take the tour (which is
advisable only if it is very short), many will try to start using the
site without it.

Just a thought...

Regards,

William



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Tom Dell'Aringa
> Sent: 10 August 2009 8:48 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Your favorite "tour" on a website?
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Questions as navigation labels

[William Hudson]

Hi, Rebecca.

Jakob says you're only allowed 11 characters. See
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/nanocontent.html 

Alternatively, have you thought of card sorting to see what terms users
volunteer for group names? An open card sort on websort.net would be
fairly quick and inexpensive.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Rebecca Whitfield
> Sent: 10 August 2009 5:37 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Questions as navigation labels
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Pragmatic language theory and usability theory...same same or what?

[William Hudson]

Soren -

It is a useful distinction - there is a lot more to usability and user
experience than just language. Also, those of us focussing on
user-centred design tend to be more concerned with what influences user
behaviour rather than theoretical semantics.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Soren Weimann
> Sent: 10 August 2009 3:39 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Pragmatic language theory and usability
> theory...same same or what?
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Confusing terms in customer documentation

[William Hudson]

Ali -

If you look in a dictionary at the definition of 'station', you will
find that a 'mobile station' is a contradiction in terms. A 'station' is
a fixed location.

I can understand how techies may have arrived at it ('node' was probably
another exciting contender) but I really wouldn't use 'mobile
station' with users. Radio, handset or radio handset would all be better
(IMHO).

Regards,

William

-Original Message-
From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
Ali Amrohvi
Sent: 07 August 2009 1:29 PM
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Confusing terms in customer documentation
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Documentation requirements

[William Hudson]

Shivan -

The UI spec is meant for the folks implementing the UI. They will need to know 
what colours and fonts are to be used. The wireframes are not detailed enough 
for this to matter. If you were talking about a desktop UI, the coders actually 
do need to know what to use for the implementation. In HTML-based systems, 
someone other than coders may produce the UI, but they should still be looking 
at the UI specification.

My 2-cents worth! 

Regards,

William


> -Original Message-
> From: Shivan Kannan [mailto:shivan.kan...@gmail.com]
> Sent: 07 August 2009 3:42 PM
> To: Fabian A; William Hudson
> Cc: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Documentation requirements
> 
> @ Fabian: Thanks for response :)
> 
> 6. Design draft documents are like the 1st iteration of the detailed
> UI specification. It contains mostly of visuals that are to be
> verified by business owner or project managers. For example, it could
> contain those UI layouts with only a brief description about it. While
> these design drafts address project managers
> 
> @ William: Thanks for response :)
> 
> I will wait to hear more such thinking. Not only because I have not
> seen them appear so far in ui specs doc, but also wondering who can
> possibly benefit from it (again if placed in UI specs doc meant for
> coders).
> 
> -Shivan
> 
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Fabian A wrote:
> > i would say 7. Question though, what are you putting for 6. design
> > draft documents?
> >
> > fabian
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 2:57 AM, shivan
> kannan wrote:
> >> I understand creating the following different deliverable documents
> in
> >> order:
> >>
> >> 1. Creating user personas
> >> 2. Scenarios
> >> 3. High level use cases document
> >> 4. Requirements specifications document
> >> 5. Low-level use cases document
> >> 6. Design draft documents
> >> 7. Wireframes creation
> >> 8. Task flow diagrams
> >> 9. UI specification document
> >> 10. Help manual, user documents
> >>
> >> I would like to know where or which from the above includes the
> >> following documents/ document parts:
> >> 1. Typography specifications
> >> 2. Color palettes info
> >> 3. Iconography
> >>
> >> At least I know that I have not seen them in any UI specification
> >> documents so far.
> >>
> >> Few related questions:
> >> 1. These are deliverables by graphic designer, UI designer or
> >> UX practitioner?
> >> 2. Who will benefit from them? Who can possibly use them in an
> >> application development senario?
> >> 3. How important are they to include in a complex web based
> >> application that involve quite a bit of artistic look and feel UI,
> or
> >> for example: developing a kiosk UI.
> >>
> >> Id be pleased if anyone can hint/ share. Thanks.
> >> 
> >> 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
> >>
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Shivan Kannan
> ★ uidude.com
> ★ uidude.wordpress.com
> ★ twit...@uidude

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Documentation requirements

[William Hudson]

Shivan -

My thinking is that typography, colour palettes and iconography should
be part of the UI specification. Typography and colour palettes are
primarily an issue of aesthetics, so would be specified by a graphics
designer but approved by a usability/UX practitioner (for legibility and
adequate colour contrast compliance with WCAG 2.0). The requirements for
iconography should be drafted by a usability/UX practitioner,
implemented by a graphics designer and then usability tested.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> shivan kannan
> Sent: 07 August 2009 7:57 AM
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Documentation requirements
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Do grid systems also apply to application interfaces?

[William Hudson]

Hi, Rein.

Grids have a history of useful application long before the web was
invented and yes, they are applicable to application interfaces as well
as web pages.

Their advantage is that they reduce the number of alignment points,
thereby avoiding visual clutter and increasing consistency.

You suggest that application dialogs are not laid out in columns, but in
fact all but the most trivial interfaces have more than one vertical
alignment point (and therefore, multiple columns). Have a look at some
well-designed applications and you will usually see that a grid has been
used, albeit in not such an obvious way as with a web page.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Rein Groot
> Sent: 29 July 2009 02:06
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Do grid systems also apply to application
> interfaces?
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] People who learnt wikipedia syntax

[William Hudson]

Alok -

When you say 'widespread acceptance' you need to bear in mind that only
a very small number of people create or edit Wikipedia postings. By
comparison, there are huge numbers of people using Dreamweaver and
Contribute (for example).

Wikipedians are also highly motivated - that in itself can make the
clunkiest system work well. (Not that I am say that Wikipedia is clunky
- I have only edited articles a few times.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Alok Jain
> Sent: 27 July 2009 17:31
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] People who learnt wikipedia syntax
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Gmail drag and drop

[William Hudson]

Christine -

 

I know people are attached to their browsers, but maybe you should try
Google Chrome? Pages are going to get more complex (not that I think
that is a good idea in itself) and I personally believe the trend is
going to be more towards Ajax/JavaScript and away from other RIA
platforms like Flash and MS Silverlight. Chrome is reckoned to be about
20 times faster than Internet Explorer at executing JavaScript (Google's
figures!).

 

And, oh - I hate to say this - all of my IE crashes went away when I
removed the Google Toolbar. It may not have been the toolbar's fault,
but of course all of these plug-ins can interact with each other.

 

Regards,

 

William

 

From: Christine Boese [mailto:christine.bo...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 24 July 2009 17:04
To: William Hudson
Cc: Hugh Griffith; disc...@ixda.org
Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Gmail drag and drop

 

If your machine is at all RAM-challenged, the cumulative crap that's
being loaded into web pages and web app interfaces is causing curses ...

 


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Gmail drag and drop

[William Hudson]

Hi, Hugh.

It's called a 'drag handle' and lots of things have them (toolbars in
Windows for example).

You need somewhere to click in order to drag something, and since in
many cases clicking on the text does something else (opening the email
in gmail) a drag handle is handy (as it were), although not
essential. However, it does have the added benefit of providing a visual
cue. Changing the cursor to a drag hand is the coup de grace (but that
could be done without the handle if other aspects of the design allowed
for it).

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Hugh Griffith
> Sent: 24 July 2009 08:59
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Gmail drag and drop
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Security question: plain text entry or masked?

[William Hudson]

Anthony -

Not a definitive answer but in the vast majority of sites I have seen,
the security answer is in plain view. I think you're right, that if it
were going to be masked, it needs a confirmation. But then the whole
process is becoming decidedly painful.

You didn't mention email address and maybe it isn't relevant, but I
would definitely ask for a confirmation of that if you haven't already.
(Otherwise, a simple mistyping is the end of the story!)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

-Original Message-
From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
Anthony Hempell
Sent: 23 July 2009 10:38
To: disc...@ixda.org
Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Security question: plain text entry or masked?
...


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Resources/articles on UX for next gen automotiveinterfaces

[William Hudson]

Alicia -

Just for your interest, when I first got involved in card sorting I came
across a paper from a research team at an automotive manufacturer. They
had used card sorting in a big way to get people to say what dashboard
components and controls ought to be grouped together. I have not found
the paper again when I was looking for it more recently, but as people
tend to get into a mental rut about card sorting (thinking that it is
useful only for navigation design), it is helpful to know that it has
broader application.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Alicia Nachman
> Sent: 22 July 2009 21:53
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Resources/articles on UX for next gen
> automotiveinterfaces
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] UK Interactive Recruitment Agencies

[William Hudson]

Michael -

If you join either london_usability or london-ia at groups.yahoo.com you
will see quite a few postings from UK agencies. Here are a few recent
posters:

http://aquent.co.uk 
http://www.evolveconsultinguk.com 
http://www.zebrapeople.com
http://www.abrs.com

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Michael Tomes
> Sent: 22 July 2009 07:09
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] UK Interactive Recruitment Agencies
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Software Design Models and/or Design Patterns

[William Hudson]

Dave -

Sorry for the delay in replying but I was away last week (in a cottage
with no WiFi!).

Christopher Alexander was an architect that wrote the book that gives us
the term 'design pattern'. However, his interest was towns and
buildings, so I don't recommend that you rush out and buy it. Not only
is it big and expensive, but ironically, nothing has ever been built
based on his principals (although I am happy to stand corrected on this
if someone knows better).

In software design, there are high-level architectural models such as
client-server, distributed, software as a service and similar.
Lower-down people tend to use patterns such as model-view-controller and
various others you will find in books with the words 'Design Patterns'
in their title. In my view, though, patterns are often over-rated. To
really understand a pattern well, you have to have solved the problem at
least once yourself, so that you understand the issues. Trying to use a
pattern without this understanding is like trying to adapt a recipe
without knowing how to cook. (And believe me, in most real-life
scenarios, patterns have to be adapted to the problem at hand.)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Dave Wood
> Sent: 15 July 2009 03:44
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Software Design Models and/or Design Patterns
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Who uses Icon View with a file browser?

[William Hudson]

Hi, Chris.

I still use the icon view for *some* folders even though I have been
using Windows since the late 1980's (version 1 of Windows was several
years late which set the scene for many following releases - I had a
brief encounter with version 2, but Windows really didn't take off until
3.1 came around in the early 90's).

Folders shortcuts, applications, important files and similar do benefit
from the icon treatment simply because of Fitts' Law - bigger things are
easier to hit (he actually said more than that, but we need not go into
the detail).

However, I have no idea why it is the default except possibly that big
icons are less intimidating, as well as being easier to click. (The
thing that drives me crazy is that in Vista, some of the folders that I
expect to have icons in them spontaneously change to a different display
format from time to time. I hope they've sorted this in Windows 7!)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> chris
> Sent: 21 July 2009 13:42
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Who uses Icon View with a file browser?
> 
...

Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] "His/Her" vs. "Their" in website copy

[William Hudson]

Chris -

'They' and 'their' are increasingly popular as singular personal
pronouns. There is even a Wikipedia page on the subject (so it must be
true) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

Certainly 'they' and 'their' are much less clumsy than 'he or she' and
'his or her'.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml

> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Christopher Rider
> Sent: 21 July 2009 13:48
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] "His/Her" vs. "Their" in website copy
> 
...

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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Captchas - what do you currently do?

[William Hudson]

Hi, Caroline.

I've had problems on our own site with getting a great deal of spam
through our enquiry form, even though I took many precautions before
finally settling on a captcha. Since I implemented the captcha, almost
all spam has stopped (certainly robot-generated spam has).

Given the amount of effort that some hackers appear to be willing to put
in to 'cracking' an enquiry form (I don't begin to understand their
motivation since the messages are seen by one or two people at the
most), I doubt that a 'honeypot' approach will work for long.

I like (and use) reCAPTCHA - http://recaptcha.net/ 

It isn't too challenging to use or to implement. It includes an aural
interface for users who cannot see the screen.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml



> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Caroline Jarrett
> Sent: 18 July 2009 05:06
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Captchas - what do you currently do?
> 
> Hi all
> 
> I've been brooding on captchas recently...

Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Research methods when you only have 2-3 hours or 2-3days

[William Hudson]

Todd -

Card sorting makes a good guerrilla method especially if you have
already done some basic user research and have the terminology sorted
out. There are lots of ways to do card sorts but we have our own tools
and techniques which make even paper-based sorts fairly quick - see
www.syntagm.co.uk/design/cardsorting.htm

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Todd Zaki Warfel
> Sent: 08 July 2009 06:23
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Research methods when you only have 2-3 hours
> or 2-3days
> 
> So, yesterday I asked what your favorite methods for rapid research
> were...


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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Nokia Music Store

[William Hudson]

Mayur -

>From a practical point of view there are at least two big problems. The
first is that it *looks* as though you have to download the Nokia Music
application before you can do anything else. I am not keen on this. My
daughter wanted a specific album a couple of years ago and I visited
about four different music stores before I found it. I had to spend 10
minutes downloading and installing software at each one before
discovering (in 3 cases out of the 4) that they didn't have what I was
looking for. However, in this case appearances are deceptive. If you
select your country first, you can skip directly to a new home page with
artist and title search (this is not at all obvious given the big, fat
'Download Now' button and lack of functionality on the first page).

The second is not really a web site problem but will impact its
usefulness dramatically. According to   the site, the music files used
are WMA and are DRM locked. So while the rest of the downloads industry
is moving to easy-to-use MP3's, Nokia is pedalling backwards. Oh well.

Regards,

William

PS - The site also makes it seem that you need a Nokia device to
download to. You don't, but you have to persevere to find this out. And
don't get me started on the dark grey on light grey colour scheme at the
bottom of the first page.

PPS - In our mobile phone e-commerce benchmarking, visual design was the
highest scoring area for all sites (75%). However, things like helping
customers sort out problems with online tools did not do so well (2%).
It would be really nice to see more substance than gloss in sites like
this (although gloss is important too, I admit). See www.uxbench.com 


> -Original Message-
> From: new-boun...@ixda.org [mailto:new-boun...@ixda.org] On Behalf Of
> Mayur Karnik
> Sent: 08 July 2009 09:07
> To: disc...@ixda.org
> Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Nokia Music Store
> 
> Has anyone checked out the Nokia Music Store?
> http://musicstore.nokia.com/download.aspx.
> 
> I found it beautiful on first glance, in fact very beautiful!
> Simplicity
> Rules.
> Comments / reviews?
...

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[IxDA Discuss] Writing Dates Study Results

[William Hudson]

(Apologies if you get more that one of these.)

We had almost 1,000 responses to our dates study. I've summarized the
results in my blog and provided a link to the full report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/blog/?p=58 

I hope it will help change the way some sites pester users over
'incorrect' dates. (Read the report to get the inside story on leading
zeroes!)

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.


Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Interaction design can affect everyone, not just people who own a computer. What does this mean for IxD?

[William Hudson]

David -

> As an example of the far-reaching impact of interaction design, I
> recently wrote about the Boston MBTA subway system and the Charlie
> kiosks that are used to purchase fares. Every day, hundreds of 
> thousands of people ride the Boston subway and many of them are
> confused and frustrated by the interaction design of the kiosk.
>
http://incontextdesign.com/blog/interaction-design-and-the-boston-subway
/

I'll say! I was in Boston for CHI a few months ago and decided it was
impossible to buy a simple ticket at the Charlie machines. After a crowd
gathered around (just a small one) a kind women said it was possible and
showed me how. Did they do ANY usability testing on those things?
(Vienna subway machines also bad BTW, so I am not just getting at
Boston)

And, yes interaction designers need somehow to be accountable, but
regrettably, I am not sure that every project like this uses us.

Regards,

William Hudson
Syntagm Ltd
Design for Usability
UK 01235-522859
World +44-1235-522859
US Toll Free 1-866-SYNTAGM
mailto:william.hud...@syntagm.co.uk
http://www.syntagm.co.uk
skype:williamhudsonskype 

Syntagm is a limited company registered in England and Wales (1985).
Registered number: 1895345. Registered office: 10 Oxford Road, Abingdon
OX14 2DS.

Confused about dates in interaction design? See our new study (free):
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/datesstudy.htm

12 UK mobile phone e-commerce sites compared! Buy the report:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/uxbench.shtml

Courses in card sorting and Ajax interaction design. London, Las Vegas
and Berlin:
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/csadvances.shtml
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/ajaxdesign.shtml



Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org
Unsubscribe  http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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