Pretty awesome, huh?

I had better luck loading the page today; However, after spending a few minutes filling out a survey, guess which button didn’t work?

I generally expect only a very small percentage of customers to fill-out surveys, so the reliability of the survey service is of utmost importance — if you actually want to listen. In this case, I hope that web metrics can be used to track how many customers started the survey vs. how many completed the task. [NOTE: If you're designing surveys, tracking abandonment points during the survey process can also give you an idea whether your surveys are too long, or asking the wrong questions.]

Links to this:

It’s 400+ pages, but a rather easy read. The book covers a range of topics, including:

• The value of good design.
• Good design only happens when designers understand the context of use, and explore many possible solutions.
• Sketching allows designers (and potential customers) to explore ideas at low cost.
• Sharing sketches enables early feedback.
• Techniques for sketching interactivity.
• Sketching can involve computers, cameras, and smoke-and-mirrors provided that it remain quick, inexpensive, disposable, etc.
• There are many examples of quality sketching available in the archives of HCI history, and replicating these experiments is good practice for a budding interaction designer.

My opinions on the book are mixed. It definitely offers positive motivation for sketching — and some great stories to feed those “why are we drawing pictures instead of coding” conversations that come up all-to-often with clients unfamiliar with UX Design. However, the book does come across a little passive, yet arrogant at times, while making numerous references without context. This gives it a somewhat academic feel, reading more like a light-weight thesis than a typical design book. That said, if you work in UX Design, being familiar with the ideas in this book will go a long way toward helping your career.

While reading, I highlighted a few quotes, which I’ll list out below. I grabbed these not because they represent the theme of the book, per se, but because they had unique meaning to me, or something I’m working on. (For example, I’ve already used one of the quotes below in a presentation on the design process.)

Quotes:

“In order to design a tool, we must make our best efforts to understand the larger social and physical context within which it is intended to function.”

This is a classic UX/HCI principle of understanding the user and their context for interaction as a design constraint/criteria. It’s a basic requirement in designing a product/solution that delivers value to a customer.

This next quote is an interesting one for companies thinking that they can solve “design” simply by hiring a few designers:

“It does not matter if you already have the talent to save your company among your current employees. If you do not have the vision, will, and power at the highest level, then that talent is almost certain to remain as wasted as it is frustrated.”

Becoming a design company isn’t as easy as hiring designers (just like becoming an innovative company cannot happen simply by filling the ranks with a few smart people.) Companies can only lead the pack when these values go all the way to the top. Until that happens, organizational practices (and politics) will keep those talented stars from shaping the companies’future.

This one’s fantastic (and the one I used in a presentation):

“Even if you do a brilliant job of building what you originally set out to build, if it is the wrong product, it still constitutes a failure.”

Meaning, that even if your company can execute a product vision perfectly (ie., you have great developers/craftsmen/etc.), you’re still wasting your time, and money, if you haven’t validated that your concepts will provide the market value you’re trying to achieve.

On the reason it’s important to share all ideas when brainstorming:

“…better idea[s] would never have come about were it not for the idea that it replaces.”

In other words, even bad ideas provide value via the thinking that occurs when we consider them.

On team dynamics and the work environment:

“A healthy team is made up of people who have the attitude that it is better to learn something new than to be right.”

“A design studio without ample space to pin up sketches, reference photos, clippings, and the like,… is as likely to be successful as an empty dance club.”

And finally, a reminder on why you never skip peer reviews:

“It is better to have your preliminary work critiqued by your colleagues while there is still time to do something about it — no matter how difficult the criticism might be — than to have the finished project torn apart by strangers in public.”

Non-standard shapes and markings and the ability for drivers to ignore them based on unfamiliarity:

An artifact from a time when vehicle license plates used registration stickers. Amazingly, registration renewal paperwork still comes with a placeholder for the old-style sticker, now in VOID form.

Interestingly enough, the State is apparently proud of this recent redesign, which now “instructs you to throw away the ‘VOID’sticker.” (via TXDOT: Vehicle Registration Sticker)

Why the high volume of discarded stickers? What does this tell you about the users? What about the machine?

The full context:

The design of this self-service, produce-pricing machine includes an area for discarded “mistakes”; but at what point is it an indication that it’s no longer user-error?

Sparkfun just released a new, stand-alone GPS logging device, which looks to be a slick alternative to all the “mobile-device + Python + bluetooth GPS” hacking I’ve resorted to for similar tasks. It’s a pretty tempting package if you need dirt-simple GPS logging. However, I’m a bit confused by the switches. Take a look at the picture of the device below:

There are two toggle switches: one for on/off, and one for standby/run. Take a minute to look at the switch diagrams and labels, and think about how to use this device. How do you turn it on? How do you make it start logging?

Now that you’ve thought about it, was it clear? What does the ’1′ on each switch mean to you? What does the graphic under each switches label mean? Ignore the ’1′ and ’0′ and look just at the diagram. Based on the graphic alone, which switch position should “on” be?

I used to get the ’1′ vs. ’0′ on switches backwards when my mental model was of the ’0′ indicating a completed circuit. Now I use a binary metaphor, where a ’1′ bit is on, and a ’0′ bit is off. That seems to be what the switch means. But if I take that approach on the GeoChron, then the standby/run switch is installed backwards. Personally, I think I’d drop the graphic under the switch labels (I think it’s more confusing then helpful), and flip the standby/run swtich so that ’1′ means ‘run’, and so that the switches are both pressed in the same direction when the device is on and logging. With a device this simple, you really shouldn’t have to think about how to turn it on. (I still want one though ;-)

“when an object can be any shape or size, what shape or size should it be?”

I love following Jan Chipchase’s Future Perfect blog. It documents an amazing level of ethnographic research that most companies simply don’t have the luxury to participate in. The quote above is a closing slide in one of his presentations. It stuck me because of it’s dual use as both a design meditation, and a serious question designers of any product should be able to answer. It also begs the reverse question for existing design:

If this object could have been any shape or size, why did it end up like this?

(Via: Insight & Innovation: Design Research, Nokia Connection 2007 [ppt])

It’s difficult to explain without visuals, so let’s start with a traditional looking URL:

The traditional-looking URL is a bunch of text. We recognize it as a URL, and typically market it as a full-text string. However, many sites use non-friendly URLs (think Vignette CURLs, for those who know what I’m talking about), in which case URLs are often massive strings full of seemingly random characters. When surfing sites with such URLs, the browser’s location bar becomes something you ignore until you’re ready to type in a new address.

Now let’s look at a Location’ized version of the same URL:

Quite different! The Location’ized URL is a distinct representation of a domain name (“eriksmartt.com”), and a service (“blog”). Information we don’t need, which normally just causes visual clutter (like the ‘/’characters), has been greyed-out, and brand-recognition remains strong.

Here’s another example:

Just looking at that URL, it’s pretty clear what site I was on, and what I was asking for — which is exactly what a URL is. Writing out http://flickr.com/photos/tags/lolcat loses some of this meaning. It becomes a single address, rather then a service and a request.

Of course, clever domain-names can lose some of their brand recognition using this approach:

Still, I’ve already grown so accustom to seeing URLs as Locationbar² displays them, that it feels disappointing to use browsers lacking this capability. I’ve also found the tool to be extremely handy while developing websites, making it very clear which server I’m accessing, and what request I made.

YMMV, but I definitely recommend trying it out — and I’d love to hear about your experience using the add-on!