Fun with elevators
So how does this elevator move? Like Willy Wonka's magic elevator?
Seen them, used them, pictured them….
Elevators are the subject this time.
Checking out our Granada office elevator I had some fun with the elevator buttons.
This elevator moves from the left to the right in random order. Maybe if you press both up buttons you fly out of the roof like Charlie’s chocolate factory elevator?
Would be cool, let me try next time….
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Open window to open door?
Huh? Lower the window, stick your arm out and open the door from the outside? Which year is this train from ? 1870?
Forgot again those funny UK trains where you have to open the window, stick your arm out and open the door from the outside as there is no handle to open the door on the inside…
Reminds me of Vioctorian movies where a well dressed gentleman would open it for you, help you out and a porter would put your 40 suitcases (literally suit cases) onto a trolley…
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Tags: usability, User Experience
So what is a UX designer?
A great video on what the User Experience designer does in the style of David Attenborough…
Credits for this video go to Lyle Alzaldo
Filed under: Interaction Design, User Experience | 2 Comments
Tags: user experience designer, Ux designer, ux manager
Get in the trenches! User shadowing to really know what your user is doing and to get new ideas
Working in product development for middle to large companies it is very easy to hide behind a lot of walls. The “product manager told me so” or the “technically it is not possible” or the “the CEO thought that was a great feature” one.
Practically they exist, but in order to get the user experience and product design better you should be the one knowing what the customer wants.
I know what my customer wants, I read the report
1000′s of management books exist that claim to say what the customer wants, but how the heck do they know your customers?
Most probably you have statistical information regarding the use of your product. Great to test your ideas. But do they show how the user is interacting with your product? Does it show what products he uses on the side? How much he has to copy and paste? How he interacts practically with your product? No.
Reports suck half of the time: To the trenches!
Therefore, go shadowing! Visit some customers on-site. Sit next to them for an hour and record it all. Sure you will be to convince anyone of the need for your porposed ideas!
Not sure how to do it?
Do a course: http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/interaction.html
Read a book: http://www.amazon.com/Think-Common-Sense-Approach-Usability/dp/0789723107
Watch a presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/laurenceveale/user-testing-on-a-shoestring-fowa-dublin
Filed under: Interaction Design, Interaction Designer, SaaS User Interface Design, User Experience, User Interface | Leave a Comment
Tags: Interaction Design, ui design, user intercation designer, User Interface, ux
The ungrateful task of getting it to work... (Image thanks to Stephen Anderson)
Most of the time I don’t like too woolly theories that practically don’t make any difference at all to what you get. I am sure that a lot of companies that use this theory all the time have a user experience to cry.
Must be: Don’t annoy people
As Steve Krug’s book title: “Don’t make me think” already suggests usability is most about not annoying people and a little bit about delighting people.
At least personally I most of the time choose which app I use based on which one annoys me least. The one that gets me to my objective fastest. Sounds simple, but that is where most of the work is.
It has to be fast, it has to work and it shouldn’t ask you stupid questions.
Delight: Good Usability is just not enough
You can do OK, or you can really get your users hyped up.
Do one thing: change the colour of the background (takes 10 min, right?) of your app. And there you go, reactions will be pretty strong. Take out one step of an often used process: nice, but not such a strong reaction.
Most probably most of your time you are busy on not annoying people, just making it work, but when you have that sorted out (actually before) don’t forget to delight your users. Actually, start with it!
Want to know more?
Check out Stephen Anderson’s presentation on seducing customers.
Filed under: Interaction Design, Interaction Designer, SaaS (Software as a Service), SaaS User Interface Design, User Experience | Leave a Comment
Tags: Kano, Kano model, seducing customers, User Experience
After done the trip so many times and every time being annoyed by how crap the user experience is of the airport to city trip. I decided to make a small diary of getting off a plane and getting to Barcelona.
The city of Barcelona wants to be a to tourist destination, known for it’s innovation and good design. And I must say things are not going to bad at all. But where as a visitor do you start. Right, at the airport and obviously the first thing you do is get to the city. By Taxi, piece of cake. By public transport; not that easy.
Terminal 1 or Terminal 2
Recently a new terminal has been build in Barcelona. So would this be Terminal 1 or Terminal 2? I would say Terminal 2. NO! Wrong, the new one is Terminal 1! So if there will be a new terminal in a few years I guess we will change it all around again. How much fun.
Call the New Terminal T1? So what if you add another Terminal? Call it T-1, or change it all again?
You arrive, how to get to Barcelona?
Got it, I have found the sign directing to the train/buses. Funnily it is positioned not in the viewing direction so you have to look at every door what the sign above it says. This seems to be a problem at the gates too.
Where are the Gate numbers?
Which Bus/Train?
So I got to the platform where the buses and supposedly trains leave. First of all, let me tell you that Barcelona aiport must be nearly the only one where the main terminal has no train or metro connection to the city. Great. So what to do? You have to take a shuttle bus to T2 (yep, the old one) and take the train there. But which one is the one that takes you to the train?
Nice buses! Interurban(?!), Special Service, Connection (with what?), or the Left and Right Train, Bus?
(maybe I am too sarcastic, you would take the one with the train icon (if you know there is a train line to Barcelona…)
Roundabout Bus!
As every self respecting suburban town you need to have roundabouts. The more the better and if you can have a piece of art in the middle, even better. So after 5 roundabouts and your luggage all over the place you arrive to the “Old” terminal. By the way renovated 1 year ago. So “Old” is not the word.
Get to the Train
The signalling from here to the train are pretty good actually. Clear and to the point. But now the fun starts!
The Train to bring Foreigners to Barcelona
You are Peter, just arrived from London and you don’t speak Spanish (not taking into account the “una cerveza por favor”). So there we go. You see this.
So where does this train go to? Which platform? How late? (Check out the only text: "To the platforms" No shit? Really?)
Sant Celoni?
You wait, and wait (no indication where and when it leaves) and then it comes. Great, you get in. Train reasonably new. And just to be sure you check on the screens inside where the train goes. Sant Celoni? Where the heck is Sant Celoni? I want to get to Barcelona! So why not check the stops on the route…
Where the heck is Sant Celoni? I want to go to Barcelona!
B.P Gracia?
You asked someone if this trains goes to Barcelona and after a positive answer you get in. Your hotel is in the centre next to Plaza Catalunya. The first stations appear: El Prat, Bellvitge. On the screen appear the next stations: Barna Sants and B.P. Gracia. You start to get worried, after those there is Clot Aarago. Doesn’t ring a bell either.
Abbreviate!!
So what is the case here? An over active employee of Renfe tried to abbreviate the names of the stations to a length that fits on the screens turning them into un-understandable stations names that nobody heard of. So how did this person get his idea through? Is there not such a thing as common sense or even better: Scrolling?
A Hint: Next time you get onto this train and you have no idea where to get off, try Barcelona Sants Station (Barna Sans) or Barcelona Passeig de Gracia (B.P Gracia)
Filed under: User Experience, User Interface | 1 Comment
Tags: Airport, Barcelona, Barcelona Airport, Renfe, train, User Experience, User experience airports
Designing for small surfaces
No space not to stick to the really necessary
I must admit that designing for small surfaces has one very big benefit: constraints.
Designing for a normal screen gives you way more freedom, but it is too easy not to stick to that one thing that really is important.
Small screens on the other hand force you to stick to the core, those basics which are what makes it all work.
Design for small surfaces to the max
This week I came across the LG watch phone. Remember the 80′s with the calculator phone? Well, this one is kind of like that. So most probably will end up in the weird and wonderful cupboard, but what caught my eye was that there is only place for 2 buttons or a few lines of text.
So fed up of phones that do everything well, but to make a simple phone call you need 10 clicks?
Well, here you go. More stuck to the basics you won’t get it.
Create a mobile App. Even if it doesn’t make sense
Feature creep. Sounds familiar that it is difficult to avoid more and more features creeping in? Most probably it won’t be difficult to convince people that you need a mobile app. (maybe it actually doesn’t make any sense, but the exercise could be sufficiently useful just to go through the design process)
Start selecting what really is important in your products. Strip it down to the bare basics. Put it in a design and even if you are not going to develop the mobile app, keep it, print it out and make everybody see it. I promiss you, having consensus on what is really important is a massive step…
Try it and let me know if it gave any results!
—————————————-
(image thanks to CNET)
Filed under: Interaction Design, Interaction Designer, User Experience, User Interface | 1 Comment
Tags: feature creep, Interaction Design, LG watch, mobile, User Experience, User Interface
