Fun with elevators
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….
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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…
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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
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Tags: user experience designer, Ux designer, ux manager
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
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Tags: Interaction Design, ui design, user intercation designer, User Interface, ux
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.
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Tags: Kano, Kano model, seducing customers, User Experience
Designing for small surfaces
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!
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(image thanks to CNET)
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Tags: feature creep, Interaction Design, LG watch, mobile, User Experience, User Interface









