09.09.2009
Miranda Capra /
Consumer Products /
Usability /
Web & Software
My husband downloaded the Kindle application for his iPhone recently, and, despite having a PhD in Computer Science/HCI, immediately proceeded to accidentally purchase a book. He started off well, downloading a free sample of the book from the Kindle store (screenshots 1 + 2). When he reached the end of the sample (screenshot 3) he wanted pricing information for purchasing, so he clicked on “Buy Now” and poof! purchased the book (screenshot 4). I’m not sure what surprised me more – the fact that Amazon, which has been doing online shopping for almost 15 years, managed to create an application that made it so easy to accidentally purchase a book, or that the accidental purchase seemed to be anticipated. Because after purchasing the book, the confirmation screen asked “Purchased by accident?” and provided a large “Cancel this order” button that immediately canceled the order. After I found out how easy it was to cancel the order, I had to try this myself, and decided that the design wasn’t nearly as terrible as I thought at first. Let me explain…
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09.08.2009
Elizabeth Mauer - Former Staffer /
Usability
As user interface designers, how often do we consider the effect of a selected typeface on our UIs? Probably not enough. Of course we all remember to select a typeface that is legible on computer screens and things like that, but do we really look at it in detail? I can’t say I have recently. Until something made me think of it the other night…
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09.02.2009
Miranda Capra /
Consumer Products /
Usability
Eric Taub of the New York Times posted on his blog this week an explanation of how Vizio, which was founded in 2002, became the largest seller of LCD TVs in the US. One of his key points: they provide an easy-to-understand one-sheet summary of how to hook up the TV, because no one wants to read a manual. If you can’t figure out how to hook up your TV, how likely are you to keep it?
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08.31.2009
Christina Mendat - Former Staffer /
Consumer Products /
Human Factors /
Usability
Companies go to very great lengths to design and develop the latest and greatest child products such as child safety seats, strollers, and other contraptions. Parents feed this development by wanting to provide their children with the best in safety. Given all of these products, our children are probably the safest they have ever been. It is great that our children are so safe and snug, but what about the parents?
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08.24.2009
Sogra Nishath /
Usability /
Web & Software
Thanks IE for inspiring this blog entry and no thanks to my frustration!
I recently upgraded to Internet Explorer 8. For the last 2 weeks, every time I clicked on the drop-down arrow in my address bar to access a link that I had visited nothing was happening. The drop-down was still open but the link that I had just clicked on wasn’t being loaded. When nothing happened I looked at the open drop-down to retry but the link wasn’t there anymore. This happened so quickly that I just shrugged it and moved on…
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08.21.2009
Miranda Capra /
Consumer Products /
Usability /
User Research
Last month I bought new shower curtain rings for my bathroom. Actually, not rings, I’m so tired of the plastic rings I’ve been using forever, so difficult to open and snap closed, and half the time one of them breaks when I open it. Instead I decided to buy elegant metal s-shaped shower curtain hooks from Target. What a mistake! Every time I opened or closed my shower curtain, several rings came off the pole, or the curtain came off the hooks, and a few times a hook fell off completely and hit me in the head. They looked so good, where did the design go wrong?
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08.19.2009
Andrew Wirtanen /
Usability /
User Research
When I go to user experience or human factors conferences, there are a lot of presentations on new methods to use when conducting studies with participants. But, what about the information that is already out there? People talk about their likes and dislikes about products every day on the Internet. At HumanCentric, we have a name for the process of collecting and conslidating all that information: web mining.
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08.17.2009
Sogra Nishath /
Usability /
Web & Software
My husband and I are expecting our first child. We are both “legal aliens” who work in the US. To us, creating a baby registry is not the norm. Usually friends and family give a present of their choosing. Sometimes this can be a good surprise and sometimes not…
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08.05.2009
Miranda Capra /
Human Factors /
Usability /
Usability Lab /
User Research
In a previous blog, I discussed the pros and cons of having a one-way mirror in your usability lab. A one-way mirror is glass that has been coated with a thin layer of metal so that it’s reflective, like a mirror. It’s called a one-way mirror because in one direction it’s a mirror, but in the other direction it’s a window. There’s some debate about the proper name – many people call it a two-way mirror because either side can be used as a mirror by changing which room is lit and which room is dark. They’re commonly used in usability labs and focus group rooms, but also in other locations like observation rooms in police stations and day care facilities. Once you’ve decided that you want a one-way mirror for your usability lab, what next? Here are some tips for designing your one-way mirror, based on our experiences building our lab (including consultation with a professional acoustician) and experiences that our moderators have had in other labs.
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07.20.2009
Jon Howarth /
Human Factors /
Usability /
User Research
As I was walking from my desk to the company break room, I noticed the variety of ways in which my colleagues and I have “annotated” computer equipment that we use. Here are a couple of examples:
- I put a piece of tape on one side of the USB dongle for my wireless mouse, so that I know which way to insert it into a USB port on my laptop. The dongle is symmetrical; without the tape, I would have to guess which side of the dongle should be facing up.
- One of my colleagues has drawn a red arrow on the lid to her laptop near the back hinge. The power port is on the back of her laptop and the arrow allows her to plug in her power supply without having to turn around the laptop.
- Another colleague uses a blue Velcro strip to wrap her computer power supply. The strip is permanently attached to the end of the power supply that plugs into an electrical power outlet, not the side that plugs into the computer. The strip helps her easily identify which plug is hers when she wants to unplug her laptop from a power strip that has other devices plugged into it.
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