01.25.2010
Miranda Capra /
Consumer Products /
Usability /
User Experience /
Web & Software
Games are an interesting design challenge because if they’re too easy they’re no fun, and if they’re too hard they’re no fun, and “easy” and “hard” may be different for different people. Party games, or video games that you’d break out with a group of friends, are a special challenge because they need to be fun for the group, which may contain people with mixed skill levels or experience. Wii Sports is a great video game because the direct interaction style is fun. Want to swing the tennis racket? Just swing the controller! But it quickly became a party game, even for people that didn’t play video games. Why? Because it was intuitive, easy to learn. No need to memorize complex combinations of button presses used in many video games. Instead, people could pick up a controller and start playing immediately.
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12.30.2009
Miranda Capra /
Usability /
Web & Software
When my husband and I went home for the holidays, we got his parents on Facebook. They’re still not sure whether or not they should thank us – time will tell. But the process of explaining Facebook was much easier because we had them use Facebook Lite. This is a new version of Facebook, still in beta, that has pared the interface down to the essential features. It’s different from Facebook Mobile, which is designed for mobile phones and also has a more limited feature set, but doesn’t translate well to large-screen displays.
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12.16.2009
Andrew Wirtanen /
Trends /
User Experience /
User Research /
Web & Software
I dread going to the mall during the holiday season (Black Friday to Christmas Eve). But, this past Sunday night I was able to find a parking spot very easily. I went into a store to make an exchange and found that there was no wait. Then, I did a little browsing and went on my way. Surprisingly, my experience actually wasn’t that bad.
But, I think I know why it was so easy…
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12.02.2009
Miranda Capra /
Usability /
Web & Software
Last week I needed to create a special website for a client project. The specific website is unimportant, but it’s a service that several companies offer – you create an account and configure the site, and they host it. I looked into two different companies for this web service…
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11.09.2009
Miranda Capra /
Usability /
Web & Software
This week marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. When I visited their website in a browser that didn’t support Flash, I was greeted by a fantastic error message: F is for Flash! What was so great about this error message? It felt like something Sesame Street would say. It used letters and alliteration, it had a happy Muppet character next to it, and it tried to sneak in a little educational information about Flash. It was also great from a user interface perspective. Much of the rest of the site was still usable; it explained what was happening and why I couldn’t use this part of the website (feedback), and gave me a helpful link to download and install flash so I could use the site (feed forward). I love it!
10.09.2009
Jon Howarth /
Usability Lab /
User Research /
Web & Software
Usability professionals and other research-focused professions often find the need to record screen video. This blog entry is intended to introduce you to basic approaches to capturing screen video and to explain the tradeoffs associated with these approaches…
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09.15.2009
Sheila Crosby /
Trends /
Usability /
Web & Software
I recently attended an open house at my daughter’s middle school. It was one of these events where you get to wander around the school campus and learn about the curriculum and school environment. We ended the evening in the media center. At first I was looking for a computer lab, only to learn that what I saw as the library is now considered a media center. It was there that the differences between my education experiences and that of my children will be worlds apart. But it didn’t start in the media center.
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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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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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08.17.2009
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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