Kizmo

Announced several months ago (and previously mentioned on this blog), Microsoft’s new interface for the XBox, to be released Nov. 19, brings major changes to the previous “Blades” interface. More details are out now, and Ars Technica has a good preview of what’s to come.

I loaded Ubiquity other day. As Tony mentioned when we discussed it in the office, Ubiquity is like Quicksilver, but for Firefox. However, the similarities end after you set your keyboard shortcut to access the functionality. Ubiquity is all about function, being able to quick look up, add, translate or send anything that is within the Firefox browser window. It ties in well with gmail but not with other mail apps. So if someone sends you a name of a restaurant, you can quickly look up a review in Yelp, map it, and set a date in your calendar. I think the concept is great, the functionality is getting there, it will be better when it is integrated into the computer system. For people who love using Quicksilver, Im pretty sure they will love using this Firefox add-on too.

On Tuesday, Peter Merholz announced that four years after its original publication, their report, “Leveraging Business Value: How ROI Changes User Experience”, is now available for free (previously, it cost $395). As Peter notes, despite being four years old, many of their conclusions are as valid now as they were four years ago. Check it out (PDF).

The act of buying a BART ticket is, well, difficult. I will save that for another longer, more studied entry. But I need to comment on my experience from the other day of getting a change for one dollar so that I could get on MUNI.

The default screen for buying tickets has green type in the bottom right corner that says: “Press “H” to get change”, so I put my dollar bill in the slot. Then, without reading the screen again, pressed the “H” button. And my dollar gets spit out. I’m very confused, so I read the screen again, to determine that I had pushed the correct button, then put my money again, and went to push the “H” button. But this time I read the screen. Now in red type it said, “To cancel press this button” pointing to the “H” button. So the same button I used to get change, now becomes the cancel button. How confusing. Changing the action of a button in the middle of a transaction (and on top of that, making it cancel out the process) is not a consistent interaction model. There are at least six other buttons to choose from that could become the cancel button. Why not dedicate one of them to always being the cancel button?

BART stations generally have two levels to them: the entry level and the train level. The signs for approaching trains are all on the train level and not where passengers need them. For instance, when entering the station, you’re in a rush but don’t know what train is approaching. You can hear a train but have no idea of its destination. So you start to move faster, you get to the stairs or escalator and you see that the train is on your tracks, but you still don’t know where it’s headed. So, you move faster, trying not to run over any old ladies. As you get to the track level, you can see the train but there is no sign in front of you, but lots of people. You dash toward the train, pushing people out of the way and run to the open doors, all the while looking up for the nearest sign to tell you which train it is so you know for sure whether to actually jump on.

All this aggravation could be easily avoided with a few strategically placed signs. For example, one sign in the entry level area announcing trains, and another on the track level but at the bottom of the stairwell/escalators where people running for trains can see them would go along way to reducing the frantic rush on the escalator or at the train doors closest to the top of the escalator.

On Thursday morning I attended the keynote address by Jane McGonigal, Game Designer and Future Forecaster. The subject of her talk, game design and human happiness, combined two areas of life that are usually kept separate. Basically, she was asking us to look at game design and see where we can apply its concepts into the work we do. In doing so, we can, as designers, create happier, more positive experiences for people. Games, Jane said, provide “better instructions, better feedback, better emotions, better community” than real life, hence the 10 million or more players of World of Warcraft. Something to think about while developing your next project: how can we integrate these five aspects of games, and make the experience better, and more enjoyable for the people who have to use it?

Catherine Jones and Randall Macon of Milkshake Media gave a great presentation at UX Week last week about building brands based on community.

In addition to the Blanton Museum of Art, they described the initial creation and sustained success of the LIVESTRONG brand. What I found most interesting about this was the concept of “Intellectual Property,” which they included on a slide about campaign metrics.

We all remember a few years ago when the yellow bands were everywhere, as much a fashion accessory as a stance for the fight against cancer. When that trend died down, however, the community had been solidified. In terms of metrics, The Lance Armstrong Foundation had a new mechanism for sustaining the organization. Intangible, yet extremely powerful, the community had been established and with that the brand solidified as intellectual property.

Another, more lighthearted look at the issue of ballot design…

Audrey Chen was nice enough to show this clip from the Jon Stewart show during her presentation at UX Week.

Lucky for us we could attend the conference and still get some work done. I was able to listen to some great speakers talking about very interesting work. The conference started on Tuesday with Don Norman causally speaking about User Experience Design.

One item that stood out for me on this early Tuesday morning, was one tidbit about the use of the word “User”. “User” is very impersonal, and therefore removes the designer, coder, business manager and client, away from the actual people who they are trying to reach. In looking for words to replace “user”, the thesaurus is not much help: Customer, Client, Consumer, and Operator. As Mr. Norman pointed out, Users are People. Referring to “the user” is a quick way of referencing a person who interacts with a product. It is hard to swap “people” for “user” and still convey a sense of a person interacting with and reacting to a product. In our documentation, we start with “The User” to set the stage, but then continue with a pronoun, alternating between she and he throughout the document. This helps us, as experience designers, to think about the people who will be using the product and it reinforces this fact to our clients when they are reading the material.

So we are now just Experience Designers.

The New York Times has put together a very nice interactive feature for viewing the Olympic schedule of events. The times listed are local to the user, which is very nice. You can save events into a favorites area for quick reference. Included in the event listing is whether or not it is a medal event (e.g. the final heat in track and field). It will also display the results of the event when it occurs. There are also icons with links to articles (though you have to click on the icons to find out what it is about–there’s no tool tip, which might have been helpful).

It will be interesting to watch this tracker get filled up with information, articles, videos, and results. The hard part will actually be watching the events. NBC has the rights and damned if theyll provide real time viewing to anyone who is not paying for Premium cable service. Why can’t the US be like the rest of the world and show events live? I would rather see the opening ceremony when it happens than a tape delayed version of it after the fact.

NBC does have a website up (NBCOlympics) but it doesn’t show events live and their schedule jumps around, moving from “All listings” to “TV Listings” after you click a day and time. To be fair, there is a lot of video to watch up there, mostly back stories and such, and I expect to see events after the fact there, but live is always better then memorex.