Thermo is Coming (eventually)

If you're a UI designer and had the privilege to integrate your brilliant design comps into Adobe Flex (fun) then you may have heard the buzz about Adobe Thermo arriving later this year. Well at the Web 2.0 Expo this week, Webware recorded a pretty good summary about how Thermo will bridge the "interaction translation" between the designer and the developer.

This five minute video is worth checking out, if you haven't read up about the product yet:

Watch via Viddler

Two UX Trends: The Gradual Engagement & Caring

I came across this great entry written by Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb about two UX trends.

The first trend is called "Gradual Engagement." It's simply a try before you buy tactic. Let customers use your app before they give up their information. If they see value from your site, they will sign up and probably give you their real email address rather than the typical here's-my-Hotmail-address-cause-I-don't-know-if-you're-going-to-sell-my-info type of sign-up. There are plenty of other benefits such as users to adopting your app more quickly and them telling their friends about it.

But, I'll admit, it's hard to convince clients to do integrate a Gradual Engagement strategy. I've already incorporated the idea into the concepts of two projects I worked on over the past year. And, even though I coupled my visuals with a compelling argument (they agreed to it initially), it wasn't implemented at the end of the day. I got a number of reasons later stating that it didn't fit it with the revenue model or someone told them it wasn't "standard."

My advice to anyone trying to incorporate a Gradual Engagement UX model is to evaluate if the business (and the leaders) respect UX enough to consider it. If not, it'll be an upward battle. You'll be better off designing a standard login feature.

The second is a trend called "Caring for your Customers." Seems obvious, right? Well, if the content of the site, the technology, and UI design doesn't demonstrate a respect for the visitor's time, then the application/online business doesn't really care about users. And that reflects poorly on the brand you are trying to help your clients build. In my book, BRANDING TO THE POWER OF 5, I state that customers (people) have the ability very quickly sniff out a business that doesn't really care (Malcolm Gladwell's book, BLINK, covers this more). Much of this "sixth sense" evaluation has to do with the little things about the business. The same goes for online applications. The success of the online brand has everything to do with the value it provides and how easy it is to get that value.

Sarah points out that some sites have started using emotion indicators. This is a good concept that I will keep an eye on, however, simply watching how users interact with the site and how many times they return is just as valid (if not more) than if a customer were to tell you how they actually feel.

Give the article a read. Sarah spells things out pretty well:
Good UI Design: Make It Easy, Show Me You Care

How to Create a %&*@ Hot Online Experience

Come join me at the next Atlanta Adobe Experience Design (XD) meeting on April 10th, 2008 as I discuss how to build a compelling online experience.

More information about this event is available on the Adobe XD Users Group Website.

Hope to see everyone there.

Design Your UI to Make Customers Feel Smart

For a long time I've talked about implementing UI methods that will educate users while they interact with your site. For instance, if your UI incorporates a simple way to guide your user through any forms or complex processes, they'll be more compelled to use your service further. This is because the UI gives the illusion of being very responsive to input and users feel like they will make less mistakes. Couple that with subtle marketing and branding techniques and you'll have created a very powerful online user experience.

Dave Shepard of the Smashing Magazine blog put together a really good post that sums it up better than I can:

Evolve Your User Interface To Educate Your Users
by Dave Shepard

The Web has changed. This isn’t your neighbor’s nerdy kid’s internet anymore. Now the Web is home to your mom, your grandma and your technophobe sister. With computers as common a household appliance as televisions now, who might be using your web-application has expanded beyond the realm of just the power user.

Complicated menu systems, alert dialog messages that lock you out of the browser and flashy but confusing layouts aren’t necessarily going to help you make conversions. The Web user demographic has changed and to make your web application appeal to the masses your user interface needs to teach and to guide.

User Interfaces Should Teach
User interfaces need to teach your user how to use your application without resorting to a help screen. Many developers think that a help section will suffice for teaching users how to operate most any application, but this is not the case.

The help section of most applications, Web-based or otherwise, end up being used by the power users who are already trying to figure out every nook and cranny of the application. The proper way to help users understand how your application works is to bring the help section to them and in a format that can easily be understood."

Read the rest here: Evolve Your User Interface To Educate Your Users

Even a 1-year old can use an iPhone

Now this is interesting. Kinda makes you want to rethink who should be participating in your next usability test session. ; )

Experimental Fund Proves UX Matters

UX Fund Matures, Up 39.3%: Teehan+Lax, an Ontario-based experience design company, set up an experimental fund around companies that base their worth on brand and user experience.



The result speaks for itself. The chart above compares the UX Fund with the Nasdaq, S&P 500, Nasdaq 100 and the NYSE from Nov 1, 2006 to Nov 1, 2007.

More details about the fund are here.

Interviews with the Pioneers of User Experience

Read a collection of in-depth interviews and discussions with UX pioneers such as Jakob Nielsen and Seth Godin:

Interviews with the people responsible for creating the UX discipline

Conducted by Tamara Adlin

UX Saftey Mechanisms to "Enhance" App Performance

From CIO.com:

Getting a Leg Up On Application Performance
"If one were to think of the performance management landscape as a three-legged stool, securing solid infrastructure is the first leg, managing applications to perform well and function properly is the second leg, and the third leg is managing the end user experience -- capturing metrics and monitoring the end user interaction with the application. The first two legs of the stool are critical to the success of any IT department deploying critical enterprise applications and most IT departments have these technologies installed. But while the third leg is equally important, it has not, historically, been given sufficient consideration in the discipline of application performance management."

IMHO, avoiding end user experience woes should be planned well ahead of implementation.

Let's face it, as user experience designers we should expect data to be slow. Factors out of our control such as too many people accessing information, equipment failures, or someone deciding to reboot a server during the middle of the day, will make our beautifully designed applications sppear sluggish. This frustrates our audience and has the potential to lower the value of our client's brands.

To rescue these bad experiences, UX Safety Mechanisms must be pre-planned during the initial phases of development.

A UX Safety Mechanism is a visual screen action that helps the application "act" like it's performing optimally. This comes in two forms:

1. Visual Diversion. Part of the UX designer's responsibility is to respect the end-user's time. That means providing some sort of visual diversion, even if it seems to offer little value. Say a server is acting slow, would you let the application sit there with a spinning beachball or hourglass? I didn't think so, but many designers do because technically it's "not their fault." An better approach is to make the application feel like it is doing something. For example, if a screen transition does some extended animated movement to mask the server delay, the user may believe this is a necessary action of the UI, and not think much of it. People will wait for a screen to change if there is some nice visual effect, or if there is a humorous messages – so long as it doesn't keep repeating itself.
   
   
2. Dynamic Population. Probably the best approach, this UX Saftey Mechanism occurs when an application is populating content into the UI as it's gathering it. Kayak.com is a good example of this. Even though all the data is not pulled in yet, the user can start sorting through partial information immediately. Even if the server is super slow, it still offers a perception that the application's response is speedy. If people can see incremental progress, they will be forgiving when things are moving like a snail.
   

Of course, one could combine both mechanisms for added benefit to the user. It just depends how much time is budgeted into the project for these line items.

UX Safety Mechanisms are a couple simple methods to enhance a user's experience with the technology snafus we must inherently deal with. This ensures our audience's perception of the application's brand is kept in high regard.

Should users be able to adjust a UI design to their preference?

After I read the following post, it sparked an even deeper thought.

From the Terminally Incoherent Blog:

Should people adapt to computers?
"There seems to be an interesting argument going lately. The topic that spurs this discussions is: “Should we expect people to adapt to complex user interfaces, or rather adapt user interfaces so that they are easy for people to use?”

I believe we need to ask a slightly different question regarding the future of online user experience design.

Just like our freedom to select a favorite Web browser or RSS reader, perhaps the future of Web 2.0 interaction design will allow users to remap any application or Website to their preferred GUI.

Today, content can be separated from form – XML and RSS, for example. Websites and various applications can parse this information and format it according to its own layout and UI standards.

What if UI design for 2.0 applications became standardized? Better yet, what if users demanded that a design adjust dynamically to their preferred layout? We already see a similar approach with customization options in everyday Web browsers, music players, and operating systems.

If we openly allow users to adjust the UI design we provide, are we removing the unique branded "soul" of applications and sites we build? Or would we be enhancing the experience by letting users to modify our designs to a consistent method they are familiar with?

This new demand could open an opportunity for certain brands to gain more market share. Companies focused on building great user experiences, such as Virgin, could provide a branded "standardized skin" that offers superior information management within a visually-rich online environment.

7 User Experience Lessons from the iPhone UX Team

Nice insight into how the iPhone's user experience was conceived.