User Experience
Can a Great Product Trump Bad Customer Service?
I will be the first to admit that I am an Apple addict. It is probably an unhealthy obsession at some times, just ask my wife. In other words, I am a typical Apple customer. I own more Apple gear than most high schools (but less than Al Gore). My MacPro, MacBook Pro and iPhone make me especially happy and productive.
However, I cannot quite understand how a company like Apple, who can successfully focus so much time and energy on the User Experience, can fail so miserably at servicing their customers.
Blurry, Colorblind and Brilliant
“Design is in the details.” - We hear it every day and it is absolutely true. However, details without a blueprint to tie things together can lead to problems. We are passionate about details, perfect grid alignment, perfect color combinations, gradients, reflections and textures. These visual details have a major aesthetic impact on the website, but they can’t replace the content – The reason the website exists in the first place.
Designing Data Collection Forms
When designing a new web application, I wrongfully turn my brain into data collection mode. I determine what data entities I need to collect (people, orders, products, etc…), what fields I need to collect (name, sku, weight, etc…) and how to most logically group everything together into a usable interface. This process is all wrong.
Often I ignore, or worse… neglect, to account for the business procedure that is in place to actually collect and account for that data.
Designing the User Experience
When we think about the development of websites, we think of the back-end development, graphic design and semantic markup that are coded and combined into the finished website.
The user experience design is often overlooked. It is intangible, naturally vague and difficult to understand. However, making this user experience comprehendible is crucial to the design process.
It is very tempting to skip over the experience design and straight to designing in Photoshop. Perhaps our ego gets in the way, or we are scared of spending hours that, in the end, don’t return a tangible product.
In the end our user experience notes and research are transformed into wireframes, design comps and ultimately the finished website.
Welcoming Constraints
As software developers we often find ourselves running low on time, money or patience. While these constraints often cause frustration, they are actually good things.
Constraints are simple solutions in disguise. When you find yourself working hard on a problem and seem to be progressing slowly, take the constraint as a sign to step back and examine the problem again.
The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.
Occam’s Razor
Ignoring Constraints
It’s natural to ignore constraints. After all, they cause us pain and we are taught to keep emotions out of our business. However, ignoring these constraints will lead to software which is counter-intuitive to use.
Resist the urge to throw more money/people/time at the problem to fix it. People under pressure do not work faster and additional funds just provides an excuse to deliver late.
Exceptions
There are times when constraints are caused by other situations. You may have a more serious problem to deal with if the constraints are caused by:
- Poor planning
- Lazy people
- Bad project management
- Counter productive working atmosphere
- Distractions caused by Twitter
Functional Favicons
Traditionally favicons are used for branding. A tiny icon which represents who you are and is displayed in the browsers address bar, in your bookmarks and (in Firefox) in the tab of the page your are currently viewing.
For most, the favicon is purely aesthetic. However, in others it has become a useful piece of functionality.
Flip3D vs. Expose
I’m trying to get my brain around the concept of Microsoft Vista’s Flip3D interface. Someone put a lot of time and energy into the concept to add value to their Operating System. In fact, Microsoft calls it a “Productivity Addon.” My question is: What is the value added?
Target’s Way off Target
Way back in 2006 a blind student at the University of California-Berkeley, Bruce Sexton Jr., filed a lawsuit against the national retail giant, Target. Bruce, in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind, has accused Target.com of having an inaccessible website.
New Browser Windows
When a user clicks a link on your (or any, for that matter) website, they expect the new web page to appear in its place. To navigate back to places they have come from, they click a ‘Back’ button on their browser. This has become normal for all internet users and is the experience they expect to have. Breaking the expectations of your users can lead to confusion and disappointment: two words usability experts despise.
It’s amazing to me that this is still a controversial topic.
Search
Popular Posts
- 50 Tips To A User Friendly Website
- My Favorite Pomodoro Timers
- How to build a Gantt Chart with the Google Charts API
- Why Flash is Mostly Bad
- Sharing the Grid
- Why You Should Outsource Usability Testing
- 10 Tips to Better Google Wave Conversations
- The difference between User Research and Usability Testing?
- How to Label Submit Buttons
- Our New Development Process
Latest Comments
- vick → “ Great tutorial…”
- Tess Elliott → “ Am an MFA trained artist who is learning to do more work in the commercial world and my style uses a lot of old images for an old look. A quick flip through some of my Dover Clip Art books is always an idea generator. I design a lot for kids and they love the…”
- BenWoz → “ Love the dot paper! None of those "lines" getting in the way of my mental images.…”
- Robert → “ I have to agree with the design of the site being great. I am more interested in how the website got ranked so high and some keywords land first page in searches when the page it lands on has no page rank.…”
- Etienne Segonzac → “ Hello everyone ! I would love to have a chat with other Pomodoro users (and the mailing list is quite slow). The thing is for me the main takeaways of the technique are the rhythm + the motivation of visualizing my progress. BTW, the Navel Labs app is quite gorgeous (and the compliment is coming from a concurrent…”