Use Cases Determine Design
A few weeks ago LinkedIn released their iPad app; it was immediately praised for it’s slick interface and immediate usability. With a full-featured and flexible site like LinkedIn, most users expect a recreation of the original desktop website with a minor design change for tablets. What LinkedIn actually delivered shows more intuition than a simple port to tablet. Upon launching the app, the user is greeted with an uncluttered display of three content types – updates, profile and inbox. Each choice shows only the basics: large photos, headlines and brief descriptions – in short, all of the information that the user wants and nothing more. When using the smartphone app, the user experiences fewer options. With so many features available, why limit the mobile experience
Responsive Web Design is all over the place right now. Some of it’s even on the Internet! And many of you are doubtless thinking, “Self, how can I get some of that hotness?”
Well, you’re in luck! (But only if you promise to stop referring to yourself as “self” when you think out-loud). On April 25th at noon CDT, I’ll be presenting a webinar on this very topic, entitled Responsive Web Design: One Size No Longer Fits All (link opens in new window/tab).
This article is being shared and re-posted a lot today across a variety of social networks. TechCrunch published an article titled “User Experience and the Poison on the Tip of the Arrow“. In the post, Uzi Schmilovici argues that “amazing design is not enough.”
“Real design is about solving problems,” he says, and ultimately a designer has to focus on creating interfaces that are:
Aesthetics will only get you so far, and as the author describes, won’t get you as far as it used to.
Instagram's UI is simple
He points to the success of photo-sharing mobile app, Instagram, stating, “ Instagram made taking and sharing photos so easy and delightful and that was enough.”
Last week, Instagram was purchased by Facebook for about $1 billion in cash and stock. Many analysts are pointing to the app’s simple, easy to use interface as a contributor to its success in making it attractive to the similarly utilitarian-designed Facebook. Read: User Interface Designers Invade Silicon Valley After Success of Apps Like Instagram
In reality, mobile app design – or design of any user interface – will likely draw more users and interactivity the less you even make users do on the app itself. We’re talking about automation.
For example, Schmilovici gives an example of a financial management app called Wesabe that aimed to be easy to use in importing your personal financial data and managing your budget and investments. Along came Mint, which automatically imported all of this data for the user, and Mint essentially killed the competition because it was so easy to use.
Last October I posted about Amazon’s foray into book publishing in order to get around fixed pricing agreements on e-books. An example showed the same price for a paperback book as the Kindle e-book, despite the added costs of actually creating the book.
Several news sources are reporting that the Department of Justice has looked into price-fixing by publishers that has previously limited the flexibility of retailers to set e-book prices.
The Department of Justice’s case (which you can read for yourself via The Verge) accuses Apple and five major publishers of conspiring to raise the price of ebooks by creating a fixed price that all sellers have to use. The goal was to end Amazon’s $9.99 price dominance and raise prices to the now standard $12.99-$14.99 for new ebook releases.
While the news is still fresh, several publishers have already moved to settle the lawsuit. The effect of the lawsuit should be that publishers are no longer able to stifle competition by setting a fixed minimum price for their digital media.
Sources:
Amazon’s New Business Model
What’s with Apple Price-Fixing Ebooks? – Lifehacker
A discriminating Fortune 100 company recently approached us wanting to add reputation management and gamification across their entire experience. Initially they expected us to build them a custom solution. However after evaluating the options, we recommended taking a look at the emerging ‘gamification’ SAAS vendor space. This would take advantage of the rapid installation, lower cost, and continuously improving feature set of the SAAS approach.
The requirements we compiled for our client included:
Working with our partner Badgeville‘s open, interoperable, and easy to Integrate “Behavior Platform” we’re working to provide our client a gamification and reputation experience driving positive user behavior across dozens of communities around the globe.
Ever had a problem accepting credit card at an on-site job? or Credit Card Merchants over-charging in interest/equipment?
As an on-site computer engineer for several years around the year 2006, the only method of payment I could accept was cash or check. This was very inconvenient as I might have lost some clients due to the lack of accepting credit/debit card payments. A system was put in place by my employer while working as a field technician - I had to use the credit card carbon copy slip to accept plastic payments. This ancient way of making copies was futile let alone time-consuming.
Paypal Here might be the solution to the credit card issue one faces as a field technician or a small business (SMB) that cannot afford the over-priced merchant services.
Paypal Here: How it works!
I have worked with many developers and designers on both front-end websites and back-end applications. Working through the user experience of an interface is one of the most important elements in any of these projects, and in the last couple of years, I have been fortunate enough to have worked with project managers and developers who know and utilize lean or agile product development techniques. Typically, I have worked within a two-week “sprint” – an iterative process that involves being able to release feature/functionality every two weeks.
I recently came across this article in CIO Magazine that articulates “How ‘Lean UX’ Can Improve Application Development“. I recently joked to a co-worker that I try so hard to help developers visualize what I need them to build, that even when designers are too tied up with other projects to prototype something, I will mock it up myself in Photoshop or Paint (yes, even in Paint).
The article outlines Four Fundamental Elements of Lean UX. My favorite is number 4, since I’ve seen that developers really appreciate having that visual to work with so that they have a clear idea of what they are to build.
- Finding the core features that matter most to customers—no more, no less—and find them at the cheapest possible cost.
- Moving as quickly as possible through the “build-measure-learn” loop. This is also referred to in UX circles as the “think-make-check” loop.
- Exposing the product directly to target users early and often.
- Developing ”minimum viable products.” Moving through the loop often does not require building an actual product. Clickable prototypes, presentations, screen mockups, and other low-fidelity techniques often work well.
As a developer, there are many languages one can select to learn, practice, master and work with. Browsing online, I found an article by Jobs Tractor that shows the languages demanded most in the job market today.
Article: Jobs Tractor language trends March 2012
The question is: can mobile cross-platform frameworks be all things to all people?
Dovetailing nicely into my previous post is an article that examines whether cross-platform mobile hybrid apps can meet both the objectives of time/cost and optimal user-experience. The history of cross-platform application development has been one of mostly failure and is littered with dozens of efforts including the first “cross-platform” development language C and the most well-known effort, Java with its “write once, run everywhere” (that is not to say they were failures but that they were not successful in one objective which was driving cross-platform development). Given the cost of software development projects and the number of platforms needed to support, the nirvana that a developer can write the software once and have it work on other platforms, with little or no extra effort has been too attractive to ignore.
Obviously, one of the most important decisions in initiating a mobile app development project is which approach will be used; native, hybrid or web. The decision drives staffing needs, project timelines and platform support. The darling of the cross-platform hybrid app efforts is PhoneGap (and it’s lesser-known sibling: Titanium). However, because the frameworks try to support multiple platforms, each with its own approach to user interface design and functionality, quite often the user experience is less than ideal. By its nature, a cross-platform framework supports the least-common denominator and therefore does not bring out the best features of a particular mobile app. So, as an initiative manager, the project scale must be examined with time/cost on one pan and user-experience on the other pan to determine where the project falls on the native/hybrid question.
Tomer Sharon’s book, “It’s Our Research: Getting stakeholder buy-in for user experience research projects” just came out and though I’m still reading it, I am already ready to recommend it (disclaimer: I contributed a Case Study to it).
Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to attend and speak at the IA Summit and not surprisingly I spoke with many people about getting stakeholders to understand what it is User Experience folks do and why our work is important. Admittedly, User Experience work is very hot right now, and yet there are plenty of people who still have questions about what it is and how it could help their organization.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I was speaking at the IA Summit on the topic of negotiation and how important it is in order to not only be able to plan projects effectively, but also to convince stakeholders of my recommendations. This led to some interesting side conversations about salary negotiations and the balance of life and work. The focus returned to discussions of how good negotiation skills can help us to collaborate and compromise with stakeholders to find a solution that is amenable to everyone (especially the users).
The case study I contributed to Sharon’s book focused on the importance of communicating clearly by using a vocabulary that is familiar and consistent to the group I’m working with. This is another skill that can greatly improve negotiations and the chances that stakeholders will not only understand what I am saying, but also agree that my recommendations should be implemented. Achieving great user experiences can be done without these skills, but certainly the presence of good negotiation skills and clear communication is a huge help.
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