Either you become fat when you push the lever down, or the chair adjusts itself to accommodate bigger people. The question is in what sense the chair is adjusted. Is the backrest moved to the back? Does the seat move downward? Sometimes symbols alone don't do the job (a little text might help), but if the symbols are fuzzy it becomes even harder.

Technorati Tags: automotive, usability, user interface design, user-centred design

On www.thetruthaboutcars.com there's an excellent article about user interface of cars getting more and more complex. And then we're not just talking about add-ons such as car radios and navigation systems. Nope. Even the basics of the car become harder to operate.

But that’s not the whole story when something as basic as starting the car has now taken on innumerous forms. Do you A) insert the key in a slot (to the right or left of the steering wheel or in the center console) and turn it or B) insert the key in a hole and push it or C) insert the key into a slot and push a start button or D) ignore the key altogether as long as it's on your person and then either push a button or twist a piece of plastic adjacent to the steering wheel?

Technorati Tags: automotive, consumer product usability, usability

I just love these Seven Deadly Excuses for Poor Design, that Kevin Scoresby lists and explains vividly. It's al about how the ambition of making a great design can get completely distorted in the day-to-day practice. They apply to the world of software, but I think these excuses can basically be found anywhere:

1. We have to be first to market.
2. Our budget doesn’t allow for design specialists.
3. The requirements make it clear what has to be done.
4. Well, it makes sense to me.
5. It will be so cool if we do it this way.
6. Customers will get used to it.
7. That’s what the help desk is for.

Now how many of those have you heard from your colleagues?

Technorati Tags: business and usability, usability, user-centred design

Day 5: OK/CANCEL

Strictly speaking OK/CANCEL is not a weblog, but a website that features weekly(?) comics about interaction and user experience design. But because the comics are so recognizable and fun, I decided to put them in. Or, in the autors' own words:

OK/Cancel is a comic strip collaboration co-written and co-illustrated by Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi. Our subject matter focuses on interfaces, good and bad and the people behind the industry of building interfaces - usability specialists, interaction designers, human-computer interaction (HCI) experts, industrial designers, etc.

Technorati Tags: usability, user-centred design

I agree with bright: headsets suck indeed. I have a bluetooth headset that I use in the car, but I really don't dare to get out of the car while still wearing it. Gives me this Geordi laForge Star Trek kind-of feeling. And as the ad points out: they're confusing... I once did an internship at a mobile phone manufacturer when the bluetooth headsets first came to the market. Off course everyone in the office was testing these new gadgets. I tell you, one of the most confusing times ever in the office. If mobile phones would have had the ability to record videos back then, I would have had a pretty good collection of really confusing dialogues in the office. The design challenge here is: how to show other people that you're on the phone, without having to wear a police-style lighting system on your head.

Day 4: InfoDesign - Understanding by Design

Lots and lots and lots of information on the subject of information architecture on this weblog, maintained by Peter J. Bogaards.Kind of curious though that the site is called InfoDesign, and the url is www.informationdesign.org. Confusing or not? That the news section is quoting Mark Hassenzahl saying "Usability [with its focus on effectiveness and efficiency] wants us to die rich; user experience wants us to die happy." in an interview... Well, bygones.

Technorati Tags: usability, user-centred design

Day 3: Putting People First

On putting people first you'll find multiple posts a day about a wide variety of user experience issues. It's author, Mark Vanderbeeken, is one of the partners of Experientia, an Italy-based consultant. Personally I find it a nice touch that you can browse the posts by category, allowing you to look for posts on a particular audience, method or even geographical location. Ah damn, they don't have a category for 'electronic consumer products', but wait... there's mobile phone. Hurray.

Technorati Tags: usability, user-centred design

Day 2: Usabilitynews

Usabilitynews.com is completely dedicated to usability, updated daily, and features an overview of usability headlines, events, paper calls and jobs. Mostly it concerns itself with usability in the web and HCI domain. Don't be put of by the slightly boring layout, this weblog really keeps you up to date on usability. It's maintained by people affiliated to the British HCI Group.

Technorati Tags: usability, user-centred design

In the coming week, every day I will post about an interesting usability or user-centred design weblog. There are so many worthwhile blogs that I've been sitting on, that I've decided to throw a number of them at you in one week. So they'll be off my list and on yours. If you have any suggestions, feel free to contact me. So, here we go...

Day 1: Passionate - Creating Passionate Users

Passionate: Creating passionate users features thorough, well illustrated essay-like posts by Kathy Sierra and Dan Russell about 'the practice of making users passionate about their lives and tools'. One of my favorite posts was this one about the difference in how companies treat you while you are a prospective client, and how they treat you once you've purchased their product (see illustration).


(Illustration creating passionate users)

Technorati Tags: usability, user-centred design

Illustration: Design Council

Sam Farber was inspired by his wife's arthritis to develop a range of kitchen tools that would appeal to the broadest possible market, including people with for example arthritis but not stigmatizing them. Two years after the New York design firm Smart Design started developing the products, the sales of Oxo Good Grips reached $3 million, a figure that has increased by 50 percent each year since.

Read the entire case study at the design council website.

Photo: Matthew Oliphant (Flickr, homepage)

Apparently 'lab usability' is dead. I presume we're talking about performing usability tests in an environment that's not exactly reflecting the user's normal context of use.

My two cents? When you're in the stage of developing a product and you need information to support design choices. You might want to investigate the individual components of your user interface design: whether people understand the terminology, is a particular button easy to operate, can they complete a certain task? In that case lab testing doesn't seem that bad to me. However, if you want to assess the usability of the product as a whole, I would prefer field tests. If possible. It's way more complicated, but if you really want to see what happens, you would have to go into people's homes, and see how they install your/their dvd player, what problems they encounter when installing that beautiful adsl router, etc.

Another good reason for lab testing: performance measuring. If you're less interested in what is wrong, but want to know how fast people can complete tasks, for example perhaps in a benchmark study or a final check of your product (to see whether you match the usability goals that were set for your product), you need metrics, and if you want to take metrics, you're better off in a controlled environment. But the more control you have over the environment, the less representative it will be for reality.

Technorati Tags: usability, usability study