Most amazing thing ever

I've already talked about game designer Jane McGonigal's TED talk, "Gaming Can Make a Better World, but her more recent talk, is incredible. Just amazing. I've placed my gushing about her below the video.  : )



Why Jane is my hero:

• She's smart, inspiring, brave, & fun, the three most important things anyone can be.
• She makes me want to download her game right now!! (I did right after her talk)
• She dresses like herself & I love it!
• She cares about other people enough to make games that change the world for the better
• She dares to dream big & makes things happen

Did I mention she's my hero?

The not-so-obvious aspect of User Experience

If you watch BBC's Sherlock, you know he never says "Elementary, my dear Watson". Which is good, because if you've read Sherlock, you know Doyle's Sherlock never used that phrase either.

Instead, BBC Sherlock is forever saying incredulously, "Obvious!"

An question I keep running into in UX is that of "why doesn't every company employ user experience techniques when they create a site or a service?" or "it seems obvious, every company should build this way".  They don't. Or they do, and they choose not to pay heed to their user's emotions.

It's like any other business philosophy.

I like the restaurant analogy, so let's use that:

• They should use a font that makes the menu easy to read
• They should make it obvious if they are a cafe style or a classical restaurant style so you know what to do after you walk in
• They should give you a smile when you walk in and put you at ease
• They should drop personal conversations when they are near customers and treat the customer-facing area like a stage
• They should check on you after your food has arrived.
• They should appreciate all feedback as an opportunity to learn
• They should embolden even the lowest level of employee with the power to wow the customer (not, "sorry our manager has to do that & she's not here today" Southwest is famous for this.)
• If you're a regular customer, they should remember you and your preferences.
• They should use fresh ingredients, ideally sourced locally

How many times have you seen one of these obvious "shoulds" not happen? Probably a lot. If one or more of these items isn't happening is not one waitstaff's fault, it's a systemic problem that is typically neglected by management. 

There are various 'interventions' to be taken (and if you watch Gordon Rhamsay's Kitchen Nightmares you know the interventions very well). Those interventions alone, aren't enough. If certain things do not change, months later the restaurant will falter and fold.

It's true for software development too. While the list above is obvious, it's not enough that the staff believes all of the above "shoulds" to be true. Management does too. Staff cannot effect change alone. 

Management has to be fully engaged in the user experience all the way through not just pay attention to it for a week out of the year. Yes, it's a great idea to focus on one aspect (according to the Power of Habit, when companies do focus on a "keystone habit" it tends to radiate elsewhere, prompting good habits).  

Why does management need to care? Because customers are the reason they are in business. Since they care about business they must care about customers. Customer experience and business are stubbornly linked. No, they aren't the same, but they cannot be unglued.

PS: Who else is interested in a Kitchen Nightmares-like User Experience reality TV show? Me, me me!!!! If you don't know the show, may I suggest watching one of the outlier episodes.

Lynda class excerpt: An explanation of Fitts law

Fitt's created an equation for location (proximity, really) and size of UI elements and their relationship to how easy they are to select. Sometimes buttons should not be easy to select (a great example is provided in this video for industrial equipment).

I't's a  classic example of science in user experience and one that is dear to my heart.

Is it obvious? It's certainly logical....but test your skills by attempting to answer the instructors question correctly at 1:50. If you got it right, awesome!

User momentum

The first time I played Crazy Taxi I was shocked at how great it was.

When you crash your car, you just kept on going! You knock over a shopping cart? No big whoop.

Awesome.

Previously, car games would go through a huge, punishing rigamarole if you so much as tapped another vehicle, never mind flipped over on a cactus. You'd have to wait for the whole thing to reset (Mario Kart I'm looking at you).

But Crazy taxi just let you keep driving. It was really cool to keep your momentum and simply be told "by the way you hit something, I'm taking some points off FYI".

Too many restrictions and errors in an interface feel like you're making a big deal out of something you care about but the customer doesn't.

For the love of Peet, only show errors when you absolutely must. As often as possible opt for warnings or informational messages when things might be wonky.

Fun buttons

I truly enjoyed pressing a button in the shape of an arrow. : )

Remotes are out of control

I keep seeing images like this all over the web. Usually with the caption "How I got my mom/dad/grandma grandpa to stop asking me how to use the remote."

Society is crying out "there are too many buttons on the remote.  Let's face it, there are way too many buttons that aren't relevant. Not just for Grandma, but for nearly everyone.

http://imgur.com/lygtob0

I see so many parallels in between these two talks: UX & Music

"Ew, Get an office!"

As a contractor/small business owner/entrepreneur/consultant/studio owner/principle or whatever title the situation demands, I work from home 95% of the time.

This means:

• Every time I get up to use the restroom/eat my cat is on my keyboard smooshing every key she can and while I'm working, she's jumping up trying to walk on it. "KITYY!!!" I yell and gently toss her to the side at least five times per day.
• Once when I yelled "Kitty" my mute button was not on and I was in a phone conference.
• Every time my husband blends his breakfast smoothie, vacuums, or plays his music and I'm in a meeting I want to plug my ears.
• I wear pajama bottoms and socks.
• My hygiene could be...better.

I've been running TUX Studio for nearly three years (more on that in a later post), well beyond the one year it takes to end up like this guy (see bottom panel below).

So, I've broken down & got a space at Tech Liminal. Oakland's solution to pajamas-all-day, keyboard stomping cats, blenders, and poor grooming. I'm here now, with jeans and shoes. I should brush my teeth next time.  ; )

Scene from an airport

Guess what this yellow sign is for.

I'll give you a minute.

Take your time.

OK, For those of you stumped, the yellow sign is to prevent someone from walking into the janitor's closet. The women's restroom is actually strait ahead and to the right. 

This makes me want to repeatedly hit my head (ideally, on the wall with the lying placard). 

Instead of the airport changing the placards so they don't lead a stream of women to the wrong place, the folks responsible for cleaning the bathroom have fixed it themselves, quite cleverly. 

A workaround. 

Where the fuck are the Olives?

We naturally thirst for deeper and alternate ways to solve problems. I found these two images on separate Reddit posts recently. The caption on both was something like "Why isn't this on every shopping cart?"

Index of items by aisle.

Map of store.

All I could think was "Yup."

All this information is already in the store, technically, since the isles contain the categories, yet a map and index are useful because they'd be right in front of you, deepening the solution set and anticipating a common and frustrating grocery store problem. For example: "Where the fuck are the olives?"

Consider some of the ways we might approach searching for olives in a store:

1. walk the edge of the store reading each aisle description
2. walk the edge of the store looking at the stuff on the edge of the asiles and go down aisles which seem to have things which are similar to olives
3. walk the entire store (brute force)
4. ask an employee (or a person dressed as an employee)

And how each person might approach this problem and how one person would vary their approach based on many factors. I, for example, sometimes jump right to #4 unless I don't feel like talking to anyone then #4 is my last resort). We all know someone who would never do #4, don't we?

I *might* be overdoing the UX memes.

Also, a bigger question, what about searching problems that are more difficult than olives (search by gluten-free, kosher, good for kids, etc)*?

What's interesting about the shopping map posts on reddit (it appeared once then was reposted 9 months later) is the incredible response from the reddit community. Over 1,600 people had something to say about having maps on shopping carts, and over 10,000 people agreed with this.

Wow.

Digging into the comments reveals something even more interesting. While an on-cart map is generally considered awesome and overdue, people felt grocery stores don't want you to have it. The top comments (reddit uses an upvoting system) are about how on cart maps are against store goals for earning. Check them out:

See full comments from original post

and

See comments from repost

Huh, so the customer experience is seen by customers to be at odds with business goals and the reason why the can't expect excellent experiences.

We know as UX practitioners, this isn't true. Excellent customer experiences are tied tightly with return on investment (if you do not know this, . In other words, companies with great customer experiences do better financially.


*Category search is vastly underrated. Speaking of category search, IMHO, the best category movie index is VideoHound; sure they cross-list actors, directors, etc (IMDB does this) but they list movies by really cool categories, such as Chicago, NYC, Soccer, Friendship etc. Vastly important when you remember  only that it had to do with Gymnastics and you saw it as a kid in the 80's. Answer: Nadia.