paper & pencil

Thoughts on Consistency

Interesting discussion on IxDA regarding consistency in user interfaces. My response to demands or inquires for consistency is that appropriate trumps consistent. Then I continue on to explain why the screens or controls being compared are not being handled in the same manner. It always comes down to what is appropriate in each specific context for the types of people using the application. This is the approach Jared Spool talks about in his article Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach.

If you are asked to make software consistent, treat it like every other request and ask why. Continue asking why until you get at the real problem behind the request. If the request is just a vague, overarching cry for consistency then review the software to make sure you're being consistent with what is appropriate for the context and the users. And be prepared to explain your reasoning around any specific areas that appear on the surface to be inconsistent.

Chauncey Wilson details the various types and flavors of consistency and also describes a method for conducting a consistency inspection. Both articles are very helpful when reviewing your software applications for consistency.

Learning from Magicians

I'm re-reading a classic Tog paper "Principles, Techniques, and Ethics of Stage Magic and Their Application to Human Interface Design" from 1993 and unlike many technology articles it remains just as fresh 18 years later.

Some favorite bits & pieces from the paper…

"Consistency is the key to conviction.... No matter how effective an inconsistent part may be, the damage that it does to the routine as a whole more than offsets whatever advantages it may have in itself."– Nelms. "Irregularities destroy naturalness and conviction. When naturalness disappears, and when something unnatural is evident, the spectator’s attention immediately becomes vigilant and alert. In the normal course of events, this is disastrous to deception."–Fitzkee (1945);

Showmanship does not mean, to use Ted Nelson’s term, "adding ketchup" (Nelson, 1991). It implies the application of a deep understanding of human nature to the task of making software seem vital, involving, and fun.

Showmanship is the gentle seduction of the users, leading them to accept, believe in, and feel in control of the illusory world we have built for them.

Maintaining an illusion on a computer requires the same level of commitment and fervor historically displayed by the Disney company. And it can be as easily damaged. The Star, Lisa, and early Macintosh displayed finely crafted illusions. Today, our system illusions are rent by inconsistencies, program crashes, and unfathomable conceptual models.

Programmers who have not made the transition to the design model’s illusion are easy to spot: they meet any attempt on the designer’s part to create a new and interesting design model with, "Yes, but that’s not the way it really works." The last thing a magician wants is for his spectator’s model of the act to bear any relationship to "the way it really works."

In the 1930s, a major high-rise office building was opened with what soon proved to be too few elevators. After a series of engineering firms were brought in, each confirming that there was no way to either speed up the existing elevators or add additional ones, the building owners, in despair, brought in an interior designer. The designer recommended that huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors be installed between each pair of elevators, and the complaints disappeared. People now had something to do while waiting: either gazing at their own magnificent image or peering secretively at others with little fear of being caught.

The engineers had concentrated on reducing objective time; the designer concentrated on reducing subjective time. Reducing subjective time works.

If users cannot trust the system, if they are occasionally but violently thrust into the programmer’s reality, they can not, will not, and should not believe in the world we are making for them.

"Pipelining"–drawing screens, gathering data before needed–is a form of anticipation. Printer buffering is a form of premature consumption. These techniques illustrate that the timing of the user’s illusion need not track the reality of the operating system or hardware.

One caveat: illusion is sometimes shattered on our computers when something goes wrong: telling the user that "the document has been successfully sent to the printer" when the document has in fact only been spooled to the computer’s internal print buffer would seem like a good idea, but not when a difficulty arises with the print buffer software and the user ends up dragging a properly-functioning 100 pound laser printer into the shop for repair. We need to consider the entirety of the user’s reality, and that consists of both the expected and unexpected.

Minding the Gap

Great 5 minute video from UIE on minding the gaps in user experience. Useful in demonstrating the value of having an interaction designer on your team.

Web App Stories with Jared Spool - Mind the Gap from User Interface Engineering on Vimeo.

IxD Resources - Psychology Edition

A core skill of interaction design is understanding how people think — specifically in relation to software systems but also on a general level. Most of this knowledge comes from observation & experience and the occasional psychology book in my IxD reading rotation. 

I've recently come across a couple great sites that are useful resources for understanding people:

What Makes Them Click
The author has a Ph.D. in Psychology and offers great tips on how people think and relating that to software design.

You Are Not So Smart
I love the tagline : "A celebration of self-delusion".  There are not many direct ties into software design, however the stories around each topics are fun and very useful in understanding how people tick.

UX Myths
This site starts from a UX focus and many of the myths center around how people really think. Each article contains lots of links to supplemental material.

Lessons from the Medical Field

In the past year and a half of working for a company in the healthcare field, I've been reading more medical related articles. The CTO recently shared a couple of articles that offer great lessons for interaction designers.

Patients Lie, by Davis Liu, MD demonstrates what people say rarely matches with the real problem. Clients, whether internal or external, tend to present what they think should be the solution. It is our duty to listen and ask questions to get at the root cause... the real problem they need to solve. 

18 Stethoscopes, 1 Heart Murmur and Many Missed Connections by Madeline Drexler is a lesson in empathy and communication. Interaction designers need to find ways to connect and empathize with the people using their solutions. If you're fortunate to have constanct access to the your end users, designers need to gain the trust of the users and minimize the "patients lie" syndrome.

Essentially, as is the case with many professional fields, interaction designers operate in a customer service role. While mad Photoshop and CSS skills are highly touted, not enough emphasis is placed on the listening, communication and service skills that are critical to being a better designer. The best prototype in the world won't matter if the solution is misguided. 

Thoughts on UX & Agile Integration

Came across Integrated Usability in Agile teams from the trenches via the Agile Experience Design group on Linked In and it contains some great tips for UX folk working in Agile teams for the first time.

I've been working in an Agile-ish shop for just about a year and I love it, having been seeking out opportunites to do so for a couple years prior to that. To me, the tenets of Agile made perfect sense to me as change is inevitable and Agile is about embracing and dealing with change rather than fighting against it. 

To add to Robin Dymond's list, here are some additional items that have helped me be Agile in my IxD work:

• I've found being both the Product Owner and the IxD on projects helps me organize my IxD work as I have deep knowledge of what is most important to my customers and ensures I'm working from business priorities.
• Also, it helps to have quick & easy access to all the people I service - business stakeholders, customers, and the development team. One of many reasons I have always preferred working for smaller companies.
  
  
• Having breathing room between major development projects to take care of incremental improvements to existing applications allows me to increase my understanding of the business needs and the needs of the people using the software. This knowledge then feeds into the major development projects. During the gap between major projects I can also take time to develop conceptual models and high level interaction models so that I'm not as rushed when sprint 0 of a project hits. 
  
  
• Using software (VersionOne) to organize the enormous backlog of requests across numerous software applications.
  
  
• Lastly, working with a CTO that evangelizes both Agile and UX and has mentored me on taking a more systems engineering approach to my IxD work has been a very large part of the success I've had with Agile.

I Do Details

Excellent example of the importance of interaction design skills in software design, detailed by Basil Safwat How the iPhone mail app decides when to show you new mail. The Apple team once again demonstrates the thoughtfulness they put into their software that comes from attention to detail and understanding of how people use software in various contexts. 

This example helps underscore the need to have someone on your team who's main priority is to focus on these small details. It results in the difference between an irritating experience over and over and one that is so great you don't even notice it.

Only 2 posts so far at The Invisible... I eagerly await more.

Being a UX Designer in an Agile World

Excellent presentation by Dmitry Nekrasovski on Surviving and thriving as a UX professional in an Agile development organization. Loved the tips on being a facilitator and a keeper and communicator of the big vision. One area that is tough for UX designers is being lightweight. It is challenging to design just enough for the next sprint while attempting to maintain a coherent vision. But with Agile, it's all about inspect and adapt and that includes the design.

View more presentations from Dmitry Nekrasovski.

Creating Positive User Experiences

Tech Talk at Google I/0 2010 on principles of positive user experiences by John Zeratsky of YouTube and Matt Shobe of Google. Full of tips and examples. The principles:

1. Be fast
2. Be yourself
3. Engage in conversations
4. Be willing to give up control
5. Be polite
6. Prepare for failure
7. Be reliable

Designing Seductive Business Apps

Podcast excerpt, about 16 minutes, from Stephen Anderson's talk on Designing Seductive Business Apps from the UIE Web App Masters tour. In the excerpt, Anderson describes the interaction design concepts of scarcity, set completion and feedback loops. There are lots of great examples of each concept. UIE also offers the portion of the slides so you can see the examples.

via www.uie.com