Our Product is Explanation
All posts for “Online Usability”
Vimeo, You Mock Me
Posted by: leelefever on July 28, 2007- 5:00pm
Categories: Online Usability, privacy, video, videoservice, vimeo
Let me start by saying I like Vimeo. The video host has great features (like the thumbnail chooser), a personal attitude and slick interface. For our purposes, we like Vimeo because they focus on controlling privacy - you can share a video with just one person. We use it to share rough cuts of videos with clients. Vimeo does a lot of things well.
That is why I'm both perplexed and disappointed by an experience lately. We tested the privacy system to see what happens when we share video... Continue Reading
Government web sites must have to work really hard and spend tax payer dollars to come up with such poor online experiences. My bet, in this case, is that the person writing the user assistance did not know or did not bother to find out what "managed by managers" actually means. I see this every year and it always amazes me.
Yeah, um, thanks.
I know you may be tired of me talking about the March of Dimes Share Your Story Community, but it's growing into an incredible resource and I'm more and more proud to have been involved all the time. I'm sure Nancy White has a lot to say about this too...
As a quick example, the representatives of the March of Dimes are becoming stars of the community. Check out this blog by MoD person James SooHoo and how he is relating to the members around Prematurity Awareness Day. As you see in this post... Continue Reading
I'd like to invite you to help me with a not-so-hypothetical situation. Let's say I have a new blog and I think it is essential that people can subscribe via RSS and/or email so that in either case, the person is notified when new entries are posted.
I’m looking for the simplest way to handle these subscriptions. Here’s one thing to consider:
I could have a link at the top of the blog (and with permalinks) that says “Subscribe�?. When clicked, the next page (via pop-up or javascript?... Continue Reading
One of my favorite presenters at WebVisions was BJ Fogg form the Stanford's Persuasive Technologies Lab. (blog) Will has a quick run down of his presentation.
One point that I loved and represents something that I’m currently thinking a lot about lately has to do with adding features to a product. BJ said something along the lines of…
“My belief is that each feature added to a product actually decreases its chance of future success.�?
I’ve not always felt this way, but lately points... Continue Reading
I was filling out a business license renewal form for Common Craft and came across this perfect example of how not to do user assistance. I clicked the blue question mark in hopes that I would discover what "managed by managers" means. Instead, I get a lesson on using radio buttons.
I wonder if the person that wrote that sentence chuckled at themselves as they did it?
I’ve been through a whirlwind of usability testing and focus groups for the past 3 weeks. We tested 3 concepts across 15 users and 2 focus groups. It’s a good thing we’re using paper prototypes or we couldn’t do it- we can barely keep up on paper.
Our very last test yesterday was fascinating to me. We tested 7 people on the same concept and all but the final person “got�? the concept – they could describe the core functionality and how they would use it. What made the last... Continue Reading
Blogging has been light lately and it always makes me feel a little bad. I feel this sense of neglect, like I’m not doing my job or something. In actuality nothing could be further from the truth.
A project for my biggest client has recently been thrown into high gear. I’ve been traveling for the last two weeks doing usability studies using paper prototypes. We’re trying to turn around a new version of the same process every week and it’s about to kill me. Yesterday was an 18... Continue Reading
Reach Customers Online pointed me to George Olsen's article on Boxes and Arrows: Making Personas More Powerful: Details to Drive Strategic and Tactical Design. It's a comprehensive look at developing and using personas- and fills in gaps left by the father of personas: Alan Cooper.
I've posted before about a project I'm working on that is using Contextual Inquiry (ethnography) as a way to build a usable distributed learning resource. As part of this process we've created personas that... Continue Reading
First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users (Alertbox)
Tom Coates points me to an older (2001) Alertbox from Jacob Nielsen. These are lessons I've learned and experienced recently. In fact I just said it in a recent comment- what people say they do vs. what they really do are often two different things. If you design solely-based on what they say- you may be missing important clues.