Usability « Psychobserver

Archive for the ‘Usability’ Category

11th
Jan
2008

Doing Research on the Web

I have recently (like 2 days back) come to a realization that I am totally unorganized when it comes to doing research on the Web and sharing the fruits of that research with others.

Sourcing Information

My research process starts with a ton of RSS feeds that I have been adding over time on my personal NetVibes page. These RSS feeds being somewhat categorized, but more visually categorized in my head than on my screen. That leads to a total clutter and the impossibility for me to handle more than the current number of feeds I have.

Sharing Information

Given that I can find an article I find interesting, then I have to bookmark it and find a way to share my bookmark with others. For some reason I don’t like services like del.icio.us so I have a range of bookmarks on NetVibes, on my home FireFox, on my work FireFox and on my Yahoo Notes, etc. In the end, when I have time to post something on my blog a very small proportion of these articles I read get posted.

Tools Out There

Although I haven’t spent much time researching yet, I have been thinking about several tools I could use to improve all this content collection and communication process. One interesting tool is Zotero: this allows to bookmark not only webpages but about anything and attach notes, screenshots and more to them. It is a great data gathering tool. The problem for now is that it is not yet a sharing tool (although that should come pretty soon). Then you have readers, like Google Reader. These do a great job at organizing data and getting an RSS feed as an output. The downside is that it is less convenient to add an RSS feed to a reader rather than just bookmarking an article. Somehow the two are kind of complementary. Google Reader allows me to follow feeds and highlight the stuff I find interesting (by sharing specific articles with others for example), but it does not cater for my free browsing around the web (or even pdf files), like Zotero does.

Wordpress.com Limitations

Finally, in terms of sharing, my ideal solution would be to be able to attach to each of my blog post a feed at the end of the post with related stories (based on my personal research) that gets updated over time. Let’s say I posted two days back about Wikia Search, then at the end of that post would be an RSS feed getting information from my Google Reader for example that is related to Search Engines. That feed as I read and “flag” new articles and stories about search engines gets updated. Getting that feed could be done through Yahoo Pipes or Feed Digest. I think that would be great (although nothing really new, as this feature is on many newspaper websites already) if only I could integrate RSS Feed in my blog post on Wordpress.com.

Anyway, all this to say that so far I have not found one tool that can answer all my needs and I am juggling with many here and there… If somebody ends up reading this post and feels like sharing tips and ideas… please do.

3rd
Oct
2007

Buy on Hong Kong Now Broadband TV: Short Review

I discovered yesterday that I could buy stuff on my broadband TV access. I had no idea and I am not sure when it was launched. Here is what PCCW – Now Broadband TV says about the new channel (that channel 501 for those using the service):

A new shopping concept has hit town!

A PCCW service: now shop (channel 501) offers you local and Hollywood hottest DVDs, top-selling books, console games, electronics , lifestyle products and other services including movie ticketing and the No.1 Shopping Gallery. The new Stock Market Express, the new pay service providing Real-time stock quotes , FX spot rates and Gold prices for you to grasp every investment opportunity.

I have been taking a few pictures of the interface (accessible on Flickr)and I prepared a small presentation where I put my thoughts about the service. I also reviewed some elements of the interface from a usability perspective.

I prepared all this pretty quickly and did not do research about similar services in other countries. It is quite rough, but I hope it can be interesting to some and a basis for discussion on the topic of buying through interactive TV.

[slideshare id=124500&doc=hong-kong-now-tv-shop4606&w=425]

Let me know your thoughts…

15th
Aug
2007

Manpower website

Obviously, as I am currently looking for a job, I spend a lot of time on recruitment Web sites. Overall, I find them quite intuitive, but today one stood out from the rest. It stood out not only because it was not usable, but also because it made me “upset”.

I put quotes around “upset” as it may be too strong a word. In customer experience everything is about emotions, and feelings that experiences trigger. In this case, a simple confirmation page did the trick. I felt treated like a batch of files to process and almost teased at. (See picture)

I registered my profile and uploaded my resume on Manpower. After submitting my information, here comes the confirmation page: “Congratulations, Preferred Candidate!”

Everything in this line is wrong:

I just submitted my personal information and I am still referred as a “Preferred Candidate”. Why don’t they use my name?
The word “Preferred” is somewhat strange, as every single candidate registering on the Web site is “preferred”. What value does that provide me?
The word “Congratulations” is really too much! My task, my aim is to look for a job. I get congratulated because I created an account? What’s to be happy about that? Just get over that account creation and show me some job openings. Or should I be contempt with the fact that I created an account?

Just in one sentence, the company manages to show very clearly their disconnect with candidates and the fact that candidates are treated just like files and not people, which maybe is what Manpower is about in a way.

This is just an example of a problem on their websites. I could go on with the “Next page” button on top of the page when doing a search ( it took me three searches to see it), and the lack of posting date for ads in the search (an information crucial to the candidate).

Customer experience is sometimes (often?) created out of the small things. Especially when your customer is carrying a heavy luggage into the experience (for example, candidates may be quite low as their job search drags on and are quite sensitive), tone and phrasing is very important in order to build a positive experience.

22nd
Dec
2006

Few Links – 22 Dec. 2006

The usual three links on three topics that have nothing to do with one another:

From BusinessWeek is an article about “China’s Innovation Barriers“. My thought on this: Looking at China’s rapid evolution in the past decades, why would being innovative be much of a problem? China has overcome much larger problems already.
From BusinessWeek again is an article about “Matsushita’s Green Strategy“. A lot of interesting figures about Japanese companies in this article. The biggest take-away is that being greener is really a huge commitment and investment that does not bring return right away, so companies had better start quick.
Posted on Experientia Blog “Putting People First” is an article about Usability called “Introducing Usability 2.0“. I really hate that 2.0 craze, but having done Usability Testing and writing reports sometimes even after a Web site had been launched, I totally identify with the writer. Great read.

31st
Oct
2006

Slides on Mental Models

Below is a pretty nice presentation on mental models from Indi Young, a former AdaptivePath staff member (I found the link to this presentation from Karl Long’s ExperienceCurve Blog). Mental models are key to understand the customer experience and identify patterns of behavior. They can be leveraged on to define the features of a product and how they should be organized for example.

Presentation

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