Archive for the ‘User Experience’ Category

 
15th
Jan
2010
0

Bulk Order of Smashing Book

Smashing Book by Smashing Magazine

Smashing Book by Smashing Magazine

You live in Hong Kong and you are into Web Design, you may be interested in buying Smashing Book. The book is a compilation of articles from Smashing Magazine that covers graphic design, programming, but also user experience and web strategy. It looks like a very nice reference book to have by your side.

We are organizing to bulk buy a number of copies in order to enjoy some discount on the price. The more people we can gather, the better the price can be. :D So, if you are interested, please drop me a message below and I will add you to our list of people interested. If we can reach at least 20 people, we will order the book.

12th
Dec
2009
3

Do people like clutter and content overload?

I remember a few meetings trying to sell usability and UCD to clients in Hong Kong. The same discussion would come back again and again. The client would ask:

“Aren’t people in Hong Kong and China different from the rest of the world? Don’t they like clutter and pages full of content and links? All the sites are currently designed in this way, it must mean that people like it.”

Below is a prime example of a very popular site that just overwhelms users with content and flashy stuff:

bla bla

Notice how much space the navigation area takes and how many links it includes. Also note this is the gaming area of the site, but the main content inthe middle at the very top is a news digest. See it live at http://games.sina.com.cn.

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4th
Dec
2009
0

Two videos about the future of reading

A quick post with two videos, one not so serious (Thanks to Steve Portigal for Twitting that one – very funny) and one more inline with what things may soon be for us readers.

The “Kindle 3″

Time Inc. Tablet Demo for Sports illustrated

These videos can make us wonder whether reading, watching, listening will soon be all merged into one seamless experience around content consumption. Great sources of inspiration.

27th
Nov
2009
0

Kindle Lover? – The eReading Experience

Reading the Kindle

Reading on the Kindle

In a world of ever greater device integration, ebook readers seem to be anachronisms. iPhones enable phone calls, taking pictures, web browsing, gaming, reading and much more… all in one device!

What do ebook Readers do? Well, they allow their users to … read books. So, what is so special about ebook readers that makes them an item of choice for many? And how can the ebook experience be pushed further to lure more people into purchasing them? These are the two questions I’ll focus on in this first post.

In a second post, I will focus more specifically on the Kindle interface design with its goods and bads.

Why ebook readers?

I remember two specific conversations I had after purchasing my Kindle. In one over MSN, a friend of mine showed his total incomprehension when I said I had bought a device entirely dedicated to reading books. His iPhone could be used to read documents and books. Why would anyone buy an ebook reader? And in another instance, another friend as we were discussing the Kindle with other IxDA members took out the book she was carrying and said that she could never switch from physical books to electronic ones. She mentioned the much wider array of sensory stimuli she felt as she was reading her book – its smell, the coffee stains on it, etc. (More on this in my previous post about Steve Portigal’s research)
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19th
Apr
2009
5

The GoAnimate song

It’s my first time blogging about something directly related to my current job as product manager at GoAnimate.com. I am not sure why I did not do it earlier… Working at GoAnimate allowed me to switch from being an uninvolved consultant advising people to being in the “pit” fighting to make the website a success not only in terms of user experience and interaction design, but also more generally as a company.

One major realization I had while working is the power of the community. I have been humbled by what and how users have been using the platform. We first designed it for people to create short funny stories, and we now realize that quite a number of users are now using the platform to create whole animated episodes that sometimes last more than 10 minutes. We also see amazing thing happening in terms of users sharing their creations and the content they upload to the platform. Overall it is amazing to see the dedication and passion of the users on the platform.
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28th
Jan
2009
1

Black Swans and Web Start-ups

The Black Swan

The Black Swan

I have just finished reading The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The book is a great read. I already found Fooled by Randomness by the same author very interesting and this one goes further by applying similar ideas to fields outside of finance. Black Swans are basically very improbable events that are impossible to predict and that have major consequences on their environment. There is no need to look very far to find a Black Swan, as we are in the middle of one with this financial crisis (although some could argue it is a “Gray” Swan as it might have been predictable).

For me, the main lesson I get from the book is that we need to face uncertainty as it is (unpredictable) and should not let unsound theories or stories (especially success stories) fool ourselves in making wrong or too risky decisions. Most articles out there try to rationalize things with checklists, qualities of the successful entrepreneurs… stories that transform successful entrepreneurs into semi-gods who somehow possess a magical potion to make any idea successful. One of the last such article I read had: “The product does not matter” in its checklist for a successful social network. After a short state of intense anger reading this few words, I came to wonder. Is that true? Does the product really matter? Or maybe not…
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27th
Dec
2008
3

Requesting downloads on SlideShare

A week ago, I received a request from a user on SlideShare to download my presentation on “Hong Kong NowTV Shop“. I am not sure why I did not allow everyone to download the presentation in the first place, but now it allowed me to take a look at this specific process on SlideShare, a very useful type of interaction for social networks.

There are two actors in this interaction: The reader and the author.

The reader, browsing SlideShare (or more probably searching on Google) for content related to his study or presentation, finally finds something on SlideShare inside a presentation. Too bad though, the  author of the presentation decided he would not allow readers to download the presentation.

SlideShare has well addressed this need in their design. In case a presentation can be downloaded, the interface displays a clear “Download” button just on top of their slideshow, and if the presentation is not downloadable then the button is changed into a “Request Download” one.

SlideShare

SlideShare


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