UXblog http://ampli2de.com/uxblog/ Random UX thoughs en-us Nucleus CMS v3.50 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://ampli2de.com/uxblog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif UXblog http://ampli2de.com/uxblog/ Top 10 Reasons to Attend UXcamp Ottawa 2011 xml-rss2.php?itemid=102 @uxcampottawa)

Similar to last year, the conference will contain pre-planned sessions (ranging from 10 minute Ignite-style talks to hour long presentations) as well as unconference-style participant-driven conversations in the afternoon. If you're interested to see the full schedule, read about the speakers, look at photos or watch video highlights of last year's sessions head out to ottawa.uxcamp.ca and get all details there. Registration is also now open, and for the second year in a row, we're heading towards a sellout. But if you're still not conviced, and you need hard-hitting (:O) reasons why I think UXcamp Ottawa 2011 is a must-see event for UX professionals and designers, you're in luck: here's the roundup of my top 10:

10. A fresh batch of UX jobs

If you are frustrated with the lack of understanding of UX by Ottawa-based IT recruiters, this is your chance to actually find a potential employer who is directly involved in the field of user experience. Most sponsors (including Ampli2de) will advertise their UX-related job openings in the lobby area of Lamoureux Hall so if you're a recent graduate or an experience UX professional looking for a new gig, UXcamp might just have the answer.

9. The unconference sessions

One of the reasons why UXcamp Ottawa has been so successful is its participatory element. The interactive user-submitted sessions of the afternoon are a unique way to engage the community and address UX problems to likely-minded UX professionals who happen to be in attendance. If you have an issue that you want solved, or if you want see how others address similar situations, the afternoon sessions are where you want to be.

8. The UXcamp badges

As you may or may not know, Ampli2de has designed the UXcamp Ottawa brand identity. We are also designers of the conference badges, and this year, as you've probably seen on Twitter, the badges are receiving another makeover. As UX designers, we rarely get to see our products being used 'in the wild', outside the confines of various user research activities. Last year, it was an eye opening experience for us and we can't wait for the sea of red badges at this year's event. And as always, feedback is much appreciated (here or otherwise).

7. Dom Saul

Last year, Tedde van Gelderen of Akendi was one of the highlights of the conference. This year another presence from the Akendi UX braintrust will be speaking at UXcamp. Dominira Saul, Akendi's Director of UX, has been quietly building a following as one of the most engaging UX presenters in Ottawa. Titled 'Creating a Design Culture', his UXcamp presentation will touch on how to incorporate design into the core of company's DNA.

6. The Ignite talks

Last year, John N.A. Brown's Ignite talk was one of the highlights of the conference. Following in John's footsteps, this year the format has been adopted by another long list of Ottawa presenters, including Alasdair Stuart-Bell, Anton McConville (@antonmc), Laura Wesley (@resultsjunkie) and Tanya Snook (@spydergrrl). Should be exciting.

5. The IxDA Ottawa Chapter Launch

One of the things missing in our city is a vibrant interactive regular gathering of design professionals. We're talking workshop, panels, design jams, happy hours etc, and we do hope that our vision of monthly or bi-monthly IxDA Ottawa meetups will remedy the situation. If you want to get involved or show your interest, UXcamp Ottawa will provide you the chance to meet likely minded individuals interested in pursuing this endeavor. Stop by the IxDA Ottawa signage and say 'Hello'. (Twitter: @IXDAottawa)

4. The Ottawa UX community

This is the time of year when the Ottawa UX community comes out of hibernation and we all have a chance to get together at UXcamp. Whether you call yourselves UXers, designers, information architects, product managers, entrepreneurs, UI developers, etc., UXcamp is a celebration of those who create amazing experiences in our community. Come out and say 'Hello', and if you can, come hang out with us at the bar afterwards (beer and experience design, how can you miss that conversation?)

3. Rob Woodbridge

If you're a fan of Untether.tv, you probably know who Rob is. If not, you'll have a chance to see/meet him for the first time this year at UXcamp. Rob, the host of the popular Untether.tv video podcasts about movers and shakers in the wireless space, will be the the master of ceremonies on November 5th. (Twitter: @robwoodbridge)

2. Gabor Vida

Teknision has been around in Ottawa for over 10 years. In the last 4 years or so, they went from creative Flash shop to exquisit UX boutique, amassing some of the most important Ottawa UX projects of the last decade. You may not know it, but Teknision is behind the Blackberry Playbook UX. And as you'll see from Gabor's presentation, they are also doing some nifty little things in the embedded UX space. (Twitter: @gaborvida)

1. Dana Chisnell

If you are an Ottawa UX professional, and you don't know who Dana Chisnell is, you really should reconsider who you're following on Twitter (hint: @danachis). Few UX professionals are relevant to our public-sector infused marketplace, and Dana probably heads that category. So needless to say, I'm stoked for this year's keynote address.

So here you have it. Did you already sign up for UXcamp? And if you did, is there anything I missed that you're looking forward to?

Photo credit: Deborah O'Malley. ]]> conference xml-rss2.php?itemid=102 Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:13:00 -0400 Experimenting With a Second Twitter Handle (@Corneliux) xml-rss2.php?itemid=99
My only previous twitter handle, @ampli2de, reflects the name of my boutique UX consultancy. And while it still serves its purpose very well (ex. it was recently listed in the PeerIndex UX 500 list of most influential UX professionals active in social media), I have always struggled to separate UX/business tweets than those of a more of a personal opinion (following up with individual conversations, random UX thoughts, engaging UX big brains etc).
The truth of the matter is, I've been thinking about creating a somewhat more intimate personal brand for a little bit over a year now, but I didn't want to settle for second rate domain name or a non-matching Twitter ID. And after stalking Twitter for over a year, and hoping that they would do as they say on their fine print and release unused handles, a couple of weeks ago, it finally happened. My attempt to register it actually went through cleanly.

My personal (and most likely still very UX oriented tweets) will now be originally broadcasted using the Twitter handle @corneliux. In many cases @ampli2de will pick up those that are of general interest and vice-versa, but I am hoping @corneliux will be a more intimate avenue to engage with me on the web.The domain name corneliux.com has also been registered. I am currently planning the evolution of my personal brand, and corneliux.com will be a big part of it. The truth is, most people I converse with know me by my corporate twitter handle (@ampli2de) and don't know any of my actual names. To some extent, I'm hoping that @corneliux will change that.

Why @corneliux?

Why @corneliux? Well, as it turns out, my name is Cornelius, and I am a UX professional. @corneliux can convey that thought immediately, better than any other handle I can think of.

And while all this may appear a great idea, adding the extra twitter handle does come with a lot of question marks as well. Unlike simply changing a twitter handle, adding a new one means I have to start off my network from scratch, and my tweet count at 0. Duplicating anything remotely close to @ampli2de's reach will likely take a while. Also, a second twitter handle means two streams of analytics, and therefore, finding a sensible way of interpreting them both individually and together is going to be a critical piece of the puzzle.

But there are also great things about adding a handle. I've learned quite a bit about social networking from the process of building @ampli2de's network, so a sibling network should be an much more accurate representation on what I'd like my social media circle to entail. Nowadays, Twitter clients can almost universally support multiple profiles, so i won't be forced to manually switch back and forth between the two IDs. My existing @ampli2de network will continue to engage and connect as my corporate banner, and none of the links to that profile will break (this is a major drawback that happens when changing as opposed to adding new IDs). The two profiles (@ampli2de and @corneliux) should create a better compartmentalized social network, that will allow me to speak on behalf of the company, as well as voice my own, often controversial views.

Does this even sound remotely as a good idea? What do you guys think?]]> branding xml-rss2.php?itemid=99 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:54:00 -0400 User Research Triangulation: A Practical Approach xml-rss2.php?itemid=97 Johnny Holland article on this exact theme). As it turns out, most of the end-user research I've done on enterprise scale projects over the past 7+ years does fall quite elegantly under this definition, even though I never thought of labeling it that way until recently. My goal for approaching user research in this manner has always been to eliminate bias as much as possible, and use different datasets to justify research findings.

While this post covers my own approach, I won't waste any virtual ink on the theory of user research triangulation, Patrick Kennedy's article referenced above does it more justice than I ever would. Also, my approach is in no way prescriptive, it is simply a three-step research methodology that I personally find particularly useful when it comes to working with samples of large user populations, more often than not scattered across multiple geographical locations. I've settled on this pattern based on a number of trial-and-error attempts to combine various user research methods, in some of the larger projects I've been involved with. In most cases, I was either working in tandem with another UX professional or I was leading an entire UX team.

Step 1: Questionnaires

The first thing I typically do is I create an online questionnaire which I send out electronically to a large number of users, normally over 100. The purpose of this questionnaire is to assess the user demographics (this will later allow me to hone in the most relevant personas) as well as identify what works and what doesn't work well in the current environment. The value of sending out such questionnaire is especially valuable when dealing with a redesign or a consolidation/upgrade of existing systems.

The questionnaires also capture optional comments for each question allowing questionnaire participants to justify their answers and even make suggestions about how a future system could better address their needs. As a result, the subsequent questionnaire report will be able to quantitatively show the perceived issues of the current environment and will pinpoint some areas that are prime for improvement.

My preference is also to avoid anonymity, for two reasons. First, because when a survey is anonymous a lot of times people don't take it very seriously, and second, because the quality of the comments allows me to identify individual participants in the second phase of my end-user research triangulation methodologyy, the interviews.

Moreover, once the questionnaires are completed, I am ready to create a draft of demographical data that will be included in the personas document (no behavioural data is available at this point).

Step 2: Interviews

Before we look at this in detail, let me point out that the activity that makes up the second phase is not fixed. While interviews have typically been the most prevalent technique used in my projects, other methods (such as contextual inquiries) have been equally effective for this activity. In the event that the questionnaires were not anonymous, I would choose to interview up to 20 users carefully selected from the list of those who answered the questionnaire, ensuring that they fall across all of the demographics identified in the draft of the personas document. If the questionnaires were anonymous, than I would simply make sure that every demographic is covered, without asking for specific individuals.

The prime candidates for these interviews would be those who have identified system flaws and/or features that are working smoothly in the comments section of the initial questionnaire. The questions prepared for them would explore in more depth the areas that have been quantitatively flagged as potential trouble spots. Other potential question material is related to task flows, information grouping and other time-saving opportunities from a user interface perspective.

The interviews also allow me to articulate the behavioural aspect of my personas document. As a result, at the end of this second step there are already a number of deliverables ready for the client: a questionnaire report, individual and overall interview reports and the personas document.

Step 3: Focus Groups

The problem with questionnaires, interviews (or contextual inquiries) and personas is that they are very prescriptive and do not include a lot of feature-based, research-based cross-functional problem solving activities. This is addressed in the third and last step of my user research triangulation methodology: the focus groups.

The setup for my focus groups is simple. Maximum 8 people including myself as the facilitator and a dedicated scribe. The rest of the invitees should include a minimum of two end-users, a representative from the business and a representative from the technical team (sometimes an architect and a hands-on developer is even better). Unless the purpose of the focus group is getting feedback from novice users, the participants should already be somewhat familiar with the functionality that will be evaluated based on a previously established agenda.

Everyone in the focus has the opportunity to state their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards the features discussed, and then, if necessary, I would facilitate a (re)design exercise of the user interface and/or the user flow associated with those features. During the discussions, I typically juggle between two roles: UX professional and focus group facilitator.

The object of the focus groups is to solve problems. As a result I try to focus on critical tasks rather than minor or aesthetic improvements, as there will typically be ample time for addressing smaller details later in the prototyping process. This is also a visual step so sketching and the use a wide range of visual aids is highly recommended. As I previously mentioned, these focus groups should have a design exercise flavour built into them.

Once the focus groups reports are done, written reports are created and my user research triangulation stage is done. At this point, I am ready to combine the triangulation deliverables with other datapoints such as existing analytics and essentially wrap up the end-user research stage of my project by articulating the findings in a user requirements document.

What do you guys think? Are there other user research triangulation combinations that have proven useful in your projects?
]]> research xml-rss2.php?itemid=97 Mon, 7 Feb 2011 12:50:00 -0500 UXcamp Ottawa 2010: Redefining the UX Community xml-rss2.php?itemid=94 UXcamp Ottawa, the event is a one-day professional conference organized by a few volunteers that will combine both planned and unplanned (unconference-type) sessions.

In the spirit of the ever-popular barcamp model, the goal of the event is to bring people who are interested in creating better user experiences together, in an environment conducive to learning, sharing, open conversation and community building. The topics of discussion will include the usual suspects: user experience, user research, usability, information architecture, interaction design, service design, etc. But what you may not know is that UXcamp Ottawa follows in the footsteps of a few similar events worldwide (Washington, Berlin, London, Florence, Prague, Kiev, Seoul) and is also preceeded by three other Canadian dates. The first such event in Canada was UXcamp Edmonton, and took place about a year and a half ago on July 18th, 2009. The brainchild of Cam Linke and my friend and fellow UXcamp Ottawa organizer Jess McMullin (who also organized CanUX from 2006-2009), UXcamp Edmonton was a free conference that brought together about 80 UX professionals from the Edmonton, AB area.

A few months later, on December 5th, 2009, the second Canadian incarnation of UXcamp was organized by David Drucker and J. Karen Parker in Vancouver, BC. The event brought together a community of another 80 or so participants and took place at the Vancouver Film School. Earlier this year (on March 24, 2010), the third Canadian installment of the event, UXcamp Quebec was also a success, bringing together about 25 UX professionals from Quebec City area.

Which brings me to UXcamp Ottawa, the fourth such event in Canada, and the first in the nation’s capital. When every ticket was sold out, 175 people (about an even split between public and private sector UX professionals) have signed up, waiting anxiously to fill the (indoor :O) auditorium of Ottawa U's Lamoureux Building. Incidentally, this makes UXcamp Ottawa by far the largest UXcamp event held in Canada. Among the highlights, UXcamp Ottawa will feature scheduled presentations by Derek Featherstone (FurtherAhead), Lorraine Chapman (Macadamian), Lois Frankel (CarletonU School of Industrial Design), Jane Stewart and Chris Wightman. In addition to the scheduled sessions, UXcamp Ottawa will also feature panel discussions and open sessions proposed by UXcampers during live on-site 60-second pitches.

What this means, is that we want to hear from you, Ottawa UXcampers. Be ready to ask questions, come prepared to pitch an unconference sessions, make new friends, and most of all, have fun. We certainly had a lot of fun putting the pieces together.]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=94 Tue, 16 Nov 2010 01:55:00 -0500 UX+Agile: Like Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde? xml-rss2.php?itemid=92
The acceptance of user experience in agile organizations is a relatively new concept. Being able to quickly research, perform IA work (typically task flows, wireframes and sitemaps), create high-fidelity prototypes, perform UT (usability testing) for a story and then be able to serve it up to software developers is enticing to every development manager out there. And while this concept may work from a theoretical perspective, when it comes to execution and deadlines, it quickly becomes very clear that if the team falls behind, there are typically two areas that suffer: user experience and scope (and ultimately quality). Development managers are delivery driven (rather than quality driven), and for them delivery means one thing: code. As a user experience professional working in an agile environment, how many times did you hear a development manager telling you that you no longer have time to spend with the end users for user research, and that those deliverables (be it wireframes or high-fidelity prototypes that are required by developers for a particular story) are now due in less than 24 hrs or even worse, not needed altogether because the functionality is fairly simple and the developers will be able to go straight to code without them?

In my career, navigating the extent of my involvement within agile teams has sometimes been rocky. Yet at this point, looking back at projects ranging from the success stories to those that were quite simply narrowly avoided disasters, two distinct themes have emerged, and are going to be the focus of this article.As I said before, when dealing with very short iterations, working on UX deliverables required in the same iteration in which they will be later coded has never quite worked for me. It may have worked for the first two, three iterations, but once developers fall behind, long hours start being the norm and eventually UX becomes an afterthought. Also, if the so called "Agile" methodology is a little less agile than advertised, and the product is being coded in a more incremental rather than iterative manner, being able to look back at previous iterations and fix user experience and design flaws becomes very difficult. And cutting into user research and ideation because Agile is bringing the 'customer' into the fold overlooks the fact that customers (as in business customers in the Agile definition) and users (as in the people who will use the product) are only very rarely the same. So the fact that Agile is there to design the for the business client and not for the actual user, is an early warning sign for most issues between Agile and UX.

So how is it that this has worked for me in the past? Well, it has much to do with finding creative ways to ensure that even though coders will eventually fall behind, the user experience side always has a buffer of scope (stories for which the UX aspect has already been designed prior to the developers starting work on the iteration containing those stories) or it has a organizational makeup that has the flexibility to pick up speed going forward to tackle retroactive UX work while not falling behind the ongoing overall product roadmap.

Option 1: Staggered delivery

Having an 'Iteration 0' type of ramp-up time for the BAs and user experience designers means that the preliminary research, the visual big-picture, the general layout and the initial story development for the first one or two iterations will be out of the way before the software developers even have a chance to join the project. Once the development goes under way, the UX team will focus on stories that are at least one or two iterations away for the developers and therefore the usual clashes between our teams will be reduced. Also, there is a chance that any stories that may be affected by previously developed work could reach the UX team prior to or at the same time they are being worked on. This approach also gives the BA/UX teams some time to go back and fix particular BA/UX deliverables that have been flagged as defects since their technical implementation took place.

Option 2: A Standalone BA/UX Team

Agile is a software development methodology. The typical values sought after by successful software developers clash with the user research and creativity focus that UX teams observe. In this second option, a product manager would oversee the hybrid BA/UX teams when developing their stories, independent of the software development team. That way a number of stories for which the BA/UX stage is complete will always be available for the development team. Also, the physical and temporal isolation from the development team will also ensure that development setbacks are not affecting the BA/UX delivery. In order for this work, the UX team has to work as an internal consultancy, working on multiple projects/workstreams. This allows for engaging a variable UX headcount to tackle in-iteration changes and future iteration work, and then allowing the surplus to move to other projects/workstreams when catch-up is achieved. Needless to say, this option doesn't quite work on small projects, but has proven to be very effective on larger enterprise-scale agile implementations containing double-digit UX teams.

Ultimately, both of these options recognize the same concept: mixing user-focused UX designers and delivery-focused developers within the same iteration is a timebomb on IT projects. Separating them without loosing contact, and allowing both to focus on the high-performing (and mutually-exclusive) cultural quirks of their respective teams, will be the success factors in the long run.

Anyone else out there who has successfully implemented one of these two options? Any other view out there that actually works in real life?]]> gadgets xml-rss2.php?itemid=92 Mon, 1 Nov 2010 09:00:00 -0400 User Experience is not Customer Experience. Not Even Close xml-rss2.php?itemid=90
In my opinion, the fact that these discussions are taking place around the same time speaks volumes about the lack of maturity in many of our practitioners' strategic thinking. Don't get me wrong, I think User Experience as a profession has come a long way in the last 10 years or so in terms of methods, process and industry standardization. We have successfully aligned or integrated our process within various software development methodologies, and we have even been promoted to participate in discussions at the big boys table with the business, technology and marketing folks. There are no doubt a few UX professionals acting or in line to act as CEOs, CXOs, CIOs or CTOs, who, through practice and years of experience, have aquired that business acumen needed to become a true leader in the boardroom. But before we even begin talking about user experience professionals setting the tone and creating the overarching strategy for all those non-UX areas, I would venture a guess that there is still a lot we need to learn about what constitutes a successful business, the parameters within which it operates, and last but not least, its terminology. This guerilla movement within the UX community who are trying to replace 'user experience' with 'customer experience' are obviously not aware that the term 'customer experience' has already been coined and it is used frequently in the corporate world to describe a completely differently business concept.

So What Is Customer Experience?

About three years ago, I was asked to prepare a handful of slides for a sales presentation outlining the relationship between customer experience and user experience, and given that I didn't know much about CX at the time, I decided to do some research on the subject. As it turned out, other than in some UX circles, the term 'customer experience' is never used as a synonym of 'user experience'. A quick search on Wikipedia releveals the following: 'customer experience is the sum of all experiences a customer has with a supplier of goods or services, over the duration of their relationship with that supplier. From awareness, discovery, attraction, interaction, purchase, use, cultivation and advocacy'. This definition alone should make it clear that strategically (in a business sense and not in technical sense) user experience is a subset of customer experience. User experience deals with the interaction, use and to some extent attraction, but it certainly doesn't deal with awareness, discovery, purchase, cultivation and advocacy (again, think business process, not interaction design).

Moreover, customer experience concerns itself with perception and reputation, not only in direct digital interaction, but it does so across every channel, as opposed to subset of digital channels as it is the case with user experience. A large corporation normally creates its customer experience strategy first, then it creates channel strategies for each individual channel, and only then is the turn of channel(s) specific user experience strategy (applicable to one or more channels). In other words, the user experience strategy has to support the goals of both customer experience strategy and channel strategy, and not the other way around.

So before thinking you belong in that chief officer (CO) boardroom, and before changing the nomenclature of our discipline, think whether you really know as much about business as you do about UX. Think about how long it took you to learn and polish your UX skills and ask yourself if you've put the same amount of effort into business management. And if you didn't, maybe the more sensible way to approach your big move up the corporate ladder is to not only keep wearing the suit, but also to keep learning new aspects of business strategy and UX strategy every day, and hope that one day (sooner rather than later), thinking about the two will be equally effortless. Then, you'll know you belong.

What do you guys think?]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=90 Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:13:00 -0400 20 Years Later: Not All Usability Heuristics Are Created Equal xml-rss2.php?itemid=88 2010 happens to be the 20th anniversary of Improving a Human-Computer Dialogue, the ACM paper by Jakob Neilsen and Rolf Molich that introduced the concept of employing a list of heuristics when assessing the usability of human-computer interfaces. Four years later, Jakob Nielsen made history again with his famous 1994 heuristics, which are heavily used in usability evaluations even today. In the past decade, additional lists of heuristics related to various aspects of typical UX methodologies have been compiled, yet Nielsen's original list continues to defy the usual laws of longevity that typically constrain the web world. Most likely, this has happened due to the generic nature of the 10 heuristics, which provide largely general statements and consequently, most usability problems can be easily molded to fit the items on Nielsen's list.

Early in my 10 year career as a UX professional, I've used Nielsen's 10 heuristics as the de-facto standard whenever I've performed usability evaluations. As time went by, I gradually went away from Nielsen's original list and I've gradually started employing additional heuristics that are less general and allow to clearly identify modern usability / user experience pitfalls of web-based systems. While the number of heuristics I typically use for an expert heuristics evaluation now stands north of 60 and because I believe that some of them are more relevant than others, I've decided to choose my own top 10 as an homage to Nielsen's timeless original list.

1. Speak the user's language

An important comfort factor for the users of computer systems is the use of labels, content and concepts they are already acquainted to, rather than using system-oriented terms. In many cases, following real-world conventions introduces a familiarity with the interface that immediately make users feel at ease when they begin to use the system. Jakob Nielsen calls this heuristic 'Match between the system and the real world'. I would substitute 'real world' with 'user's world' in that statement.

2. User workflow and taskflow resonance

From an information architecture perspective, an important question to ask is whether the system is following established business workflows (processess involving multiple users) and individual user taskflows. It is common practice that new systems introduce a certain amount of new workflows/taskflows, yet an important question to ask is whether their introduction is warranted or does the application unnecessarily introduce unusual or foreign flows?

3. Recognition rather than recall

Well designed screens strive to minimize the users' memory load. This way, they are not forced to remember information across multiple modules, dialogues or screens. This is particularly important for large scale applications where the backbone contextual information has to be visually carried over from one screen to another in order to preserve the appearance of a cohesive task. This is the lone heuristic I kept unchanged from Nielsen's 1994 list of 10 usability heuristics.

4. Scannability / Management of attention

Rather than reading every word, web users tend to scan the text in order to infer what a particular page is about. As a result, the use of concise headings, lists and short paragraphs make the content more scannable and ensure that the user's attention is not overtaxed. In addition, the consistent grouping of data in meaningful ways also decreases visual search time.

5. Screen elements aligned on a virtual grid

Usability tests have shown that typical users can scan and follow screen elements with ease when they are horizontally and vertically aligned on virtual two-dimensional grids. As we have seen during the past decade, web page layouts as well as form layouts have become increasingly adept at organizing content in this manner using layout columns and rows.

6. Multiple navigation models

The use of multiple navigation models allows various types of users to take different paths to reach their desired destination. Typically, there are three types of navigation models. First, global or primary navigation appears on every page and is constant throughout the application. An example of global navigation are top navigation bars, breadcrumbs and hyperlinked logos. Next, local or secondary navigation appears only on certain application modules or sections and is not always identical from page to page. Left-hand submenus are an example of such local navigation. And last, contextual navigation consists of links, form elements or visuals that appear within the content of pages directing the user towards related or similar modules. Dropdown lists allowing users to jump to a related section are examples of contextual navigation.

7. Progressive disclosure

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique that sequences exposing information or entire tasks either within the same screen or across several screens, in order to avoid overwhelming the user. By progressively disclosing only essential information, the system aids the user in managing the complexity of feature-rich screens or entire applications. Progressive disclosure also follows the typical notion of moving from "abstract to specific" and concerns itself with 'ramping up' the user from simple to more complex actions.

8. Clear differentiation between primary, secondary and tertiary actions

I typically work on large scale web-based enterprise projects and many of the screens I design contain complex forms or form-like tasks. As a result, cleary differentiating between various types of actions becomes paramount to the clarity of the application. Three different levels of actions are typically employed. Primary actions are the main actions that can be taken on a particular page in order to advance to global task flow and are typically rendered using clearly identifyable form buttons. Secondary actions are used stall or backtrack the global task flow, and are rendered in different geographical area of a design, using faded form buttons that are not competing for the users' attention with the primary actions. Tertiary actions, are localized actions and are attached to either individual visual elements or page sections. They are rendered using either text labels or small icons.

9. Clear exit points on every page

Exist points are related to the context of use and are dependent on the stage of the application taskflow a user is in. Clear exit points typically allow users to backtrack, progress or abandon particular workflows and are especially important to new users who are not yet fully adept of orienting themselves within a taskflow. Making this information visually clear to those who scan the contents of a page contributes to the overall end users' confidence when using the system.

10. (Visually) Less is more

It's no surprise that the most effective designs are typically minimalist, and make ample use of white space. In most cases there also seems to be a correlation between simplicity and clarity. Designers should avoid employing too many visual modules on one particular screen, as these modules will end up competing for the users' attention. Established typography and using a low number of screen fonts also contributes to the overall clarity of a particular design.

What do you guys think? Are Neilsen's heuristics still fully relevant or do they need to evolve along with the complexity of today's human-computer interactions?

nb. The 'Viva Jakob' illustration is property of Experience Dynamics. ]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=88 Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:12:00 -0400 Should Intrapreneurship Be Recognized Within the Government? xml-rss2.php?itemid=85
Governmental bureaucratic structures typically enforce compliance with rules and procedures and can kill new ideas because innovation often requires challenging the status quo or questioning long-held assumptions that may have worked well in the past. Furthermore, cultivating innovation is an evolutionary process and cannot be done overnight. Trial and error, experimentation without taking on undue risk, and adaptation to change should be concepts in the arsenal of every PS employee especially given the government's newly adopted PS renewal mantra. In this day and age, intrapreneurship seems to be the only cost-effective way governments can quickly replicate successful internal and external innovations, by adapting them to local contexts instead of always trying to reinvent the wheel.

Has It Been Done Before?

Intrapreneurship within the government is also not a new concept. Separate innovation units that are kept close to mainstream activities but away from line organizations have always allowed for relatively low-risk experimentation. As an example, New York's Center for Technology in Government (CTG), allows state and federal government agencies as well as academia to experiment with technology-based products and processes before making large-scale investments. Don't you wish we had something like that in Ottawa? The GoC is now focusing on 'internal consulting' breaking away from the expensive financial models associated with hiring external firms. And while this move comes with significant cost savings, this also inhibits innovation as the same government employees are taking on similar projects and therefore will eventually align themselves with the ideas and technologies they are most familiar with.

Innovation Roadmap

A few years ago, the Government of Canada introduced a rewards program for employees who bring up feasible cost cutting ideas (nb. many thanks to @SteveBuell who clarified the timeline for the PS award for me). But the prototypical process of innovation contains four distinct phases: idea generation, selection, conversion and diffusion. Just like it is the case with most governments, the GoC rewards program only addresses the first phase of the innovation process: idea generation. To become adept at fostering an innovative community, the GoC should create a clear (and if possible public) roadmap for converting ideas from intrapreneurs into effective solutions that have a chance to earn the support of internal (and possibly external) stakehoders.

Going Forward

As it standands, the GoC has no shortage of intrapreneurs. As I mentioned in previous posts, the User Experience Working Group (#uxwg, @uxgc) is a semi-formal gathering of UX-related professionals who are trying to innovate when it comes to public sector user experience matters. They are the idea generators, selectors, converters and diffusers of UX ideas within the Public Service. But when it comes to the whole of the government, they are just one of the small factions who don't have the ability to follow a formal internal innovation process. Rather than adopting a modus operandi of "it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission" basis (as the #w2p folks have been doing for the past little while), isn't it time for intrapreneurship to be recognized and formalized as a process withing GoC? ]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=85 Mon, 9 Aug 2010 13:34:00 -0400 Six Ways to Improve the User Experience of Hotel Rooms xml-rss2.php?itemid=82 Spending years living out of a suitcase also meant that every other week, or in some cases every other night, I would sleep in a different hotel room. At the advice of a fellow UX professional, I've decided to write this post about my thoughts on the user experience of these rooms. I'm not an interior designer, so I know nothing about building codes and I will make no reference to Feng Shui. This post is about the business traveller and the little things that can be done to make the hotel stay experience much more enjoyable for people like me.

I typically flew out every week on Monday morning, went straight to work after I landed, put in an full day's work, and then finally made my way exhausted to the hotel. This means that by the time I was about to check it, it was nighttime about 99% of the time. I arrived in front of my hotel room door, keycard in one hand, luggage roller in the other. One of the most frustratings moments when checking into a room is not being able to immediately find the light swich beside the entrance door. I'm not picky in terms of which way the door opens, as long as on the inside of the wall, beside the lock, I can feel the light switch in the dark right away. Having the switch on the opposite side (which means I have to get my luggage inside, close the door, and then keep searching in the dark, is not an option. Neither are multiple light switches unintuitively budled somewhere inside the room, an even worse as it forces me to prop the door open with my luggage so I can find a light switch, any light switch, that I can turn on in order to orient myself through furniture maze of a room layout that I am not yet familiar with.Some hotels made it easier by having the light on in the entrance hallway. That worked for my exhausted state of mind but didn't sit very well with my energy conscious doppelganger who always wondered how hotel managers justify paying for hours electricity consumption when no one is inhabiting the rooms. If the light swiches are not easy to find, why not have the door automatically turn on the light when the room door opens? You can do this by installing a door contact switch or a motion detector inside that activates for a few seconds once the door is opened. Think about it, I was typically exhausted, and by that point really lazy as well, but that was it. Can you imagine an elderly person who doesn't see well to begin with, scrambling in the dark for a light switch? All it takes just a little bit of common sense.

Electrical Outlets

Most of the time I felt like a hotel room Jacques Cousteau, diving under the bed and under the desk digging for free electrical outlets (and not always finding enough). One of the first things I wanted to do when I settled in was to turn on my laptop, charge my phone, camera batteries, etc. I'm a world traveller so I have a few devices following me around these days. I don't mind having to bend down and use visible electrical outlets on the empty walls. But I do mind having to move my bed so I can use the laptop in bed. Having one single extra outlet on the base of the desk lamp is a good start, but there are a couple of problems with it. Most times, the desk is too far from the bed (what can I say, having Platinum status meant room upgrades to suites more often than not), and if there is also only one, it means that I cannot charge the phone or my camera batteries while my laptop is one (and it's on pretty much all the time). A simple solution is to expose at least a double swith on an empty wall right beside the bed. Another would be to have all of the lamps (including the bed lamps) sporting outlets on the base. Or even simpler, buy a long enough extension outlet with multiple plugs in each room and don't hide it from plain sight. It may not be the most aesthetically pleasing option, but it will make life easier for a lot of people.

The Mini-Safe

I typically travel with a fairly large digital SLR camera. I also have a 14 inch laptop. In most cases, the safe at the hotel was big enough to hold one, but not both of those items. Luckily, nothing was ever stolen from my room (knock on wood), but if you are going to provide your guests with the comfort of being able to lock your valuables, make sure it is big enough to hold some travel essentials. About half of the safes I've used were created in such a way that my laptop would just fit in in terms of length and width, but it would not fit height of the camera at the same time. Or it would fit the camera height, but then there would be no space for the laptop. Do some research, and make sure that a typical laptop (my guess would be up to 15') and a big camera can fit in at the same time. Or are hotel chains anticipating that all business travelers will have iPads in the near future?

Let There Be Darkness

The fourth item is dealing with the overuse of technology. Some of the new hotels have these new halogen type digital clocks that are brighter than the sun. It's good to be able to tell the time in the dark, but when the clock is bright enough to read a book, I'm switching it off. I have a cellphone and luckily I can set my alarm on it. Funny how hotels go to the extremes to make sure that the blinds/curtains can keep the room completely dark, yet they have dumb digital halogen clocks that don't adapt to ambient light and therefore render the blinds useless.

Space, The Final Frontier

Then, there is the minifridge/minibar. I am all for trying to sell overpriced beverages in the room, and I even have no problem with the constant humming of the minifridge (well, I have occasionally been known to unplug them if they were too loud for my liking). But why not leave a couple of empty slots in the fridge so I can put my yogourt or half of my Subway sandwich in there? Don't make me problem solve when I really don't have to. I normally just take out of the fridge whatever beverages are in the slots I want to use and put them back later. But I'm not sure the next guests appreciate overpriced stale beer. You can't tell me that every single item in those overstuffed minifridges are best sellers and you cannot part with a couple of slots the size of yogurt containers...

Readable Labelling

Another little experience problem is using small identical soap, shampoo and shower gel containers with minuscule font sizes that describe the type of product. I have better than 20/20 vision, but it's still annoying to have to handle a container, read about its contents and put it back, when in most cases having different containers or a large font would make me save those extra seconds it takes to decide if I am using the right bathroom product.

What are your thoughts on this? Any annoying user experience features you've encountered in hotel rooms? And I don't mean noise levels from the neighbours, malfunctioning remotes etc., I mean things that have been designed in a manner that is counterproductive to hotel room guests who don't want their experience turn into a problem-solving endeavour.]]> user experience xml-rss2.php?itemid=82 Sun, 30 May 2010 14:39:00 -0400 Case Studies: The Only Way to Promote Web 2.0 / Social Media in the Public Sector xml-rss2.php?itemid=80 PS must embrace Web 2.0 tools citing Clerk of the Privy Council Wayne Wouters’ call for "collaboration, innovation and better use of technology" in the Canadian Public Sector. If anyone bothered to read the (mostly negative) comments of the story, they would realize that such ‘call to arms’ articles simply do not resonate with the Canadian public, especially in difficult economic times for those currently underemployed or unemployed in the private sector.

Is His Clerkiness (my term of endearment for all things Wayne Wouters) right? The answer is 'Absolutely!' (although based on his usage pattern of social media tools to this point my own evaluation would be that His Clerkiness himself still doesn’t have a clue as to what to do and how to engage, but hopefully he’s learning and that is commendable in its own right). But when it comes to the public, I think they are sick of impersonal press releases and newspaper articles that do not bother to do any research or provide relateable information. This type of article and press release may work internally because someone who is essentially the CEO of Federal Government employees pushes down a communication piece to his team, but at the end of the day, this only means a waste of printing paper when it comes to the public at large. I would make the argument that the public would likely respond much more positively to case studies or examples of how web 2.0 and social media tools used within the public sector are directly or indirectly improving the lives of public servants and citizens.

As a private person, I use social media tools (almost) daily. It makes sense for me to do so, mainly from a networking and research point of view. The internet is a huge repository of valuable information and I need social media users to point out the more popular resources that I may be interested in. I also am able to connect with thought leaders in my domain without having to fly to San Francisco, New York and LA and introduce myself during a professional conference. Social media saves me time and money, and it helps expanding my professional network.

My Own Example

And if you’re wondering why this is relevant to the public, I’ll give you my own example of how a public sector organization’s use of social media tools helped me make an educated decision and helped me save time. The Ottawa Public Heath agency has a Twitter account (@ottawahealth) that continually broadcasted the locations and wait times of the H1N1 immunization clinics during the winter season. Because I live close to City Hall, the location of one of the immunization clinics, I was able to show up and get my H1N1 flu shot at a time when there was almost no line, and I was in and out of there in less than 20 minutes. I know some of my friends have waited in lines for more than 2 hrs for the same thing when they just showed up. To me, the fact that Ottawa Public Health used real-time Twitter messaging was definitely a real timesaver. And I suppose there are many more people who can attest to that. This example has direct public implications, but I am sure there are many more (internal or external) public sector examples that may have indirect implications to those outside the firewalls of public institutions.

Consider Your Audience

Rather than telling or implying to the uneducated public that the PS will be using Facebook (for non-specified reasons) at work (which rendered so many Ottawa Citizen readers irate) give us some your own personal examples of how you’re using web 2.0 and social media tools internally for the benefits of your fellow employees or Canadian citizens, and maybe then people will lend their support to this whole technological renewal of the public sector and its potential cost implications.

We all know that the PS already has a huge perception problem related to productivity, staffing and execution, and social media tools may improve at least some of those facets (even though I know this mostly applies to the younger generation of public servants that are curious enough to figure out what Web 2.0 and social media tools can do for them).

Am I wrong to think case studies and examples are a better way of promoting this process as opposed to press releases and glorified newspaper articles? Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts on this.]]> community xml-rss2.php?itemid=80 Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:01:00 -0400