User Centered Design

Gone are the days where one analyzed requirements keeping only the business in mind. Today, apart from the business perspective, one also needs to analyze the end user who would be using the system.

User-centered design (UCD) is a kind of approach that puts the intended users of an application/website at the center of its design and development. It sounds very simple to consider users while analyzing, however it is important that UCD approach involves talking directly to the user at key points during analyzing the project to make sure the application/website will deliver upon their requirements.

UCD is carried out with gathering the requirements - where you understand the context of use, requirements specification - where you specify the users and organizational requirements, Design prototypes and finally evaluate them by doing a user-based assessment.

UCD typically is carried out in a iterative fashion, with each cycle being repeated until the project's usability objectives have been achieved. Therefore making it critical that the participants in these methods accurately reflect the profile of your actual users.

There are various methods to carry out UCD which can be Statistical or Non-Statistical; to name a few common methods:

Focus Groups

Usability Testing

Card Sort

Questionnaires

Interview

I will talk about a few of these techniques in details in my following posts!

Is User Experience crucial part of SEO?

There has been a lot of discussion going on whether UX or User eXperience is a crucial part of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
If we consider the definition behind these two terms (Wiki):

User eXperience design, most often abbreviated UX, but sometimes UE, is a term used to describe the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, it's delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

So after the definitions why would one consider User Experience even part of SEO? Lets consider a simple example here about 404 Pages!

404 Pages have been the nemesis of internet users and are probably one of the most overlooked aspects of a website. Personally, it is annoying arriving at a website and being served a page stating, "Page not Found". So the User eXperience is awful and for any SEO a 404 page is a nightmare, since a typical 404 error page has a high likelihood of driving your visitors away. Well the good news is that there is a solution that will improve the user experience and will ensure that your visitors stay on your site. A custom 404 page can do that trick.

Alternatives - Visitors are obviously looking for something on your website before they stumbled upon an error. Give alternatives on the custom 404 page.
I am sure you can figure out alternatives for your website.

There is absolutely no reason to label your page "404 Error". The only thing the users know about a 404 error is nothing nor do they care. Its a technical jargon, and don't use it to scare away your visitors.
Google is intelligent and so are other web crawlers - A missing page (404 error) is obviously going to get your page rankings down.

Some Interesting and creative collection of Error 404 Pages!

Tagging Nicky - Thanks for suggesting the topic!

Emotion Design

Emotions are one of the strongest differentiators in user experience today. The only reason because it triggers unconscious responses to a product, website, environment or interface. Reminds me of the book that I am reading "blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, in which he explores the power of the trained mind to make split second decisions, of course in the unconscious state. Our feelings strongly influence our perceptions and often makes us frame how we think about or refer to our experiences at a later date.

The only thing that comes to my mind when I think about Emotion Design and Usability is "keeping the user happy". This would typically include minimizing common emotions which can be related to poor usability such as frustration, annoyance, anger and confusion.

While considering emotions for design it becomes very important to consider what emotions are you designing for? Emotions vary from a typical web application to a software application to a product or device.

Emotions is definitely NOT a factor in defining a successful User Experience, however it did help iPhone and iPod to make a mark on the Experience.

As Golman and Jordan says "Emotion plays a powerful role in our lives and has gained significant attention as a priority area of study in interaction design".

The field of Human Computer Interaction had distanced usability from emotions. This is reflected by the field of Cognitive Science which, until recently, studied emotions as a separate, distinct facet of human cognition. As Ratner quotes, emotions and thinking seem so different, that we classify them as different kinds of phenomena.

People practicing UX, have probably trained yourself to focus on the critical, functional flaws or a design while not considering the role of emotion. After all, usability is about functional aspects of design! Does it work?, Is it easy to use?, Is it easy to understand?, Is it intuitive? is what we would consider.

Jakob Nielsen on very rare occasions combines aesthetic value of design. However, his business partner Donald Norman is more balanced in terms of recognizing importance of emotional factors in design. Refer to his article Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better

Separating emotion from cognitive functions does not seem helpful from a research or design perspective. Create designs with the wow factor and make your customers look cool (social factor). Emotion design is important because, after all, you make decision based on feelings, perceptions, values and reflections that usual come form your unconscious mind.
Note: Every one can't think like Jakob Nielson!

Tagging Nicky - Thanks for the presentation ;)!

GMail's new Filter option

Some time back I posted a post "Playing with Labels"

GMail now has a new filter that allows you to create a filter by selecting an email and creating a filter for it.



GMail's new filter option saves me 3 clicks!

Chrome - Ctrl + B

I have been using chrome regularly now for a very long time and have been happy with it without the annoying toolbars and a lot of real estate to view my web pages.

Well one thing that really irritates me is the Ctrl + B shortcut key. Every time I am using Blogger.com, Gmail; the shortcut key for bold just wont work. Ctrl + B opens up the Bookmarks... Annoying!!!

Design or Usability?

What attracts users to a website? Is this the thrill of experiencing something new or a journey to an unconquered territory? Does this experience account usability? According to Wikipedia usability means "the goal of user interface design is to make the users interaction experience as simple as intuitive e as possible". Does graphics help or is it better to enhance usability?

A recent survey by Forrester for the Best and Worst of Site Design cut across industries to measure customer experience on the web. Of the 20 individual firms evaluated, an amazing 19 failed! The overall user experience scores ranged from fair to poor. The best sites barely touched passable customer satisfaction levels.

Does aesthetic appeal work?
If interfaces are sore points in most usability issue, does it mean we stick to a strictly plain and purely usable site?

Well not necessary! Good aesthetics helps in creating first impression. The visual appeal of a site inevitably lures users; however an appealing interface that is not usable loses its charm and cannot sustain interest.

Following some usability rules would help creating that first impression.
Have a Theme
It is important to identify and implementing an appropriate theme into your website. This helps creating a positive, responsive and receptive state of mind in the user.

Color Scheme
colors should allows you to give a message you wish to communicate to the users. Demography and sites objectives help defining the color scheme.

Target User
Helps you know the users "technical comfort level"

Goal
Identify your goals and make sure you never loose track of it.

Intuitive
It is important to have an educated customer at the end of his/her website experience.

Ensure ease of Navigation
Provide Instant Feedback
Every action should give a response.

All the above usability rules would come with some obstacles. Most of them are because they are not well thought over interface designs.

Heavy Pages - thanks to "extraordinary" graphics designs
Navigational ambiguity - users don't want to solve a maze
Overwhelming interfaces - keep the pages to the point.
Lack of focus - keep your goals in mind and don’t lose track of it

Whatever be the motive on which the site was conceptualized, a visitor to your site is a potential investor of time, money or both.

Breadcrumbs - Invisible but very Useful!

Breadcrumbs have evolved over the years and come a long way until today its almost invisible to people.

Breadcrumbs were initially used to show the user where he/she was in the website hierarchy and provided a way to get back. An easy way to learn the website and make navigation more efficient.

Websites got even more intelligent and made breadcrumbs even more usable.

MSDN made id easier for the user not just to go back in the trail but to jump to any other related section of the trail.


IDEO made it more prominent and used it more as their top navigation!

Visit their site here

Bell has done wonders with their Breadcrumbs. The used it as their top Navigation

Visit the site here

Research shows that users tend NOT to use breadcrumbs at all, even if they are in the user's area of vision. *sigh

Breadcrumbs increase efficiency!!! It's only going to take creativity to make them usable once again.