“Make sure every click makes the user more confident”

Jared M Spool in Disambiguity conference

Last 12 Months: Show me latest pictures first!

I only sync pictures from the ‘Last 12 Months’ folder to my iDevices. Xtremely annoying: when you want to see the very latest pictures, you got to drag/scroll thousands of pictures (the harvest of a year). Can we please get a reverse sort order button?

The fragrance wheel (Michael Edwards)

From complex to simple via feasible

Found this semi-graphic in my OSX dictionary. A mandala for UX designer?

Londres

Everything appeared to be THE ultimate cross-media user experience: finding a flight, booking it, and receiving boarding pass automatically by email one day ahead of departure. Very well done, Air France.

From where was I flying again? Gatwick? Stansted and Luton most probably not. Heathrow more likely. Then, what terminal in Heathrow? It won’t be 5, but is it 1 or 2 or 4? Terminal 4 makes a huge difference, add another 20 minutes to your journey … Well, the email doesn’t tell me. And the boarding pass attached to my email?

‘Londres’.

Can it have more style?

Gack test

“Years ago, we used to include a ‘gack’ test” in UAT, i.e., to find out if the program would crash if the user pressed multiple keys on the keyboard at the same time. “Gack” comes from the sound made when someone falls face first on a keyboard.”

From a discussion about UAT

Explicit signs

I’ve always advocated explicit labels and signs. Why not speak out what you want to communicate? Like the signs in the newly refurbished changing rooms in Brixton Recreation Centre. This is what I consider to be clear directions.

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Libs preparing for Government

Liberal leader Nick Clegg responding to the fact that his PR adviser has left briefing documents for the first election TV debate on the back of a taxi:

“I’m glad to see my top team is preparing for government by developing the habit of leaving secret dossiers in the back of cabs.”

Quote from The Guardian

Jonathan Ive: Apple design strategy > no focus groups

So how did the company decide what customers wanted – surely by using focus groups? “We don’t do focus groups,” he (Jonathan Ive) said firmly, explaining that they resulted in bland products designed not to offend anyone.

Christopher Frayling reminded us at that point of Henry Ford’s line about what his customers would have demanded if asked – “a faster horse” – and it’s surely true that the point of innovative companies is to come up with products that customers don’t yet know they need.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/07/listening_to_mr_iphone.html

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