Users - a mini field guide

Hi there

Here are some examples of recent usability test participants from various projects I've been working on lately– a handy reference ( so close to parody, I wish sometimes it was)

Match to your project and design accordingly!

• (Down to) business user: gimmie content NOW! or I kill you and go somewhere else. Hurry up dammit, I’m eating a small company for lunch .. do it!!! Coffeeeee!!!!! Keep up sweater monkey! I had a coronary and did spreadsheets from ICU!!!! Coffeeee!!!!

• Urbis/Wired reader: I’m webnorati! I gambol happily/glide coolly through your flash goodness and oo and ah at the cleverness and blog about it, I’m the zeitgeist. I could do this.

• Student – Whatever. I used a PC since 3 years old , 'scuse me whilst I weep over my laptop and iphone.. emo

• Mum/Mom and dad – Honey what’s this? how do I buy this satchel over the flying sneakers and rock solo..later can you show me how do I set timer record on this VCR/TIVO thing?

• The personal assistant – I’ve got tennis later, just give me what I want , yeah its pretty but I’m trying to get my banking done and go to lunch. Thanks !

• Tradie/small business person – mate, I may own a business and know my stuff, but I just bank and surf the web for ordering parts. If it’s not a link or button, I can’t see it

dude gets flamed for dissing Information Architecture

A dude on grogkdotcom.com gets flamed/pilloiried by the information architecture (IA) community. IA, a part of website design is far more than a library cataloging exercise this guy finds out.. A case of 'go back to school fool' !

read more | digg story

Interaction design

One participant in recent testing said to me despairingly, ' Why can't designers and developers make things for us and not them selves?. I kid you not and I was humbled as this query was from an everyday, honest person.

Some visual designers want to also define the user experience including interaction but may not have all the learnings from analysis of the work and users traversing the website.

You get an experience that whilst looks great, works against the users expectations or abilities.
Who does 'interaction' design around a web shop can be fraught with politics and a need for by some one to own and control of the experience. The only real loser from this is the end user.

This definition from IXDA is what i think should be held up in web shops and considered earlier in project rather than at visual design stage (duh) or get your visual designers trained in egolessness.

"The success of products in the marketplace depends on the design of high-quality, engaging interactive experiences. Good interaction design:

effectively communicates a system's interactivity and functionality

defines behaviors that communicate a system's responses to user interactions

reveals both simple and complex workflows

informs users about system state changes

prevents user error

While interaction designers often work closely with specialists in visual design, information architecture, industrial design, user research, or usability, and may even provide some of these services themselves, their primary focus is on defining interactivity."

Reading that, I felt better, its not me this time around lol, I have defined interaction in other roles and worked successfully with designers on getting a website user experience up with out cutting into their work or sandbox.

Use cases, wire frames or core interaction all are design agnostic. If you are faced with an on going argument about forms, functions and their design to the nth degree, people are missing the point and you need to clarify roles or get designers better trained.

Sigh i get tired of wearing the 'I told you so' t-shirt time and time again :), but get heartned when I meet with participants like the one I mentioned above . Interaction design can be done agnostically of design, ask me how!

Everyday things - Melbourne

I was in Melbourne for a break. How I miss it. Out shopping i had to snap this signage..

Which door one might ask?

Do I turn left now or outside the glass door...

Ah semantics