Kelleher

"The business of business is people" attributed by Gary Kelly, Southwest, Spirit, SWA magazine July 2008

Time Is

The 'optimist falacy'

All UI project plans must include time to think. Typically one finds that cushions for review, reconsideration revisions

Review-Revise-
Digestion problems

Chapter w cont 1

It is not that joshua was the kind of person who falls asleep during his daily commuten the opposite is more typical of him. But he had a rough month, and had real trouble sleeping at night as a reocurring dreams would wake him up at one forty four am and he was unable to get back to sleep. The two dreams were very different yet both would wake him sweatting, catching his breath and aching because they never had an end. A smell of old socks lingered in his nosetrills, and he would getb up, pee, stand a few minutes deliberating weather to go back to bed to try to read a book that will put him to sleep. After a few week of this he was so exhoused that he longed to go to bed the moment he eventually got off the bed when his blackberry bipped six twenty..

Chapter w

It all started by accident one winter morning when Joshua Bernamov overslept and was more then three hours late to work, which meant he missed his much unticipated randewouz with Shilla Moskowitch in the supply closet. He stepped into what he thought was the Eight Forty Four to Downers Green, and almost immideatly fell asleep and ended up long minutes later in Belmont Grove with no cash to purchase the return ticket.

Direct Manipulation

I once observed an elderly woman trying to use a computer. We were in a public library and she was standing in front of the computer, lifted the mouse in the air, aimed at the screen and clicked it like a TV remote.
I am still shaken by this image, but over the year came to this of this as a positive example of how we try to transfer knowledge from a familiar domain to a new domain, when aparent clues suggest this can be useful.
The woman became furstrated and embarrased since she realized a few teens who were very entertained by her ignorance.

Analogies

So, I am always looking for new analogies to describe use experience architecture.

It helps me in conversations with my kids, who probably prefer I had a more common occupation, say a teacher or policeman...

Watching the hillarious TopGear got me to hunt for analogies in car design. Like the ui team,, the car design team must work with the engeneers, accomodate the hardware (engine, anyone?), drop 4 wheels,a steering wheels, dashboard,, seats...
And as we know, the possible variations of make and model are amazing. Much like variations resulting from organizing ui widgets on a screen.

Similarly, we design not only for the ultimate user - the driver, but also for the manufacturor.

SWA 1849

Using a simulation tool to document and present heuristic evaluations

Draft

1. Why bother?
Because this is expenssive to us, especially for consultants: very time consuming, detailed, and with RIA's increacingly complex to tell a good compellng story.

Heuristics are changing. (Which is a nother story all together).

Ability to seperate the tree from the forest, prioratize and consider recommandations.

I used Filemaker as a database to store screen level comments, and there was some ability to create simple interaction flows and document navigation and workflow issues

But with RIA's it does not scale.

Using Word or other word processing tools is also a possibility, but, Word does not handle such ducuments gracefully and you. can loose valuable time on fixing formmating issues.

A presentation tool such as Power point may be another option but is does not handle tabular data very well, nor extended details

So, in looking to increace the value of the excerise - why are we conducting this, what are the expectations, how can we provide most value and finally - reduce the pain and yes, increace profitability of the chore - one option for those who are using a simulation too
Create sets of annotations and fields (show screen)

What heuristics to capture? Glossary I sometimes find a need to respond to the particularities of the application and modify the heuristics I'm covering because they a more relevant to the work.

Making such changes can be fairly simple

2 Creating the file
Take screen captures useing Snagit or similar. naming convention - effort to maintain the flow - example here

Importing to axure

Liinking. - when this is done, we end up with a simulation of the the screens -- as they were at the time of evaluation
(In some fast paced organization the ui may change while you are still laboring on the report.)

Timeout

So, what to do when an operation times out? Your past experience warened you that this will happen, but we keep starring at the hourglass, hioping. Hope will fuel the next few attempts to try again, until reality kick-in.
Sometimes, however, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is not a train....got to go now...tbc

Test 2

Here too, I'm adding some comments on my desktop after sending another test intended to confirm that the entry is posted to the blog after I made some modifications to the url, name and so on. Perfect, and a good example for a user experience that minimizes frustration.

Test blog

The initial test was composed on the phone, and I am typing this on my desktop computer. I was able to post blog entries to my non mobile blog since I got my Curve few months ago, but the process was slow and tedious - by the time I got to actually type anything, I forgot what I had to say...

Sending sending an MMS directly to the blog is a significant usability improvement which has been probably around for quite some time and I was not aware of it, which leads to an interesting question about knowledge, context and usability.

For someone, somewhere in the world, the obvious is a discovery.