Powzot

A blog about anything my little heart desires

Is your usability accessible?

The Americans with Disabilities Act turned 20 years old yesterday, and that fact (thanks NPR!) got me thinking about accessibility in designs. 

An Accessible After Thought
My experience as a designer has taught me that accessibility issues don't factor into a lot of UI design decisions (primarily because either the designer doesn't think about them, or someone controlling the money says it's too expensive), or if they do it's after the design is finished and someone talked to a company lawyer. Accessibility is part of a truly user friendly design, and these considerations are just as important as any considerations about wayfinding, visual flow, hot spots, etc that you work though in your initial wire frames, even if what you're designing doesn't have to comply with the ADA.

Design for the Universe, then they can be your user too
I was just recently turned on to the idea of "Universal Design." It's not so much a new idea to me as the fact that it had a name was new to me. I love it as a theory. So often we think of things as well designed because they're beautiful, and that's definitely part of it. But beauty is worthless if you can't use the thing. And think about the commercial impacts of creating accessible products that are functional AND beautiful. How many more could you sell? 

Twenty years after the passage of the ADA, we need to make sure that we as designers (whatever your particular flavor of design happens to be) aren't taking the strides we've made in the last 20 years for granted. Accessibility needs to be at the top of the design considerations list for everything for a design to be truly successful, and for us to keep pushing the limits of good design.  

The User Friendly Brand

I'll let you in on a little secret (that's actually not a secret at all if you've ever talked to me in real life), I love branding. I love brands. They are, when built and grown correctly, at the exact center of my interests in marketing, communications, design and psychology. So, when I saw that Old Spice was doing this week on the web, I fell in love. 

Taking youTube by storm
This week's rocket-like rise to the top of the most viewed lists on youTube was just the latest part of this increasingly strong brand surfacing. If you missed it, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like character from the very popular 2010 Super Bowl spot took questions from the internet at large and made over 100 personalized responses on youTube. You can see all of them at the Old Spice youTube channel, or on the @oldspice twitter account. It's really an amazing thing, and it took the net by storm. I suspect that if it hadn't been a sponsored topic on twitter, it would have started trending on itself. Questions, comments, jokes and parody videos rolled in from across the web. People were interacting with a brand, and helping it grow organically in a way we haven't seen before.

Why it worked
The formula is really a simple one, but it's hard to pull off. They made a great character who was approachable, fun and an ambassador for the brand who wasn't selling all the time. The Man Your Man Could Smell Like was a character that could actually interact with the audience, and was well thought out and developed enough that he could exist outside the confines of a thirty or sixty second spot. After they had this great character, they told some really compelling stories about the product through this guy (goofy as they were), and then they let us meet him, by asking him questions. This last part is where the brand became more user friendly than any of the other big brands people talk about whenever branding comes up: Apple, Target, Coca-cola, et al. It wasn't just about selling Old Spice anymore, although they managed to mention the product quite a bit, it was about creating a positive user experience with the brand. An experience that was personal, and the next time these participants see an Old Spice product, any of them, they'll remember.  

How is this a "user friendly" brand?
It's a real question that a lot of brands need to ask themselves. When we look at the big name brands like Apple or Target, they're still one way, you need to buy this thing because you'll be cool like us brands. They work and they work well, for now. Old Spice took a step beyond that in the last two days, when they let people into the brand, and let their interactions shape it and the history of The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.

Imagine if Apple let people participate in this free and open way? Or Target. Or anyone. The advertising wouldn't be a burden, something people want to skip past with the DVR or block with an add-on to their web browser. Even this small interaction, letting the user help shape the experience just once, will likely make them more accepting of future adverts and marketing, even if they aren't as directly involved. If we define "user friendly" as anything that makes the users experience pleasant or enjoyable, then Old Spice has set the bar for brand usability. I'm sure we'll see the imitators flooding the web in the next few months, the real question will be if their attempts to copy this effort will lead to something as user friendly, or if it will just be more noise to be ignored. 

A quick fix to the iPhone notification system

Before I jump in, yes I realize this is my 4th or 5th post and it's the second one about the damn iPhone. Well, this is mostly because I own an iPhone, and as it's my only phone I use it a lot during the day and I think about ways to fix the annoyances that ultimately come up with it. I have a feeling if I had any other smartphone, I'd be writing similarly about it. Or to put it another way, no I'm not an Apple fan boy.

My biggest complaint: the iPhone notification system

This isn't a unique complain about the phone, but it is a big one and one that is easy to fix (or at least I think it is) without having to totally rework Apple's current design thinking. Before I get any nearer a solution, let's review the model I'm complaining about. 

The iPhone offers notifications via one, all interrupting modal (aka popup) window.  It doesn't matter what kind of notification it is or what application on the phone it's coming from. As the iPhone is essentially a unitasker (this has been discussed many other places, I'll come back and add links soon), this doesn't really feel out of place. Each window contains only one message, and to clear them you have to view them linearly, one at a time. It also interrupts everything else that's going on, unless it's a phone call. It's not great, but Cupertino thinks this is "the best" way to do it, and to some extent they're right. Here's why. 

The iPhone, at it's core, is a phone. I know, shocking, it's only 5/6 of the products name, but don't feel bad about missing that, almost everyone has. Is it a mobile computing platform? Yes. Is it a media player? Yes. A portable gaming device? Yes. Is it an internet access point? Yes. You know what else does all those things? the iPod touch and the iPad. That functionality is what all the iOS devices share, but the thing that makes the iPhone different is the phone part. Without it, it's just an iPod touch (literally, remove the radios and it's the same damn thing.)

So, keeping the phone in mind what do you expect your phone to do? It's only job really is to ring when someone calls and then let the magic of telephone communications take place (in this case it has to do with radio waves, but that part of it isn't important.) In fact when it doesn't do that people get mad. If you don't believe me ask someone who spends any time in Manhattan and has an iPhone. But there are times when you don't want it to ring. When you don't want to see SMS messages, foursquare notifications, twitter notifications, or any other push notifications. There are times when you want to put the phone part of the phone on hold. 

Apple was very smart here, because instead of their usual line of "we know best" they decided that the iPhone wouldn't be smart enough to decide when you didn't want your incoming communications front and center. This makes sense, your game of Plants vs Zombies isn't more important than a call from a family member most of the time. The phone simply just didn't have a way to prioritize it's core function, being a communications device, against everything else it can do. What they failed to do, as they have all across iOS, is let the user tell the iPhone what she wants. 

The Solution: "iPhone, hold my calls." 

Just like in the low tech days, when you didn't want to be bothered by the phone you simple made it not ring. This could mean something as simple as telling your assistant to hold you calls (if you're one of those lucky people with an assistant) or it could be as drastic as unplugging the phone from the wall. But you can't unplug you iPhone from the wall. Sure, you can put it in airplane mode, but what if you want to use the GPS? What if you still want the phone to ring, but you don't want all those popup notifications? What if you only want push notifications but not calls or SMS? Enter, Do not Disturb. 

Add a new panel to the system settings, or a new app, to manage these Do not Disturb states. The light switch style on/off toggles are already a familiar element in the iOS UI. Lets just add 3 more that, when turned on hold your calls/sms/push. "Holding your calls" in this instance would really mean: sending phone calls straight to voicemail (a function that already exists in the OS and is mapped to the hardware lock button), and supressing the popup windows. This would solve the "oh man, I just got a text and it killed ______!" and it would do it in a way that doesn't totally alter the way Apple had envisioned the iPhone.   

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see an Android or webOS style notification system come to the iPhone, but I'm not holding my breath. In it's 4th major revision, iOS still doesn't even really support multitasking. The Do not Disturb model might serve as a nice compromise, at least until iOS9. 

It's all about sharing awesomeness today

I wrote a ton about ice cream cones on Monday, and I've been pretty busy the last two days, but I came across this video and it's FANTASTIC. Making cool stuff like this is why I became a designer (no, sadly I wasn't involved at all in this project, it was done by Vitamins Design in London) in the first place, now I just need to find someone who will pay me to make them cool stuff like this. Great UX and beautiful graphic design. Wonder why Apple isn't doing their manual like this?

Holiday Edition

It's a holiday weekend, and despite having so far written only about things I thought were doing UX wrong, I thought I'd take the theme of the holiday for me and dissect the UX of one of my favorite things about summer time, the ice cream cone. Yes, in the spirit of the three day weekend, and totally goofing off (and lack of any other ideas of what to write about) I'm going to attempt to write a UX blog about ice cream cones. Join me, won't you?

The ice cream cone may very well be the most single efficient food cointainer/untensile ever invented. It's environmentally friendly, because when you're finished with it you eat it, it's so simple even untrained children can use it, while there are a few variations on the cone, the basic form and function of the ice cream cone are the same across the cone spectrum. In my fairly extensive experience, there are three basic types of cones to be found at most ice cream stands/stores/bars/eateries: The flat bottom "cake cone, the cone shaped sugar cone and the bigger cone shapes waffle cone. The waffle cone is my personal favorite because of it's larger ice cream carrying capacity, but all three have their merits when it comes to their designs. 

The original, the sugar cone:

I don't actually know if it's "the original", as I have done no research for this piece, but in my mind this would be the place to start. It's the most simple of the cone designs. Sugarly dough, bakes into a conical shape. Nothing fancy, it's just there to do it's job, hold on to your ice cream momentarily, and then be delicious after. There are a few downsides to this elegantly simple design though. It's prone to leaking, usually because there is a small hole in the bottom. They also tend to be rather small, so they have to hold most of their ice cream on top, which makes double and triple scoops more spill prone. Overall the sugar cone does it's job well, and as long as you're not eating a tower of ice cream or planning on take longer than 10 or 15 mins to eat, the sugar cone is all you need. 

The high-tech cake cone:

The cake cone takes the cone design and does it one better. Not technicaly a cone, but a cylinder, the cake cone brings a flat bottom and reenforced multi-chamber design to the party. They tend to last longer, and you can set them down on a flat surface. These are big improvements but they come at the cost of flavor. As an edible container, the cake cone is the least appetizing of the cones, often made of some sort of "cake" that more closely resembles paper. A great cone for a slow eater, like it's sugar cone cousin, it's lack of interior space makes it less desirable for multi-scoop treats, it's advantage comes purely in it's ability to stand upright.

The new commer, the waffle cone:

Again, I have no idea how "new" th waffle cone is. I do know that it costs more than a regular cone, but it's advantages make it worth every penny. A true innovation in ice cream cone technology, someone must have asked "What would happen if I made a really big sugar cone, but made it out of delicious waffle batter instead?" This the waffle cone was born. It's sheer hugeness makes it perfect for holding not only multiple scoops of ice cream, but toppings. While it lacks the flat bottom innovation of the cake cone, the waffle cone tends to be thicker, and so holds up to a slower snacker. It is also the safest cone for multi-scoop endeavors, or people who don't want to get ice cream all over their face, because it's often served with a spoon as well. 

No matter what your preference, enjoy some ice cream or frozen something this weekend, it's sure to be user friendly. Until next time...

It's social media day, just like every other day since 2006

I was informed this morning that today was "social media day." There were parties and meetups and well excuses to go drink (we need them now that the USA is out of the world cup.) Really, it was a chance for "gurus" to pretend that because Facebook and Twitter are now on the news every night, that they need a special day to prove how guru-tastic they are. In fact, most of the people I know in the social media sphere just made funny remarks about how dumb it was and moved on (I was also in that camp, BUT...I also blogged about it.) The fact is, social media is exactly like the social part of real life. Where you have to be nice to people, not be a dick, be honest and be interesting. Hard stuff, I know.

So what does this have to do with UX? Well, honestly having special days for social media, to pretend that it's really any different than having a real social experience are making something awesome and empowering into something more complicated than it really is. This is bad for UX for social media, esp for people who aren't on the cutting edge, because making something out to be more complicated than it really is always leads to a less enjoyable experience. But hell, it sells books and speaking engagements, so screw everyone else. 

For the record, this blog SUPER hard to write. I had to send an email, and we all know how hard that is. Good thing I found a guru at the bar.

The inevitable iPhone 4 post, from a UX perspective

Everyone is talking about this, so of course I have to get my two cents in, right? Yes I know I"m late to the party on this one. 

Actually, the main thing that gets me the most about all this iPhone 4 stuff doesn't have anything to do with the product as much as it has to do with every blogger and PR person's idea of Dieter Rams philosophy on design. So let's just clear that part up first. Rams ten principles of good design are: 
  • Good design is innovative
  • Good design makes a product useful
  • Good design is aesthetic
  • Good design makes a product understandable
  • Good design is unobtrusive
  • Good design is honest
  • Good design is long-lasting
  • Good design is thorough down to the last detail
  • Good design is environmentally friendly
  • Good design is as little design as possible
Apple (and really Jonathan Ive, since he's the head of design at Apple) hits a lot of these. iPhone 4 is innovative, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, and as little design as possible (which I would call "simple" but I'm trying to make a point here using Rams's words) but it isn't long-lasting or environmentally friendly (hello new model every year, meet Dieter Rams). It isn't thorough down to the last detail, because of the antenna problems (yes, if you aren't having these problems you need to accept there are a lot of people who are) and because of that flaw the product isn't as useful as it could be since it's usefulness is based almost solely on being able to comunicate with a cellular network.  Apple has hit way more of these than they've missed, and while the few they've missed are big ones, I can not deny, as a designer, the iPhone 4 is a beautiful piece of gadget to look at. 

But ultimately it's a phone, and it needs to work like a phone, not a "beautiful old camera" to totally take a quote out of context. This, however, isn't the biggest user experience problem the iPhone 4 has. Apple's response to any complaint's about the phone's performance is iPhone 4's biggest UX problem. "Don't hold it like that" and "Just buy a case for it" don't make for a good experience, and this is a prime example of something most companies fail to see when they design a product. Customer service is a big part of the user's overall experience with any product. Effectively saying "hold it differently" or "spend more money" isn't a solution, and it's leaving a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. And that's too bad, because the iPhone as a product line is a fantastic product, it's just got a big UX problem they need to clear up, and that's Apple. 

The "rules" post

I have a blog (www.powzot.com)... which I haven't updated in months. Mostly because I haven't had time to write thoughtful, meaningful posts about PowZot's main topic, marketing and advertising. But I still have stuff to say. Stuff that doesn't fit into twitter and it's 140 character limit. Stuff about design, about user experience, about small business, about whatever else it in my head at the time I feel like writing. To that end I'm setting up some rules to keep me writing (something I really feel like I need to do more) and set expectations for you, if you are one of the crazy people who chose to read all this. 

  1. All posts are "rough drafts", they will be written and posted. No posts will linger, waiting to be edited.
  2. Try at least in some way, even if it's lame, to tie it back to UX. Fall back will be "I can't tie this back to UX in anyway."
  3. All other rules are thrown out the window. 
That's it. On with the show.

I have a dream…about the future of advertising

Update: This post was supposed to post on MLK day last week, but I’ve been too busy to edit it until now. Just pretend that you’re reading it last Monday. Thanks :p

Advertising, an abridged history: In the begining there was branded packaging and it was awesome, then everyone started doing it and it wasn’t enough, so a few started doing print ads and traveling salesmen, but then everyone started doing print and that wasn’t enough, then radio happened and soap operas and radio ads started, and soon everyone started advertising on the radio, and then TV happened and a few started advertising on TV, then more, then everyone, then we got cable and there were a million specialized channels (ok, at first there were like 15, but just stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this increasingly long sentence) and everyone was advertising everywhere on the TV, not just in comercial breaks but also in product placement and script mentions, and then the internet happened, and everyone got a website (because you had to, remember?) and then started email newsletters and banner ads. And then, 180-odd some years later, someone thought to look back on all this work, on the advertising landscape they had been a part of creating. He looked back and he said, “Well, shit.” Everyone was doing all this stuff, and no one was paying attention anymore.

Welcome to the age of popup blockers, DVRs, Bittorrent and all the other fun and ad-blocking technology that computers and the internet have brought us. But, I have dream.

I have a dream that someday soon, advertisers will realize that everyone hates them not because they hate products, or buying things, but because they hate being talked at. They hate having 18 minutes of every 1 hour TV block (30%) filled with messages talking at them, in broad unspecific language. They hate seeing 15 banners on the left side of every 3rd web site they hit. They hate having 7 netfix pop-unders reveal themselves after they close their browser window. They hate that advertising, 99% of the time, adds nothing to the culture, or the conversation.

I have a dream that someday soon, advertisers of all stripes will realize that we can do more with our craft. We can engage consumers in a valuable way, answering specific questions, helping them solve specific problems that they have, and doing good for the community as a whole. It’s not just a fantasy. Last year KFC took on an initivive where they paid to fill pot holes in city streets, as long as they could paint their logo on the patches. This year Pepsi shifted it’s Super Bowl budget to it’s Refresh Project, where the company will take ideas from it’s customers to use that money to advance social causes (aka chairity).

Are these executions perfect? No, but they’re a start. And they’re trying to do something more than just make noise. I have a dream, that someday cause marketing will become the norm, not the exception, and then we as advertisers can feel good about the work we do day in and day out, instead of knowing that we’re just adding to the dull roar of modern life.

2010, The Year of Sharing

Welcome to 2010. Like Y2K before it, nothing especially huge went down last night (except that Dick Clark was once again replaced by Ryan Seacrest, and I think we’re all a little worse off because of it.) I’m not a huge fan of recaps, which is why you didn’t see any here in the last weeks. However, I am all about predictions, and I have one to make about our newest new year based on what I saw in the last few weeks of 2009.

2010 will be the year of sharing

Yeah, I know, shocking right? But we actually have evidence to back this one up now, and it’s not just X million Facebook users now and Brand Y has 15 fanpages and 22 twitter accounts. Yes, the number of people using the most popular social media services are up, as are the number of big companies paying attention now. But more importantly, the number of social media services is growing. The number of people with “smart” phones is growing aka mobile internet usage is growing.

Notice how I haven’t talked about businesses using social media? It doesn’t matter if they’re using it, or have plans to use it right now, because the important thing that’s happening is their audiences are moving into the world of online sharing. (The fastest growing demographic on Facebook is boomers, so it’s not just us damn kids leading this charge.) And they’re not just sharing opinions, they’re sharing art and culture from across the globe. This is going to be where marketers are going to have to go, and the smart ones will not just take their messages to these new services and communities, they’ll participate in them, they’ll listen to them and they’ll learn from them.

Pepsi’s big announcement a couple weeks ago helps validate this idea and show that conventional one-way advertising is loosing some of it’s shine. And while they’re not specifically investing in social media, the shift shows that the way budgets, big budgets, are allocated is in flux. Like everything it’s only a matter of time, but mark my blog post, sharing is going to be the in thing for 2010.