Usable News

Phising, Pharming and TUX (Trust User Experience)

2009-02-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

Photo of a "spoofed " popup over a real website

Another informative presentation by our local Puget Sound SIGCHI. Jefferey Friedberg, Chief Trust Architect for Microsoft, gave a spirited overview of the Internet Fraud Battlefield and users' concerns about the vulnerability of their personal information. With the ever-increasing sophistication and types of scams Internet visitors are exposed to, how can they be sure the website they're visiting is for real and not a "spoof" that will steal their credentials or worse.

Friedberg points to a critical weakness in the "trust user experience", where user's often don't have the knowledge or guidance to make good trust decisions. In many cases the underlying system architecture is not much help and does more to confuse than to enlighten. With more sensitive personal information, such as health records becoming digital and the growth in Web 2.0 social networking, foolproof trust models are essential.

Trust User Experience (TUX) is a combination of well designed user interface, new system architecture and the user's own mental models of what security looks like.

Friedberg presented some interesting case studies, research and strategies for improving the Trust User Experience.

Interaction Design | '09 Vancouver, Canada

2009-02-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

Inspiring conference, workshops and talks by Interaction Designers from every corner of the world in a great city. Vancouver seems so much more urban and dense than Seattle.

There were so many choices, it was difficult to choose which workshop or talk to attend. Being on crutches after recent hip surgery didn't help much, but managed to attend the "Sketching Ideas" workshop. Great way to loosen up and make the connection between the brain and the tip of the pencil. The 'flow' and storyboarding exercises really got all of us thinking in new and unexpected ways.

Some of the other highlights for me were the "Gestalt or Where to put the Submit button" presentation, Prototyping with Fireworks and just being around so many inspiring people.

Livescribe SmartPen - a great research and note taking tool

2009-01-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

Having missed taking Gregg shorthand in high school and not being a fast typist, note taking has always been a problem. I'm always amazed that some folks can take notes on a laptop almost word for word. My notes, on the other hand, usually wind up as indecipherable scribbles as I try and keep up.
Until the Livescribe SmartPen shipped early last year, I was resigned to go on scribbling.
I was an early adopter the this very useful tool and have found it's made a difference in my ability to take notes and sketch in meetings, usability tests and interviews. I'm much more relaxed knowing I've captured the essence of a meeting or interview.
With the SmartPen and special notepaper every word is recorded and synced with your notes. Using a USB connection, you can download your synced notes to your computer along with full audio recording which can be edited with LiveScribe's software.
I understand Microsoft's OneNote has similar capabilities, especially paired with a tablet PC.
For me the 'sketchy' aspect of the SmartPen is a great combination of old and new technology.

Goodbye desktop, laptop and keyboard!

2007-12-19T20:08:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I had time to post anything on the site, being swamped with projects and trying to keep up with new technology. A friend sent these intriguing photos of a new computer being developed in Japan.

In the race for a more compact computers, scientists have made great strides with Bluetooth technology and miniaturization. Looks like you could carry this computer in your pocket, except I seem to always lose pens.

This "pen-like" device produces both the monitor as well as the keyboard on any flat surfaces where you can work you would normally do on your desktop computer.

I saw some of this technology awhile a go in a presentation from Microsoft Research. Amazing how far it's progressed. Probably won't see it at Best Buy tomorrow, but we seem to be heading in a very interesting direction.

Looks like it plays well with other devices too.

"Sharewhere" and other developments

2007-07-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Between designing and facilitating usability tests, bugging people about late content and creating wireframes, here it is July already and I haven't had much time to post. Not that there haven't been incredible developments out there in Digitaland. The iPhone alone is using lots of bandwidth on several discussion boards.

As Bill Buxton points out in his new book, "Sketching the User Experience", so much of this technology that's only now coming to market has been in development for many years.

Had some folks from the Microsoft Research Group give a presentation a couple of years ago on what is now a real product – Microsoft Surface.

Being kind of a late-adopter and sometime Luddite, I'm not standing in line for the iPhone, although I've been a faithful Mac user since the IIe. Recently bought a Lenovo laptop to work in the Windows environment with Visio and have been pleasantly surprised with both the hardware and software. Still on XP though.

This YouTube Video caught my eye mostly for the GPS integration. I've been using GPS for at-sea navigation for years and it's interesting to see it migrating to the mobile space and seemingly everywhere these days.

Thanks to the folks at the University of Kansas (where they also offer an Interaction Design degree program)

"Magic Ink"

2007-04-27T10:34:00.001-07:00

Came across a thought-provoking paper titled "Magic Ink", on the IxDA discussion board the by Bret Victor, a California based programmer, designer and visionary.

Although not a graphic designer by training, he makes an interesting case for interaction being more of a graphic design problem than merely a path for the user toward a specified goal.

I've always felt we humans were capable of absorbing and deciphering much more information than was previously thought. Brain research seems to be confirming this. Victor gives some good examples of this in some of his redesigns that use information graphics ala Tufte, rather than interaction to communicate.

That pixels are "magic ink" really struck a chord with me. A good read!

User interface support for a multitasking workforce

2007-02-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

Another informative presentation last night by Dr. Mary Czerwinski of Microsoft Research, sponsored by our local Puget Sound SIGCHI.

Personally, multitasking is a subject I find compelling, especially as it relates to running a small business. Somehow, I'm able to keep a lot of small details relating to projects I'm working on in my head and prioritize them. It often seems that other people on the team have a much harder time doing that. It's as if they can only keep one thing in their register stack at a time. Seems personality type has a lot to do with it, according to the Myers-Briggs intelligence types.

The question then becomes one of learning style, hard wiring in the brain, adaptability or some other yet-to-be discovered factor. How to design an interface that works for everyone?

Dr. Czerwinski presented some interesting videos of how her group's interface design templates worked for controlling the way multiple windows are displayed and manipulated.

But her answer to a question I posed about whether certain people are better at multitasking than others opened a whole new set of questions about how all this is changing the way we function in the world. She mentioned that that younger people in her study were comfortable writing code while listening to music and text message at the same time - with a possible slight drop in IQ.

My kids do the same. Well, maybe not the code writing. I'm amazed to walk into my son's room to find him reading a textbook, chatting online with classmates, checking his mySpace page, emailing, listening to music, watching TV and scratching the dog behind the ear - and still get good grades.

Is all this multitasking the cause of so much ADD/ADHD or a symptom? Then there's the research on how playing certain video games make for better laproscopic surgeons, as heard the other day on NPR.

The message is about how we can help people be in control - of their tasks, time, access and lives.

I've been impressed with the quality and scope of research going on at Microsoft, and appreciate the effort of folks like Dr. Czerwinski to create user interface systems that make life a little less frustrating for all of us information workers.

Interesting design and prototyping tool from MIT

2007-02-20T07:55:00.000-08:00

Looks like this may be a long ways from being released, but could be a real breakthrough for us "visual learners" Thanks to Alok Jain for posting this video on the IxDA discussion group.

Rapid prototyping tools with OmniGraffle and other ideas

2007-02-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

Prototyping websites has been a hot topic on the Interaction Design (IxDA) discussion board recently, along with a huge thread about the new iPhone and Bill Buxton's hand sketching for early prototypes.

I stumbled upon Canvas as a prototyping tool a while ago. It's relatively easy to learn and allows you to target links, uses layers and exports as a "clickable" PDF or as HTML easily.

Being a Mac user, I really like OmniGraffle for ease of use, but hadn't though of it as a prototyping tool, until Michael Angeles generously offered to share his knowledge and custom stencils with the rest of us. Haven't had the chance to start using his method, but plan to migrate over to that platform for an upcoming prototype.

Like so much else these days, there are many strong opinions about what's the best tool for prototyping – from Axure, iRise, Viso, to a combination of Adobe's Illustrator and InDesign. Andy Clarke has an interesting take on the subject in his new book, "Transcending CSS".

Although I'm stumbling around trying to actually write CSS, his book is beginning to make sense, although a lot of it is way over my head right now. Clarke maintains that producing well marked up CSS interactive prototypes may be a more effective workflow. Hope I can get my old brain around this new workflow.

An interface-free interface

2006-12-06T09:44:00.000-08:00

This Spring, at the University of Washington's Technical Communications Lecture Series, a Microsoft researcher showed us some interesting experiments they were conducting with interfaces projected on walls, touch screens projected on tables and using hands and lasers instead of mice to point and click.

I just came across this video link on the IxDA discussion board that that takes this technology out of the lab and promises a new way of interacting with computers and software.

Naturally, this has been in development for awhile. Alex Wexelblat pointed out that the military was experimenting with touch screens and found them "highly error prone and fatiguing"
Error sources include:
- size of the pointing device (fingertip vs cursor)
- selection with the finger obscures the thing you're trying to select
- uncertainty on feedback. The combination of physical feedback (does
the screen flex in response to pressure? If so how much and how does
the user correlate that feedback with visual changes?) proved
difficult for some users.
- dirt and oils from human hands tended to introduce errors and
- obscure displays after extended use

I've also read several other accounts of touch screens not performing well in industrial settings and in police vehicles. In these case it was as much a usability issue with the software as the touch screen hardware. In both cases no field studies were done to see how these systems would function in real-world situations.

What you'll see on the video is miles ahead of what we're used to seeing in today's touch screens.

It would be interesting to see just how "intuitive" user's would find this no-interface-interface.

Moore and Mooer. A wealth of information. A poverty of attention.

2006-11-14T12:26:00.000-08:00

Just about everyone who uses a digital device has heard of "Moore's Law"–– "the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits will double every year." The number of circuits that were crammed on to a circuit back in 1965, when Moore came up with his law, was 50 –– today, that number is approaching one billion. That exponential growth has made the whole digital revolution possible.

At about the same time, another computer pioneer named Calvin Moorer came up with an interesting law of his own. His law stated: "An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it."

According to Peter Morville, Mooers' Law becomes more relevant with every advance of Moore's Law.

As we're inundated with a flood of information and data, our ability to cope with and use it becomes severely compromised. How many of us have given up trying to program that VCR or other new digital marvel with its 300 page manual? Technology moves much faster than evolution.

Moores' Law points to the conflict between what's possible and what people really want. It's this cognitive friction that's made usability, user experience and user centered design a vital part of the design process. Since it's World Usability Day, this might be an appropriate time and place to step back and think about how we can help reduce that friction.

Getting the blog(s) up and running

2006-11-09T09:40:00.000-08:00

CreativeTechs Craig Swanson led us through our second session of "Blog Your Portfolio" at the School of Visual Concepts, here in Seattle. Craig and Larry Asher, the SVC director did a stellar job helping the three of us in this experimental class actually get our blogs up and running.

Not satisfied with using the default templates included with Blogger and Wordpress, I've made a lot more work for myself trying to modify the look of the templates - getting into the CSS and tweaking in Dreamweaver. Lots to learn.

Larry gave us a good presentation on writing for the web, citing Jakob Nielsen, who was here in Seattle recently with User Experience 2006, and some of his own work as the creative director for Worker Bees. Craig suggested this MarsEdit software as a way to loosen up and not worry about writing the great American Novel on your blog. As usual, it's not working very well out of the box. Is it me, the software, the server, or sunspots. Who knows? I've e-mailed tech support and hope to have an answer soon. My workaround so far, has been to write in the MarsEdit window, which is like a simple e-mail program window, copy and paste into the Blogger "create a post" window, then publish. It really was easier to write that way.

Defining Design, Again

2006-11-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

Great article by Dan Saffer, from Adaptive Path, attempting to bridge the gap between how designers and developers try to communicate. As as one trained and practicing visual design since the days of stat cameras and Rubylith (not Ruby-on-Rails), the article is a great reminder of the same problems, different generation. It's all about being able to communicate across disciplines - trying to understand the other side. The tools have gotten pretty complex, however. Working the CSS code on this blog template gives me a greater understanding and appreciation of what developers do all day. I find coding at my baby-steps level is full of mystery and trepidation, especially when I can't see that I've left out an all important semicolon and nothing works. Someday, maybe I too will be able to say "code is poetry".

Contented in Seattle

2006-10-30T21:41:00.000-08:00

Plone, Zope and Python. More names, buzzwords and concepts to absorb in a two day workshop with Richard Ammerman of 7 Tech NW, a Plone developer and cheerleader. A complete Content Management System right out of the box. Not quite, but it looks powerful, if you have some help setting it up.

Then it was on to Interaction Design with Tog Tognazzini, a leading advocate of Human Computer Interaction at User Experience 2006, here in Seattle, with the Nielsen/Norman Group. I was the official "student" volunteer for the 2 days with Tog and one day with Lynn Pausic of Expero, Inc. She gave an interesting workshop on Designing Complex Web Applications and Websites. Couldn't participate much as I was busy handing out materials and the wireless mic to people with questions for the speakers.

Tog managed to cram about 50 year's worth of knowledge into 2 days with lots of humor and "Eureka!" moments. He covered a broad range of topics including, Information Theory, Carl Jung's style pairs, Fitts' Law, Edward Tufte, The Shuttle Disaster, usability testing, iterative design and many good examples of stuff that works and other stuff that didn't and ending with a quick paper prototyping exercise.

I feel right at home with most of this. Great creative happens when you can immerse yourself, especially as a creative, in your client's world - kind of like User Centered Design in a way.

Conference Season in Seattle

2006-10-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

What a week! Two major conferences in Seattle. Plone CMS and Usability with Nielsen and Norman and many others. Since the site we're redesigning will be using Plone, I signed up for two days of basic training. A whole new language, (of course) and ways of thinking about content. Spent way too much time trying to download the program, no luck. Finally got it up on the desktop. Definitely not as easy to download as most proprietary software. Have to put in a long string of funny words just to open the program. Linux, I'm told. Looks like a very flexible and powerful program if I can figure out how to use it. Maybe the developers in the next room can help.

Right Brain, Left Brain

2006-10-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

Interesting discussion about the never-ending design versus coding, left versus right, Flash and usability. As a visual learner and pattern-oriented designer becoming somewhat invested in the User Centered Design camp, I find the rigor and methodology of usability seductive, while marveling at some of the highly visual Flash sites this article links to. I've often thought of the Web as it is now about where television was in the '50 - a medium trying to find itself. Of course, the web and technology in general seem to be evolving and morphing at the speed of light, so any pronouncements become ancient history fast.