hci-guy

Lukas Mathias writes a very interesting and insightful blog posting on the right degree of realism for UI design.  Essentially, button icons can’t be too realistic or they are confusing, and they can’t be too vague or they are also confusing.  However, with application icons (icons on the desktop), more realism is essential as it differentiates the program from others.

A great (but short) read with lots of pictures: http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/01/21/realism_in_ui_design/

I would like to elaborate on Mathias’ article however, saying that in the former; button icons on an interface, the realism is confusing mainly because it breaks conceptual standards.  Some time ago, we did not have the technological capacity to create icons that were very realistic.  So for a long time, these vague looking icons developed into design patterns.  The camera button icon (demonstrated in Mathias’ article) is vague, yet universally accepted to demonstrate ‘Camera’ or ‘Take a picture’.  A more realistic camera button icon would break this pattern, therefore beg consumers to question its functionality- to question whether the realism was intentional, suggesting that its function is not to ‘Take a picture’, or to question if it a button at all.

Another reason that realistic icons are confusing is that realistic icons are often quite detailed, and therefore it is likely that the icon used by each program would look significantly different.  This forces users to figure out the meaning of the icon each time they view it (recall over recognition – a violation of usability guidelines).

Although a camera icon for ‘Take a Picture’ is very intuitive, there are some icons that are not intuitive to their functionality, yet we continue to use them as an industry standard.  We take a ‘cog’ in a program to represent ‘More/Advanced Options’; however, in real life a cog does not represent this.  We *could* change to a different and “more intuitive” icon, but then users would be confused as this breaks the design pattern we have become accustomed to.

The Application Icon is different because it wants to break these design patterns.  Windows Media Player is in direct competition with QuickTime Player, therefore Microsoft and Apple respectively want these applications to have markedly different icons.  Perhaps this is also a design pattern – perhaps we have come to accept and expect that program icons will be all different.

Its amazing how something so small and seemingly insignificant such as the level of detail in icons really affects our overall experience of a product.  A great article by Mathias that really opens up a world of ideas.

Thanks to William Darling for finding and passing along this interesting blog.

Courtesy of Joe Heller

With the prevalence of social hypermedia (Myspace, Instant Messenger, Facebook, Twitter) it seems as if we’ve continued on this trend of ‘globalization’ not only globally, but locally.  That doesn’t make sense right?  What I mean is- our lives and the lives of our friends are starting to become increasingly intertwined as we simultaneously integrate all aspects of our being with technology.  (Think of the world shrinking- Globalization.  This not only brings strangers from around the globe closer to us, but also our already-close-enough friends and family).  Digg updates your Twitter which updates your Facebook and vice-versa*.  Its Social (application) Recursion.  An Infinite Loop.

At the same time, it seems like we no longer have a Myspace persona or an IRC persona.. they’re all bleeding together into an “Internet Persona”.  Because of these ‘linkages’ in data, it seems that anyone can find out information about us just by following the data trail.  Creepy right?  Then why do we keep pumping our precious life stories into these social media websites?  Is it that we realize our lives are fleeting and we’re trying to leave a footprint albeit digital?  Are Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter really so engaging that it is impossible to disconnect ourselves from them?  Eventually will we spend more time online than in-person?! And then never want to come back to the real world after rescuing an alien race and fighting an epic battle for a girl resulting in the abandonment of man-kind!?  Crazy.

We may THINK we’re updating our page on “what we’re doing”, but what we’re really doing is updating our page.  We’re recursing.   When will it end?  Whats the exit condition?  This is Web 2.0.  Web 3.0 promises to be even more integrated into our lives.. only we wont manually be updating our Facebook: context-aware smartphones will do it for us automatically.  We’ll be eating dinner at a fancy restaurant and all our friends will know what we ordered, and who we’re with.  We’re not that far off now.  I think only then can we get away from this “social recursion” – when we’re not actively taking part in it we can continue to live our lives without our thumbs on the Tweet-pad.

*Bonus:

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook finally announced that they will be integrating all of their services into one application.  Its called You-Twit-Face.

“Well, whats the point?” my boss asked me, one late afternoon.  After finding out I’m studying usability in grad school at the University of Guelph, he wanted to know what it is and what its place was in software design.  He wasn’t saying this to discredit usability, he just couldn’t understand the value for a small company like his own whose software has few end users and is created on a tight budget.  I’m glad nForm (http://canux.nform.ca) gave me the opportunity to write about this because it’s a topic I’ve been wanting to blog about for a while.

A common theme I’ve encountered when discussing usability, especially in our current economic climate, is how much effort can you put into usability and the user experience (if any) before starting to see diminishing returns.  Jakob Nielsen said testing with any more than 5 users just doesn’t produce any value.  The truth is a lot of companies ignore usability all together thinking that testing is too expensive.  But even on a tight budget, some sort of usability is feasible.  For example the W3C has come out with WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) for developing accessible websites, and using them is free; and as Shawn Henry stated on UXPod, making a website more accessible tends to make it more usable.

I understand that usability testing CAN be expensive, but there are SO MANY testing and evaluation methods out there that it really doesn’t have to be!  And heightening the user experience can make all the difference in the world, from user efficiency to just a downright warm and fuzzy feeling.  However, I get the sense from so many people that I talk to that usability testing is just too expensive, and I really want to change their minds.  That’s why for my Masters research and thesis, I am looking into getting lots of value out of usability testing for little cost.  More specifically, I am looking into techniques for the analysis of web server logfiles for extracting usability information- something that can be done for low cost or free (less time, less money, and fewer UX professionals).

I really want to change peoples’ minds on the cost of usability, but I’m only just starting my career.  Coming to Canux 09 to me would mean learning more about usability and the user experience, which is a field I have a passion for; it means learning more feasible ways to create a great user experience and how to convince people of its value; and it would mean discussing my ideas of more feasible usability testing with the most brilliant minds in the field.

I would love to attend Canux 09- it would provide such great value for me as a student just starting my career, and I have so much to share with (and learn from) other UX professionals!

Please! Fly me to Canux!

Chris Menezes
MSc. Applied Computing
Department of Computer and Information Science
University of Guelph

So I bought a new alarm clock yesterday (old one was busted) and I though to myself, “hey.  Instead of getting another one of those standard black alarm clocks, why not get something fancy”?

One short trip to Wal-Mart later, and Behold!

Minimalist design in all its glory! Brushed aluminum with a mirror-like clock face.  A futuristic dream.

5-minutes out of the box, and you know what i realize?? I Hate the goddamn thing. Here’s why:

I’m used to crappy old alarm clocks.  Ones with basic functionality, but are easy to use.  They’re black, they have a red LED display, an alarm, a big snooze, and some radio controls. Philips has created the beautiful alarm clock with an MP3 jack, and two separate alarms.  However, their fault is in focusing on aesthetic design, and pure functionality. Behind the slick exterior lies a mash of complex buttons (I mean literally behind the display). I could go and list the usability barriers one by one, but i think describing a scenario with structured tasks would help paint this picture much more effectively.

Scenario: Setting your alarm clock.

12:00 am. Excited with your brand new (and shiny) clock radio, you decide to set your alarm for the next morning.  Examining the unit, you find 2 buttons and 3 multi-modal dials on the left side to help you with just that.  On the other side, you find the standard tune, AM/FM, and Volume.   You locate Alarm 1, and set it to Radio (because the buzzing scares the shit out of you). There is another dial, you set it to “set Al 1″.  The display now shows 12:00 and a bell symbol.  So far so good.  You press the “up” button to set the alarm.  Whoa! it moves at lightening speeds.. but whoops you overshoot 7am (Its almost impossible to NOT overshoot it).  So you press the “down” button. The numbers move like a snail. “Ahh!” you think “thats why up is so fast”.  However, you quickly realize that if you set your alarm clock to 10am one day, and want to change it to 7am the next day, these up and down buttons dont help.  Down is too slow to reach 7 from 10, and up (albeit fast) takes too long to wrap around the the separate AM and PM numbers to hit 7am.  The fact that they have 2 alarms does not solve this issue if  you EVER need to change the time you wake up, which for me, is a lot.  Annoyed, you forget to put the dial back to “Clock”, and 7:00am is all the the display shows, never changing.  If you ever forget to change it back, you’ll never know the correct time, and I guarantee it will trip you up.  Finally Alarm’s set, you go to bed.

Scenario: Wake up

7:00 am. The alarm goes off. Way too loud.  Groggily, you try to hit snooze.  Unfortunately, the alarm clock hides its buttons so well, you cant physically see the damn thing.  The button’s not even significantly bigger than the other ones on the top.  You feel around, and mash all the buttons until it stops. Finally.

7:10 am. The alarm goes off again. still way too loud. This time you’re more awake, so you try to lower the volume, which again is hidden. This is additionally confounded by the fact that there is a tuner with the exact same type of dial.  Instead of lowering the volume, you’re blasted with Axl Rose screaming “sha na na na na na na na na nana…” AHH .. *fumble* *fumble* *fumble*. Snooze.

7:20 am. The alarm goes off again. I guess its time to wake up.  What time is it anyways. You look over to the clock face, and wtf?! you cant even read the damn time.  The sun’s streaming in through the window and the clock radio does absolutely nothing but reflect it.

10:00 am.  You return the alarm clock to walmart.

Let me summarize these deal breakers, in order of importance:

1. Complexity of buttons- Once in “set alarm” you must actively return to the clock.  It should actively return on its own.
2. Cannot read time – clock face too reflective
3. Up/Down – ineffective modes of interaction
4. Hidden buttons
5. Function of buttons are not obvious from a tactile perspective – snooze is not raised or big enough, feels like other buttons.  Tuner and volume feel the same.

All together, these usability issues make this clock highly unusable to the average consumer.  I’m not going to tell you not to buy it- i’m just going to tell you that imo when looking for alarm clock, ability to use the damn thing is more important than fashion or amount of functionality.

Back to basics:

Context-Aware computing is an area that is somewhat new to me.  I only really started learning about it in the last four months.  Context-Aware Systems (CAS) are systems that change their behaviour in accordance to some stimuli.  For example, a smart home which senses when you arrive and automatically turns on your favourite tv show, or a fridge that can tell you when its running low on milk, or a smart cellphone that automatically defers calls when you are in a meeting.  The sort of sci-fi stuff you read in paper-back novels as a kid. Neat stuff.  But after reading countless academic journal articles in the field of Context-awareness, I’ve come to the realization that few of these authors actually create anything- they just propose an idea, and then thats it.  They barely address how they would go about creating what they propose.  I’ve found articles that pretty much say something like:

‘So we’re proposing this home that can do like anything right? Like, it can find your keys for you and stuff if you lose them. And it will liek yell at your dog for peeing on the carpet and stuff.  Uhm ya.. and we would write this in Java.. or something.  And it would have a database and stuff.  And it would have these really high tech cameras that havent been invented yet. kAwsum,thx. ‘

You know when you’re in first grade, and the teacher asks you to invent something that will help you around the house, and then draw it?  So you break out your crayons and draw this robot-dinosaur that will play with you, and keep away your little sister, and eat your brussels sprouts for you, and tidy your toys for you, and fight fire, and make candy appear out of thin air? And then your parents put your drawing on the fridge even tho its shitty and they have no idea what it is?  Ya thats what these papers are like.  The ideas are the same, the only difference is instead of crayons and construction paper, these ideas are written by academics who can articulate these ideas and make them all wordy-like.

I’m not completely bashing Context-Aware systems.  I think they’re great.  However, I think that instead of a field of study, they’re really just an application of other fields of study like AI and usability.  The importance of having Context-Awareness as its own field is that AI researchers really don’t care about adapting a system to heighten the experience of the end user, or providing a personalized experience.  They care more about making the machines perform better.  So without this field of Context-Aware systems, not enough people would really be looking at how to apply these techniques and technologies from different fields.

Now to leave you with some food for thought, heres a drawing I made.  Put it on your fridge.  Or your parents’ fridge.

As a graduation present to ourselves, myself and 11 other friends booked a trip to Cancun Mexico.  We’re now back but not without some stories.

We had our trip booked and were pumped to go, but one week before we were set to leave, the company that we booked through (Conquest Vaccations) went bankrupt, sending us all into panic.  Looking around, the only replacement trips we could get would cost us nearly twice the price through a different carrier.  I honestly didn’t think we were going to Mexico at that point, and I wasn’t even sure if we’d get our money back.  One of the plusses of this however, was that I got to go on CTV’s morning show Canada AM and talk about the cancelled trip (External Link: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/conquest-collapses/#clip161835).  We DID manage to get another trip booked to Cancun for the same dates for roughly the same price though, thanks to my girlfriend Holly, and we had a great time.  The first time being at an all inclusive.. its strange being fed like kings and being handed free alcohol and only giving a $1 USD tip in return.

Highlights:
Resort pool area and swim up bars
Amazing restaurants
Free Alcohol!!!
Driving a speed boat on the ocean
Snorkeling on the reef and seeing Sea turtles, giant Manta Rays, and Reef Sharks
Visiting the Ancient Mayan Ruins of Tulum
Seeing the bar area, notably Senior Frog’s and Coco Bongo

However, there were some not so awesome parts of the trip (not to complain, but it needs to be told).  My friend decided to rent a scooter (against the advice of the lot of us),  crashed it going 60 km/h driving towards the bar area, and wrecked the scooter and messed himself up.  Luckily he didnt die, or break anything, but he was bandaged up for the rest of the trip with some very bad bruises.  To make things worse, he refused to pay the scooter place for the damaged he did to the scooter (shot suspension and scratches and cracks) claiming they could not stop him from leaving the country, and those scooter guys stalked us, and jumped us one night infront of the hotel with brass knuckles and a switchblade.  Luckily hotel security was there or things could have gotten bad.  After some convincing (mainly the fact that if he didnt pay, they’d follow us downtown where there is no secuirty, then he would be coming back to Canada in 5 or 6 peices), he finally paid up.  The same guy also missed the origional flight because he forgot his passport had expired and had to pay for a whole new flight, broke his camera when he walked into the pool with it, broke his brand new prescription sunglasses when he faceplanted getting out of the pool, got pickpocketed by a hooker, and got his luggage lost on the way home (okay, that one wasnt his own fault).  Made for an interesting trip.

Despite all that, (plus the Swine flu epidemic that broke out the day we landed in Mexico), we still managed to make it back home alive, in good health, and with a lot of great stories.

And thats all I have to say about that.

(All my pics are up on m y Flickr account)

I was listening to a radio broadcasting of Allan Cross one night, talking about the current state of new music.  Currently, we’re in the electric guitar age, which makes sense, as it seems to be the predominant musical instrument out there.  You can argue that soon Techno will be taking over with turntables and computer synthesized music, but I dont buy it.  People have been prophesying the ubiquity of Techno and Electronica music for years, even decades but it hasn’t happened.  You know what has happened though?  We have started integrating “technology” into our music, and into our musical instruments.  Gibson and Fender have even come out with guitars that tune themesleves!  But that doesn’t mean that artists have diverged away from that raw acoustic sound.  If you look at the DJs out there, a lot of their music is of pre-recorded acoustic instruments.  Take coldplay for instance – a relatively new band, but they incorporate many acoustic instruments for that orchestral sound.  Sure its put together digitally but the original sound is acoustic.

The problem, however, of still being in the “electric guitar age” is that the guitar has a finite number of notes, and due to the nature of music, a finite number of notes that sound good in unison (chords).  As Allan Cross claims, this leads us down a scary path because it means that there will come a point where music repeats itself.  Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by the Beatles and Why Don’t You Get A Job by the Offspring have the exact same chord progression and similar vocals, just to name one.  Or Coldplay’s ‘The Scientist’ and Sum 41’s ‘Pieces’.  Both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Avril Lavigne were in legal troubles over melodies that were questionably similar to that of other bands.  Is this a sign that we’ve reached music Armageddon!? or just the writers subconscious thinking up a tune they already know?  I’ve talked to many people about this and I’ve come to the conclusion that reaching the end of new music is highly unlikely, considering all the types of ways to play a guitar, as well as intertwine it with other instruments.

On a bit of a side note: If the coils on your guitar’s pickup loosen, it starts to pick up noises other than the vibrations of the strings.. and I’ve *SEEN* some artists take this to their advantage by singing into their electric guitar WHILE playing it.  One artists plays his electric-acoustic while singing into the mic in the sound hole, AND tapping on the back of the guitar to simulate drums… absolutely insane.

Getting back on track – it seems almost inevitable that melodies, or art, or ideas, or anything really will be inadvertently replicated at SOME point in time.. and when it happens its usually because its a good tune (or design or idea).  As long as they arent blaitantly copying you, respect that they have come up with the same idea and represented it in a new and interesting way.  They’re not out to steal from you, or control the world (well.. maybe Kanye West is).  And instead of throwing a hissy fit about it, let them know about it and they’ll probably throw Kudos your way.  Look at that song that the Red Hot Chili Peppers accidentally plagiarised from Tom Petty- “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”.  Tom Petty didn’t sue the Chili Peppers for royalties, but just by this issue coming to light, it breathed new life into a once good, but mostly forgotten about song.  And thats the take-home message from all of this… Kanye West wants to rule the world.

I never really understood blogging culture.  Actually I still dont.  Unless you are writing something useful, like a tutorial, it seems like people just want to force their opinion down other people’s throats, but since they cant, they just document them on the web.  I guess it started with Journals (you know that thing u write on pen and pad), where people emotionally vomited onto the pages, knowing the journal was for their eyes only, but secretly hoping someone would stumble upon it and learn of their inner torments.  Lame.

Then came MSN.  People started altering the name field to reflect what was happening in their actual lives.  You’d have the people who would put lyrics from songs in their names, believing that they were being subtly cryptic, but knowing full well that these lyrics blatantly describe their dashboard confessional-like emotions- like the perfect girl who never notices them, or the meat cleaver left in their heart (real MSN name from a friend of mine).  Then came the sub-name… an extension of your name, and a dedicated place to script you woes.   Some used it to tell u what they were doing at every minute, if u really cared to look, but lots still used it as shelving for emotional baggage.

Cue the Facebook status.  Now you can force your friends to see whats new in your life just by logging in.  However, there are other things to look at on Facebook, so it was never the defining feature.

Enter twitter. “Hey, lets take the Facebook status and wall, and make it into its own website. Awesome. And do you like birds?  I’m for ‘em!”  Even more lame.  I think the cartoon Super News said it best:

Ok… so it seems like Twitter is just randomly bragging about your unexceptional life

And now you can integrate your facebook with your twitter with your blog with your myspace so that you can update them all simultaneously!  Barf.

I’m not really sure how big of exhibitionists we were before MSN, Facebook, or Twitter, but it seems like these services just make it too easy for us to be, and really force it in your face.  Although I realize I’m being a complete hypocrite, spewing my opinion for an audience of none (on Twitter and through a Blog!), I’d like to think I’m better than the average blogger because at least i KNOW what i’m doing is pointless.

peas out.

Courtesy of eSentrik

As spring rolls around, and snow melts, it seems as if long lost things are being rediscovered.  Like that GT snow racer I never knew we had in our backyard.  Or those beer bottles you left out in the cold, which became frozen ornaments on your driveway.

A few days ago we got a postcard from our roomate Igor who left about a year ago to travel around China, Croatia, and God knows where else for the last year.  Igor doesn’t believe in electronic communication so we havent heard a thing from him.  He did email us the other day though, appologizing for the deep and sappy message he left on the postcard.. the funny thing is, the postcard was damaged in the mail  and that sappy part was cut out.

I find myself in croatia reminiscing of the good old days before I had …..[Postal Damage] …. gets dismantled and you slowly go your own ways.

Yesterday I was talking to some friends in Germany and England who I haven’t seen in a while.  April fools day came around and it painfully reminded me of being escorted out of an eco-lodge at 3am by a “security guard” after haphazardly shoving all my things into a suitcase, only to find out I was the object of a really well planned out prank.  Kudos to Marcus and Rich.

Today, I got an email from a friend J.Hor who literally got out of bed one day, booked a flight, and boarded it the next day for Europe.  That was 2 years ago, and no one has heard a thing from him until now.  He’s traveled all over the globe working random jobs to make his way… something I think all of us wish to do but are too afraid to.  It should be interesting to grab a beer with him and see how much hes changed.

I’m not really sure why spring seems to be uncovering all these long lost friends (and GT snowracers).  Someone whos been gone for two years you’d thing would have established a new idenity.  I dont really know what to say about it other than: I guess nostalgia is the new thing.