Brettology

It’s been a while

I’ve had a pretty rough couple of months. My father passed away recently, and I just havent been in a writing or creative mood at all. Im starting to feel the need to be creative again, and I should be back to being active on my blog again soon as well. 

I never imagined how difficult this would be. It wasn’t a surprise. Dad was sick for a while. He was in a lot of pain at the end, and I honestly don’t think it’s fair at all that someone so full of life and happiness should have to suffer like that. He always went out of his way to make everyone around him feel happy, and It’s simply not right for the end to come like it did.

Don’t fear the Facebook timeline for pages…

The Facebook timeline becomes permanent tomorrow, but according to TechCrunch, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They say that 95% of pages that have already switched have seen increases in likes and conversations. They do though, clarify that by noting that these are early statistics, and we’ll all have to wait and see.

So many people seem to dislike the new timeline, but I doubt that we’ll still be hearing screams in a month or two. Too many people (and companies) rely on Facebook as part of their everyday life, so they’ll get used to it. They pretty much have to.

Personally, I do like the large cover image. I think it opens up some fun creative possibilities for individual people and for companies. I’ve seen some fun ones already. I’m not really fan though, of the lower portion of the Timeline. The way it jumps from side to side makes it harder to follow things in order. I suppose I’ll get used to it. I pretty much have to.

Check out the TechCrunch article for yourself.

If YOU Hate It!

In order to create any sense of usability on a mobile device the elements and features that you add should make the user comfortable and relaxed. Users should feel a sense of place, recognize your branding, and begin to understand your navigation, and they should know exactly what they should and can do. In the case of the iPhone for example, there are standard UI rules that have already been defined, and you really should have a good reason before you break one of those rules.

We want to meet expectations when it comes to the user-experience and creating fluid movement within the application and we want to surpass their expectations when it comes to the content.

Great content with a poor experience = Bad App

Great content with a great experience = Good App

As we’re working on projects we’re always doing competitive analysis. We’re always watching and learning from both the good and the bad that’s out there. Seeing what’s worked (or hasn’t worked) in the past is a good place to start. We’re all for being on the cutting edge of creativity - we love being creative - but not at the expense of usability.

We’re constantly asking ourselves questions about what we see.

Is it interesting and innovative or trendy and narrow?

Is the learning curve too high?

Is it trying to do too much - does it lack focus?

And as we’re building out the feature list for a new mobile project we want to make sure that what we’re building has a pretty darn good chance of being what a good chunk of people want. We stay agile. We release quickly, and let the community of users help guide the vision for new features and new versions.

By staying agile and releasing quickly we’re able to keep development costs lower, create products that more users feel committed too, and evolve the projects that have the greatest potential of success. For most projects it simply doesn’t make any sense to spend months and months building out all sorts of features only to realize that users really wanted something entirely different. That’s the power of the community. We don’t try to control the community; we just become part of the conversation. We listen, and we learn.

Understanding what works and what doesn’t work, and knowing what you personally hate, or what drives you nuts, is also a good place to start.

The chances are pretty good that if you hate something then other people probably hate it too!

Anticipate the Poodle

When I was in art school (those many years ago) I had a wonderful teacher. He taught a class on advertising. He was young, interesting, and it seemed he was just teaching because he thought it would be fun, and I liked that.

One day he told us an interesting story about a client of his - one of his favorites. This particular client was described as the “dream client”, a client with a big budget, lots of varied projects, and one that would let you do your thing.

Of course this client wasn’t completely perfect. There was this one little catch. He was allowed almost total creative freedom, except for the fact that his client insisted on having a picture of his pet poodle in everything he did, and I mean everything. There was Fluffy right in the middle of that ad, or right there in the catalog and brochure, just sitting there, staring at you, haunting you.

My advertising teacher seemed to take it all pretty well, and I pretty much forgot all about it for years. Then one day I recalled the story to a client of mine, and we both laughed. But it did make me think.

I was looking back at all of the various projects that I’d done over the years and I realized something. Almost every project I’ve ever worked on has had a Poodle. It’s something that comes up, usually unexpected, to throw a little wrench in the process. Sometimes the Poodle is something simple, and sometimes it’s something intensely complex, but it is out there, waiting.

Over the years as my process of project management, design, and client interaction has evolved, I’ve worked in a variety of ways to keep the Poodle at bay. A few of those ways - Really understand the client’s brand, and how they want it positioned, deep dives into the target demographic and extensive competitive analysis are part of every project proposal I do. I also think about the Poodle. I’ve become comfortable with the Poodle. So even though I may not know what the Poodle will be, I can arm myself with enough “creative ammo” to Anticipate The Poodle, and maybe take a little bite out of its bark. 

Anticipate the Poodle = Expect the Unexpected.

The Five Questions Users Ask About Your UI

Back in 2002 I wrote an article called The Five Questions Every User Asks On Every Page, and it was based on a lecture I used to give my multimedia and web design students. The basic idea was to understand user-experience from the “users” point-of-view, and not from the designer’s point-of-view. In other words, put yourself in the chair of your user, and understand why they’ve come to the site, and what their expectations are.

So I started thinking, how do these questions apply to mobile UX design, and is there any overlap? Are the things we look for when we’re designing web sites some of the same things we look for when building the interface for mobile applications, like the iPhone? Well let’s find out. First though, the original list…

The Five Questions Every User Asks On Every Page

1. Whose site am I on?
This is all about branding. It’s not just the business that wants their brand recognized, user’s want to know whose site their on too. It gives users a sense of place.

2. What is the value on this page?
Some web sites can be long and tedious, and users will always ask themselves, “Ok, im here, I’m on this page on your site, now what? And you need to have an answer for that on every single page. It gives users a sense of purpose.

3. Where am I on the site?
Nobody likes to get lost, but sadly too many sites still don’t gives users a clear indication of where they are. You always want users to quickly know where they are within your site. It gives users a sense of location.

4. Where do I go to get what I want?
You should always build into the UI easy ways for users to have their expectations met. So it’s important to understand what those expectations are before you design any UI. It gives users a sense of value.

5. How do I get back?
It doesn’t matter how well you design your UI, people will always want to start over from the beginning. You always want to design in a way to do that. It gives users a sense of comfort.

Ok, so how do these five questions relate to creating a mobile UI?

1. Whose app am I using?
Branding is just as important on a mobile application as it is on a web site. You’ll often see a mobile application with a “splash” or loading screen, and that screen will display the logo of the company that made the application. And within the application itself, you’ll often see a separate logo that’s specific to that app. Both of these opportunities to create brand awareness are important to the user. We try to incorporate the app logo into headers, or loading screens within the app, but sometimes we just don’t have the screen space to do that – another reason the initial loading screen branding is valuable.

2. What value is there with this app?
This is an interesting one when it comes to a mobile application. Many mobile applications have a very short shelf life. It’s just the nature of the environment that’s been created for us. Users can get bored quickly, and with so many applications to choose from, especially on the iPhone, apps are loaded and dumped alarmingly fast. So it’s important to quickly establish the value of the application. You don’t have the luxury of time.

3. Where am I?
Perhaps not as important for many mobile applications, especially games or one or two screen utilities. For larger multi-screen applications though, it’s still important to give users that sense of location. Header titles, and highlighted tabs, are one way that Apple has built that into their UI. Follow the expected conventions until it’s time to break those conventions.

4.How can I find what I want, or complete the tasks that are important to me?
With the iPhone especially, Apple has created a standardized UI methodology that’s designed to give users familiar and expected interface elements that allow them to navigation through applications. Follow the expected conventions until it’s time to break those conventions.

5. How do I get back? 
For many mobile applications we want to give users a way to go back to the beginning of the application and start over. It’s maybe even more important with the limited screen real estate of mobile. If it’s a game, you obviously need a way to start over. If it’s a utility, then you need a way to begin new tasks.

It looks like there is a bit of overlap between designing a good interface for a web site and designing one for a mobile application. It all comes down to the fact that “Good Design Is On Purpose!”