My favourite checkbox
A refreshingly honest checkbox that brought a smile to my face (from the rather splendid Quicksilver):
Is this the linguistic equivalent of a fairy door?
Taking a tumble
I’m not a prodigious blogger, as my stupendously lame output over the last few months will testify. It’s not that I don’t want to, or even that I don’t think about what I could write about. I just spend too much time thinking about the details and how I should write a post. My expectation of myself is that I should always try to write something reasonably substantial and at least mildly interesting. At the moment, I have more than 30 unpublished posts that are essentially collections of notes that I’ve never found the time to expand on as fully as I’d like to. Basically, I find it hard to find the time to achieve the sort of blog that I really want to have.
I am, however, quite taken by the idea of Tumblelogs. These are just short, sharp stream-of-consciousness type blogs. There is no expectation of sitting down and writing an article. It’s more of a scrapbook of observations, thoughts and links. I guess it’s kind of half way between Twitter and a real blog. Since starting my Tumblelog, Sensorytumble, I’ve been surprised how easy it is to engage with the concept. This is all helped by the fact that it automatically pulls in my del.icio.us bookmarks and Twitter ramblings. I’m encouraged to post as well, because I know that it’ll have to be brief and that actually publishing something is achievable. And that makes it much more fun!
Users are revolting!
A report that has very interesting implications for the usability market in the future:
A lack of user-friendly technology in the marketplace is exacerbating a digital divide in the workforce between those who can use technology effectively and those who can’t and is likely to provoke a backlash among users, according to a new Technology Predictions for 2007 report from consultancy Deloitte…
Google Co-op search for user experience
I’ve been playing around with Google Co-op and created a custom user experience search engine. There are around 75 sites indexed at the moment, but please let me know if you’d like to contribute a URL.
In the meantime, have a play…
UX-related open access journals
Having previously bemoaned the fact that, as a UX practitioner rather than academic, there aren’t too many academic journals that I can easily lay my hands on, it’s great to discover that there’s a Directory of Open Access Journals. There are currently more than 2400 journals online and, while this is still scratching the surface, it’s obviously a very positive thing.
Some potentially interesting journals from a UX perspective are:
- Adriadne
- Advances in Cognitive Psychology
- Behaviormetrika
- Brains, Minds & Media
- Contemporary Aesthetics
- Crossings (Electronic Journal of Art and Technology)
- Cultural Analysis
- Current Psychology Letters – Behaviour, Brain, & Cognition
- Current Research in Social Psychology
- Cybermetrics
- Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management
- Equal Access to Software & Information
- Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
- Evolutionary Psychology
- First Monday
- Game Studies
- Human Technology
- IBM Systems Journal
- INFOCOMP Journal of Computer Science
- Informatica
- Information Technology Journal
- Information Research
- Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management
- Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects
- International Journal of Design Computing
- Japanese Journal of Personality
- Journal of eLiteracy
- International Journal of Information Technology
- International Journal of Qualitative Methods
- Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
- Journal of Digital Information
- Journal of Human Ecology
- Journal of Interactive Media in Education
- Journal of Interactive Online Learning
- Journal of Learning Design
- Journal of Vision
- PsychNology
- Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems
- Systems, Signs & Actions
- UOC Papers
- Webology
- Working Papers in Art & Design
[link to DOAJ via Cognitive Daily]
IE7 : too much of a UI surprise to force on users?
The much anticipated release of IE7 is imminent. It could be tomorrow. It could be in two weeks. But it’s going to be this month. I’ve no doubt that IE7 will be a huge improvement over IE6 in terms of both functionality (tabbed browsing at last!) and better support for web standards (although it may not go far enough). However, I’m surprised to see that it will be made available via Microsoft’s Automatic Updates as a High Priority update. Microsoft says that this is “To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date”. Since most PC users apparently live in fear of net crime in the UK, and most people blindly install High Priority updates because of the perceived security benefits (myself included), I think it’s fair to say that an awful lot of people will suddenly end up with IE7 as their primary browser.
And that’s where I think the trouble could start. IE6 is virtually ubiquitous unless you are a Mac owner. Pretty much everyone uses it, and has been using it in its current incarnation for several years. While a significant, enlightened minority have migrated to Firefox or Opera, the vast majority of web users have shown little desire to try another browser. Except now they’ll have to. And there’s every chance that it will be a shock. Although it’s better, IE7 just doesn’t feel the same. Everything has moved around. There’s no menu bar by default. Tabbed browsing, a search box and RSS feeds have appeared. All the buttons are in different places. This means that all the actions that users have learned and have become muscle memory over the past few years will no longer be relevant.
Out with the old…
And in with the new…
This is like waking up one morning only to find that your right-hand drive car has suddenly become a left-hand drive car (or vice versa if you are in the US). No warning. No expectation. It’s just there and you have to deal with it and still manage to find your way to work in one piece. It’s still a car. It’s still drivable. But it’s bloody hard work. Instead of being in a blissful, dreamy world of unconscious competence, you may find yourself suddenly dropped from a great height into an icy vat of conscious incompetence.
I genuinely think this is a problem that a lot of people will initially have with IE7. And any negative perceptions may be exacerbated by the fact that it will be a sudden imposition of a new user interface, rather than a polite invitation to try it out. Ultimately, the success of this forced method of introduction of IE7 may depend not only on how learnable the new interface is, but how unlearnable old habits are.
19-Oct-06 Update 1. So much for being secure and up-to-date! The first security vulnerability for IE7 has already been found.
19-Oct-06 Update 2. Some initial signs of discontent with the change to the new IE interface.
About
I'm Stuart Church, a user experience consultant with Pure Usability in Bristol, UK. Sensorydrive is my personal blog and covers user experience design, information architecture, product design, psychology, research methods, perception and pretty much anything else that takes my fancy! You can find out a bit more about me if you want...
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