Kath Straub at Human Factors Int’l releases a great list of Key Research Findings from 2002-3. It is one of the most useful design references I’ve seen recently. There’s a singular lack of research in this field – as opposed to trial-and-error – a problem compounded by the difficulty of finding and applying it. I hope to be as helpful as Ms. Straub with my IA Summit presentation, Incorporating Navigation Research into a Design Method, 28 Feb, Austin, Texas. Link courtesy PJB.
Month: January 2004
-
Management/Geek Support
Whether a technology comes in to a company via management or geeks was recently mentioned by Tim Bray, and reminded me of how my last project changed from iPlanet (hateful thing, that) to the IBM HTTP Server – in mid-project! I think the sudden switch was a coup by the techies, made acceptable by it being labeled I-B-M, despite the fact that it’s powered by Apache.
-
Mike goes over the deep end
‘It’s during those times of waiting her out that I’ve recently taken to metering the sound level of her cries with a Radio Shack Sound Level Meter (part no. 33-2055). Now that I have metrics on our baby’s cry, I can benchmark her to other babies.‘
-
Career Change Justified
I went and spent all that money on a masters degree in music technology, and realized it wouldn’t be long before everyone would have the same skills as soon as the ease of use improved and PC processor speeds made dedicated hardware obsolete. Witness Apple’s GarageBand. Glad I’m a designer.
-
The Effects of Menu Graphic Design on Navigation Research
I was psyched to find The effects of menu design on information-seeking performance and user’s attitude on the World Wide Web by Byeong-Min Yu and Seak-Zoon Roh (JASIST, Volume 53, Issue 11, Pages 923-933). It’s only a couple years old and fairly rigorous, but I can’t recommend it. It looks as if in the process of trying to control for the graphic design, they ended up simply creating bad graphic design. Below is a shot of a cascading menu from the study, which is so unusual looking I can’t respect the study’s findings. Granted we’re looking at this out of context, but something as familiar as a cascading menu – especially when used for a navigation – should look rather familiar. I would think when controlling for this, it would make more sense to use the very familiar, such as menus that resembled Windows menus. Oh well.
-
Books of 2003
Jess has a nice roundup of IA Books from 2003. I’m personally considering Brenda Laurel’s Design Research.
-
CSS and CMS
Designing a site now that has to push the envelope of how CSS must be able to tweak the layout, much like CSS Zen Garden but for an ecommerce application. We’re also using a content management system, so the interplay of CSS and CMS becomes interesting. I think I can simplify the CMS templates so they only have to reflect business logic, and all the differences in presentation are done in the CSS. Still, it changes how I think about content types. Normally I’d only think about how granular the content types need to be to work in every template. Now I’m also thinking about what I want to appear in separate DIVs too. Not sure if that will end up being more granular or not. Dave Shea posts related thoughts about the relationship between markup and CSS flexibility.
Besides all the usual advantages of CSS, it should be an easier implementation as CSS development is easier than CMS template development. I think.
-
Norman on Powerpoint
Don Norman says, PowerPoint is NOT the problem…. Any dense, detailed information that requires study to understand can NOT be presented in a talk it can be summarized and described, but the study and concentration required for understanding should be done elsewhere. Talks are for summaries. Amen. Link courtesy PJB. Also see the Laurence Lessig slides for a bit o’ contrast to Tufte-ism.
-
NYC Taxi Tips
My heart breaks when I see newbie tourists in Manhattan. The young woman the other day carrying armloads of luggage in the rain politely asking the cab driver if he drives to Queens. Here’s two tips to avoid the worst:
- Taxis must drive you anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City, period. The trick is to get in the taxi, close the door, and then tell them where you’re going. Don’t get out until you are at your destination. If they give you grief because they don’t want to drive to a particular neighborhood, threaten to write down their name and license number and report them. Pretend you’re on Law and Order, it’s fun.
- If you have anything in the trunk, upon arrival get out leaving the door open, remove your items from trunk, then close the door. This avoids the taxi accidentally speeding off with your stuff.
Bonus tip: on the subway, if you don’t get a seat, you’re gonna wanna hold on to the hand rail, really.
-
Software Project Management Resources
Wow, the page for the Columbia University software projectment management course is a great list.
-
Security update
We just noticed a fighter jet flying low over the Hudson River along Manhattan. Spooky.
-
One-Question Survey
The One Number You Need to Grow by Frederick F. Reichheld is a great, short article on using one-question surveys that measure loyalty correlated with customer behavior. Highlights:
‘Every month, Enterprise polled its customers using just two simple questions, one about the quality of their rental experience and the other about the likelihood that they would rent from the company again. Because the process was so simple, it was fast. That allowed the company to publish ranked results for its 5,000 U.S. branches within days. …the company counted only the customers who gave the experience the highest possible rating…By concentrating solely on those most enthusiastic about their rental experience, the company could focus on a key driver of profitable growth: customers who not only return to rent again but also recommend Enterprise to their friends.’
‘In most of the industries that I studied, the percentage of customers who were enthusiastic enough to refer a friend or colleague — perhaps the strongest sign of customer loyalty — correlated directly with differences in growth rates among competitors.’
‘Companies have tended to focus on customer retention rates, but that measurement is merely the best of a mediocre lot…they basically track customer defections’
‘For a while, it seemed as though information technology would provide a means to accurately measure loyalty. Sophisticated customer-relationship-management systems promised to help firms track customer behavior in real time. But the successes thus far have been limited to select industries, such as credit cards or grocery stores, where purchases are so frequent that changes in customer loyalty can be quickly spotted and acted on. ‘ – Behavior is difficult to study and quantify, lots of data might help.
‘My personal bet for the top question (probably reflecting the focus of my research on employee loyalty in recent years) would have been "How strongly do you agree that [company X] deserves your loyalty?" Clearly, though, the abstract concept of loyalty was less compelling to customers than what may be the ultimate act of loyalty, a recommendation to a friend.’ – This question raises the same kind of emotion that occurs during real behavior, and might help explain why it’s a better indicator of behavior.
I like how he used a 10-point scale then clustered the results into three types of customers, avoiding “grade inflation.”
Also see the Loyalty Acid Test.
-
NYC Design Shops
…I hadn’t heard of before: Flat, IDSociety, Bartok, and Four Eyes. Later: Digital Pulp, Sharpe Partners, Fabric, and Blue Dingo (interesting site).