August 7th, 2008
This October, I’ll be teaching the full-day workshop, Product Usability: Survival Techniques, at the UI Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I will be discussing the most successful techniques for incorporating usability practices into the development process. The highlight of the day is the design exercise where attendees create a working interface in only a few hours — and usability test it with real users.
If you register for the conference, and use the promotion code PERFETTI, you will receive $30 off each day of the conference. If you sign up for all 4 days, you’ll receive a free Flip Video Ultra camcorder.
I hope to see you in October!
Posted in Speaking - 1 Comment »
July 2nd, 2008
As both a loyal Netflix customer and a Macintosh user, I’ve always been disappointed that I can’t take advantage of Netflix’s Watch Instantly feature on my computer. The feature isn’t currently supported for the Mac, and for months, I’ve been asking myself why Netflix has chosen to ignore the needs of a large subset of their audience.
Thanks to Netflix, I now know the answer.
When Mac users visit the Watch Instantly page, they can read clear and concise copy that explains why Netflix can’t help them watch movies on their computer.
They state:
“Our apologies — instant watching is currently not supported for Macintosh.
Our goal is for Netflix members to enjoy movies and TV shows on whatever screen they want. We’re required to use Digital Rights Management to protect movies watched instantly online, and right now we only have approval for this protection on Windows Operating systems, not the Mac.
Apple does not license their DRM solution to third parties, which has made this more difficult, but we are working with the studios and content owners to gain approval for other solutions.”
In addition to the detailed explanation, the page also offers several alternative suggestions for Mac users, so they can try and take advantage of the feature.
In my research, when users can’t accomplish a task, they still want to understand why they can’t do what they want. In the case of Netflix, one page of online copy effectively helps customers understand that Netflix was considering them — even if they couldn’t help them. While Mac users are still inconvenienced, the designers have demonstrated they’re thinking about their audience.
Posted in customers, user experience - No Comments »
June 17th, 2008
On your site, the content page is the user’s most frequent final destination. This page contains the information the user came to the site to find. Sites often have hundreds, if not thousands (and in some cases, millions) of these critical pages.
How can design teams be confident their content pages are understandable to users? How does a team ensure they’ve designed content pages that communicate the essential information effectively?
A simple usability testing technique can help design teams quickly measure how a content page performs with users. It’s called the 5-Second Test. In case you missed it, a few years back, I wrote an article about the 5-second test methodology, outlining how to set up these types of tests and when they are most effective.
Posted in Articles, usability testing - No Comments »
