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choc_heuristics

Originally uploaded by maadmob.

From OZCHI 2006 - heuristics chocolates.

I’m still being seriously swamped by spam and am thinking about how to manage it better. One option is to only accept comments from people with a Typekey token. I’m hesitant to do it as it puts the burden onto commenters rather than me, but right now I’m not even posting as I’m spending too much time deleting spam.

So I was wondering - if you are a regular reader, how would this affect you? Let me know:

• Do you already have a typekey account?
• Would you register with Typekey (it would allow you to comment on any blog that is using this method)
• Would you just not bother commenting?
• Would you stop reading all together?

Thanks!

Yippee - Boxes and Arrows has added a search box!!! Now it’s truly fabulous.

More than anyone else (even the unnamed one that some of you know about), Mark Hurst consistently makes my blood boil. In his latest, he states a basic page paradigm as:

“On any given Web page, users will either…

• click something that appears to take them closer to the fulfillment of their goal
• or click the Back button on their Web browser”

I think that there is a big action missing. Here’s how it goes:

• notice something else on the page that is interesting and click it

Now I know that I’m not the only one who does this - I have seen a lot of people do it. Of course, I don’t see it in a usability test or contextual enquiry, because when I’m there people are following my ‘instructions’ and ignoring their natural tendency to distraction (but even in a usability test they may say ‘that’s interesting, I’ll come back to it later’). I see it when hanging around with people in front of computers.

In reality, this is a big deal, both in the sense of persuasive marketing and increasing knowledge. I have deliberately designed information systems so they include the information that people know that they will need (the user’s goal) right next to the information that someone else wants them to know. In Mark’s world, people would never click the latter link. In my world, I have seen it happen - people see the additional information and learn that there is something else that they should know about, or something else that they might like to buy.

This is one of the big challenges of information architecture - not to just group information, but to understand how to identify the information that people don’t know that they want and get them to it.

I also share Peter’s concerns, so didn’t repeat them here…

This article by Mark Hurst is interesting - Four words to improve user research

He suggest a slightly different approach to user research - in a usability test, don’t plan scenarios. Sounds good…

What’s wrong about this is that this is not user research - you don’t conduct user research in a lab - you conduct it in context. This is evaluation. Don’t mix them up - they are entirely different things.

(I would have put this on his site, but no comments there…)

I’m currently studying a Masters degree in Internet Communication - almost finished my second of three years. It’s a bit of a strange course and next year involves two subjects that I’m really not interested in, so instead I asked if I can do a research project.

How cool - I can, and the head of school thought my topic would be good. So next year, I’m going to be spending lots of time trawling through user-centred design, human factors, cognitive psych and LIS literature (only the first of which is *my* field) looking for techniques & theories that we may use to better arrange large, heterogeneous information spaces so they are more usable. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that this is something I’ve been musing on recently.

Yay! I’ll let you know how it goes (slowly, I imagine)

…you go shopping for a briefcase and stand in the shop running through scenarios on each bag…

or does everyone do this?

(and the one I bought is gorgeous, usable, useful and hideously expensive)

Another good article from Mike Kuniavsky (Adaptive Path) about interviewing:

Face to Face With Your Users: Running a Nondirected Interview

These are the types of interviews I use most often - I have a few broad questions that I plan, and otherwise let the interview take its course. Usually I sit at a person’s computer with them and get them to show me examples, and point to things as we talk. This is much more useful than trying to conceptualise or just describe what happens.