I work in online user experience for Barnes & Noble, so this is right up my alley. Plus, I’m always hesitant to join book clubs with friends because I can be a little particular about which fiction books I read. This is why the idea of a professional book club appeals to me so much. I have an ever growing list of fiction books I want to one day get to, but I wouldn’t mind a little help from my peers in choosing which books on user experience are the most relevant at this very moment. And I’d be thrilled if a group of peers wanted to read it at the same time and then link up to discuss—especially if it’s done leisurely over a glass of wine.

It looks like I’m not the only one excited about this idea. UX Book Clubs have sprouted in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, and all over North and South America.

Boxes and Arrows, which features articles on information architecture and design, recently had an article profiling UX Book Clubs. In the article, the founder, Steve Baty writes, “In early Nov 2008, I started to talk to a few people about the idea of a book club in Sydney to discuss User Experience (UX) books….And then something surprising happened, people liked the idea so much that they started doing things to make it happen.”

Even if you don’t have one in your area, or if you can’t attend, you can still benefit. Each group gets an individual page on the site to post its mission and the list of books the group has read. Not every group has a robust page up yet, but still the rest of us can get ideas by digging through the various lists. It’s also interesting to see what the hot UX topic is in different parts of the world.

Here’s how the group describes itself on the website:

The UX Book Club seeks to enhance the abilities and knowledge of user experience professionals from information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, ixd design theory while building a passionate local community. Subjects of interest to this club span design theory, design research and user experience research practices and processes. The books include the strategy and business of design, UX design theory and history, methodology, usability research, and the ethics of UX professionals, while networking and having some fun….

And if you don’t see your city on the list, go to the UX Book Club site to start your own!

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Today I came across a site that made me incredibly happy. It’s called Songs to Wear Pants To.

Andrew, a writer and composer, creates full songs based on ideas users submit on his site. He rummages through the requests and picks ideas he wants to turn into songs. Of course, for a fee, you can make sure your idea gets lyrics and a melody. He then sells his original works for 99 cents each. You can buy entire CDs for $10. The albums are appropriately named GREEN PANTS, BLUE PANTS, and PINK PANTS.

Here are just a few examples of user requests:

• Can you write a really Bass guitar filler song about being a fish that is learning everything about the world around him from his tank?
• i think you should make a song about see-through grumpy unicorns.
• Write a song about why Finland is super-cool, with a little guitar solo!
• Compose a jingle to a product, real or imaginary, that should NEVER have been invented, but somehow has gotten popular. It would probably be like 10 seconds or so.
• How ’bout a rap song in which none of the lyrics contain the letter “e” ? (You can check the lyrics).

So dream up something cool and make your request as specific or open-ended as you like. And as Andrew says, “Get your own song!”

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I recently discovered a wonderful new use for the Flip: user testing. The small device allows user experience professionals to effortlessly capture user tests while allowing them to go to the participant. Until now, I’ve found it cumbersome and expensive to record any sort of usability session. But now, for around $200, you can have a portable video recorder to bring with you—in your pocket. This lets you go to the user and observe them in their natural environment—something that has previously been challenging.

When I was at IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab about four years ago, we had a usability lab with a not-so-inconspicuous “tree cam” that supposedly made people less conscious of the fact that we were filming them. Like participants didn’t notice a big fake potted plant with a 10-inch camcorder and wires hanging down! (I’m sure they’ve upgraded since then.)

I’ve also been on teams where we’ve rented out usability labs with sophisticated equipment that recorded both the participant and the screen itself. That nifty set up is great for us researches, but I’ve heard users say that it makes them uncomfortable because so many large device are pointing at them and recording their faces.

Last week while we were observing shoppers on Barnes & Noble.com, all we had to do was sit the phone-sized camera on the desk and aim it at the computer screen. The most AV set up we ever needed to do was to prop the camera up on a book if we needed to raise it an inch to better capture the screen.

You just push that big red button to start recording, and then you push it again to stop. Only the participant’s voice, not face, was captured.

I was skeptical about the quality of the video. One warning is that you’ve got to remember to speak up and keep reminding your participant to speak up. The mic isn’t the best. But the screen was clear to see. And we also were able to capture when people pointed at areas of the screen, (something I’ve lost in the past when the screen is recorded by software).  Here’s a screen cap from what we recorded during testing:

This small and relatively inexpensive device has removed most barriers that have inhibited us from doing more user testing in the past.

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But with so many companies climbing on board to produce games, many end up with sub-par user experiences. Mark Hurst of Creative Good started a list of games with great user experiences. It’s a lengthy list of games ranging from 2005 to present. He has even taken the time to jot down if the game has a long or quick playtime.

There are of course the classics, like Hearts. But Mark has taken the time to identify his favorite version of online Hearts: Yahoo! Hearts. But Mark has also found odd games like Fishing Girl. As the site describes, in this game you get to “[r]eel in those fish one by one as you attempt to save a boy who’s trapped on the other side of the ocean.” Here’s what Mark says about this game: “Very nicely designed fishing game with a clever payoff.”

For anyone thinking of following the trend, take a look to see what sets some online games apart.

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Several of the staff at Boxes and Arrows captured many of the main sessions and posted them on their site. As of now, they seem to have posted everything except Days 2 and 3. But they have a message up saying that more sessions should be rolling in over the next two weeks, so hopefully those will get filled in soon. The conference theme was “Expanding Our Horizons”.

Michael Wesch opened the conference with a keynote address about “fresh and ambitious direction for all designers”. I also like how Boxes and Arrows embedded the IA Summit’s music theme at the top of each page. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a conference (at least not a usability conference) with it’s own jingle.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the IA Summit, here’s a brief description from the summit’s website:

The Information Architecture Summit is the premier gathering place for information architects and other user experience professionals. It’s grown from a special interest group’s efforts to define an emerging field, to a rich and expanding community of practice shaping and informing multiple disciplines. You don’t have to be an IA or User Experience professional to enjoy the Summit. You simply have to love the art and science of structuring information.

View a full schedule of the 2009 IA Summit.

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A few weeks ago, I was heading to a friend’s house for brunch. I had been asked to pick up orange juice, and the host specifically requested Tropicana. I popped into my neighborhood grocery store and wandered to the OJ section, but I couldn’t find the Tropicana. After scanning the refrigerator shelves, I noticed a Tropicana bottle that said “100% orange pure & natural” and assumed it was a new organic version. I wondered if I should go to a different store to get the regular Tropicana OJ that the host requested, but I ended up buying it. When I arrived, the host was slightly disappointed that I got the special organic kind and not the tried and true kind, but we all drank it and liked it.

The next week while watching CNN, I saw a report on Tropicana and how their sales dropped significantly after they gave the orange juice carton a face lift. The Tropicana spokesperson was saying that they were switching back to the old design because customers complained that their grocery stores no longer carried Tropicana juice (which, of course, was not actually the case). I realized I hadn’t bought a new organic drink at all; I actually had bought the tried and true favorite but just didn’t recognize it.

Since then, I’ve seen several articles that mull over when to redesign a brand’s look and feel and how far to go. Most focus on the iconic orange with the straw sticking out, and people claim that customers would recognize a variation of a design that maintained those iconic images.

Today I came across an interesting new take on the situation. Khoi Vinh, the Design Director at the NYTimes.com, points out on his blog that usability is an important brand attribute as well. He compares the 15 old and new labels of the 15 different varieties of OJ (no pulp, some pulp, with calcium, etc). The old labels used different colors to represent each variety, while the new labels relied on the writing on the package.

Pepsi is a great example of a brand that has been able to reinvent its logo over and over to stay current while still staying recognizable. Many ommented about how the latest iteration resembles the Obama logo.

BNet recently made the case that the new Pepsi logo actually looks like the old Diet Pepsi logo, which means it has a great mix of old and new.

We all need to keep our brands and our websites fresh and exciting, but Tropicana’s experience is a good reminder to make sure we’re designing strategically.

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Back in 2007, Google bought a company called GrandCentral. The original GrandCentral had many incredible features to offer customers who have multiple phones to manage:

• Single phone number in the area code of your choice. When anyone called this number, all connected devices rang simultaneously.
• Singe voice mail box and management
• Ability to have different voicemail greeting per caller
• Ability to specify which phones rang for each caller
• Ability to record phone calls

For the past two years, Google has been laying low about the service, but now they’re primed to rerelease it with new features that could change the way we think of managing our phones and phone numbes. They are introducing four new features: Free voicemail transcriptions: Getting voicemail in text means you can read it like a text or email. And yes, this means you could search, save, and copy and paste voicemails. Very cool. Free conference calling: No more access codes or special call in numbers. Google Voice will allow you to conference in multiple people who call your phone number. Cheap international calls: They’re promising rates lower than Skype! Ability to sort, tag, and manage text messages: Now that communications are getting shorter and more frequent, important information is now being delivered via texts.

Here are some links to learn more:

• Google Voice page
• Article in New York Times

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Digital moms of children 12 and older, versus moms with children under 12, are more likely to watch online video (40% vs. 34%), game (57% vs. 51%), read online consumer reviews (38% vs. 30%), and watch or listen to podcasts (13% vs. 9%); while moms of children younger than 12 are more likely to use social networks (67% vs. 62%).

Part 1 focuses on the online behaviors of this growing group. The article’s table of contents summarizes the key findings:

• Digital moms are active users of Web 2.0 technologies.
• Age does matter, both the mom’s age and the child’s.
• Moms’ motivations for using emerging channels change as their children grow.
• “Whom moms communicate with” is changing.
• Moms may be moms, but they are also women with interests beyond parenting.
• Digital Moms first learn about products via many channels.

Part 2 looks at how mothers use social networks to connect, find information, and express themselves online.

Read the full article: Digital Mom 2009

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This morning, Facebook agreed to pull back the changes, which is a major victory for members of all online communities. Most communities are run with the understanding that users either accept the Ts & Cs or they shouldn’t sign up. But the Facebook community has found a way to harness it’s power—utilizing the Facebook platform as the main form of communication with the world and the company itself.

While watching CNN and eating Cheerios this morning, I saw an interview with Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer. He said the company wasn’t trying to do anything like what they are accused of, and that the whole thing is a misunderstanding. Still, Facebook has reverted back to its old terms of service, and the CPO said they will consider making future changes based on what community members want.

Facebooks even started a new group called “Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities”. The group description begins:

This group is for people to give input on Facebook’s terms of use. These terms are meant to serve as the governing document for how the service is used by people around the world.

As of 10:15am ET today, the group already has f 33,588 members, and that number rose from 31,000 in less than 15 minutes. The big themes of the posts are that Facebook should notify its members when there are privacy changes, and that people object to the previous changes.

It’ll be interesting to see if the community will actually gain the power to influence future privacy policies. Really fascinating stuff.

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Last week Google released results from a recent eye tracking study. If we can’t do the studies ourselves, at least we can follow other studies and glean ideas for the best approach.

According to Google’s blog:

Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds.

The most interesting finding to me is that people tend to scan results in order, mostly ignoring visual cues. I had always believed the “golden triangle” rule that says users scan the top left of search results, as the image on the left below shows. But I always assumed that this rule broke down when non-textual elements were present.

As part of the test, Google asked users to choose a result for “how to tie a tie” (image on the right below). The eye tracking showed that users’ eyes still moved from top left down. They scanned the indented text links before they glanced down at the big image of a tie.

The article on Google’s blog shows a real-time example of users scanning that search results page. Granted, this is only one study, but it’s worth thinking about the next time you design a results page of any kind.

Read the full article

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