usable toys

I was watching my 4 yr old struggle to play with a Hot Wheels racing track he got as a gift. The contraption took us an hour to assemble and then we started figuring out how to play! There were two gears which were whirring and turning at full speed and you had to carefully place the little car right in the middle of those gears. The car got hurled away by the force of the gears and it was supposed to go all the way around the track. But, guess what, its so heavy it doesn;t go halfway! And the toy is meant for ages 3 and up! Talk about being tough to use. What's the little guy supposed to do?

It got me thinking how relevant usability is to the world of toys and kids stuff. Isn't it even more important to put in proper thinking and design toys in a way that they can be easily used by the target users - little kids!

One toy I really love is a little car which just won't fall off. That's so perfect for a kid who is riding it on a table top...there's no risk of it falling off. The rotator wheel turns the car any time it hits an edge.
That's smart design!

Another thing i saw at a friend's house - a kid's chair which has steps like a ladder. So, the kid can easily get up and sit on the chair without any help. Useful.

Perhaps its also smart to use kids for usability testing. Imagine if a product is so easy that a kid can use it....thats the best usability test!

usability in application migration

Many of our clients have a set of legacy applications which have been used for years without much change. Most organizations today are migrating such applications onto new technology platforms. The focus tends to be on providing cutting edge technology and piling up the features list.
- What happens to the end users in this setup? Here are people who are used to certain applications, their interaction patterns have been set for some time. They have apprehensions about adjusting to the new applications, the comfort factor is gone.

Can usability help? Yes, it can make a significant difference.

In any migration exercise, it is critical to have the users at the core and then design the new application. Adopting a user-centric design process ensures that the users’ expectations are well understood, mapped and eventually met. A good starting point is to study the various user profiles and the tasks they perform on the existing application.

Usability analysts can help gauge the users’ mental model, the way in which they interact with the applications and map their needs to the new functionalities. These are crucial inputs to the design phase and will eventually help in developing better, more ‘usable’ applications, which score high on user acceptance.

UX lessons from the iPhone

So, what's the big deal about the iPhone? Did Apple invent something new, never seen before?
NO. All they did was make the iPhone not just a phone but an experience! And that's really what user experience teams do. Give the users a great experience while they use the same old products with pretty much the same set of features.
The difference is the experience we can give the users. That's the stuff that sells!
Check out the interesting slides.

Usability and marketing

We were presenting to a prospective client about the merits of usability. His company had several web applications which were being marketed online. In the middle of the discussion, he asked 'well, what about marketing? can you help me promote new products?' Whats that got to do with usability?
Well, its all related because the end objective is giving the user / website visitor appropriate information. Structuring information also means deciding which users should get to see what advertisements on your site. How large should the ads be? What's the right kind of placement?
What kind of slogan would attract? How do you ensure the user remains on the website long enough to read the promos?
The right mix of marketing communication and usability will ensure your website visitors are 'directed' towards promotional messages without making them react negatively. Appropriate placement of info, choosing the correct color palette, the right kind of visual effect; all of these have an angle of usability built into them. Designing forms which capture relevant info without seeming too tedious for the user is a similar art.
At the end of the day, its all about designing for the user, by the user's perspective and of the user's needs.

usability in daily life

When you talk about a product being usable, it means a lot of things. Easy to use, intuitive, well-designed, useful ....the list of adjectives goes on.
Driving to work today, I came across a very user-friendly feature in my car. I drive a Fiat Adventure which is like the hottest car around!! :) The sheer power, the way it makes me feel safe, especially on these crazy Indian roads and the comfort, all make me love it.
The steering wheel has a really cool adjustable lever, you pull the lever and move the steering up or down. Gives you control over your driving position...and for someone as tall as me, its a very useful feature.
Another cool thing is two lights inside the car, one near the rearview mirror and one in the center of the roof in the back of the car. So, when my kid wants to sit in his car seat in the back and read his book, the driver doesn't get distracted by the light.

I'm sure many cars have these features, but the ones that don't are obviously lacking.
Small things go a long way to enhance usability of any product....and better usability means satisfied customers!

promoting usability

I was reading an interesting article about the initial struggle to set up a user experience group in a corporate environment. I am facing some of these very issues in my current setup. There are many roadblocks and it is an uphill task! The first step is the toughest as it involves changing mindsets. Most people have the notion that Usability is only about 'look and feel' ...add some pretty colors and cool graphics...and voila, you're there!
In the early stages, reaching out to people across the organization and trying to give them the right perspective is important. Usability addresses the needs of the end user and it is much more than just visual appeal. Its all about organizing and then presenting information in a way that is easily understood. Its about simplified navigation flows allowing the user to complete tasks effectively. So, how do we as usability practitioners convince the uninitiated?
Some ideas:

- Get senior management buy-in
- Conducting roadshows among the development teams
- Demonstrate ROI to the sales teams
- Blogs / articles on the company intranet to reach more people and invite participation
- Events / workshops around interesting themes
- Appoint UE champions within various groups to take the cause further. Reward and recognize.

Once the initial efforts start to show results, usability will become a natural part of the process....a 'must-have' .

right align, left align

Having worked on several UI assignments, a recurring issue is ..how do you align action buttons at the end of forms? Research reveals that users scan pages from the top left to bottom right. By this logic, makes sense to place buttons on the right hand bottom corner of the form. There is a contrasting view which argues that the mouse has to travel a longer distance this way and hence the shortest way to get to the buttons is to place them on the left. I'm for the former view as a general rule but it makes sense to test a few pages with your sample set of users and see what works best for them! Usability, I believe, is very subjective as users are varied and so are their needs.

thoughts on design, usability, color, form...and life

design is everything! Said a famous design guru and i must say i agree...with a slight difference...design is everywhere. Look around you and you see it in the shape of your keyboard keys, you feel it through the back of of your 'ergonomic' chair; you curse it as you enter your house in the dark and fumble for the light switch which should have been right by the door...but darn it, it isn't!! Ah, design makes its presence...or absence felt. Call it usability or user experience, i think its all about how you design products or systems to make the user feel "Oh, that was so easy" .. just like creating this blog was for me!

so, will continue on this journey of good and bad design for as long as life shall be.