Budding UX

iPhone App Store: Free/Buy/Install

2009-03-18T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Free/Buy/Install toggle button drives me crazy sometimes. I've noticed that if you click Free (or Buy if it costs anything) and it turns into Install, clicking anywhere outside of the button will return it to Free. The problem is that the button is either too small or the target is off because I'll toggle between the two states in half my attempts, and I've got sticks for fingers. :(

2009-03-03T12:17:00.001-08:00

Trying to decide on lunch. Really want Pho, but don't wanna smell like Pho. Mmmm.

Rediscovering Photoshop

2009-03-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

With the opportunity to work with a new version of Photoshop, I'm slowly learning what all the new features are. Some are CS4 specific, others are from previous versions that I never owned.

- When windows are tiled, you can move the canvas or zoom all images at the same time by pressing down shift
- Selecting the hand tool and then pressing h will allow you to zoom out to bird's eye view
- Hold shift and then the keyboard shortcut to cycle through tools
- Selecting the zoom tool and then holding down the mouse button will automatically zoom in until you let go
- Content aware scaling will transform the image without distorting the main subject (I redid my shortcut to command-shift-t)

BTW, all the versions of Photoshop I've worked with: 3, 5, 7, CS, CS4.

Links to some sites explaining the features:
- http://www.chrisorwig.com/cs4/
- http://www.photoshopuser.com/cs4/sk_features.html

2009-02-27T14:12:00.001-08:00

The evidence.

2009-02-27T14:10:00.001-08:00

I like Asian gummy candies but it makes me feel guilty that they're all individually wrapped. All those wrappers...

2009-02-27T13:11:00.001-08:00

Purchased the "black air jacket set" by Power Support for my iPhone. Very thin and sleek but doesn't cover the front edges. Hmm.

iPhone Earbuds Are Anti-Collared Shirt

2009-02-20T15:48:00.000-08:00

I hate the position of the mic on the earbuds that come with the iPhone. Maybe it's just me but it keeps get caught on the collar of my button-up shirts. Grr.

Some Mac Annoyances

2009-02-20T10:09:00.000-08:00

A running list of things I don't like about the Mac:

- When you click on a menu item that expands to display more items, it'll either close the entire menu or close the expanded menu, depending on the application.
- Even though the Character Palette sits on top of applications, keyboard shortcuts actually control the app underneath it. For example, if I'm finished using the Character Palette and click ⌘-w or ⌘-q it'll close the app underneath, not the Character Palette.
- I'm not able to simply copy and paste from the Character Palette. I need to have a text field available and active, and then I need to double-click the character (glyph) I want.
- Resizing the Character Palette doesn't actually show me more characters, it just makes them bigger. Doh.
- When ⌘-tabbing between application, many times my mouse cursor is right in the middle of the screen. If I move it slightly, the cursor selects another application and when I let go of the keyboard shortcut it brings up that application.
- Why doesn't Firefox for Mac access dropdown and checkbox form fields when tabbing through them? 'Tarded.
- Taking a screenshot... I love the option to be able to select a certain area via ⌘-shift-4 or the whole screen via ⌘-shift-3, but I'd rather it didn't save it automatically to a file on the Desktop. Number 1 is that I have to then go find and open the file and then copy-and-paste it into the document I'm working with. Number 2 is that it produces clutter and I have to remember to delete it. Is there an option to just save to the clipboard? Edit: Yes! But it's a pretty convoluted key combination: ⌘-shift-control-3 or -4.
- Only being able to resize windows via the right-bottom corner is pretty limiting.

2009-02-19T09:33:00.001-08:00

Curse you yogurt, you've spit up on me 3 days in a row when I peel off your tin cover.

2009-02-18T09:25:00.001-08:00

I'm a bowling fool! Four 200+ games in one night!

Favorite iPhone Apps

2009-02-17T11:37:00.001-08:00

Here's a running list of my favorite (i.e. useful) iPhone apps:

- YouTube
- Flixster
- Pingle
- BofA

2009-02-17T11:13:00.001-08:00

Linky linky... http://ping.fm/nUVCw

2009-02-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

Jakob Nielsen just posted a new article on mobile web usage... He does a great job of stating the obvious.

2009-02-16T23:47:00.001-08:00

My first $1.99 spent in the iPhone app store goes to... Pingle!

2009-02-16T15:56:00.001-08:00

The bread on my sandwich was so hard it carved a good sized hole in my gums. Ouch.

Relearning the Mac

2009-02-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hello again, Mac.

After spending the last 7 years on a PC, I'm having to reorient myself in becoming productive on a Mac again, specifically a MacBook Pro. I'm not a total newb to Apple's products--my very first computer was an Apple IIe and I worked with a G3 for a couple years while at EarthLink--but things have changed quite a bit since then. Here's a simple running list of things I'm discovering:

- option-click to bring up contextual menu (but connecting a 2-button mouse automatically triggers this; pressing the trackpad with two fingers also works)
- use two fingers to scroll via mousepad (check out trackpad prefs for more options)
- replace command (⌘) with ctrl (e.g. ⌘-v to paste)
- access applications via Finder > Go > Applications (is there a shortcut?)
- closing an application window does not close out the application
- ⌘-w to close window, ⌘-q to close application
- alt-tab is ⌘-tab to switch between apps
- ⌘-tabbing back to an app does not return a minimized window--grr (UPDATE: ⌘-h will hide an app completely instead of leaving the menu bar and will also reappear when you ⌘-tab back to it)
- option-clicking the green + button maximizes a window
- control-tab to switch forward through tabs in Firefox (add shift to go backwards)
- when switching between applications, email messages in their own window don't show up as an option; instead, you can only switch to the entire application (UPDATE: ⌘-tilde (~) switches windows within an app)
- is there anything like Window's character map app? (UPDATE: System Preferences > International > Input Menu and then select both "Character Palette" and "Show input menu in menu bar" at the bottom of the dialog window; a language flag appears on the menu bar and you can click it to access the character palette)
- to take a screenshot of the entire viewable desktop, click ⌘-shift-3; to select a certain area, click ⌘-shift-4 and then select area (screenshots are saved to desktop)
- to delete a file, select it and then click ⌘-delete to move it to the trash (for those on extended keyboards, this will not work with the delete⌦ key)
- Apple Grab (http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/02/28/screenshot.html) is a screenshot utility that allows you to include the cursor in the screenshot, amongst other things. Go to Applications > Utilities > Grab, then in the file menu go to Grab > Preferences... and select the mouse pointer you'd like to capture. Go to Capture > Timed Screen and when the screen appears click on Start Timer. It'll take a screenshot after 10 seconds.
- Paparazzi! is a screenshot app that will capture a webpage's multiple screens and put them into one file.
- Application Frame in CS4: This feature places a cover over the desktop when working with files in Photoshop (a la Photoshop in Windows). Very nice to "quiet" all the background noise when working with graphics.

Links to articles which cover this same topic:
- Some General Tips for Switch to Mac From Windows
- Apple's Switch 101

UX Deliverables

2009-01-29T10:39:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note about a recent post by Peter Morville on the IXDA disscussion list...

Article on UX Deliverables

A nice list of UX deliverables and links to references.

From Web to Mobile

2009-01-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

In a week or so I'll be off to my next gig... AT&T Interactive! I'm excited to be joining them because of the opportunity to work on mobile products, specifically apps for iPhone and G1. Plus, they seem like a good bunch of folks. :)

So in light of this, I started some research on iPhone design and came across these nifty design patterns that seem pretty useful to me:

- PSD of iPhone GUI
- Custom Axure iPhone widgets (and other useful looking widgets)\
- Yahoo's design stencil which include the iPhone

Undo UI

2008-12-09T15:10:00.000-08:00

Nothing beats a good undo (unless it's a redo).

My boss showed me Netflix's UI for undoing the removal of a movie from the queue. When the user clicks on the X to remove the movie, the line item greys out with a message that the movie has been removed and an Undo link in the far right column. Clicking the Undo link simply restores the line item for that movie. Gone is the modal window to confirm whether this is really what you wanted to do or not.

The only other examples I've seen so far are from Remember the Milk and Google Gmail which make use of a page-level undo when you remove items from your list or inbox. Instead, Netflix's model uses it as an inline action. Both are fine implementations and I suspect it's an element we can expect to see soon on other sites.

Switching from Firefox to Chrome

2008-12-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

On the sole basis of memory usage, I'm switching to Google Chrome--for now. I find that even with only 1 add-on, Firefox uses up about twice as much memory as IE7 and about 3 times as much as Chrome.

Don't get me wrong, I love FF but it just comes down to a matter of productivity. I'm tired of sitting at my computer waiting on processes because of FF acting like a memory hog.

Hopefully FF is able to fix this problem. :(

Mario Kart Love Song (Original)

2008-12-01T18:28:00.001-08:00

Trying out the YouTube blog feature.

+1 for YouTube's integrated-with-3rd-party-blog feature. When I come across a cool video, I don't need to spend time copying the embed code, navigating over to my blog, creating a new post, etc. I can just blog straight from the video I'm watching.

Figuring out where to access this feature was the hard part... Sure, it makes sense now, but since I wasn't familiar with all of YouTube's social networking aspects, I was left scratching my head. So for all of you who don't know, it's located under the "Share" section on the video page. Just click on the link to your blog's title and a little blog widget opens up. DUH.

Coming full circle now, here's my recommendation to YouTube: Include copy on the Blog Setup page telling users where they can access this feature. Thanks, the invoice is in the mail!

Geeking Out

2008-11-03T23:52:00.000-08:00

Halloween: Dressing up as (badly drawn) wireframes!

Disneyland "work" field trip

Balsamiq Mockups: Sketching Made Digital (Easy)

2008-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

I came across a neat little app called Balsamiq Mockups that takes some of legwork out of creating quick ideas and sketches. Mockups offers a pre-made library of UI elements to choose from, all using a hand-drawn style intended to keep the design lo-fi. Within a matter of minutes, I was slapping together a rough representation of some faceted navigation, dragging-n-dropping containers, text, and placeholders onto the drawing board area.

My only issues are that I wish it allowed for custom drawn elements and the ability to detach the UI Library onto a second screen. But other than those, very impressed.

IE 7: Where's my refresh button?

2008-08-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

So I successfully avoided using IE 7 since it first came out... Until recently, that is. Unfortunately, the Disney IT department doesn't support Firefox (which is jaw-dropping in it's own right) and I've been forced to use Microsoft's excuse for a browser. :( I know this is old news, but here I am discovering things for the first time.

I'm sitting here thinking about the rationale of why IE's UI designers would break apart such a successful cluster of buttons. After the Back button, I imagine Refresh must be a browser's most-clicked button; then Home, Stop, and trailing at the back of the pack would be Forward. Although I never made use of the Favorites button, I noticed it's orphaned in the bottom left corner just before the tabs.

Perhaps it was a strong desire to distinguish themselves from the rest of the browser world by creating a UI which focused less on the traditional buttons approach. Unfortunately, I think they missed the mark.

Thankfully, they kept the text menu cluster intact.

Goodbye IGN...

2008-07-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since my last post, but things have been up in the air for me career-wise. Suffice it to say there were some organizational changes at IGN and I needed to look for a new job. I'm eager to announce that I'll be a part of the UX team at Disney Parks and Resorts. The biggest factors were the ability to surround myself with folks I could learn from and the close proximity from home. Oh, and because my daughter and niece said it'd be pretty cool. :)

Most of the folks at IGN (and Fox) were great and I hope for their continued success.

Methodology Madness

2008-05-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

I attended a panel discussion sponsored by IxDA LA Salon and HUGE in North Hollywood last week. The panel included Jaime Levy Russell of HUGE, Lisa Colvin of Ascentium (was also at the IA Summit), and Jens Jonason of Yahoo.

All three presented slightly different methodologies they used in their work, but I found these repeated throughout:

Methodologies change depending on the team, project, timeline, budget, technology, etc.
Collaborate and communicate often (to paraphrase Jens, "If you're lucky you'll come up with maybe one good idea, therefore you need these other people to come up with other good ideas.")

The second point is really key, IMHO. Everyone on the team is more or less thinking about the user experience from different perspectives. Instead of trying to guard your territory or think that you've got to come up with all these ideas, borrow from others liberally to make your work better (and probably easier). I think in the past I've tried to own the user experience with an iron fist, but it's just not conducive and makes it much more difficult to build trust with team members.

Is it just eye candy for search?

2008-04-24T08:48:00.000-07:00

A colleague sent me a link to the beta version of Searchme's visual search site. I'm pretty impressed (and admittedly it's initially because of the iTunes-style eye candy). It definitely slows down your ability to rifle through search results, but we've learned to specify our search terms by now, right? From what I've gathered through the usability grapevine, users don't go beyond the first page of results.

Upon further use, I've noticed the results which come back aren't as wide as Google's and the keyword filtering seems a little too accurate. For example, using natural language and typing in "how to use a lucky lura at balboa pier" returns no results, but typing in "lucky lura balboa pier" is fine. I think most people probably make use of the latter, but even typing in "lucky lura at balboa pier" doesn't return any results and the only difference is the addition of the word "at". (Maybe I'm using terms which are too obscure, but isn't that what search is for? Ideally you'd want to find exactly what you're looking for, but that's not here yet--for now you just need that scent trail.)

I'd also like to see the results summary for each specific page up front without having to hover over the title at the bottom.

The navigation is simple (click on a site on either side of the main result) or use the slider at the bottom. At the top are filters to narrow your search, a little switch at the bottom allows you to view text and visual results simultaneously, and your keywords are highlighted within the site thumbnail. Dynamic results are also great (why aren't more companies doing this with their data?? Don't force me to go through page reloads!)

Visual search isn't entirely new, but this is the first I've seen that actually communicates results to me in a way that I can understand. Gotta watch this one...

Monetizing headlines

2008-04-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

Is this an April Fool's joke that someone forgot to remove? Akin to the "Area Man" t-shirts sold by The Onion, CNN now apparently sells t-shirts based on their headlines. At this point it looks like they're pulled from stories with entertainment value. I'm not sure what to think... it's certainly an interesting move.

A couple other reports...

Usability at IGN

2008-04-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

I was immediately back in the air after the IA Summit and on my way to San Francisco. It was tiring but I was looking forward to participating in IGN's very first usability test. We would be testing out our brand new video player.

It was a little hectic and wasn't as smooth as I would've liked it to be, but with only a week and a half to prepare and recruit we tried to make the best out of it. Here are some issues we ran into:

The tasks we came up with were last minute and aligning them with what product wanted wasn't as tight as it could've been. We tried to remedy this by simply adjusting tasks as we went along.

We started out with a drawing exercise to see if the user could draw or write out their experiences of watching a video. Most kinda fumbled around with this and couldn't quite remember certain features. So the second day we switched to simply getting comments on other popular video sites such as YouTube, CNN, and Gametrailers and found users were able to provide much more general feedback.

Be prepared--we seemed to be searching for pens, papers, webex wasn't connected, compensation wasn't ready, etc. Next time we'll be prepared!

I wasn't so sure about having team members (PM, Dev, etc.) in the room with us during sessions. I felt this would distract the user, but we wanted to expose them to usability. We'll probably setup a remote viewing room (Note: we should leverage our video team!)

There were a couple other things but it was mostly administrative stuff that we could've avoided. But all in all I feel we came away with a positive experience--exposing our team to usability, working out some bugs in our process, and coming away with some action items to make improvements to the product.

Welcome to IGN!

The video team out for lunch.

Makeshift usability lab.

Being in an early developmental stage

2008-04-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

Dictionary.com defines "budding" as "Being in an early developmental stage."

Even though I've worked as an Interface Designer and Information Architect for a little over 8 years now, I feel my knowledge of user experience (UX) doesn't span so long. I just recently started at a new company and I've come to realize how woefully stagnant I've become from doing the same thing over and over again.

Here are the requirements, churn out some wireframes. Next project.

But I was rejuvenated from attending the IA Summit 2008, inspired by presentations from Luke Wroblewski, Leah Buley, and Dan Brown. I was encouraged personally by Christina Wodtke who went out of her way to invite me into her fold and then asked me to do the same for others, and by Peter Van Dijck who spent time with me discussing online communities and shared advice on following through with some ideas I've had in my head.

So here I set out to grow in knowledge, fill up my toolbox, and, in turn, to encourage and share with others. Budding UX seems an appropriate title.