Care comes from employees, not institutions
The maintenance people at @waynestate don’t have to wrap the cord on the vacuum so neatly after every use but they do it anyways. Not only does this show the skill and care they put into their work but also reflects an attitude that spreads. You cannot dictate this type of care, passionate employees breed a passionate environment.
How much care do you put into your work? You might not realize who is noticing.
Don’t abandon users, always be testing
A few weeks ago at the CaseV conference I was trying to get wifi in the Chicago Sheraton and unfortunately it was not free, they charge by the day. I fired up my laptop fully prepared to pay the $13.63 for a day’s worth of internet when I was presented with the form above.
A few things struck me as odd.
The first of course was the inability to read the labels for each field. This made it very difficult to use unless you highlight the entire page.
The second was the URL, it was a local address and the page was not protected by an SSL. No way was I going to put my credit card into a form without an SSL. Even a self signed certificate would have worked but CC information going over the air with potentially dozens of people able to intercept it does not sit well with me.
Last but not least the lack of instructions, terms or even description of what I was about to pay for really turned me off. Every customer asks “what is in it for me” before taking any action online. If the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost the user will not continue. In this case it’s so unclear what the user is getting I would be surprised if anyone has filled out and submitted this form.
Continuous testing
I’m sure they didn’t design the form to be blank like this but whether it was the browser I was using or some change got moved to production that broke the form brings to light a very important lesson. Make sure you test all primary user paths every time a change goes in to production. It might sounds like a daunting task but something like this can easily happen if no one is watching. Just image how many people they are loosing because they didn’t take 10 minutes to test their form.
Currently: Watching, Listening and Reading
Currently Watching: Beautiful Losers
A film about youth, creativity and insight into the culture of art. It’s now available on iTunes if it’s not playing in a theater near you.
Currently Listening: Raditude (Weezer)
Weezer’s newest album which does have the same feel as their older songs but has a new attitude. My favorite song is “Can’t Stop Partying”
Currently Reading: Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer)
I’m not a vegetarian but do eat more vegetables than meat. A friend recommended this book and I have been addicted to it. In this book Jonathan experiences and details how the meat we eat gets on our plates, the myths and truths about our eating habits and traditions.
Enhance user experience by auto-selecting location
A few days ago I did something I’ve never done before, get take out from Applebees Restaurant. (I am in no way endorsing Applebees, just merely writing about an experience I had with them) Upon visiting their site something sparked my attention. Highlighted on the image above is the closest Applebees location to me. I have never been to this site before or set any type of settings previously.
This was great since I came with a purpose, to look at the menu and call the closest location. By them taking that initial step for me I was able to complete my task quicker. Not to mention if I were deciding between two restaurants of equal quality the one that provided me the most information the fastest would probably get my sale.
Location by IP is not anything new, geotargeted ads are everywhere but using it to help users with primary tasks make them feel a greater sense of customer service and increase your sales and ROI. The retail industry is in the best position to take advantage of this since all brick and mortar sales are driven by location. Other industries may have to get a little more creative.
Like I mentioned above location based targeting is not anything new but its use in new ways can really have an impact on your end users. I know I came away happier.
MSU World Usability Day 2009 Wrap Up
Yesterday I attended the MSU World Usability Day which focused on usability and accessibility not only for the web but for the physical world. The theme of this years World Usability Day was sustainability. One of the main themes throughout the day was there is a large difference between things appearing to be usable and their actual use.
Below is a run through of the day with a few things I wanted to highlight.
In the morning
There were two break out sections, I attended the WCAG 2.0, ARIA and AJAX presentation. It combined low level introductions of the current and future standards and how they are applied. I was surprised to see how little the browsers are taking advantage of these accessibility standards. Firefox 3.6 implements the most, 47 of the 59 total ARIA roles. They also did a recorded session using Jaws (this was my favorite part of the day) with a regular HTML page, regular AJAX and ARIA enabled AJAX. They were nice enough to put the examples and videos online for everyone to see. It made an amazing difference watching the video and see just how easy it was to add ARIA into AJAX applications and actually make your site usable to users on a screen reader.
After lunch
A panel presented the Contemporary Issues of IT in the Sustainable Global Knowledge Economy. This was very interesting because it went beyond the typical accessibility and talked about access. Starting with delivering broadband to rural areas, currently 500,000 Michigan homes are in rural areas where no broadband service is offered. Using the governments stimulus incentives this could all be changed.
Then more locally they talked about how ITEC Lansing is transforming the technology skills for Lansing’s youth. Sharron Rush from Knowbility then talked about how IT is changing the game for people with disabilities, given them the ability to access the outside world like no other time in history. She really put it in perspective when she did an exercise that explained by the time you are 80, a large majority of people (around 90%) will develop a some type of disability.
During the break
We did a usability study with household alarm clocks. We had four different clocks and had people estimate how easy/hard it would be to change the time/alarm. We then timed them changing the clock’s time and if they were successful or not. We then had them give an actual score to how easy/hard it was and comments to why it was that way. Only one clock turned out to be easier than expected. The final results should be up soon.
After the break
An interesting presentation by Shane Schulze from Ford about hybrid cars, batteries and where it is going. During the Q&A a very good point was brought up by a participant who was blind. She asked what Ford was planning to do about how silent electric cars are. She walks everywhere as do people without disabilities and silent cars are a big hazard. This was a great question, unfortunately Shane didn’t have a concrete answer at the time. I really hope this topic stays on Ford’s and the other car manufacturers radar.
Lastly
I wanted to thank everyone from the MSU Usability & Accessibility Center who put this conference on. The MIUPAand all the vendors who made this happen. It was a great experience and I encourage anyone to attend a World Usability Day event near you next year.
Remember, it is us, the every day workers who can make the largest impact in usability, accessibility and access. Don’t accept the status quo, be a leader and demand access for all. Just because you have a disability doesn’t mean you should be locked out of information.