we are: London

iPhone 1, Nexus none

The overall product is thin and sleek.

After 2 months of serious use I have finally given up on the HTC Google partnership that promised so much, but delivered very little.

Compare and contrast

In summary the Nexus is unresponsive, has a pointless set of hardware keys and is far to hobbyist for a serious business user.

I have an original 1st gen iPhone which is far more pleasurable to use than the far more powerful than the Nexus.

For fist time smart phone users, you’ll love the Nexus as it is the first real challenger to the iPhone, but for iPhone users you’ll spend the days wondering why you felt the need for a techno sabbatical.

Hot or not

1.  Touch screen: iPhone perfect - Nexus sluggish
2. Camera: Nexus splendid - iPhone adequate
3. Apps: iPhone appy - Nexus garden shed developers
4. Browsing: Neck and neck on speed and use
5. Email: iPhone almost corporate - Nexus won’t do exchange calendars
6. Speaker phone: iPhone hands free - Nexus 2 cans and a piece of string sound quality
7. Buttons: iPhone one button one purpose - Nexus four always in the way
8. Interface flow: iPhone one way works for all apps - Nexus lucky dip as to how you get back to where you started
9. Multitasking: Nexus does - iPhone does not
10. In summary: iPhone is easily the best

Now I am a fairly business focused user, but I also understand what makes something great, and for the iPhone it’s the quality control that is in place to make sure all apps work like they should.

The quality of both the native interface of the Nexus and the apps that are around are so poorly controlled that you soon find yourself giving up on new ones as all they do is crash your phone or drain your battery.

This “open” standard that so many knocked Apple for controlling will be the single reason that the iPhone app store will make millionaires out of developers and leave the Nexus looking like a niche product for those who want to be different or like to build their own PCs rather than buying a Dell.

It’s not all bad

However, volume often leads to success and I am sure that the rapid spread of Google’s OS will see a more polished version of an iPhone clone coming soon. And I am also sure that the apps will start to get better and those quality developers will be the ones that become know above the rest of the hobby crew.

Mobile, interface design, user interface Google, iphone, Mobile, navigation, Nexus One, usability

Only a week has passed since one of the most significant design faux pars of recent times launched.

In that time a wide range of press and interested parties have slated the website www.bethere.co.uk as an horrendous example of design gone bad.

In our usual pragmatic style we have decided to review it from a customer point of view rather than cast our critical design eye on it.

Q. So what do the general public think?

A. Not good, in fact with the odd exception the site has been universally criticised as being the worst redesign of the year.

Many a true word Twittered in haste.

Our favourite quote on Twitter is:

“If I didn’t know that the new website was for real I’d think it had been hacked to be honest!“

That’s pretty damming and more recent quotes are questioning Be’s ability to provide a good broadband service based on how poor their site is.

So how did the Be brand become such an anchor?

Only Be’s marketing team can answer that one and I guess the agency who created the site, which offers a number of very similar designs for other clients, only not quite so 80’s.

Pointless dynamic help

However all of these negative, and no doubt expensive, reactions and customer feedback could have been spotted, corrected and mitigated by simply asking their customers during the design phase.

Customer’s views count, get them before they get you!

As a user centred design champion, we are always looking for good and bad examples of sites that either choose to embrace or reject their customer’s views during the initial design phases.

Again I can not know if the site was tested prior to launch, but I have a hunch that it wasn’t otherwise it would not end up looking like this.

Brand and usability go hand in hand

Finally, an even bigger problem is that the site just does not work very well. There are prompts in forms that aren’t needed, readability is a strain thanks to over saturated colours and the accessibility is so bad I don’t know where to start.

The bottom line makes good reading for agencies like us, who are here to help businesses meet their customers needs, whilst working with big, brash design companies, creating brilliantly branded, usable and accessible websites, first time, every time.

If you want to Be better than your competition and avoid upsetting your customers then contact us to see how our research and user centred design services can work for you.

Be*en There Before, in the 80's

accessibility, information architecture, interface design, market research, usability design, user centred design, user interface Design, Internet, research, Twitter, usability

Woolworths is back and it’s gone all modern: it’s an online only experience.

First impressions are very American. The homepage has three choices: ‘Main shop’, ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Pic n’ Mix’. The main shop has a distracting carousel and would benefit from some targeted products based on season, popularity or promotion line, as their main competitor Argos does. The overall look and feel is rather cheap, which does not match up with Shop Direct boss Mark Newton-Jones’ statement that, “The site is about quality, value for money and great service”.

A bit of a pic n' mix

Navigation

The navigation and search are generally pretty good especially the mega drop-down menus on the top, but the left navigation is a bit too much. Moving between shops is easy, unless you have something in a basket and you move to a new store, as they don’t share a common e-commerce platform so you get an annoying message and have to buy before moving on. Not having a combined basket cuts down on impulse buying.

Buying

Shopping and buying are pretty easy, with a nice, simple to follow registration process for first time users. Choosing colours and sizes gets a bit more complicated as the flow of interaction is fairly unintuitive so you generally see lots of pop-up errors. Delivery options could be better displayed such as, leave behind shed, etc and from this point on the e-commerce platform, shared with Littlewoods, feels very cheap and off the shelf, ironic really given Mark’s statement about quality.

Lowdown

This is a brave and bold effort to bring back to life a much loved, chaotic brand and in many ways it is not dissimilar from the past high street experience. You’ll have to judge for yourself if that is a good or a bad thing. It’s meant to be kid friendly, but most kids know more about online than most adults and they are far more scathing in their views, so a site aimed at kids could fall flat on it’s face when it is judged by the hardest audience of all.

Check out the blog site, woolieshq.co.uk, this looks great and from a brand view seems to be much more interesting, engaging and polished. In the end this site has been designed and launched in super quick time, which seems to be the norm these days, and having worked on similarly tight deadlines I am very impressed.

(Written by Chris Averill for Revolution.co.uk)

user interface Design, e-commerce

Last night I had the pleasure to mix the elite of the global mobile industry at the 2009 Meffy awards in London.

The great and the good were there from O2, Vodafone, CommScore and many more. I had the honour of presenting the award for “Quality of Experience”, which in our view was the most deserved as it was picked by the public. The short list of entries were:

• Dolby Laboratories for ‘Dolby Mobile’
• Skyfire for ‘Skyfire Mobile Browser’
• Telenor Pakistan for ‘Telenor PhotoExpress’
• Thumbplay for ‘Thumbplay OPEN’
• Telefonica for the‘O2 mobile internet portal’

And the winner is…

The winner was Dolby Laboratories for “Dolby Mobile”, and although no official runner up was presented, O2 mobile portal was a definite second and much loved by the panel, but the new experience of Dolby surround sound on your mobile was just too good an entry for O2 to beat.

How the winner was chosen

We have been working with MEF for the past couple of years, setting up a panel, who are members of the public who review each of the entries and vote on their favourite experience. Their scores are complied and a winner is picked.

We have undertaken a wide range of mobile usability research along side web and interactive TV and have our own panel of participants in and around London, numbering over 7,000. We also have a large number of UK and global research panellists too as well as a proven network of recruitment agencies.

To find out more about our research services contact us here, or call Chris on +44 207 1991 321.

usability research future, insight, Mobile, navigation, Our news, social networking, usability

There was some good news for our UI team this week when industry website, The Register, gave a nod of approval in the direction of the 02 joggler calling it “an excellent, all-round, on-line gadget and so much more…”

If you haven’t read our earlier post, we worked closely with the 02 in the development of some of the device’s key features – including the newly released messaging application.

Marketed at the busy modern family and billed as a replacement to the post-it notes on your fridge door and as The Register recognised, the device is more than just an online calendar – it offers everything from photos, music, videos, games, news, weather and traffic information. In the future you can expect some developments that will further cement its position as an essential bit of kit for the busy modern family.

Read the article for the full review and run down.

interface design, user centred design, user interface

Can Microsoft challenge Google?

Crosby

Having just watched the video for Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, I am rather impressed. Bing seems to cover off many of the actions that a normal punter would make after clicking on a number of links.

For example, search for a flight to London from Hamburg and not only will it find you the cheapest flights but also show when the best time to buy them is, guaranteeing the lowest fare.

Left navigation, back with a vengeance

The next trick in bings box of magic is a left navigation that makes moving around different content quick and easy. So searching for a digital camera, say a Nikon D90, Bing brings back popular searches along with links to reviews, shops, pictures and even manuals, all arranged in a neat left nav.

It’s got a real time suggestion engine so a nice list of drop down choices appear as you type, similar to Google. Maps, images, video and other non-text content seem to fit within the search window nicely too, so searching becomes a lot more visual.

Snake oil or Google beater?

Our vote is still our here are we are:london, mainly due to the fact that until it’s launched for real, it would be foolhardy to judge. But Google’s killer USP was it’s speed and size, as a tech colleague of mine pointed out seven or eight years ago, “it’s (Google) got millions of web pages saved already that you can search through”.

What’s important about this statement is that Google were solving a problem that most had never realised was actually a problem. So will Microsoft’s attempt at improving the search experience be enough to topple Google and will they have a simple and effective paid search service that can be used by massive firms or individuals to the same ends?

Time will tell, but in a lot of ways I hope it is as good as the hype, mainly due to the fact that we have been working on a travel search system that is very similar and will therefore hopefully see the average web customer happy to search in a whole new way.

Uncategorized future, Microsoft, Search, usability

Older users get connected on Facebook

Facebook for silver surfers

For a long time a large number of people have been disagreeing with me on the future of Facebook.

Normally one for predicting the demise of such sites, I have felt for a long time that Facebook would become a destination for more than just the youth audience, after all how many over 60’s have mastered iPods and Skype?

The answer is of course loads. Just because they are not the current target market, does not mean they won’t adopt a great piece of technology if it meets their needs.

US research findings

In some recent research data released by Neilsen and reported on Net Imperative Facebook users aged between 50-64 year old increased by +8.3m compared with under 18 year old visitors  who only grew by 1.7m in 1998.

These figures make some compelling reading and highlight the fact that older users are switching on to new ways of keeping in touch and are not shying away from new technology as many people think.

UK growth market

The UK should learn from this growth and prepare to welcome an ever growing population of older customers onto channels that young, naive digital thinkers write off of non-starters. In a country where there are more over 60s than under 18s, who can afford to ignore such trends?

Want to know more?

If you are interested in finding out more on how the older generation interact online and what impact other social media channels can have on this market just call Chris, Kelsey or Laura on 0207 1991 321.

customer insight, market research Facebook, future, over 60

02 Joggler touch screen

Touch-screen interactive interface developed by we are:london.

Coming soon to the UK market is the amazing 02 Joggler

Basically the Joggler allows a family or group of friends to share and sync their online calendars, keeping your mobile, web and Joggler dates synced.

Post-it notes are so 1980’s

The shared calendar function is aimed at replacing post-it notes on your fridge and paper calendars on your wall at home.

Now we all know when and where we will be; no more rushed baby sitter calls, missed dinners or forgotten school trips.

Great features and more coming soon

You can also receive text and picture messages, watch videos, view your holiday snaps and play music.

Up to date news, sports, weather and traffic info are available straight to the screen.

Future services could see digital radio, more games and an endless amount of applications that will automatically update.

What we did

Our role saw us working with 02 and their marketing agency to crate a set of interactive prototypes that were then turned into custom applications.

We utilised out very successful, rapid-prototype IA service and created a functional model that replicated the majority service features from calendar changes to credit updates.

usability design, user centred design, user interface Design, Mobile, usability

Chris Averill, managing director of we are:london will be presenting as a keynote speaker at the Vignette Middle East Web Convention in Dubai on Monday 27 April.

Chris will be presenting the latest findings from their Middle East research consortium study, that will present the latest view of the Internet landscape

Social networking and it’s potential impact on Middle Eastern culture and business will also be covered as Chris demystifies what the West think they know and what Arabic and Muslim cultures actually want.

Further details can be found at Vignette’s website

arabic research, customer insight future, Internet, Twitter

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Kelsey Smith as Strategy Director.

Kelsey brings 15 years of front-line digital experience in user experience research, design and strategy. Kelsey joins we are after 6 years at Flow Interactive.

In his words: “I jumped at the opportunity to join we are:london. I’m impressed by the quality of their services, their professionalism and progressive attitude…and they’re a fine bunch of people to work with.”

Kelsey’s background is design. He studied product design alongside MD Chris Averill before gaining an MA at the RCA. Kelsey then turned his hand to digital design - creating web products for News International, Bertelsmann Media and The Independent.

Following an MSc in Human Computer interaction he joined Flow, helping them to grow from a 9 to 40+ person organization.

Kelsey brings diverse research and design experience and wide private and public sector domain knowledge.

Feel free to pop in and say hello.

Uncategorized Our news