we are: London

I have been reading and thinking a lot about the sign-up processes involved in so many of the websites and apps we use. A website that surrounds a service such as Twitter, Facebook or Tweetdeck deals with the undecided user, the user who is unsure if he wants to use the service or app. However once a user has made the mental decision that he wants to get in on the action he is often faced with nothing more than a boring form. Not the ideal start to the engaging, fun and useful experience promised.

The barrier of the sign-up form

Ok so this twitter thing sounds really good, my friends are all on it so let’s give it a try. Now I know I want to use it but before I can I have to complete the sign-up process. This process can act like a giant barrier between the potential user and the actual user. How can we deal with this problem? Making the process simple and easy to use will greatly improve the completion rate but we can also look at doing more. Services such as Jumpcut (now closed as of June 2009 but outlined in an excellent article on A List Apart), a service for making online movies, used a really interesting approach. Users who arrive on the site can jump in straight away. They can use the service and make a movie and only need to sign-up if they wish to save or share their movie at the end of the process. This removes the initial barrier, getting users engaged from the outset and only asking them to commit to the sign-up process once they have tried to service. This greatly improves the first time user experience.

Onboarding and gradual engagement

Getting people signed up to your service is one thing but what about going the next step and getting people using it? This process is often referred to as onboarding. Taking a look at the way twitter handles their sign-up process presents us with an excellent example. If a user wants their own account (they can use twitter to search and read tweets without one) they must go through the sign-up process. During this process they can search suggestions based on interest, search for their friends using their email contacts and also use a free text search for users. Engaging users right from the sign-up process allows them to hit the ground running. They learn about the service and begin with their own customized account filled with tweets based on their own selected interests and people.

Welcome your users

Unfortunately a sign up process will be inevitable at some point for web apps and services but these outlined strategies aim to improve the first time user experience and use the sign-up process to the user’s advantage. If we can let a user experience the service before signing up we can remove the initial barrier. If we can use the sign-up process to engage and teach the user it turns the process into something not only more engaging for the user but of massively more value.

information architecture, interface design, usability design, user centred design, user interface ideas, inspiration, Internet, usability, user experience

There are some web based applications that I use every day. I use Spotify to listen to music, Remember the Milk to organise my life, Tweetdeck to force my opinions on unsuspecting followers and Evernote to record clippings of inspiration and ideas. While thinking about the design of web apps one thing has really stuck in my mind. In an article by Luke W he talked about thinking and designing web applications as products, if web app is a product, design considerations such as customer lifecycle and packaging should be considered.

It made me think if Spotify is the product then what is the packaging? It doesn’t come in a box? The packing of these applications is the website that promotes it. This is the chance that the company has to promote its product and looking towards the restraints and considerations of physical packaging design can help strengthen a design. It gives a narrative for a designer to follow when creating and designing the most effective solution.

What can we learn from packaging design?

Packaging has certain contextual and physical constraints.

• Space is limited to the size of box or DVD sleeve so information must be delivered concisely and efficiently.
• Exposure to a potential customer is brief. They may only be walking past or scanning a shelf in a shop.
• Customers will want to see a product so packaging must find a way to make the product visible, either through large, high quality pictures or by making the product physically viewable such as meat wrapped in clear packaging in a supermarket.

Applying this to the web

These are interesting points but how do we apply them to the design of a web apps accompanying website.

• The website should always attempt to get information to the user as easily, quickly and concisely as possible. Copy should be short and sweet, pages should be kept to a minimum, titles and actions should be obvious and users should be able to navigate to content quickly and easily.
• Web users are famously impatient. They will not stick around of they do not get what they want quickly and easily. Just like physical customers time is limited. Benefits and key information must be delivered fast.
• A web application is not a physical product so how can we make this visible to the user? Screenshots, descriptions, videos, tutorials, testimonials, are all ways to make the product visible. The important thing is to let the user learn about the product before they have to download it.

These are all things that most UX designers will already be thinking of but wrapping them up in this analogy or narrative helps to deliver a thought process or a checklist to design against. If you want to learn more about our approach to design feel free to give us a phone on 0207 1991 321 or send us a message.

information architecture, interface design, usability design, user centred design, user interface Design, ideas, Internet, usability, user experience

At best Intranet design is a challenging task for most, at worst it’s a thankless job that sits at the bottom of many companies priority lists.
Taking ownership can be a daunting prospect, especially as many intranets are unfocused, sprawling repositories of content and ideas, grown organically over a long period. But taking ownership is the first step in putting a tool in place that can quickly become a high priority on the business comms list.

Over the past couple of years, intranets have become a hot topic within large and small businesses, and within the world of digital design. New platforms, techniques and an ever blurring line between the Internet and company Intranets driven through the integration of social, UGC, multimedia and semantic technologies has led to more stakeholders, with more requests and usually less budget.

Persuasive design

One of our most common findings during user and stakeholder research is that reason an intranet is unused and unloved is due to the fact that it’s never worked and never been adopted by the business.

Every task users are asked to complete online should at least as easy as off-line methods, or easier, otherwise users will always fall back to the default of asking a colleague, phoning a department or worse not doing anything.

The reason behind this is that existing staff have learnt their way round the system over time, usually years and new joiners are forced to struggle through anyway they can. A recent client’s intranet is so bad that new joiners are given a guided tour as part of their induction and then offered a CD-Rom or online video tutorial. I doubt any owners of an Internet site would expect a tutorial on how to use the site as acceptable; just make it easy to use.

I’m ready to be engaged

Whilst your intranet is unlikely to become “the” destination for your staff and should not try to replace other sources of external information, it should be functional and engaging in equal measures.

Features that rank highly from a users perspective usually include:

• Buy, sell, rent
• Interest groups (sports, social, clubs)
• Lunch menu

For business engagement, these features rank highly:

• Ask the management (live Q&A)
• Personnel contact finder
• Collaboration tools (wikis and connectors)

It’s important to remember that many of the tasks that your staff use the intranet for can only be completed online, so usage should not be confused with satisfaction. Providing tools and services that help staff to become engaged with the business and each other will prove invaluable in driving uptake and long term use of the site.

“Don’t underestimate the power of the intranet for fostering a sense of culture & belonging - it may not be a core ‘money-earner’, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

How to guide

A few points that may help you in planning and designing your intranet include:

• Governance to avoid organic growth - The key to providing a consistent and usable experience is providing a strict governance model to ensure quality control. Intranets by nature are created and controlled by many people and departments and without solid governance grow organically into a combination of different style and experiences.
• Ownership and stakeholder involvement - Many challenges are faced throughout the redesign of an intranet as there is often no clear owner. Different sections and content are owned by different departments and stakeholders. It is important to include all stakeholders to both understand content and to promote a feeling of inclusion and acceptance of the work within the various content owners. This can present many challenges within time and cost restraints.
• Content - Large volumes of content can make it difficult for users to find what they need. Intranets can easily be into tens of thousands of pages. Content can generally be clearly split into two types. Content that is generated by a department specifically for employees of that department (IT generating content for IT employees) and content that is generated by a department for all employees (HR generating content aimed at all employees of the company). Splitting the information like this can dramatically improve the ease of finding content by isolating information only needed by a single department in a departmental section.
• Can’t find what you are looking for? - If content is difficult to find many users will resort to other channels such as asking colleagues to find important information. Information should be easily available so that users do not need to resort to other methods.
• Navigation - Navigation is key to providing a consistent experience and allowing users to find and move through content. In an environment where this may be defined by many different content creators it is important to ensure they follow a strict model, usually by service offered and not by business function.

Next steps

It’s important to have a plan when working on your intranet and it’s valid not matter what stage you are at, defining a new site or migrating to a new platform. Here are a few points to follow:

1. Take ownership; whilst often a daunting task, your ability to lead the project will ultimately deliver a very successful site.
2. Don’t under estimate the scale of the task in hand; updating, migrating or creating an intranet from scratch requires a lot of time, effort and support.
3. Use external consultants; they will bring a wealth of experience, offer an objective view and can help to mediate difficult decisions.
4. Don’t redesign standards; user staff are familiar with Google, eBay, Linked In and Facebook, use these interfaces rather than creating your own, bespoke ones.
5. Start collaborating now; get a range of staff involved in the redesign, they’ll become your champions and power users down the line.
6. Benchmark; creating some form of  measurement will help to justify the time and financial investments needed for short and long term success.
7. Don’t let the software control you; the platform is important but the business requirements and user needs should lead the design process.
8. Content strategy; know what you plan to do with the content and create a strategy for developing it long term.

If you have found this useful, then why not get in touch and see how we can help accelerate the success of your businesses intranet.

Content strategy, Intranet, global usability testing, information architecture, usability research, user centred design, user interface innovation, Intranet, research, usability, user experience

Do you want to know which iPad to buy now it’s been released in the UK, or find out which apps really are worth buying?

Well we have the answers to your questions and hopefully more, so read on, review and comment if you want to know more / disagree / have more information for our readers.

Firstly to qualify this article as the REAL deal and not just some recycled jurno junk, I have been using a iPad (64Gb wifi) for the past month, in anger as both a businessman and home user / dad of a 2 year old child and husband to a media junkie wife. I also have both UK and US itunes accounts so can access all apps around the world.

Should I get one or wait for something else?

That’s a great questions, especially as Intel have just released news of their new Atom chip that will be super fast, up to 1.9ghz, and super lean, hone batteris lasting up to 10 days. But anyone who bought an iphone competitor in great anticipation should just get on and by the iPad, it’s the real deal, you’ll not be disappointed.

I’ll update the blog as I go, so all findings are in chronological order (did you need to know that?)

Wifi or 3G?

This one is easy, if you’re likely to use your iPad out of the home or office environment, which is most of you over 16, go for the 3G. It drives me mad trying to log onto these rubbish public wifi networks and at £5 an hour on some, a PAYG or cheap O2 iPad tariff will be much cheaper. You can also cut your normal SIM card down apparently so get a Tesco mobie PAYG and you’re in.

Will it replace my laptop?

Office apps ♥♥

If, like me you spend a lot of time reading and replying to emails, showing presentations, reviewing RFPs or proposals then it’s better than a laptop. But if you want to edit those documents, then forget it, the tools are just too simplistic to do anything useful.

Yep, it’s true even the wonderfully designed Apple Pages, Numbers and Keynote fail to really compare to much more than Google Docs (which does not work on the iPad yet).

Other contenders such Office HD, et al have even bigger problems, save your money for now, be content with reading documents and not editing them. It will all come soon and it will be the online apps that win out.

Cloud computing ♥♥♥♥

I have also come to realise how important cloud services are, the iPad and other ultra-portable devices will cement this as the future, my favourites are Huddle and Dropbox. Huddle has a great UI and is easy to find docs, view online renderings and generally do what you need to do, other than download and edit document; see above as to why this is not such an issue.

Creativity ♥♥

Again it seems that the promise of great creativity on the iPad has been jaded by the early, quickly designed apps that feel a bit rubbish, in fact less useful than the iPhone versions. There are a couple that people like me will use a lot, iMockups and Omnigraffle both hold a lot of promise for interactive designers and Adobe Ideas, whilst basic, is great for freehand sketches on the fly.

Video & music ♥♥♥♥♥

In a previous blog I describe how the iPad came into it’s own during a power cut in a hotel recently and it’s brilliant. Anyone who has watched TV on an iphone or ipod will know that if the content is good, you soon forget the screen size. Well the iPad has great sound, an amazing screen and iTunes integrated rocks as always. You can stream UK Freeview TV using TVcatchUp.com/iphone and whilst the video is not HD, it’s pretty good for a free services.

Otherwise Spotify and Pandora (US only through VPN) are both great additions to your iPhone music library, infact I have sort of given up downloading from iTunes.

Battery life ♥♥♥♥♥

Is it a goer? Oh yes, it’s got more staying power than a student rugby team at a free bar. I have had at least 10 hours of continuos video play back and stand  by last for weeks even with regular use. In fact i have stopped carrying a charger at all, even over weekends, and the added bonus is you can use any iPhone charger with it.

iBook vs eBooks ♥♥♥

The Amazon Kindle and iPad book reading argument has been raging for longer than the iPad has been around, and whilst Kindle sales could do with a bit of Apple magic, the Kindle is a muh better ebook, mainly due to it’s e-ink and matt screen. As a long time Kindle owner I am impressed by Apple’s integrated book store within the eBook app, but less impressed by the weight of the iPad whilst reading anywhere that you need to hold it, and by the glare on the beach or in the garden.

However, the killer appeal to many will be the fact that the iPad is a multifunctional device, so it’s unlikely that the majority of interested consumers would buy both, only early adopters like me would bother. So there is a good chance that the iPad will become the defacto device for the casual consumer, but the Kindle will remain the leader as far as serious readers, most of whom will be big spenders, are concerned.

As a foot note to the book piece, there is an Alice in Wonderland app that is beautiful, interactive and worth every penny, my daughter loves it and I can see it becoming the DVD of the new millenium.

Will it save news and magazine publishing? ♥♥♥♥♥

Only good journalism / content can truly do that but the apps I have seen go a long way. It seems the publishers are split into two camps, it’s a digital newspaper and looks like it or, it’s a new device with new ways of interacting let’s redesign it.

The winners so far in the new new media war are:

• AP News: mmm lovely UI and exciting ways to filter
• Thomson Reuters: A bit hectic but using the space and interaction nicely
• Zinio: Amazing renders of the actual magazines in an interactive format
• USA Today: Content is still as dull as ever but the cross over design between print and digital is lovely
• NPR: Looks great but a little less usable than the rest
• Marvel Comics: The best interaction of them all, it’s amazing, very lateral

And the losers are:

• Yahoo!: Indeed an exclamation mark is needed, it’s a bad 3D sitting room for a menu, very 80’s
• WSJ: Looks kinda 1930s, which is nice if that was the brief
• NYT: Again the retor squad have been out, nothing challenging just a bit dull and detached navigation
• BBC: Not what I was expecting at all to be honest, poorly designed and too many images
• Maxim: Whilst not on my usual reading list, the app is a terrible, ham fisted affair. Get Zinio and pay for the glossy electronic version of the print, it works, simple as that.

First impressions

It feels solid, the screen is beautiful, it’s a breeze to set up and the interaction is everything you expected. As always with Apple the bits you want to work do work, from effortless touch screen interaction to fast loading apps, beautiful email and calendars and web browsing.

In fact it’s so good I forgot about the lack of camera, USB ports, coffee machine bolt on, finger print readers, etc. When you use it you know every single part has been thought out and, unlike the all singing all flash playing future competitors, it does everything you need, just not everything you want, but it does it perfectly.

It’s far better than I could have hopped and it has been well received by everyone who uses it, in fact 100% of people who have used mine say they want to buy one now!

Mobile, apple, iPad, interface design, user interface future, innovation, iPad, Mobile, navigation, usability, user experience

Working on projects with multiple deadlines, deliverables, meetings and workshops can always be an organisational challenge. Keeping a record of all the things you have to do, when they need to be done and how important they are can be a nightmare to keep on top of. To keep all my tasks under control I list out all my tasks. To keep all my deadlines, meetings and workshops in mind I enter them all into my calendar. I do however start to find myself with multiple lists on various pieces of paper and my calendar is not connected at all. If I leave my list in the office and go to work onsite I am left unorganised. This was of course until a colleague turned me on to a popular web application called Remember the Milk.

My problems answered

Remember the Milk is an online to do list application that lets me enter all my tasks, give them deadlines and days to be done/completed, organise them into priorities, keep several lists separating my work and private tasks and even more. It’s all kept online so is available from anywhere I have an internet connection. It even sync’s with a Remember the Milk application for my Android phone (iPhone version also available), and sends me daily reminders of my tasks due that day. It combines all the tasks both my calendar and paper lists achieve into one easily accessible place.

Remember the user?

So i like the concept and it solves a real world problem for me but what about the UI? I can remember the milk now but did they remember the user?

The interface is clean and simple with some nice touches. The right hand column floats to be always visible when users scroll down long lists. The tabbed layout allows for easy navigation between lists. The right hand column gives easy access to all the main task options allowing users to quickly edit due dates, estimated task time, notes and tags.

The key to the usability and experience of the application is the prominent task input field. This allows user not only just to add the name of a task but to use a series of commands to enter further details of the task in the single text box. Users can add due dates, priorities, tags, locations, repeat tasks and time estimates by adding commands such as hash symbols. This may involve a degree of learning but for an application that many users will use every day it turns a single text box into a extremely powerful piece of functionality.

Mobile, information architecture, interface design, usability design, user interface innovation, Internet, Mobile, Nexus One, usability, user experience

There are two camps out there at the moment:

• Apple are great, I want to lick everything they make
• Apple are controlling and evil

Me, well I am just undecided, but my Mac Air screen is pretty clean at the moment.

However it’s unimportant as to your views on Apple’s hardware, the fact is they have quietly created an economy that did not exist a couple of years ago. In short Apple have done for software what they did for music.

Multi-platform leader

Now the iPad has been launched, the true might of Apple’s power can be seen. In fact currently the most popular apps are the highest priced; not surprising given the early adopter market but impressive none the less.

Bring on the next generation Apple TV and your games, apps and contents will port directly to your plasma. Or even better, link up to your TV via your iPad, use your iPhone as a controller and you have a complete home entertainment kit.

Impressive? Nokia thinks so

Well that’s just my speculation, but based on the poor take up of their app store Ovi and the fact that Apple have taken a quantum leap over them as far as smart phones go, they should be.

A little fact for you is that in February this year iTunes accounted for 70% of worldwide online digital music sales. (Wikipedia), not bad for seven years work.

Apple took a tried and tested application distribution model from Japan’s DoCoMo, improved on it and have created another successful business whilst all around are struggling to make sense of the new world order.

The future has been written

So forget about the arguments for or against iPhones, Nokia’s, HTC’s and the rest, just think about new business models and one company’s ability to turn the mundane into the marvellous and unimaginable into reality.

So what next? Maybe they’ll skip set to boxes and move into TV’s or coffee machines or cars, I’d buy them.

How about putting Dyson and Apple together?

user interface Design, future, iphone, Nexus One, usability

After hearing that Opera Mini 5 has been released on Android I jumped at the chance to try out a new browser on the Nexus One. I had heard good things about Opera Mini so how does it shape up?

First impressions

My initial first impressions were good. The interface looks slick and the browsing experience seems fast. Menus and features are intuitive and easy to navigate. A notable point is the use of an on-screen menu, giving it an iPhone feel rather than utilising the menu soft-key at the foot of the Nexus screen to bring up a hidden menu.

Tabbed browsing

The feature that really stands out for me in this browser is the tabbed browsing. By selecting an option from the on-screen menu a user can bring up a small panel allowing them to both easily open a new tab and to smoothly switch between tabs already open. The interaction and design of this feature is a massive plus. It translates the desktop browser ability into a usable mobile feature.

Speed dial

Another useful feature of the desktop browser translated across to mobile is speed dial. A feature useful for quick access to your commonly visited websites. This screen loads when you first start up the browser allowing you to navigate to your favourite site at the poke of a finger.

To draw my conclusions

The browsing experience is quick and feels smooth. Features such as speed dial, Opera link that allows syncing of bookmarks and speed dial between phone and computer, and especially tabbed browsing stand out and offer a great reason to switch to Opera. However it is misssing an important interaction that is offered by the default Andriod browser, pinch to zoom. The double tap utilized by Opera feels slightly awkward and saw me accidentally click buttons and links on more than one occasion. Overall I will still give it a thumbs up and it is great to see viable browser alternatives cropping up on Android.

interface design, user interface Google, Internet, Mobile, Nexus One, usability

iPhone 1, Nexus none

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

I have been living with the Nexus One for about a week now after my jump from my poor old dumbphone. So what’s it like? How has a smartphone changed my life?

Techno geek

I may have only just jumped into the world of smartphones but when it comes to technology I’m a bit of geek. I love it and look for any opportunity to embrace it. The Nexus One has made some significant changes to my life over the past week. Firstly I never get lost. A quick search for a bar or restaurant and a quick check of Google maps always sets me on the right path when meeting friends. It has also helped me to embrace the use of social media far more than before. Being able to keep in touch with friends, share interesting usablity articles on twitter and also find alsorts of useful information while on the go mean the social connections become far more integrated within my life. The last big point is learning through experience and exposure. I believe the more interfaces and the more websites I experience and use the more I develop as an information architect. The Nexus one has not only exposed me to countless apps and mobile sites it also gives me the chance to explore interfaces even when I am out and about.

Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

The leap from dumbphone to the mighty Nexus definetely gets the thumbs up from me.

Mobile Facebook, Internet, Mobile, social networking, Twitter, usability

Moving onto the Nexus One has given me much more of an opportunity to explore mobile websites. One site in particular caught my eye, the iPhone version of the Mashable site.

The goal

The site is very focused and this focus helps to create a usable and enjoyable experience for the user. Upon entering the site the the user is presented with a list of of Mashable articles. A user can scan these easily and select the article they want to read. Keeping the users process as simple as possible by focusing on the single task of reading articles provides a simple and usable site.

Share and spread the word

Users are also provided with the option to share an article at every stage. Right from the landing page a user can hit a tweet button to share the story via Twitter. At the foot of every article the user is provided with options to share via other sources such as Digg and Facebook. Allowing users to share posts easily not only keeps users happy but benefits Mashable by spreading the word.

Loading equals yawn…

Loading times are always a problem when we are out and about. Mashable limit the number of posts loaded onto the landing page at one time. This limits the amount of time the page takes for it’s initial load. The user can then choose to load more posts if they desire.

To sum up

Mashable have kept their eyes on the goal and created a simple site with a single focus. This in turn gives the user an enjoyable and intuitive experience.

interface design, usability design, user interface Internet, iphone, Mobile, Twitter, usability