| Each month Dr. Eric Schaffer answers selected questions on usable interface design. | Archived questions by topic |
Here are the most recent questions you asked with Eric's answers. |
August 31, 2010 – submitted by Rehab Genena of Cairo, Egypt |
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Question: I have a confirmation message box, asking the user to confirm he wants to exit without saving, or wants to delete an item... etc. My question is about the order of the buttons in the box. Shall I put the "Yes" button first, or the "No" button first. I am afraid that putting the "Yes" button first will make the user click it and perform a dangerous action without thinking. On the other side, I am afraid that putting the "No" might confuse users, as this is not what they are used to in different websites and applications. My users are teachers from all over the world, with different web experience. |
Eric's response: Interesting, the less experience they have the less important this decision will be. It is the expert users who have learned to automatically click YES on a delete confirmation (etc). That automatic reaction can be broken up by switching the action button sequence (as long as they are not using (Ctrl/Y or such). So you can break up the habit by being unconventional, or even switching. But you will create a bit of confusion or frustration. A BETTER approach is to avoid popping up 'Are you sure?' items for routine activities. Because this is the way that we train users to respond without thinking. |
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July 15, 2010 – submitted by Janhavi Bijur of Pune, India |
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Question: I have been working in the eLearning field as a Visual Designer for the past 5 years. We practice usability on a day-to-day basis except that the terminology "User Research/ User Experience" is not attached to the tasks. I have been reading up a lot on usability and user-centered research for the past few months and am quite interested in shifting my domain expertise to this field. As I have no formal experience of usability practices, etc. in terms of a certification/ work experience I intend to individually and personally undergo the HFI workshop and gain more knowledge about this field. Since I'm a little confused I need your advice, hence do you feel that it would be right for a person like me with my skillsets and experience to formally undergo a training in HFI & a certification first rather than going in for a basic small-time introductory course to begin with. It'll be great if you could provide me with your insight on this. |
Eric's response: The first thing that will help is to get a distinction clear between 'Practicing Usability on a Day to Day Basis' and professional work in the field. Unfortunately, the world is full of folks today who have good intentions, but are saying that they are usability professionals without even a basic understanding of the field. This is sad as they are seen as exemplars of the field and make the field look like it is of little value. Usability engineering is not a common sense endeavor. Without serious training and skills you are not doing usability work. You are just thinking that you are, and perhaps telling others. I therefore applaud your intention to be serious about usability engineering capabilities. Ideally I would like to see you taking a Masters program in the usability field. There are great programs in the USA (we have a list on our site), but there are limited programs available in India. Even without the Masters you will be able to take the HFI courses and not get lost. And these courses can give a good practical foundation (which many people use to attempt to pass the test to become a Certified Usability Analyst™ (CUA). The CUA probably credentializes 10% of the world's population of competent usability folks. So it is probably not a bad idea to get that in place. Finally, try to get work in a group with the best UX leadership you can find. There is no substitute for that kind of practical mentoring on real projects. Best of luck |
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July 9, 2010 – submitted by Mallesh N of Bangalore, India |
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Question: Have you (HFI) ever worked on DTV applications usability? I have not seen discussion about this. I personally feel it is most important and a lot of experiments are going on around the world. Kindly give your input and suggest where we can get materials on these studies. |
Eric's response: We have been working on set top boxes and interactive TV for a decade. You are absolutely right that they are a very specialized and usability sensitive area of work. If you look at the design of many TV control systems (for example, Tata Sky in India) you might notice that the design is truly awful from an ergonomic viewpoint. But what is driving much of the design work is the blizzard of patents that have been issued in this space. Almost ANYTHING you want to do in the interface that is reasonable seems to have a patent around it. So it ends up being a scary combination of classic usability work and sneaking around patents. |
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May 3, 2010 – submitted by Gopinath TK of Bangalore, India |
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Question: Dear Eric, lately we have been hearing about applying persuasion engineering, emotional design strategies, trust factors, etc. and advancements like having interfaces with the experience qualities of a game to leverage on their reciprocity & investment attributes, etc. So keeping these things in mind, would you like to comment on the future of UX. Where are we heading to, in terms of the next level? I know we're digging deeper into the human mind to find our solutions but I need a compelling answer. Better than the 'Can do' vs. 'Will do' one. |
Eric's response: Hmm. Need a better answer then "Can Do" vs "Will Do"? How about "Can Do, Will Do, Still Do, and Breakthrough"? The UX field is expanding. As I predicted more then a decade ago, we are seeing organizations setting up mature, industrial strength UX operations. The institutionalization of UX has become a major global movement. But beyond maturity, the UX field is expanding in focus. We are still designing to make things easy to use. Be those things are much more complex. We must consider how computers which are embedded in products interact in complex ecosystems and multichannel environments. We have to look from a bigger perspective. We also move up the value chain when we can talk to higher levels in our organizations in their own language. If you talk about left alignment of fields you won't get much attention. You need to be ready to talk about strategy, megatrends, and innovation. And then, yes. As you say, we must expand beyond just making it so people CAN use the interface. We must make it compelling, engaging, and convincing. Making sure that the customer can find a product is good. Making sure they decide to buy it is better. AND, making sure they buy it each time in the future is even more lovely. |
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April 27, 2010 – submitted by Chenchu Nagulu Goli of Auckland, New Zealand |
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Question: Is there any research paper / journel available on the Influence of UX in e-Learning programs or CBT programs. I am planing for a Ph.D on this topic. Can you please advise me. |
Eric's response: There is a whole literature on usability engineering applied to computer based training! I've done work on authoring tool design as well as specific interaction methods for students (e.g., how to manage remediation loops). Don Norman (the venerable UX pundit) has been working on online education. I would suggest that online education would be a great field to enter. In the near future we will be tele-commuting, tele-socializing, and tele-educating. So why not help us do it well? I say go for it! |
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April 13, 2010 – submitted by Joshua S of Coconut Creek, FL |
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Question: I'm 20 years old. I've been building websites since I was 10, the last 4 of which I consider "UI design." I've been self-taught my whole life and firmly believe a school cannot offer the insight and logic discovered when working with hands-on projects. Unfortunately, unless I start my own company, I know a degree is necessary for a decent salary. When I graduated high school 2 years ago, I began college. However, I found the college process unintuitive and frustrating. My true passion and love is web/UI design and UX. I really need to be pointed in the right direction! I'm worried that a degree in Human Factors is not sought after when companies hire. Is Human Factors a desirable degree? Also, I don't want just any college. I want to know who's *best* at UX. |
Eric's response: Well this is an interesting question. In general I would say that a Masters degree is the normal operating credential for UX work. And, I would say that there is a foundation of understanding in psychology and HCI that is pretty important and that is hard to get outside of that kind of degree work. Companies generally look for a Masters degree when they are hiring. That is for sure. I have known a FEW people who have been self taught, and then mentored in work settings, who did good work in the field. Most people without a degree, who say they are self taught, don't know what they don't know and are not useful at all. BUT, there are individuals who are quite strong. So, if you can manage to get a degree that is the best thing. There are plenty of programs (we have a list on our site). You won't be sorry if you go for a degree. If you can't manage the degree, then you urgently need to find an organization with a large UX team who will give you a chance. This is going to be very hard in this economy. But without that, you will almost certainly end up thinking you are fantastic, while having your main competency being self-delusion and not UX. I often have people come to HFI sure that they are the best UX designer in the world. In some cases they get in to take our exams. But ALMOST always they are in the self-delusion category. I always feel ALWFUL to have to pop that bubble. But I think a life of self delusion is not really the best path. |
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April 5, 2010 – submitted by Tricia Sullivan of St. Petersburg, FL |
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Question: We use a corporate style guide to define much of the terminology that we use; however, many of the terms are taken from Microsoft rather than users. I would like to ask whether you (or any of the other UX people at HFI) have a better term than "pane" when speaking or writing about a section of an application screen that contains defined sections of links and functions. I have suggested "Navigation Menu", "Navigation Panel", or simply "Action Menu". However, the style guide (and therefore the editor and managers) insist on referring to it as a "pane", a term that either confuses our users or is meaningless to them. |
Eric's response: I guess it depends on the level of expertise of the user. If the user is used to dealing with technology, then "Pane" or perhaps more commonly "Tile" would be fine. If they are sophisticated and it is a portal, the term "portlet" is more precise. But for less sophisticated users I often wonder why we have the idea a Pane. Sure, there may be a different back-end facility feeding that part of the screen. But who cares??? They are looking at the screen. There are sections of the screen. Why do they CARE to have an additional idea to manage? So in the documentation (if you need documentation) you can say "Look at the top right box on the screen". Do most people need more? |
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April 5, 2010 – submitted by Naveen Phrased Nubian of Bangalore, India |
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Question: Hi Eric, I am Naveen, UI Designer working for an MNC in India, working mostly on designing the UI for web applications. We don't have a separate design team here, I usually work with the development team in the prototype phase and will be thrown out after that. "Front-End" is always pushed to the "Back-End" with least priority :( Right now, we follow a "Developer Centered Design" rather than "User Centered Design". Currently, success of the project is calculated only based on the number/severity of bugs reported after the application went in to production. I don't have any idea about real success of the project. I don't know how to change this approach and bring-in usability in to SDLC. Please advise.. |
Eric's response: You will have a hard time for sure. But the good news is that there is a global shift among executives. They are getting it. And as they do, they start working (often with our help) to shift the corporate culture. There is a tipping point happening. And I think this process will only accelerate in the coming few years. |
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April 5, 2010 – submitted by Dr Shahid Butt of Islamabad, Pakistan |
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Question: I want to set up an ergonomics / human factors engineering lab at my university. What type of equipment would I require? What are sources of purchase of this equipment? |
Eric's response: The equipment is not the main challenge! I remember visiting one Chinese company that had spent about $300,000 USD on usability testing facilities. They were space age. They were impressive. But no one knew what to DO with them! Sure, it is nice to have some usability testing laboratory equipment. I personally assembled a working lab from component parts I bought in Hong Kong over one weekend. It cost $350 USD. You can get really great professional equipment with add-ons like eye tracking and even monitoring software. This is mostly needed for research (the folks at Noldus have very nice stuff). BUT, get someone who can teach who really knows the field! Please!!! |
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March 15, 2010 – submitted by Vinay Marisetty of Reno, NV |
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Question: Is Recommendation a part of usability testing, can a group of recommendations can be similar to usability testing. |
Eric's response: There are two types of usability tests. A summative test evaluates the design against a set of human performance and preference objectives. This type of test does not provide recommendations. It just indicates if you meet your goals. But a formative test is all about recommendations. So formative testing is a way of identifying problems with the design. It is rather like a dentist who has you grind down on a piece of carbon paper to see where your teeth are hitting. You get to see where a user gets stuck. The recommendation is first to fix the places people are getting stuck. Of course the exact recommendation requires a UX practitioner who understands principles of design. |
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March 15, 2010 – submitted by Tom Weidner of Utah, USA |
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Question: I've used HFI for years now, and consider you THE source for UX information. I've seen a lot of blogs recently advocating that web designers move from 800 to 1024 as a basic web design width "standard". Am I missing something? Who cares whether 800 width screens are more or less prevalent than 1024 width screens? For over a decade now, I've used WINDOWS (not just Microsoft, but Apple and any other WINDOWS based UI), so that I can have more than one activity on my screen at a time! This obviates the need to decide what a "good" web site width should be based on screen characteristics, doesn't it? It seems to me like the more I try to cram onto a web page (in terms of design width), the less web users will like how it behaves inside a (possibly small) WINDOW. Have you published any studies on the topic of optimal web width, that don't rely on arguments having to do with the size of a screen? I think those arguments are bogus, given the prevalence of windows in the user space. After all, Web pages are typically viewed in a window, not on a full screen. |
Eric's response: The decision on screen resolution is similar to hundreds of other tradeoff decisions we make. Think of it as design for the greater good (or more accurately the greater profit). The increase in low resolution netbooks swings things a bit back toward low resolution, but that is only for personal computing. For professional applications we are targeting 1024x768 as the minimum. For more personal applications we need to consider carefully the tradeoff based on context of use. Just how many people are going to be 800x600? And we need to know that designing for a low resolution definitely makes things worse for people on high resolution screens. So we don't want to impair 95% just to accommodate 5%. The other thing is we can use liquid pages to make degradation to low resolution less painful. By coding to make the page squeeze elegantly you can make things tolerable for the low res folks. Comment from Tom Weidner The argument in most of the blogs is that physical screen resolution dictates what "good" web page width should be; that since physical screen resolution has gone predominantly from 800 width to 1024 width recently, that somehow that means "good" web page width should now exceed 800. In fact, screen resolution has nothing to do with "good" web page width. How many windows appear on any particular users physical screen and the width of each one is generally unknowable, and has little to do with physical screen resolution. The whole idea of "overlapping windows" is to be independent of actual physical screen resolution. So, how can physical screen resolution dictate "best" web page width? Eric: Oh, because most people with moderate screen resolution surf with full screen browser. And so you do have to optimize for that. |
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February 15, 2010 – submitted by Ravindra Papineni of Austin, TX |
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Question: On the automobile dashboard consoles we have the RPM dial placed next to the speedometer dial with the same importance and size. An average user rarely checks it in the daily commute, during the life cycle of ownership. (I have not glanced at it in the last 25 years of my driving, over 9 cars). I take it that manufacturers put it there for a reason but the real life use is close to zero. I understand this may not be our subject here but the more I dig into usability problems the more I find these things around me. I would like to hear your take on this one. |
Eric's response: The RPM gauge is for the racing driver to keep the engine within limits. They drive monitoring the RPM. But unless you drive really aggressively it won't matter to you at all. So why have it? The car companies are building on the association with racing drivers. Very powerful and fun cars have RPM gauges! That is a useful message in the sales environment. Also, it can give a sense that you are more connected with the inner workings of the car. Again, it is about fun, but not really useful. You can watch the motor speed change, a bit like some Swiss watches have windows so you can watch the gears move. Your time keeping performance is not improved. It might even be degraded! But... well, it is nice. And there is real value to a nice user experience. Comment from Kevin Ushko of Alberta, Canada Eric: I think I hear an "Expert User" persona here! |
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February 8, 2010 – submitted by Ganesan T S S of Chennai, India |
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Question: Is User Experience different from Usability? Would like you to substaitate with an example either way - yes or no. |
Eric's response: Our field as been called many things.
Sorry. It was not my idea. The switch from Usability to User Experience flagged a wider viewpoint. We are not just concerned that it is possible for people to use software. We are concerned about the whole user experience. We care about the experience the customer has in walking into the bank. We care about the integration of mobile and net channels. We care about how our designs fit into complex ecosystems with many users all interacting. We are also concerned beyond performance. We care about the emotional reaction to design. We care about persuasion engineering. We care about conversion. We are also moving beyond just design and getting involved in strategy and innovation. But basically yes. It is the same stuff. :) |
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