This post is more about the visual attached than anything else. I have many opinions on norwegian news websites: I am used to Italian newspapers, where the “tabloid factor” is not so important, and politics dominate the content (well, someone may argue that italian politics IS entertainment suited for tabloids….but that’s another story…..).
Let’s give the word to the images, so to speak….
Today I want to quickly comment on the “dine funn” (your stored items) function on finn.no. Firstly, I must say it has improved substantially with this new UI and, especially, with some new interaction. In particular, the interaction for deleting and for commenting, which is now Ajax-based, avoids lengthy page reloads, and works much better. However, I do have some small complaints.
I am a long-time and heavy Finn.no user. I have bought 2 cars through finn.no, 1 apartment, and just recently a wonderful second-hand Stokke Balans chair. In the last few months Finn has begun to “redesign” (if what they are doing can be called a redesign) the service, adding - timidly - a new feature here, a new UI there, in a way which - planned or not - gives the impression of being an attempt at seamlessly morphing their UI without the users really noticing.
I am absolutely astonished that there still are so many websites which label links with a resounding “click here”. It is, so far as I can recall, one of the oldest usability rules that a link label should provide users with a clue as to what happens if one clicks: what content one will access, what action/process is triggered etc. Additionally, the link labels will also help the scanning of a web page, and in particular the actionable part of it. Yet, there are millions of “click here” links still spread across the internet.
Compare the following examples:
Basic example -> To see the latest photos, click here
Intermediate example -> click here to see the latest photos
Good example -> See latest photos
Well, make up your minds.
I got a bit curious the other day, and decided to check what of the “usability” and “user experience” skills and expertise profiles were more popular. The curiosity is the fruit of a certain widespread confusion as to what kind of design skills are needed when in a development project. Many times I found that the difference between an interaction designer and an information architect isn’t obvious to product and business people, and, alas, at times to designers and web developers as well. In fact, I have found that often enough whether the “job title” is information architect or interaction design is a consequence of the specific company habit, or culture, or fashion.
So I got curious to see what the web talks about. And here are the results of my little check:
So this is the result of a google blog search. No date boundary, so the whole archive. Exact match search. The differences aren’t so great, though Information Architecture has a little edge over the rest. User Experience Design though is dramatically lower than all others.
I then looked at the web results:
While the scale is of course much bigger, the distribution is similar.
To complete this little survey of mine, I also searched for broad fields, such as usability, user experience etc. Below are the results (blogs search only):
Usability is absolutely the most talked about.
Oh, well, make what you wish of it, I was curious 
A friend of mine gave me and my wife an interesting present some time ago:
And this pizza wheel cutter proved to be an excellent pizza tool. Even more interesting though, I tried it with other types of food, and in particular with beef. It worked even better than on pizza, as the force applied to cut had to be minimal, and it was distributed efficiently on the whole wheel blade, while working it gently back and forth over the beef.
The circular edge eliminates the issues of tip of the knife (round but blunt, sharp but pointy such as it won’t slide easily….), and no matter the inclination of the handle, the cutting outcome is the same, as the wheel rolls on and back.
Finally, this wheel cutter eliminates the need to hinge on the wrist during the cutting movement, which is needed to bring the part of the knife blade closer to the shaft correctly onto the thing to cut. With the wheel it is sufficient to move the arm back and forth, ever so lightly.
An effortless tool, recommended!
PS: This tool works best on flat surfaces, such as pizza, beef, omelette etc. The good old knife still rocks to peel an apple, or cut a bread, or to slice a tomato, or to clean meat off the bones bit by bit….
I have just visited the Toyota.no page to order online a service for my car. The form is alright enough, and anyway it is not the focus of this short post. I have filled in the form in its entirety and I have appreciated the interaction of the type of service specification (especially the visual clue as to the behavior to expect upon checking some of the checkboxes). I have also appreciated the ability to select 3 different “preferred dates”. I have finally submitted the form.
What happened next though was, well, about nothing. A page reload which showed the same (empty) form. I looked around in the page to find some (any!) clue that the form had been processed successfully.
Now, as I care about having this service soon, I decided that perhaps something went wrong, and I filled in the form once again. I hit the submit button, and, again, nothing but a page reload showing the same (empty! again!) form.
I started to eye my webmail tab to see if it refreshed and showed a new message - perhaps Toyota’d send a mail notification to confirm my order.
Well, it’s been now quite a long while, and no mail notification has arrived. It was just a very bad user experience, and I still don’t know whether I have ordered the service.
I will have to call on monday.
Tested/Used with: Ubuntu 8.04, Firefox 3
Due to my professional life, I have been changing laptop roughly every 2 years. For about the last 6 years I have used Dell laptop machines. The newest I purchased is a Dell Vostro 1500, transitioning from a (way too old) Dell Latitude 600.
When changing computer there’s always a number of “new” things one must get used to, but so far there hadn’t been any significant “adjustment issue”, considering I stuck with Dell. Most of the adaptations needed were on the software side.
A short experience report from my honey moon, back in July 2007. I had it in my sleeve for a while.
We were visiting the Archeological Park of Selinunte and it was really, really hot! We had been walking for a very long time all around the ruins under a scorching sun. We had no more sweat to give. Suddenly I saw what seemed either a mirage or a joke. It turned out to be a true case of bending to the user’s needs!
I am inaugurating vdl Labs with a post on POS payment terminals. They have been bugging me ever since I moved to Norway (now over 8 years ago). The reason is not so much linked to anyone terminal, even though some of those are badly designed. The real bad thing about them is that there are many! And each of them has a key feature designed differently. Be it the different placement of the swipe, on the side(s) or at the bottom end of the terminal. Be it the different (opposite!) ways the card must face during the swipe, either right or left.
Or perhaps both.
Of course the terminals owners also contribute to the irritation. Be that all too often at least *some* of the buttons are a bit unresponsive, and I must push them twice at least (One would expect machines which process sensitive information to be well functioning!). Be that these machines often enough are placed in the most inconvenient spot, so as to render the task of sliding the card through without hitting something (whether on the way on or out) almost impossible.
Sometimes both.
One last source of irritation has to do with a purposefully designed feature: some POS have some extra step in the payment flow, to allow the inputing of tips, so that the machine is delivered to you together with the 1-2-3 usage tips (”just fill in the total amount, press ok, then input the code”). Now, no matter how many times I have done it, I always feel unsure on how to proceed. That not being enough, I also always feel somewhat uneasy as the waiter/waitress waits for my tip: “too much? too little? how much do I need to tip? help?!?!”
I’d like to go back to cash -
In a future post I will see to publish more details, and photos