User Experience

A shift in focus

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:50:23 GMT

Well for those of you who follow me and my blog (and who doesn't); a major life change signifies a shift in focus on this blog. For over a year I have been a big proponent of good User Experience. But as I have made some very deliberate decisions in my career I am assuming a role as a Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. I will still have architectural responsibilities too. So to be true to the principles of software design that I believe in, I will stay true to User Experience in my new roles, I just may not blog about it so much.

As I exit stage left from the forefront of User Experience I just have to say that the term User Experience has been over used and misused by so many. The real misuse of "User Experience" came about with the introductions of WPF and Silverlight in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, these two technologies certainly do enhance the beauty and functionality of an application. However to me User Experience is more than skin deep. The User Experience is really all about the psychology of the user in relationship to the software they are using. It is about the user's perception of ease of use, the software's ability to keep the user on task and the conversation that ensues between the two.

I've said it before in this blog, the User Experience is not owned simply by the UI designer/developer. The User Experience is the shared responsibility of the entire development team and begins at project inception. UX must be a first class citizen during solution architecture and remain so through presentation development and delivery.

--chaz

FireStarter NYC

Chip Lemmon — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:20:18 GMT

I will be presenting on the interaction of ASP.Net, ASP.Net AJAX, and Silverlight 1.0 this Saturday at Microsoft in NYC. I'll also be showing off a small bit of Expression Blend 2 December Preview.

It is amazing how easy it is to pull all of these technologies together. Some of what I will be showing this Satruday is just a bridge until Silverlight 2.0 is released. But it is all relatively simple and once you've done the work once it is very re-usable.

Hope I'll be seeing you there.

--chaz

A book providing a good User Experience????

Chip Lemmon — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 19:52:23 GMT

Funny, I never thought a book could provide a good user experience. But sometimes it is the little things in life that are overlooked. I just bought Martin Fowler's book "Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture". And as always the book is written well and the content is aces. But what really dazzled me about the book is that the publisher (Addison Wesley) included a little red ribbon in the binding so I can mark my page. I know this is not new, but it is rare for a tech book. And it just thrilled me to not have to dog ear my spot or mark it with a Post-It or a Border's book mark.

I guess you can find examples of good UX just about anywhere!

--chaz

Innovative User Experiences Kids Play

Chip Lemmon — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 22:32:11 GMT

I have found two new inspirations for excellent user experience in a most unlikely place; my kid's toy box. Well so to speak anyway.

The first inspiration is innovative from both a marketing perspective as well as a User Interface perspective. If you have a child from 5 to 15 you probably know about Webkinz. A very short explanation for those that don't. A toy manufacturer named Ganz sells little stuffed animals with a tag on the toe. The tag has a special code that allows you to care for and interact with one (or more) virtual version of your stuffed animal. Kids in our area are nuts for the Webkinz animals and most own more than 2 or 3 and you can add as many as you purchase to your account.

Hats off to Ganz for figuring out how to drive people to a game site and pay for it without realizing they bought a subscription as well as a stuffed animal. See most people will spend money on a physical object like a stuffed animal. But they won't necessarily pay for a game site subscription quite as readily. So Ganz has very cunningly masked the fact that what you are really doing is buying a one year subscription to a game site with the lure of a stuffed animal. Don't get me wrong, the stuffed animals are great on their own, but what a genius move the Ganz marketing department!

So if the Webkinz marketing concept is brilliant, the Webkinz web site (www.webkinz.com) is absolutely brilliant. Man they got it right! The rich web UI is amazing. It is completely appropriate for the target audience. It is evident from the enthusiasm of my kids that the User Experience couldn't be better! It is fun to look at, easy to navigate and cleverly designed. Especially from a kid's point of view.

The second inspiration is from an old friend, Nintendo. We already have a PS2 so I was more than skeptical about buying a Wii. Well I am glad we did. My kids were up off the coach from the minute I had it set up. I actually sat back and smiled as I watched the kids jumping around and moving their body to play the games. Wow what a cool idea! A really interactive gaming system that just might raise your heart rate a little bit. Thank you Nintendo. Oh and I have played a number of games and I have to say the experience from a critical adult's perspective is great. The wireless controls with audio right in them is a great touch. But even without that, the novel way Nintendo has allowed us to interact with the system though the motion sensitive wireless devices is revolutionary. I'm sure others have put bits in pieces of the technologies found in the Wii to use. But Nintendo has captured lightening in a bottle in terms of user experience. The Wii will change what we expect from video gaming consoles.

I guess I would be remiss if I did not make mention of all the innovations lately around cell phones. From GPS to streaming video to full key pads, cell phones have also made great strides in User Experience.

Now if we could just think along the lines of these great innovators, I'd love to see somebody come up with a fresh idea for an OS. We have been living with the same concepts for what about 20 years now? Isn't it time for somebody to break the mold. Don't get caught up in the Mac/Linux/Microsoft non-sense. Some of the greatest ideas come from the most unlikely places. Let's hope we find a more advanced, more civilized, more User friendly OS in one of those places.

--chaz