What do you do when there’s a fly in the urinal (sorry ladies, this may not pertain to you)? It must be something that appeals to the core of man’s basest instincts: to…ready…aim…fire! OK, perhaps not the most elegant solution, but effective. It’s in the stats…this simple solution keeps the bathrooms 85% cleaner!
I think this is an excellent example of a key user experience concept: to appeal to base instincts! In this example, there’s a problem: dirty bathrooms. There’s a desired user goal: to help user’s aim better. There’s a simple intuitive interface: a fake fly sticker near the target.
Understanding core human instincts is a great start in creating intuitive interfaces to solve problems such as: how to make users fill out forms…advance to the next page…and a multitude of user goals. It can help avoid such pitfalls as strange naming conventions and unorthodox page navigation structures. Here are top 3 suggestions to see if your page element or interface passes the “basic instinct” usability test:
Simple “Basic Instinct’ Usability Test
1. Ask test users what action or result they think a certain page element or interface does.
2. For that same element or interface, ask if there’s anything else they think that element might do or represent (this list should not be long!).
3. Ask other users how they would perform a certain task from start to finish, and watch if they instinctively follow your desired path of execution.
A lot of users hate the “new” Facebook UI. I admit, I was highly anticipating the new look for several months, but also couldn’t embrace it when it actually came out. I was among the minions seeking to protest this great injustice called the “new Facebook”. Why change a good thing?…but the better question…why give users a choice to switch back and forth between the old and new, rather than just forcing us to use the new? Does that mean that you guys aren’t really convinced about the new Facebook too? Are you guys just “testing out” this new interface as some kind of pilot program, and perhaps roll back to the old once you find users hate it?
I think Facebook users are confused. Case in point, as of today, 1,834,841 members in the “1,000,000 against the new facebook layout” group, 1,302,468 members in the “Petition Against the New Facebook” group, and 1,159,068 “I Hate The New Facebook” group.
Did Facebook shoot themselves in the foot by actually giving a users a choice in user interface options? What exactly was your goal Facebook?
Well, the above interview with Scoble and Facebook Mark Slee (lead project manager @ Facebook) answers a lot of the questions (props once again to Robert Scoble for the insightful interview). As revealed in the interview, the option to choose between old and new interface was not truly to give users an option (as evidenced by the eventual discontinuation of the old interface), but it was seen as a way to give user an opportunity to do A/B testing and see the new rich features built into the new interface that can’t be done with the old.
With this in mind…I tried the new Facebook with a renewed perspective to see the A/B comparison between old vs. new features. I was sold pretty quickly to the new interface. Through the noise of the masses, it seems that once again, Facebook has managed to help user’s rock.
It’s common wisdom among usability experts to listen to users…but is there a time to not listen to them? I just found a good talk from Paul Buchheit of FriendFeed and Gmail fame @ Startup School. He shares some pretty good concepts on when to listen to users, but more important, when NOT to listen to them. Here’s my 3 favorite takeaways from the talk:
When Not To Listen To Users
1. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” ~Henry Ford
Sometimes people don’t necessarily foresee the best solution. You need to analyze the core user problem.
2. Decipher user advice limited by narrow life experiences.
Things and contexts for success change. Keep in mind the souce of the advice and filter for context.
3. Listen to the enthusiastic voices
Tune into the few users truly enthusiastic about your product. Those users would have some of the best advice and suggestions.
“Getting Real” is a must read book for anyone building a web application. Although not specifically a usability book…it touches on development philosophies that UI/UX professionals need to be familiar with.
From the people who brought you Basecamp, Backpack, and Ruby on Rails…this book is a discourse on the right way to build great web apps. This is not a tech manual…it is a philosophy on how to get web software out into the world swiftly and successfully. And for the bootstrapping entrepreneur…you can read Getting Real…for FREE!
As a person who worked as PM for a company who insisted on doing it the “wrong” way…focusing on countless iterations of functional specs, drawing up useless flow diagrams, incessant planning…”Getting Real” is a breath of fresh air!
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