The Flip Side of Technology

I recently bought a new Flip video camera like the one pictured here. It's great for capturing videos of my kids. And while I like it a lot, when it comes to the quality of the videos it captures, it's certainly not the best camera on the market. But it fits in my pocket, is super easy to use and cost half of what a "real" video camera would cost. It's a perfect camera for a generation of Youtubers who want a simple way to capture and share videos - not make "movies."

What amazed me about the product was how simple it is to use. I never even opened the manual and yet in less than 5 minutes I figured out how to do everything I needed to do. It has a simple, minimalist interface, with just a few buttons. Point and shoot. Its iPod-ish looks and ease-of-use makes me think it's the video camera that Apple would build. (iCamera anyone?)

Okay, so why do I bring this up... It turns out the Flip has captured 13% of the market for video cameras. Just as everyone was moving high tech and high definition, and getting super-sophisticated, along comes simple. A product with good usability can win out over a superior product that is a negative experience to use.

Something magical happens when products make out lives simpler and easy. When you can make my music portable you get the Walkman. When you can make watching and recording taped shows easy, you get TiVo. Make it easy for me to load and unload the film from my camera, you get the Kodak Instamatic.

Many of the web's most successful sites are successful because they make our lives easier in some way. They help save us money or make it easy to order books. They help us find things or help us all stay in touch with our friends. Again, many of these sites are not the most beautifully-designed nor are they the most technologically advanced. (Think Craigslist and eBay.)

It just goes to show that when it comes to humans interacting with technology, you can often be more successful by focusing on the humans more than the technology.

Click free

Here's an interesting experiment with a user interface that requires no clicking. I like it but there's something empowering and definitive about the mouse click that I miss. Give it a try for yourself here.

Friday fun: To opt out, please opt in

Uh, I don't think so...

Usable = Usual

Did you know one theory regarding the "QWERTY" layout of the keys on our computer keyboards is because it causes us to actually type slower? The idea was that slower typing would minmize key jams on early typewriters. This doesn't make much sense in the modern era but, because it's what we're used to, most people still find QWERTY preferable over a "more usable" keyboard layout.

What if a car manufacturer decided it would be more usable to put the brake on the right and the gas on the left? What if you stepped into an elevator and there weren't any buttons? What if your dictionary was not in alphabetical order?

Sometimes good usability is as much about our customs, habits and expectations as it is about design choices.

Friday fun: Web Pages that Suck

Henry Ford once said "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."

Vincent Flanders' site Web Pages that Suck helps you to learn proper web design and usability from the ill-conceived, poorly executed, and often humorous mistakes of others.

Learn from their failures and make sure your website never ends up on Vincent's.

Scale-ability: Wait gain

My wife has a weigh scale in our bathroom that's pretty neat. You enter your sex and height and it gives you back your weight and estimated percentage of body fat.

Believe it or not, my problem with this device is not with the numbers that it gives me (although they could be better). My problem is how difficult the thing is to use. There are only two buttons on the face which looks nice and simple. But simple only works in product design if the experience is as simple as it looks.

Here's what I have to do to use my wife's scale:

• Push Set (default choice is "Adult")
• Push Set to choose Adult
  
• Toggle the arrow button twice to show "Male"
• Push Set to choose Male
• Hit the arrow button 19 times (or hold it down and wait for fast-forward) to enter my height (the default height is 4 feet, 4 inches!)
• Hit Set
• Jump on, hold still and wait.

Ugh. I think I lost weight (and patience) doing all that.

This scale is only used by my wife and me. Our sexes and heights don't change. Yet we have to re-enter them every time as if we've never used the scale before.

Your website's visitors can get equally frustrated if you repeatedly ask them to give you the same information. User experience expectations have risen greatly over the last few years. Customers expect you to know and remember them.

Hello, Mom?

Not an mp3 player. Not a camera. Not an email device. Just a simple, well-designed cell phone that even my parents might use.

A Cell Phone for Baby Boomers

LP Content

Think about the changes the music industry has gone through in just the last 30 years. The focus has shifted from 8-tracks and albums to cassettes to cds to digital. A show like "American Top 40" (with Casey Kasem back in my day) used to have incredible power is now marginalized by MTV, iTunes, Amazon and satellite radio.

The focus of music as a product has shifted too. The main focus used to be selling albums: 33 1/3 LPs. Yes, you could buy "45s" - also known as singles, but the main focus was on selling whole albums. Today, it's downloads and ringtones.

Even the name is telling. The name LP stands for "long play." Who has time for long? As we've already discussed, short is the new long.

Written content is undergoing a similarly radical change. Freed from the confines of books and magazines, information is flowing, searchable and available. It's become a commodity. Being an "author" is no longer reserved for only the elite as decided by a publishing company - anyone can blog or self-publish and have their voice be heard.

Just as you are no longer bound to the record player to hear your music, users of the Internet won't forever be tied to a computer. Users will access your content from their phones, PDAs and other portable devices. Just as your Pink Floyd LP can't be played with your iPod, these new devices aren't good for digesting "LP content." Reading a long article or downloading large pages on your phone is tedious and painful.

Content is (and will always be) king. But the king is changing.

Get your site to the doctor, stat!

My wife recently reminded me that I should go to the doctor for a checkup. I know she's right- it's been a couple of years. But it goes against my nature a bit to go see a doctor when everything is fine. The preventative, proactive doctor visit is not something I'm accustomed to. In my family, you went to the doctor if your arm was falling off - not if you felt fine.

Still, I know she's right. There could be any number of things wrong with me that an expert is going to find.

Similar to my attitude, you may think you know your website like the back of your hand. "If something were wrong, I'd know it" you say. You'd hear about it from your customers. You'd notice the problem.

But maybe not. How many customers find something wrong or (heaven forbid) broken on your site and simply leave without informing you of it? They just clicked away from your site and took their business elsewhere.

When was the last time you tried all the links or tested those forms? Do you know what your site looks like on a mobile device? Or how it works in different browsers?

A periodic "expert site review" is often helpful. It can provide a fresh, outside perspective from a authority on website design, navigation, and usability. Plus a site review can help you not only ensure that your site is working and usable, but that it is optimized to generate the results you want - more traffic, more sales, more conversions.

Get your site to the "doctor." Most of the time great improvements can be made, without major surgery.

Cutting corners

One summer I helped landscape the front of a bank. There was a paved walkway from the parking lot to the front door that took a 90 degree turn. As I was planting some new plants, my boss Steve told me not to put one too close to the corner. I asked why.

"Because people cut corners" is all he said. If we put a plant right on the corner, it would have been stepped on and killed by visitors cutting the corner or at a minimum, brushed often and irritated by pant legs and shoes.

Take a look at this picture of a traffic gate. Notice the tire tracks. If given the chance, people will cut corners and take the path of least resistance. Easy is better than hard.

The organization of your website should not only allow but encourage
this corner-cutting behavior. Don't put up a roadblock and make them click 4 times to get to a popular feature if you can provide a direct link. Add a list or drop-down box of "Popular Destinations" and allow users to jump right there. Configure your search engine to deliver the right results for key search terms.

Help your users cut corners and save time and suddenly your site will become more useful and user-friendly.

Conventional usability

There are times to be innovative, creative and clever.

Most of the time though, when it comes to usability of your site, you want to be more conventional than "inventional." You want the customer to be comfortable performing a transaction on your site. If she clicks the "submit" button, you want what she expects to happen and what will happen to be exactly the same thing. This is the essence of good usability. Be one step ahead of the customer at every turn and provide the options they need and the site behavior they expect.

Usable content

The usability of your website is not just about the forms and functionality. It can refer to your content too. Here's an example of good content that is simply not usable. Would you want to read that?

Here are some tips for better writing:

• Avoid alliteration. Always.
• Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
• Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
• Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
• Proofread carefully to see if you words out.

OK, seriously. Go here to learn more about writing for the web.

Hi. Welcome back.

I pulled my car into a nearby Jiffy Lube the other day. I parked and walked into the office. As I entered, the gentlemen working there greeted me with a "Mr. Evans?" Having never been there before, I was more than a little surprised. But they had typed my license plate into their system and recognized me as a previous customer at a different Jiffy Lube location. They had my car's maintenance history on the screen and were better prepared to do business with me.

The best bartenders and baristas recognize their repeat customers and have their "usuals" waiting for them before they are fully in the door.

Amazon remembers your browsing and order history and makes product recommendations based on it.

Many sites that require a login offer a "Remember Me" feature to facilitate future visits.

How does your site recognize, reward and retain your best customers?