Prototype of a Person

Why Gmails Needs A Usability Audit

Last night I was reminded why it’s important for web and software designers to incorporate user testing into the design process. This should even apply to those experienced designers at Google, that seem to have overlooked some basic principles of good design in the Gmail user interface.

Bad Error Messages

A family member was struggling with a basic task in Gmail. Sending an email. Attached to this email were a number of high quality digital photos. When they attempted to send this email the following error message was displayed.

The immediate reaction from the user was to try again, and again, each time the same error message appeared, and again, until finally the task was abandoned all together.

The reason this could be considered a bad error message is because it stranded the user, it told them a problem had occurred but did not explain how to fix it. From an experienced user’s perspective it might seem obvious to us that the email attachments had exceeded the 20mb limit imposed by Gmail. To an inexperienced user this information is not available. Yes, it’s available on one of the Gmail help sections. But as demonstrated by the user, they abandoned the task without even considering that there could be a solution.

By simply creating a link to this troubleshooting page from within the error message it would be one step towards a more usable design. A step further would be to provide the information in the error message itself. If the system can tell you the error code, surely it can advise you on a course of action.

Gmail has been in beta, and in development for many years now. Perhaps they should take a step backwards and resolve its basic usability issues before crowding the interface with even more features.

Cyberpsychology Digest Volume 4

Journal of CyberPsychology & Behavior, Vol 11, No.4: The current issue of this bimonthly journal offers access to research studies on topics such as public and private self-consciousness on social networking sites, online consumer trust, adolescent behaviour online, interactive movies, product placement in gaming, and cyberbullying.

Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace: Theory, Research, Applications: This blog contains each individual chapter from the newly published book of the same name. Readers are invited to read each chapter and comment or ask questions of the individual writers. Topics covered include privacy and trust online, internet abuse, flow states, cybertheraputic theory and techniques and sexual activities online. It’s wonderful to see an entire book on the topic of Cyberpsychology readily available online and open to discussion. Very much looking forward to reading all of these chapters.

For your eyes only: Custom interfaces make computer clicking faster, easier: University of Washington engineers discuss a new approach to software design. They propose that instead of standard off the shelf user interface designs, that by putting the user through a brief skills test a mathematically-based version of the user interface could be generated that is optimized for the user’s vision and motor abilities. This research is especially important for the disabled, elderly or anyone that has difficulty using a computer mouse.

The Effects of Background Television on the Toy Play Behavior of Very Young Children: This research study found that background television, disrupts very young children’s play behavior even when they pay little overt attention to it and even when tuned to adult themed shows. Background television was found to cause short play episode lengths, which are a marker for poor developmental outcome. These findings are important because play is directly related to healthy cognitive and social development. Related Article: TV Really Might Cause Autism

Internet users refuse to put up with intrusive ads: From 1000+ internet users sampled 59% indicated that they had stopped visiting a website because of irrelevant, annoying and intrusive online ads (including pop-ups that cover web content, loud noises and ads that were difficult to close, minimise or click away from). This study relates back to my own undergraduate research on pop-up advertisements, where I found that the more experienced a user the more likely they are to actively attempt to remove pop-ups from their online experience. Web designers need to start paying attention to research and surveys such as these, or as demonstrated, users will stop visiting certain websites completely.

If anyone has anything they’d like to contribute to the next digest, or related articles for this volume, feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail - Sinéad.

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

Cyberpsychology Digest Volume 3

‘Facebook Generation’ Faces Identity Crisis: A psychiatrist has suggested that young people are growing up with a different and potentially dangerous view of the world and their own identity. However, in the same article it is also pointed out that the vast majority of psychiatrists worldwide are unaware of the full magnitude or impact of the online world on the younger generation. This story is an example of how an unfounded comment (backed up by no research study) can be picked up by the mainstream media and twisted into stories such as Facebook and Myspace generation ‘cannot form relationships’, ‘Mental risk’ of Facebook teens and thus highlights the importance of continued Cyberpsychology research.

Markers of Status: Different, and Yet the Same: Interesting observations from Danah Boyd into the social activities of teens online, particularly the notion that the social hierarchies that exist in everyday life are replicated and reinforced online. These insights contradict numerous media reports that have highlighted how social networking can support negative behaviour in teens and pre-teens.

Will video games solve sex-discrimination in science?: This article discusses research regarding the gender differences in visuospatial skills necessary for complex mathematics. Findings suggest that the simple act of playing video games could improve these skills. Related Article: Unpacking the Science of Sex Difference

How User Interfaces can make or break a new service: Discussion by industrial designer Alexander van Elsas on the subject of usability and user interface design that suggests that UI is the most important fail factor for any new product or service. Related link: Social Design

Intel Anthropologists Find Keys to Tech Adoption: This article highlights a study from Intel that investigates the so called “technology gap” between richer and poorer countries. Their most recent results indicate that it’s much more than levels of disposable income that influence the adoption of new technologies.

If anyone has anything they’d like to contribute to the next digest, or related articles for this volume, feel free to drop me a comment or an e-mail - Sinéad.

Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

The Future of the Computer Mouse

New Zealand company Simtrix have developed a novel alternative to the trackpad. It has the overall usability of a mouse but doesn’t restrict you to the tiny surface of a trackpad, by using the surface of your laptop (keyboard) as a mousepad. The tiny Swiftpoint “Slider” mouse can be tucked under your thumb, which allows you to very quickly switch between typing and navigating.

See it in action here (link: BBC news video).

For someone that does as much typing (some of this may or may not be chatting) whilst browsing the internet (all in the name of research of course), this would be a godsend. Not only would this replace my completely worn down trackpad and mini usb travel mouse, I can see this completely replacing any mouse I would ever think of using. Being able to switch between typing and navigating at such ease would be bliss.

I must have one of these. Immediately.

2002 Called - it Wants it’s Web Design Back

The PermanentTSB website won a Golden Spider back in 2005 and since then hasn’t really changed it’s overall site design, infact, it has been virtually the same since 2002. A heuristic evalution of the site (undertaken in the Human Computer Interaction module of the MSc in Cyberpsychology) easily leads me to believe that it is in dire need of a redesign (yet their more recently launched “Yourmortgage.ie” is almost a replica of the main site). Out of a possible 23 heuristics, it only fully complied with 12 of them - meaning the site is littered with design inconsistencies, broken links, very clearly deviates from the current standard web practices (PDF files? really?) etc., etc.

It’s just another fine example of Irish web design firmly stuck in web 1.0. The .ie domain is virtually (no pun intended!) littered with them. I’m sure there are plenty more examples of badly designed Irish sites (not necessarily .ie) and would be thrilled to hear everyone’s own personal “favorites”.

Eircom.net is another firm favorite of mine for its sensational orange menu with white text, and dark grey text on a grey background for its sub-menu. Wonderful stuff.

Cyberpsychology Thesis

I’m in the early stages of writing my second thesis. My first one, for my undergrad studies in Psychology Applied to I.T was based on online advertising, was only about 5,000+ words and I had about 80 participants in my experiments.

This one will be three times the size, it will weigh in at about 10,000 - 15,000 words and I’ll be needing about 1,000 volunteers to fill out multiple online surveys for me (this step won’t commence until at least September). So wish me luck! Below are some of the aims I have developed, they form the basis for my upcoming research.

Aims:

1. To investigate the immediate and initial factors that influence the perception of credibility and trust online, in regards to non-commercial websites and blogs.
2. To explore and evaluate cues of trustworthiness online.
3. To investigate trust-inducing interface design features and tools employed by non-commercial web designers, blogging platforms and blog writers, and examine their effectiveness.
4. To examine online trust formation from a user’s perspective, including brand awareness and social experiences.

Though there is a lot of research with regard to the topic of trustworthiness online, almost all of this research focuses solely on e-commerce (eBay, Amazon etc.,) and does not delve into information exchange. Recently Wikipedia and Blogging has come under scrutiny by the traditional media for an apparent misrepresentation for information. However, this has in no way effected the popularity of these mediums. What I want to know is - why? Why do people trust certain websites and blogs but not others?

The next stage is to develop sets of hypothesis, which I’ve begun to do and have quite a few so far. I’m very much looking forward to getting feedback on my initial ideas from the college, I may have to alter the above aims as time progresses. If anyone would like to contribute some feedback or direct me towards any existing research, articles etc., please do.

If anyone else, like myself, is currently in the process of doing research into existing literature, online, let me suggest a wonderful tool called Zotero. It’s a file management system that works in conjunction with Firefox to help you sort, tag, reference, etc., research papers from sites such as Google Scholar.

Google Maps Mobile

Thanks to Noel, today I’ve mostly been abusing my data package to access the Internet using installed applications such as Google Maps Mobile (go to this site on your mobile to directly download the app).

Recently Google Local Business Center became open to Irish businesses. There hasn’t been a big uptake so far (I suppose it’s early days) - if my experience of searching random keywords in Google Maps is anything to go by. The maps application on my mobile currently doesn’t seem to support searching for local businesses or “my location” or “highway traffic” (these might be network dependent, I’ll have to get someone to try it out on Vodafone), which is a pity but I’m still planning on making my absolutely-no-sense-of-direction other half install this app. onto her N70.

Even on a small screen Google Maps looks and feels great and is very easy to use. I was surprised that you could use “satellite view” (similar to Google Earth, where you see satellite images rather than a simple map). A really nifty little feature in “directions” is that you can use shortcut buttons to jump from point to point on the route. Overall I’m impressed and looking forward to being able to (hopefully soon) access the local business search, you never know when you’re going to need to know where the nearest pub is.

The Memory Recall Of Pop-Up Advertisements Amongst Experienced Internet Users

Yes, I know that IS a long subject line… it’s the title of my research which has been printed and hard-bound, and handed into the college, and I’ve presented it at the PSI Student Congress. It’s all finally over and done with. So, if anyone is interested in what I’ve been doing for the last 6 months…. read on.

The Memory Recall Of Pop-Up Advertisements Amongst Experienced Internet Users:

The aim of my study was to examine the relationship between Internet experience and memory retention of pop-up advertisements. Participants completed an online survey about their Internet experience, during which a pop-up advertisement appeared. Participants then completed a paper-pencil test examining their recall of the pop-up. This study found no relationship between experience and memory retention, online. However, low memory recall rates of the pop-up advertisement were found. This study also found that the more experienced a user becomes online the more likely they are to use pop-up blocking software. Implications of this research suggest Internet users learn to actively attempt to remove pop-ups from their surfing experience, that pop-ups are ineffective forms of advertising online, and that online advertisers should focus on alternative forms of advertising.

For the completed dissertation you can download a PDF version here or view the online version here.

There’s a couple of things I wish I could have done this year: use the eye-tracker on my participants, test the stress levels of participants using the net with pop-up blocking software and then without. But alas, doing either of those things would have required twice as much work by myself, and I just didn’t have the time or equipment. Maybe for post-grad.

The Vixen Firefox

Mozilla Firefox has a number of features that make it far superior to it’s Microsoft counterpart Internet Explorer (IE). The important ones for the geeks amongst us are the added security features and excellent pop-up blocking, however, it’s stand out feature for me has always been tabbed browsing.

Tabbed browsing allows you to open multiple webpages in a single browser window, instead of your taskbar being cluttered by multiple IE windows. Tabs allow you to quickly flip back and forth between webpages, and drag and drop open tabs to keep related pages together. It doesn’t just un-clutter your taskbar, it uses less memory and is actually faster than IE at opening webpages. Tabbed browsing is not unique to Firefox, it features in other browsers that are not IE, yet, out of all the alternatives to IE, Firefox is a clear winner due to it’s intuitive interface, customisability and accessibility features.

Today, I discovered a preference in Firefox that I had overlooked and yes, this might sound inconsequential, but if like myself you’re getting to grips with the latest Internet craze, RSS Feeds, you might benefit from reading this.

Clicking links within my RSS Reader (I’m currently trying out the Beta version of the Yahoo! RSS Reader that has been embedded in the Yahoo! Mail interface… but that’s a whole other story…) kept opening new Firefox windows, rather than tabs, unless I right-clicked and chose open in new tab. My error was forgetting to right-click, and yet, I continued to make this error. Upon visiting the Mozilla Help: Tips and Tricks webpage I discovered a lovely feature to Firefox that allows you to open external links (opening new webpages, that usually open in a new window no matter what browser you use) in a tab.

Open external links in new windows or tabs:

If another program wants to display a web page in the default browser, Firefox will reuse an existing window by default, which means that it will navigate from a page you might be reading. To stop this, Go to Tools > Options… > Tabs, and under Force links that open new windows to open in: choose a new tab.

Simple, right? Excellent? Yes. I am now happily reading RSS Feeds without annoying myself… too much.

Windows Media Player vs Winamp

I just started investigating the features of the new version of Winamp. Version 5.21. Available to download for free from www.winamp.com

I’ve always been a huge fan of Winamp, but more recently I had managed to convince myself that I would have to use Windows Media Player 10 in order to update my Zen. That is until Winamp 5.21.

If you own a Zen - download this new version. It gives you the ability to create playlists in Winamp and then move them to your Zen. It’s faster at transfering files then WMP 10. It will tell you when a file in incompatible with your Zen (like .ogg), so you can go do some conversions… for those of you familiar with downloading torrents, occasionally your files turn out to be .ogg rather than .mp3, which can be annoying with WMP 10, as it doesn’t recognise .ogg, at all! wont even play .ogg… and I digress… but above all the features of Winamp, THIS has always been my favourite the “Remove missing files from media library” option, hallelujah for that! there is nothing more annoying that re-organising your music library only to find that WMP has decided there is 2 of everything on your computer and you must manually rectify this.

For those of you reluctant to switch from WMP - let me tell you this - it’s faster than WMP, it will run in the background while you have 10 other pieces of software running, and it will not crash and burn on you. It looks cooler too, has lovely colour schemes and skins, skins that you can create yourself. It’s free, so try it. What’s the worst that could happen? Oh, and did I mention that the free version will Rip and Burn CDs? and play all your lovely videos too.

Winamp. It’s just cool.