Cross Post: An Example of How to Improve the Westpac iPhone App

My fresh Mobile UXP blog post: “An Example of How to Improve the Westpac iPhone App“

Technorati Tags: Apple, blog, customerexperience, design, hci, idealinterfaces, iphone, mobile, ui, usability, wireframes

Cross Post: The ABC interviewed me about being a Usability Specialist

About a year ago the ABC interviewed me about being a Usability Specialist. They came and videoed me up at the usability lab I use, my home office and even speaking at a conference. It was all quite fun.

Anyway, today I accidently found a photo of myself on the ABC Science website with a link to the interview with me. You can read about my job and watch the video interview here

Technorati Tags: customerexperience, hci, idealinterfaces, information architecture, interview, iphone, judge, marketing, mobile, momo, Sydney, thoughts, TV, ui, usability, video

Cross Post: Toyota iPhone App doesn’t take advantage of the iPhone opportunities

My post at my other blog on what’s wrong with the Toyota Dealer iPhone App

Technorati Tags: customerexperience, design, iphone, mobile, thoughts, ui, usability

Rethinking applications for mobile is also likely to result in better desktop apps

At Web Directions South User Experience, an audience member asked if I thought that people will use mobile apps on their desktop because they are distilled versions of their standard desktop counterparts.
I think:
1. The contextual aspect of SOME mobile services, will mean they won’t be as useful, or not useful at all, on the desktop.
2. There will be mobile applications that work well as ‘widgets’ on desktops and that people will use for a quick interactions or fast access to content.

However, I also believe developers/designers will benefit from re-thinking the interface to simplify it for mobile. Here’s a quote from Cultured Code, the developer of the Mac GTD application; Things:
“While developing Things touch [for iPhone] does draw significant amounts of resources from the desktop version, it is in fact rather beneficial for it too. Recreating Things for the iPhone made simplicity even more predominant. We learned a couple of things from the process that will help us to make the desktop version even better. The same goes for the data model code. Having had the opportunity to incorporate all the lessons we’ve learned from the desktop version resulted in a fresh new code base that will find its way back into Things, providing an even better foundation for its future development.”

Technorati Tags: industry, iphone, mobile, software, thoughts, ui, usability

Mobile people who don’t understand mobile

“But if you claim to be [a mobile] professional and haven’t at least read about the iPhone a year after its release you should be shot.”
Stilgherrian on Mobile Content World and the fact that the audience I gave my iPhone User Experience talk too, weren’t familiar with the iPhone.

I obviously agree with him and thus why I proposed the talk.
I see it as an opportunity

Technorati Tags: conference, customerexperience, idealinterfaces, industry, iphone, mobile, Sydney, thoughts

Tweets from Mobile Content World

Check out a couple of the tweets from Mobile Content World yesterday.
I spoke on the iPhone user experience and it was scary to realise how many people in the audience (at a mobile conference) hadn’t seen the iPhone or the full benefits.

Technorati Tags: Apple, conference, customerexperience, iphone, mobile

Silverback looks interesting!

Didn’t get my beta in the first round this morning, but I’m waiting patiently…
Silverback is described as a Mac-only app that “lets you run your own guerilla usability tests really easily.”

“You can test your websites anywhere, without having to lug microphones or video cameras around. You could pop into Starbucks with your Macbook and run a usability test with a click of your fingers. You’ll keep your testers happy too — no need to wave a camera in their face or keep the microphone close to hand. In fact, for them it’s no different to using the web as they would anyway.”

And via their Twitter stream it seems like you can run it in the background of a Parallels session. Handy for those Windows-loving clients…

Sounds good to me!

Andy from Clearleft (who are creating Silverback) is also presenting at Web Directions South: User Experience next week. Maybe I can hit him up for a beta

Technorati Tags: method, research, software, usability

Getting UI right

“This is how you get design right. You have to really invest in it. Investing in it isn’t about money, it’s about time. Your designers need time to think about solving the problem, and they need to tinker with lots of ideas that get towards solving the problem. They need to invest time in coming up with ten good designs. This means that you have to be okay with throwing out good designs. You’re throwing out good designs because good isn’t good enough — you’re looking for greatness. Greatness rarely springs fully-formed from your forehead (no matter how much you might wish it would). Greatness comes from a lot of work, and a commitment to the work that is necessary to achieve that greatness.”

(Nadyne, UXR at Microsoft’s Mac BU)

Technorati Tags: Apple, blog, customerexperience, design, Microsoft, software, ui, usability

The ‘Web Directions South: User Experience’ website is up

Web Directions South: User Experience is “a full day two track conference, plus an optional extra day of workshops, focussing on concepts, technologies and techniques for building great user experiences on the web.

Whatever your role – designer, developer, IA, product and project manager all the way to CIO and CTO – this will be an exciting day of informative, stimulating content to send you home even better enabled to build the web.”

There is a great speaker list:
* Andy Budd (Clearleft) – Interaction design and usability
* Robert Hoekman Jr (Miskeeto) – User experience evangelist
* Lisa Herrod – User testing
* Emily Boyd (Remember the Milk) – Ajax techniques for great user experiences
* Cameron Adams – Frontiers of Javascript (workshop)
* Donna Maurer – Getting content right
* Jackie Moyes (News Digital Media) – Turning research into products
* Steve Baty – Analysing research data
* Mathew Patterson (Campaign Monitor) – Designing for email

I will be speaking on the Mobile Web User Experience
“Historically the mobile web has been a terrible experience, but things are starting to change. Really! We are now at the point that the mobile web is becoming easier to access, both on-deck & off-deck, there’s useful & tailored services out there, and killing some time on the train home doesn’t cost more than your weekly train ticket. We’ll check out the latest and greatest in the world of mobile web and what makes them different from the others. We will also cover the important things to keep in mind for making a better mobile web customer experience.”

Early bird pricing is available until April 11!

Technorati Tags: conference, customerexperience, idealinterfaces, mobile, ui, usability

We’ve still got a long way to go…

“Now, over in the mobile space, the “low hanging fruit” is usually still present – even on Nokia devices and Google applications. I thus expect the mobile usability ROI metrics to be closer to 135%.”

Barbara @ Little Springs Design

Technorati Tags: industry, mobile, ui, usability