Staff Blogs

Posts tagged usability

Blending desktop and onlineAugust 5, 2008 by ginger james-royle

Loving the way that some interactions and widgets are coming into the mainstream making the everyday use of the web much more similar to the desktop experience.

Take a look at www.macwarehouse.co.uk this site manages to provide a good experience whilst making a play upon quite a lot of features that you would expect to find on a Mac computer.

Widgets are widely available but I quite like the Yahoo library.

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Blending desktop and onlineAugust 5, 2008 by ginger james-royle

Loving the way that some interactions and widgets are coming into the mainstream making the everyday use of the web much more similar to the desktop experience.

Take a look at www.macwarehouse.co.uk this site manages to provide a good experience whilst making a play upon quite a lot of features that you would expect to find on a Mac computer.

Widgets are widely available but I quite like the Yahoo library.

Read more

Every tiny detail countsJuly 25, 2008 by ginger james-royle

"The devil is in the detail" is one rule that I always abide by - dark? Perhaps....


I think it is incredibly important to make sure that every tiny detail is considered when designing a solution, else you could end up with a solution that looks lovely but when you get down to using has silly idiosyncrasies that have just been overlooked.

Now put your user hat on: you are a busy business person and you have lots of important tasks that need your attention.  One of your many tasks for the next hour is to enter you company details in to a service directory.  There are 25 people in your company.  See how long and hard you have to think before you can choose the correct company size from the drop down (see image below)?



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Every tiny detail countsJuly 25, 2008 by ginger james-royle

"The devil is in the detail" is one rule that I always abide by - dark? Perhaps....


I think it is incredibly important to make sure that every tiny detail is considered when designing a solution, else you could end up with a solution that looks lovely but when you get down to using has silly idiosyncrasies that have just been overlooked.

Now put your user hat on: you are a busy business person and you have lots of important tasks that need your attention.  One of your many tasks for the next hour is to enter you company details in to a service directory.  There are 25 people in your company.  See how long and hard you have to think before you can choose the correct company size from the drop down (see image below)?



Read more

does a rose still smell as sweet....July 3, 2008 by ginger james-royle

I have to admit it, I have an embarrassing habit of mixing well known phrases and to create a new phrase which still has the original meaning. 


Odd? I agree.

But somehow my mind makes sense of what I want to say, takes what it can and pastes together a bizarre assortment of words to communicate the message... thought it would be good to keep a record of my strange mental model so here goes:

 - its a vicious catch 22
 - the moon and her daughters
 - raw end of the stick
 - brightest tool in the box
 - gidits and gazmos

Similarly, our clever brains are able to unscramble words without really trying.  Apparently when we read we take the first and last letter of each word and make sense of what's in between.  Visit the scrambler to try it our for your self.




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Registration by stealthJuly 3, 2008 by ginger james-royle

Where it suits the business model and objectives of the site, I will often encourage clients to opt for registration by stealth.


The main idea behind registration by stealth is that, simply put, registration can often become a blocker to users using a site.  Registration by stealth looks to remove the formal 'registration' call to action and instead focuses on gathering the important bits of information (that the business requires) as the customer is using the parts of the site that they feel are important.

The result is a site that allows the user to move quite freely around the site and then provides them with a very quick and simple form that effectively registers them.  An example is www.justgiving.com where you can sponsor without registering then right at the end of the payment process the user is presented with a cleverly designed box that ask 'Save this card  for future use?', if the user then chooses to enter their password and verify their password - voila! the user is registered without any fuss.

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does a rose still smell as sweet....July 3, 2008 by ginger james-royle

I have to admit it, I have an embarrassing habit of mixing well known phrases and to create a new phrase which still has the original meaning. 


Odd? I agree.

But somehow my mind makes sense of what I want to say, takes what it can and pastes together a bizarre assortment of words to communicate the message... thought it would be good to keep a record of my strange mental model so here goes:

 - its a vicious catch 22
 - the moon and her daughters
 - raw end of the stick
 - brightest tool in the box
 - gidits and gazmos

Similarly, our clever brains are able to unscramble words without really trying.  Apparently when we read we take the first and last letter of each word and make sense of what's in between.  Visit the scrambler to try it our for your self.




Read more

Registration by stealthJuly 3, 2008 by ginger james-royle

Where it suits the business model and objectives of the site, I will often encourage clients to opt for registration by stealth.


The main idea behind registration by stealth is that, simply put, registration can often become a blocker to users using a site.  Registration by stealth looks to remove the formal 'registration' call to action and instead focuses on gathering the important bits of information (that the business requires) as the customer is using the parts of the site that they feel are important.

The result is a site that allows the user to move quite freely around the site and then provides them with a very quick and simple form that effectively registers them.  An example is www.justgiving.com where you can sponsor without registering then right at the end of the payment process the user is presented with a cleverly designed box that ask 'Save this card  for future use?', if the user then chooses to enter their password and verify their password - voila! the user is registered without any fuss.

Read more
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