Posted by Mollie | Mar 11th, 2009 3:06pm
Love you
Dear Chess With Friends,
You are one of my favorite iPhone apps. You let me play chess with my friends and we don’t even have to be in the same room. I think you’re the best thing since maple syrup and I’m hopelessly addicted to you.
Hate you
Really, Chess With Friends?
You’re going to prohibit me from playing any of my games in order to tell me that there’s a newer version available and I have to install it right now? And when I tap “OK” (because you tell me to), you don’t take me to the Apps Store for your update (like you said you would), but instead take me to another page with a “tap here” button? And when I tap there, you take me to a page that describes you and notifies me that I’ve already installed the old you? Thanks for that.
You’re right, Chess. Had I read the long paragraph of text after the “tap here” link I would have learned that the update might not be ready for a few hours, and that the newer version will show up in the Apps Store just as soon as it’s available. Fine. Thanks again. Now, about continuing that game (because I am crushing my opponent for the first time in 3 games)… What do you mean I can’t?! You mean that pop-up that leads nowhere is going to keep getting in my way and not allowing me to do anything with my games until your update is available?
Bad, Chess With Friends! I still love you. I’m just really mad at you right now. And the smiley face after your explanation didn’t help.
Posted in Mobile, User Experience
Posted by John | Mar 6th, 2009 10:01am
Granted, enterprise-wide content management systems can be lifesavers for massive transactional web sites with content that requires uniform and regular updating across many divisions. They provide a ton of functionality such as managing workflow, publishing schedules and asset management to name a few.
The problems with many large-scale CMS tools become apparent when managing a small content driven site that doesn’t require all that horsepower. When audience and business needs evolve, and the web site can’t easily evolve with them, it becomes costly and time intensive to make changes to templates, navigation, and page structure.
In our current economy, these hurdles usually cause businesses to relegate user and “less important” business needs to the sidelines, in favor of conforming to the CMS.
Some examples that come to mind:
- We need to apply new brand standards, but can’t because it would mean changing the templates.
- We need to add links and new features to our home page tomorrow, but based on current IT resources, it will take 4 weeks.
- We need to add a section to the web site to address a new audience, but that would mean a template change, so we’ll build a mini site instead.
- We need to add functionality, but don’t have the IT resources to do it. So instead, we’ll build an externally hosted application and push it in the site using an iFrame.
Lately we’ve been getting a lot of requests from our clients for ways to “bypass the big CMS.” Our solution has been to design small content management systems and administration tools for our clients that are easy-to-use and can change with their business. We design them around the user-experience, instead of the other way around. As a result, our clients receive a flexible, affordable, and customizable tool that can be modified to accommodate their business strategy and unique content needs.
Posted in Development, Useful Tips, User Experience
Posted by Mike | Jan 20th, 2009 10:31pm
Mozilla Labs is creating a plug-in for Firefox that will allow everyday users of the browser to assist in testing new features and give feedback on tasks involving the UI. All of this data will be used to further refine and tweak the user experience in future releases. It seems like a great way to get an enormous amount of valuable data without breaking the bank.
From Mozilla Labs…
“How many tabs does an average user use at a time? How about novice users? How often is the stop button pressed? How many times do people open a new tab to perform a search? There are hundreds of questions like these whose answers would help quantitatively inform the design process of Firefox. At the moment, as evidence in discussions we generally only have access to studies, anecdotes, first principles, early-adopter feedback, and ad-hoc experiments.
While those are all useful, they are no substitute for specific data. ”
Read more
Posted in Usability + Research, User Experience
