Tags to Richness

When Apple first announced those new Nano’s with the small square touch interface did anyone else think, my God that could easily be a watch?!  I know it was just the Nano, but that could easily be the iPhone.  I don’t know about you, but I get tired of having to pull my phone out of my pocket all the time.  Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to just flick my wrist and see my latest text message or to answer a call?  Let alone the fact I would be much less likely to misplace a watch or not feel the vibrating ringer because it’s in my pocket again.

The watch would have to look really nice though for me to be willing to wear it.  I don’t want some gay looking 1980s calculator crap.  But Apple could easily pull off wearable style with a partnership from Citizen, TAG Heuer or any other higher end watch company.  I’m sure that when Chester Gould created the 2-Way Wrist Radio for his comic strip Dick Tracy he was thinking on some level about ease of use and practicality.  All I can say is that brick of technology in my pocket is so last century :)

Here’s my quick concept sketch to inspire the Apple guys.  I’m using the gorgeous Movado Men’s 605063 Sapphire Stainless Steel Watch as the watch piece.

Just sayin :)

Last week’s post really got the gears in my head moving.  I’ve always thought of myself as a designer who gets business, but I really reached an epiphany this week on the topic.  To put it bluntly, when it comes to sales the principles of good usability go out the window and are trumped by the principles of sales.

Where good usability principles do fit though, are after you’ve got the user inside your application and you want them to stay.  Once you’ve got ‘em you want the design to get out of their way and let them do what they came to do.  When you’re trying to sell them though, you need to get in their way, which is to say your design needs to nudge them towards what you want them to do.

I was reminded this week that good UX doesn’t always equal good sales.  Operating from the idea that good usability is usability that decreases the cognitive, visual and physical loads on the user, this test showed that decreased loads actually decreased sales.

Path 1 was our old control path in this test.  Path 2 was a significantly decreased cognitive, visual and physical loads path.  The image below shows the nature of the test and the results.  Path 2 only had a conversion rate of 1.64% compared to the control path which had a conversion rate of 2.58%.

UserTesting.com is a fantastic site for getting quick usability feedback on your website.  The best part was the speed, I had finished labs within two hours after submitting the test.  Here are three things I’d wish I’d known first time around.

1. The core of the test is the user talking to you as they use the site.  On the “TASKS” question of the order form, make sure you ask questions you want the user to say out loud as they use your site.  You’ll want to anticipate what you want them to say to you and what you want to ask them as they go along.
2. The “QUESTIONS FOR THE USER TO ANSWER” are actually for *after* the user is done.  Keep in mind that the user will probably feel like they are done, maybe even tired and ready to move on.  Keep these questions short and not contextual as the user won’t remember details at this point.  This is the best place to ask summarizing questions now that they’ve completed the entire experience.
3. Watch an example before you order.  The quick tour is great, but make sure you watch the other video example on the usertesting.com homepage.  It’s labelled “3. Get Results in as Little as an Hour”.  This is essentially what you will get.  Keep in mind that the user will actually have a little window open on their screen from usertesting.com that includes your script for them.  They will shift back and forth between your script and the site as they are testing.

In the UX community we throw around terms like delight and desirability as our design goal after usability.  I personally feel like those are just the tip of the iceberg of design potential.  Truly great product design is one that is addictive.  Something that users feel such a need for that the absence of the product creates a level of pain.

I’m definitely not advocating socially irresponsible addiction, I’m advocating the kind addiction that is more in line with “oh shit! I left my iPhone at home, grrrr” kind of pain.  Isn’t that what we’re all really trying to achieve?  Products that no matter the industry and task they are for they create in our users the same kind of product love and loyalty that the iPhone, World of Warcraft or Farmville create for their users?  That level of fervor isn’t created by just delight, it’s created by socially responsible addiction.