Entries Tagged 'web design' ↓

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Spotted the persona debate via VUI design, which started on UX Soapbox  in response to Jason @ 37signals post on Personas.

Well Jason is right personas don’t talk but people do and Terry is also right when he says "personas are the output of talking to real people". Actually, I feel the debate should be on how seriously we take personas during the product development phase and how do we really make the use of it.

For me the persona is really in my mind and when I was a product manager (and content programming manager now), I bring up personas really for the explanation for marketing persons and to the management. You cannot design products just based on your usage of the product.

I may work on the product which won’t be used by me at all. Say for example, I am making a social network for women. In the real world business examples I would need to give clarity to my team mates in terms of personas. For my learning I would have to talk to ‘real women’ and create few personas or profiles of my users who will use my products. I would also do a ‘role play’ and think what would I want as a user and this would be in top of my mind as few general persona types or the ‘collective personas’. Now if the management asks me or the marketing guys asks me, I will have to talk to them in their language and make them understand clearly what are my users like and what I am I catering to - which will come through these personas types.

I guess this is exactly like acting, some people are method actors and pick up observations, be in the situation or create profiles of people in their mind. Whereas, some people would just play the character through their normal understanding of acting, character and people. There is no right or wrong and there are no rules, what matters is - do you really understand your users and make them like and use or products - which should be the ultimate goal

Popularity: 28% [?]

John Markoff point out that in future nothing may come between you and your machine. He cites the example of PicLens which offers a new dimension to Web navigation.

This software plug-in for Web browsers tries to make it possible to navigate, find and share information by directly browsing the images, video and other digital media that are increasingly common on the Web. PicLens currently offers a small icon cue inset in each Web photo that lets users know they are at a site like Facebook, Google or Flickr that can be browsed with the software. Clicking on the icon transports the user away from the conventional page-oriented Web into an immersive browsing environment. The software does away with the browser frame and gives the user the effect of flying through a three-dimensional space that feels like an unending hallway of images. In the future, the Cooliris designers plan to make it possible to browse text and video as well.

With devices like Wii & iPhone we are now able to control the screen directly and the future of web experience is much more beyond standard keyboard mouse interface controls. More about PicLens is mentioned on Slashdot, Wired & Webware. Paul Fallon points to Jonny Chung Lee’s project page on Wii which has various interesting examples of Wii interactions. Barney Pells feels that in 5 years we will search more with voice than typing

Popularity: 19% [?]

Smashing magazine explains how to use the User Interface to without resorting to help screens. And as always gives the actual real world examples of the best practices. Ofcourse you must have help, faq and site map page on your site to guide your users. But it is very important to help or guide them inline, i.e. when they are actual on that page and performing a particular activity. This can be achieved through communication, graphics or the action items itself.

For example, most of the sites do it by having a active voice instead of just using the label. "Join" is just a label, and "Join now and make friends" is more active voice which may drive the user to click instead of dropping the user. LinkedIn on it’s home page, clearly states the benefit of ‘finding people’ and the button at the bottom says "Join Now and connect with them".

Popularity: 23% [?]