UXD - User eXperience Design

Writemaps: A web based site map generating tool

Came across an interesting web tool today...Writemaps: A site map generating tool that allows you to build, edit and share site maps. 

It's got limited features, but it has two big things going for it:
1 - It's web based, and you can share your files via url.  So anyone with a web connection can view and edit what you've created.

2 - It creates presentable sitemaps.  The page representations (nodes in the site map tree) have subtle gradients and drop shadows, and the tree diagram contains only right angles, giving your sitemap a polished professional touch.

A few other notes about this tool:
Can't print or save as image, but you can save as XML.
It's got an undo button! (how many web apps do that?)
You can zoom in/out on your map views.
It's dead easy to get started.

In summary, there's a lot of potential here, and I think I might give it a try on my next project.

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Onward to Web 3.0

In 2007, we’ll be seeing how Web 2.0 matures from a trendy buzzword into the realm of web standards. With the 2.0 technology and interaction, the idea of ‘community’ won’t be limited to a few oddball sites but will rather become an integral part of many mainstream sites.

You can already see this happening with the array of social bookmarking and media sharing links. What began as an oddity of icons encountered on the rare blog or two, is now becoming a standard one-click sharing device on such venerable sites as the New York Times. It’s a global community out there!

So with the maturing of Web 2.0 a given, the obvious question is what’s next? If I knew, trust me I’d be buying stock in the next killer app right now. But indications seem to be pointing towards a connection of data in a more intelligent manner, making it more relevant to the user.

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of data out there that in theory is searchable but not always connectable without spending a lot of time pouring over the results. And who has time for that. So we usually end up taking the first few results and running with that, but it doesn’t always work out.

So, what if we had a system that could rank and weigh people’s comments (which are fast becoming a standard feature thanks to Web 2.0) and, by cognitive deduction, find just the right result for that user. That is, our system would mine the data in the Web to detect relationships between the information that’s out there. Once established, it would be easier to extract and aggregate information tailored to fit the user.

Pie in the sky? Well the folks at the University of Washington don’t think so. Check out what they’re doing with their KnowItAll and Opine systems. Play around with their demos and think of how this would change your interaction with, say, a travel site if the system could provide a useful and meaningful result by distinguishing between concepts such "great" and "almost great".

"The system will know that spotless is better than clean," said Oren Etzioni, an artificial-intelligence researcher at the University of Washington who is a leader of the project. '"There is the growing realization that text on the Web is a tremendous resource."

And so in the next few years, we just might see this definition:

Web 3.0 – a web of connected data; i.e., moving from a web of connected documents/sites to a web of connected data.

A User Experience Worth Visiting

I used to get frustrated by Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature as it often was sluggish or simply did not work. I’m happy to notice they have innovated a new “Amazon Online Reader” that provides a much better experience, thanks no doubt to some Web 2.0 technologies and a user interface that has been improved in many small ways.

I could detail the virtues of the new experience, but it would be quicker and more meaningful for you to just give it a try. Simply go to Amazon and look up a book of interest and click the "Search Inside" graphic and you will be taken into the reader.

Yahoo UI components

As part of an effort to ride the Web 2.0 wave, the folks at Yahoo have created a library of rich User Interface components using javascript, and has made them available free of charge here.
The components are built to incorporate techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML AJAX, and RSS.
The library consists of 2 sets of 'widgets' if you will; Utilities, which are used to simplify development, and Controls, which are visual objects that enhance interactivity. They have also built a set of CSS style sheets that define cross browser compatible layout and font techniques.

Some of the components look promising, and I look forward to using them in upcoming projects.

What is Web 2.0?

We are  hearing more and more about this thing called Web 2.0 and how it's going to make the world whole.  Or at least that it's going to improve the way we interact with the web. 

But how can we define it?  Is it--as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said of hard-core pornography--hard to define, but "I know it when I see it", or can we make some concrete statements about what it is and what it is not?

From the entry on Web 2.0 in Wikipedia..."To some extent Web 2.0 is a buzzword, incorporating whatever is newly popular on the Web (such as tags and podcasts), and its meaning is still in flux."

A few questions to ponder:
Is Web 2.0 an idea, or is it a collection of objects?
Is it a description of a set of technologies, or a new way of using the computer?
Is its existence primarily important for its functionality or its marketing presence?
Can we define what technologies Web 2.0  includes?

A little more on this subject later on...

 

Ajax and user experience

The increasing ubiquity of Ajax is becoming somewhat of a vicious cycle, as more demand creates more hype which creates even more demand.  As such, it presents interesting challenges for designers.  How do designers weight the pressure to 'Ajaxify', with the needs of the user. 

While Ajax does represent the beginnings of a new way of using the web, Ajax doesn't make sense all the time.  Yet it has become such a hot topic that design and development firms are experiencing more and more demand for anything 'Ajax'.  Frequently, those clamoring for the technology don't really know what it is, nor what it can be usefull for, but they know what they've heard...that it's the hot new thing, and there web site or web app is just not worth the browser its rendered on unless its got Ajax. 

The results can be frustrating to see.  For instance, have you ever come across an instance of a drag and drop module where a simple mouse click is so much easier and more effective?  Yeah it's cool...because, um...well, I'm dragging and dropping something...on a web site...and it's Ajax! 

Designers need to curb clients enthusiasm, so to speak, and make them understand that having the best web site doesn't mean using the latest and flashiest technologies.  It means applying a strong methodology, good user research, and an understanding of heuristic principles to build something that provides users with a useful and satisfying experience.

Usability Roundup - The Back Button

An oldie but a goodie -- the back button. The bain of designers, developers and usability experts everywhere. Some love it, some hate it. Here is a roundup of some of the best resources on this topic.

• Web Navigation - a treasure trove of web usability research by Professor Andy Cockburn of the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ. If you are after some hard data rather than speculation, this is a very good place to start.
• Navigation Blindness - Why users ignore navigation and what to do about it.
• Flash Back Button Fix - Robert Penner came up with this back button/bookmark fix for flash a while back.
• Attack of the Back Button - Some words of warning from John Rhodes. While some of the techniques on this page may be a little worn, the sentiments are not.
• dojo.io.bind() Intro - A discussion of the usability issues around Ajax/XHR breaking the back button and a possible solution to the problem within the Dojo toolkit.
• Fixing the back button that AJAX broke - An excellent analysis of the problems of the back button, and the related problem of bookmarks, and a lengthy rumination on some possible solutions.
• Flash Usability - The flash folks have been wrestling with the back button for a bit longer than the Ajax folks. This is a long article with just a little bit on the back button, but some of their suggestions are quite useful.
• Breadcrumb Navigation - With breadcrumbs, users used the back button less frequently, but overall task efficiency was no better.
• Exploring User Mental Models of Breadcrumbs in Web Navigation - Another study on bread crumbs as a solution to back button issues.
• SmartBack: Supporting Users in Back Navigation - excellent overview of research in navigation and some tested ideas on how to inprove back navigation. Could be very interesting for those implementing their own "undo" functions in Ajax.
• Fixing the Back Button and Enabling Bookmarking for AJAX Apps - Mike Stenhouse's crack at fixing this problem.