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Theory, Analysis and Reviews on UX User Experience Research and Design

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The Science Behind User Experience UX Design and Usability Testing

A recorded interview with Charles Mauro CHFP conducted by Robynn McCarthy

Our newest post is a recent in-depth live interview recording of Charles L Mauro covering his more than 30 years as a leading usability scientist. If you are wondering why some products are easy to use and others much less so, why Apple products are so successful, what does it take to create a world-class user experience you will find the interview eye opening if not highly thought provoking. Continue Reading…

Why Angry Birds is so successful and popular: a cognitive teardown of the user experience

The usual question: Over the past 40+ years as a consultant in the field generally known as human factors engineering (aka usability engineering), I have been asked by hundreds of clients why users don’t find their company’s software engaging. The answer to this persistent question is complex but never truly elusive. This question yields to experience and professional usability analysis.

The unusual question: Surprisingly, it is a rare client indeed who asks the opposing question: why is an interface so engaging that users cannot stop interacting with it? This is a difficult question because it requires cognitive reverse engineering to determine what interaction attributes a successful interface embodies that result in a psychologically engaging user experience. This question pops up when products become massively successful based on their user experience design – think iPhone, iPad, Google Instant Search, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Kinect.

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Alert: migration to new navigation system using Google maps draws serious usability concerns for massive package delivery program

Breaking news: Sante Oftrax, the CTO of NPE (North Pole Enterprises) spoke last week at the annual meeting of the International Society of Web 4.0 Rich Internet Applications for Global Package Distribution Conference (W2.0/RIAGPDC). He indicated that his firm’s recent migration from the human-based, dead-reckoning global navigation system, used for the last 500 years, to Google Maps point-to-point navigation interface was causing serious concern based on a recent usability test conducted by the main package delivery crew last month in Norway. He summarized the recent findings from the aforementioned usability testing study as follows:

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Why Cisco flipped over the Flip Video Cam (and paid $590 million for a small dose of simplicity)


What is simplicity worth; to Cisco Systems apparently quite a lot.  One can visualize the PowerPoint deck from Cisco’s investment banking group showing how acquisition of Pure Digital Media (maker of the Flip Video Camera) would: A) be a potentially decent financial investment and B) would imbue Cisco, a company whose products are arguably among the worst in terms of usability on the planet, with a much needed dose of positive brand equity. Recently, Cisco has apparently gotten religion around the idea of usability and user experience design, first by hiring a team of “user experience architects” and now through the acquisition of a product whose main feature list consists of basically one word, “Simplicity”. This comes as no surprise to anyone who tracks technology adoption trends. It has been known for some time that IT products overall are being driven toward less complex set up, use, and maintenance interaction sequences. This trend is known to impact products in all segments ranging from consumer applications to serious commercial IT offerings. Continue Reading…

What US Airways Flight 1549’s ditching in the Hudson River teaches companies about how to create world-class user interface design solutions

When tasked with creating compelling and empowering user interfaces for new high technology products and services, companies can learn more from the struggling airline industry than from Google or even Apple. The fact is, there is scant reliable data available on how to actually create compelling user interface solutions that are based on demonstrated real-world solution excellence. For sure there have been hundreds of books written on the topic and as many seminars are sold each year. However, when one looks deeply at this literature there is almost nothing that is based on proven and repeatable conceptual frameworks drawn from commercial success. This is a major problem for companies that now have the need, desire and technology to create products and related interfaces with high levels of automation and massive feature sets. Where then can companies turn for reliable insights into the design of compelling and empowering user interfaces in the future? The answer is not what you might assume…one of the best places to look is the struggling commercial airline industry.

Photo by Greg L. available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial license.

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Why the music industry doesn’t have a prayer against iTunes

It is a fact that the music industry is flat on the mat. CD Sales have been in near free fall for the last 4-5 years. Exactly why this is happening is the subject of a good bit of back and forth by industry pundits, music executives and a raging herd of music industry lawyers. From media accounts one would think that this massive decline in sales (translate revenue) started with Napster and has reached a perigee with iTunes….ah, yes iTunes. To hear a typical music industry executive talk about iTunes is to understand the true definition of the “Death Star”.

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How new theories in human information processing explain the meltdown on Wall Street

Response to The New York Times article on Wall Street Risk by Joe Nocera (1/4/2009)

In The New York Times Sunday Magazine section Joe Nocera produced a column that was important, well researched and insightful on how computer-based decision tools (VaR models) led Wall Street down the path to near ruin. However, Mr. Nocera missed an important, deeper point that is impacting critical analysis of what actually happened on Wall Street that allowed these seemingly intelligent executives to continue to pile on massive levels of risk long after they should have known better.

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How the SUV User Experience Trashed Detroit

What do the SUV and the iPhone have in common?

Here is an interesting question: what was the single most profitable factory in the history of modern mass production? Would you be surprised to know that it was an outdated Ford Truck Plant in Wayne Michigan?  Malcolm Gladwell, in the New Yorker said, “In 1998, the Michigan Truck Plant grossed eleven billion dollars, almost as much as McDonald’s made that year. Profits were $3.7 billion. Some factory workers, with overtime, were making two hundred thousand dollars a year.” How is this possible given the vast efficiency of the world’s production facilities ranging from Berlin to Bangkok? It was possible because what was produced there was a product so outdated and low cost yet so overpriced and in such demand that it drove the entire American automobile industry to staggering levels of profitability. Starting in 1996, the Wayne Michigan Truck Plant produced the Ford Expedition SUV…the vehicle that some have said started it all…the SUV generation. As it turns out on July 22nd, 2008 Ford announced that it was converting the Wayne Truck Plant to production of the Ford Focus, a sub-compact design. When the last Expedition rolled off the assembly line, so went the SUV, and for the most part the American automobile industry. Here is our take on what went wrong and why, surprisingly, the SUV is important to corporations large and small that are focused on developing powerful and robust user experiences. Continue Reading…

How Obama whacked McCain on the web and why it is important

The 2008 presidential campaign was dominated by four powerful women—Hillary, Sarah, Michelle, and Amy. You probably don’t recall Amy. However, Amy was at the center of how the Obama campaign created the most engaging and powerful web experience, not only in political history but possibly in web history. This was a user experience that so overwhelmed the McCain camp as to make one wonder if McCain actually knew the web existed. In brief, here is Amy’s story and how she expanded our understanding that Web 2.0 user experience design is more science than art and more MTV than CNN. Continue Reading…