I first saw a tweet about Notify right before Christmas. With two gmail accounts I use frequently and a third I like to check daily, I was looking for a program that could let me monitor multiple accounts without needing to log in and out of each separately.

I downloaded the trial, and I liked the ability to monitor both boxes at once, but was frustrated that I had no way to reply directly, and clicking on a message brought me to whatever Inbox I was logged into, even if it wasn’t the one in which the unread mail was. So while I liked the ability to preview a line of email as it came in, actually logging into the account to be able to respond or read the whole email left me a bit disappointed.

Then I saw an offer for a review copy of Notify Pro, and expressed interest. And all those minor nits I had? No longer a problem.

Notify Pro offers you a quick view, so you can read the whole email in the window, and even reply directly. So my issues about logging into the correct account are almost completely alleviated.

Now, this program isn’t quite perfect. Right now you don’t seem to be able to forward from the program, although you can “reply” and then change the address. Speaking of addresses; there’s also no way to tap into your address book, and email from a mailing list doesn’t show you who the actual sender is. But other than that, the program is really quite amazing. So much, that I also invested the $10 to get Notify Pro on my work computer as well: the additional features aren’t just worth having at home.

Notify is the most elegant webmail manager I’ve seen, making it simple to receive and respond to incoming messages. While there are a few enhancements I’d like to see, the program as it stands right now (particularly in the Pro version), stands to transform how you monitor your email.

Related posts:

1. The Twitter feature I’d pay money for (Twitter, Tweetdeck, are you listening?)

For some of our projects at work, we use a content management system like Drupal, Joomla or WordPress to run our websites. This allows our clients to add or edit content more easily, and it also eliminates a lot of custom coding by a developer.

A CMS (to learn more about content management systems, check out Gary Moneysmith’s blog post 4 Things Non-Technical People Need to Know about Content Management Systems) generally comes with a default theme: you can install the CMS on your server and be off and running. Naturally, most folks want some level of customization, be it visual or functional.

As a developer, I am always quick to acknowledge that anything is possible, given the time and the effort. But if you are starting your project with a given CMS, ostensibly that means you are interested in leveraging what it offers. If you deviate and customize too much, (“Frankensteining”, as Gary terms it), are you really gaining the benefits from starting with the system?

Which brings me to the title of this blog post. Wireframing is often intended to communicate the overall design of a web application, denoting hierarchy and features. If you’re starting with a CMS and wanting to really leverage the power of the CMS to the greatest extent you can, do wireframes actually detract from this effort? Starting a web project from scratch, I’d expect a wireframe to drive the design and development (ok, arguably wireframing is part of design). Yet when you start with a CMS, you’re well down the path to development, and a wireframe that doesn’t follow the standard parameters of the CMS may necessitate extensive rework.

This is not to say that you can’t change anything when using a CMS. Each system has the option of installing pre-made or creating themes and plugins. As WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg stated at Wordcamp Denver last Fall – chances are very likely with all the possible customization options that no two WordPress installations are the same. (There are over 15 MILLION WordPress blogs out there)

How does your wireframing change if you’re using a CMS? Do you stick to the toolbox you have, or not hold yourself to such constraints?

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While at Resource Interactive, I took training in and worked on several products with the ATG product suite. ATG is at the core an e-commerce solutions provider, with a stated goal as follows:

Our goal: to power the world’s most engaging and rewarding online shopping experiences. We are our customers’ first stop in providing the solutions, services, and ongoing guidance needed to power a more relevant, personal e-commerce Web site; continually attract and captivate new prospects; convert them to buyers; and ensure their satisfaction so they become loyal, repeat, profitable customers.” (emphasis mine)

How can software ensure something is engaging, rewarding and personal? Well, by offering a more personalized experience, I suppose. When I was enrolled in ATG training last Spring, we spent a fair amount of time learning how to display relevant content based on explicit user-specified preferences and more subtle user behavior on the site. Increasingly, we come to expect that our experience on a web site will precisely meet our own needs. And indeed, with the plethora of resources online competing for our attention, web visitors have the luxury of looking elsewhere if a site is frustrating or in any way lacking.

Amazon.com and Pandora are two well-known services that make recommendations based on the users’ previous interactions with the site. In some way, this is the equivalent of the waitress remembering our “usual” and letting us know about something new on the menu they think we’ll enjoy; we are forming a relationship, and there are inherent benefits thereto.

Both of these services offer suggestions based on what we’ve done. But as the web becomes increasingly social, the notion of leveraging the wisdom of the crowds and the power of personal influence may come into play. You’ve likely seen this before, but did you pay attention? Again, Amazon lets you know what others purchased. Does this help sway your decision, or introduce other options?

Facebook taps more directly into your network. Friend suggestions may be based on your networks, your employment or school history, shared friends.. or other attributes. Recently several people have noted they are being suggested friends who share the same name as their existing friends. Unlike the Amazon and Pandora examples earlier, there is no link to see why these items are being suggested: Facebook is blatant in their name-dropping. The entire basis of their social ads (in all the incarnations, from beacon to sponsored ads with photos to friend recommendations) is to serve up “tailored ads” based on “actions your friends have taken on the site”. Whereas ATG stuck to providing an enriched experience based on an individual’s behavior, this extends to their trust network as well.

Recommendations are intended to offer a more engaging, personalized experience. Or to increase interaction and sell product or services. Recommendations may be subtle (showing contextually-relevant content), or explicit (“you may also like”). The rationale behind the suggestions may be disclosed or suppressed from the user, and lastly the recommendations may be made based on system rules, the behavior of the user or the behavior of the user’s network.

Are there certain situations where these different types of recommendations work well? Obviously for explicit recommendations based on the behaviors of friends, the site must be aware of such a network. But beyond those logistics, there must be merit to such a recommendation. I’m not necessarily going to select a paint color, a washer and dryer or a home based on the preferences or buying habits of my network. But offering me a complementary color palette based on a color I select provides a useful service. In contrast, the recommendation of something social like an event is likely to be much more effective if it comes from someone within a trusted network.

How do you think these different types of recommendations affect your purchase or engagement decisions? Are any more appealing than others?

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In his first book, Designing the Obvious, Robert Hoekman, Jr. described seven core tenets of great Web application design:

1. Build only what’s necessary
2. Quickly turn beginning users into intermediates
3. Prevent errors whenever possible and handle the errors we cannot prevent gracefully
4. Reduce and refine interactions and task flows until even the most complicated applications are clear and understandable
5. Design to support a specific activity
6. Make constant, incremental improvements to our processes and applications
7. Ignore the demands of users and stick to a vision

In his latest book, Designing the Moment: Web Interface Design Concepts in Action, he focuses on the individual moments, the smaller interactions that must also take place to create an optimal user experience.

Reading the book is in itself an enjoyable experience: Hoekman’s writing style is conversational and interesting. This is not a dry manual of best practices or standards, but rather a series of short, easily-digestible case studies. Each chapter (after the first chapter, they are never longer than 10 pages each) covers a specific “moment” or interaction on a site. In almost every case, Hoekman shares a story of a specific project he worked on and why his design evolved as it did.

Not long ago I was speaking to someone about detail, and mentioned the discussions we’d have at LexisNexis about the placement of the Cancel button. I felt I’d found a kindred spirit in Hoekman, with his sections on “Avoid Login syndrome” (page 31), “Perfecting OK/Cancel” (with subsections ‘Primary and secondary actions’ and ‘it matters’ (page 101)).

Hoekman’s style is open and accessible: he speaks as from one designer to another, sharing his experience and suggestions. Most notably in Chapter 5, Getting Your Head out of the Tag Cloud, Hoekman starts off the paragraph admitting he doesn’t have all the answers:

I’d like to expand on that story a bit, because I’ve learned a few things since writing Designing the Obvious that have changed my perspective.

The entire book becomes a joy to read, because the reader is invited to form his own thoughts and opinions – indeed, this is explained right in the introduction. Yet despite the encouragement to read the book with a critical eye, I found myself understanding Hoekman’s perspective and appreciating his solutions throughout.

“Section 4: Diving In” was one of the most useful of the book, as it dealt with some more complicated features: playback controls, form design, and inline validation. These are all challenging aspects of interaction, and at the very least Hoekman’s justified recommendations can serve as a starting point for designers. I also appreciated the chapter on “Making Social Connections,” which focused more on why to add social features rather than how.

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in web or interaction design or development. Both new and experienced practitioners will glean some valuable insights from this enjoyable read.

Related posts:

1. Designing for the Social Web – Book Review and Giveaway
2. Subject to Change Book Review
3. The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited – Book Review

‘What’s more mobile than the American Automobile Association’, I found myself thinking as I was stranded on the side of the road last night. Evidently, the unique benefits to mobile haven’t yet come to AAA Colorado. However, I had some time to consider it for them:

Sitting on the side of the road in Denver, Colorado, I searched on google mobile search for “AAA Colorado”. As one may expect, the first suggestion was “www.aaacolorado.com.” But how frustrating when I was then presented with an invite to take a survey, and then an automatic redirect to AAA Washington and Northern Idaho’s site. Which is also not mobile friendly. I just wanted someone to come help me with my vehicle…in this state!

Eventually I got the number from 1-800-GOOG-411 and then had to wade through several levels of a voice-automated system before I was able to open a new ticket for roadside assistance.

A mobile-specific site

Once I was back home, I did google “AAA Mobile” and find there is a .mobi site as well as a AAA Mobile Application for some Sprint phones (focusing primarily on navigation). But I didn’t know that, so it was no use to me when I needed help. If you have such a site and you want it to be the primary access point for mobile users, test whether or not visitors to your primary site are on mobile devices, and either ask them if they wish to view the mobile site, or direct them seamlessly.

The idea of redirecting people to a mobile experience is a bit contentious, because you’re assuming you know what the visitor is coming for. Twitter handles this by allowing a mobile user to switch between “standard” and “mobile” views.

Even the .mobi site is not really optimized for “roadside assistance” purposes, requiring several screens before simply giving me a phone number to call.

An ideal opportunity for mobile

While AAA offers many programs, I’d bet that roadside assistance is probably one of the most frequently used, and the one most pressing for people accessing the AAA website via their phones. As for any good user-centered design – consider the needs of the visitor, and make it easy for him to complete his tasks. Roadside assistance is time- and situation-sensitive, and therefore it makes more sense to surface this option quickly.

Location-awareness

According to Skyhook, there are over 2,500 location-aware iPhone applications in the App store. Think about the first question they ask you when you call Roadside assistance – “are you in a safe place?” Having a location-aware application would at least confirm where that place was, and then only the safeness of it would have to be ascertained.

Location awareness could be used for several purposes with a national organization like AAA. With the current .mobi site, the very first screen asks your home zip code. While there may be some business rule relative to a person’s home state versus the state they’re currently in, an awareness of where they currently are may be a convenient “shortcut”. (Indeed, when a visitor is on a mobile device, any shortcut is going to be appreciated). This is a model that Google uses: they prepopulate a field, but let you choose to change it if it’s incorrect.

Persistent information storage

When I managed to talk to someone at AAA, she needed my membership number, and then they could access my vehicle and membership information. What if I could manage that information myself, rather than having to provide the number every time? Certainly, this may actually increase the complexity of the interaction (if I have to log into a system), but it’s a possibility, and creates more of a sense of a membership than individual transactions. As well, if the web is used to keep track of my service requests, I may be more easily targeted for different products or services in the future.

…and then my car was again drivable and I stopped brainstorming on this subject. How else do you think AAA could offer mobile roadside assistance?

Related posts:

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I have been a fan of Joshua Porter and his writings over at the Bokardo Blog for quite awhile. When he announced that he’d written a book, Designing for the Social Web, I knew I wanted to read it. It’s taken me a year since its release, but I finally was able to read it, and I also have two copies of the book to give away!

Porter has a well-developed philosophy on design. In his own words:

Five principles guide [his] design philosophy:

1. The Experience belongs to the user.
2. Technology serves humans.
3. Design is not Art
4. Great design is invisible
5. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

This shines through in both the topics discussed as well as the overall presentation of the book itself. Designing for the Social Web comprises 8 chapters:

1. The Rise of the Social Web
2. A Framework for Social Web Design
3. Authentic Conversations
4. Design for Sign-up
5. Design for Ongoing Participation
6. Design for Collective Intelligence
7. Design for Sharing
8. The Funnel Analysis

Officially my background is in web development, but working in the User Experience and Interactive Marketing fields has allowed me to cultivate an appreciation for design as well. I was actually recently involved in a Twitter exchange with Taj Moore (@tajmo) about design:

Independently both stated that Design is not art, with which I heartily agree. I have known of agencies where an Interaction Designer must be good at Flash; but that should not be to say that someone who knows Flash (or is “an Artist”) is therefore an Interaction Designer.

The book “examines the series of design problems to correspond to increasing involvement–the Usage Lifecycle–and the strategies social web design can offer.” This refers to the transition of users from ‘unaware’ to ‘interested’ to ‘first-time users’ to ‘regular users’ to ‘passionate users’ of software. This is an incredibly simple concept, yet one that is too often not considered when a project is conceptualized. We want to build a site/make sales/increase conversions, but we don’t always focus on the relationship we need to establish with our visitors to ultimately lead to those tangible objectives.

Designing for the Social Web walks the reader through the changing online landscape, and introduces the idea of the social web. It then introduces the AOF method for making design decisions (Activities, Objects, Features). This chapter resonated with me for a number of reasons. The focus is really on, well, focus. What is the primary activity? What are the objects with which people will interact during this activity? What are the core features? It is easy to dream big, but my personal preference is to refine and simplify and work out the tiny details. If something on an interface doesn’t support the primary action, why include it? Why distract a site visitor from achieving what they want to achieve?

This idea of starting with a core feature set and then enhancing it moving forward is a difference between the ‘old web’ and the new web. A website is not a static thing that is built once to exist in perpetuity. Rather, it should be expected that it will be developed and enhanced as time goes on (to the point where we now consider some sites to be in perpetual beta. There is no need to shove in all the features you may possibly want at the beginning, on the off chance you may need them later.)

The entire Usage Lifecycle is about lowering barriers and making it easy for people to progress through different stages, and simplifying the interface is one way to do this. This is particularly well-explained in the chapter “Design for Sign-up”. Don’t scare users away with daunting forms that collect more information than is needed. Perhaps you’re interested in knowing the income level of your visitors are, but if site visitors are not invested and don’t see the benefits in sharing this information, you risk their abandoning the page and losing them completely.

Beyond the quality of information, the book itself is a joy to read from an aesthetic standpoint. Every page contains illustrations or examples of the points being made, and helps to drive home the fact that this is a book on effective design.

So now – if you’re interested in receiving a copy of this book, you just need to do one of two things (or both, for double the chance to win!). Either leave a (meaningful) comment to this post, or tweet a link to this post. That’s it! Next week I will collect a list of everyone who’s either commented or tweeted, and I’ll announce the winners!

Related posts:

1. Designing the Moment Book Review
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The inevitable business card exchange occurs at a networking event. You meet Jay Simpson, who tells you he’s an IT director.

IT? What does that even mean anymore?

A few years ago, IT was “Information Technology”.

Information technology is a general term that describes any technology that helps to produce, manipulate, store, communicate, and/or disseminate information.
- from Wikipedia – Information Technology

But more often these days we speak not of Information Technology but of Interactive.

Interactive Marketing refers to the evolving trend in marketing whereby marketing has moved from a transaction-based effort to a conversation…Interactive marketing is not synonymous with online marketing, although interactive marketing processes are facilitated by internet technology.
- from Wikipedia – Interactive Marketing

The astute will notice that the second definition is about marketing and doesn’t explicitly refer to technology at all. The focus is less on the specific technical specifications and moreso on the application thereof. Interactive also encompasses the user experience: how individuals engage with and how they perceive this engagement with technology to achieve their goals.

At the NTEN conference in San Francisco in April 2009, Beth Kanter declared in a session about social media metrics that Page views are dead. We can no longer simply focus on the technological implementation to measure success. We now look at engagement and influence, and need to actually consider how technology helps with meeting user goals, and then organizational objectives.

It is not sufficient to see technology as simply a tool to “produce, manipulate and store” information. While information is obviously important, it is truly the application thereof that is of significance.

(Photo credit: Shapeshift on Flickr)

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   2008
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The Adaptive Path book “Subject to Change” quite literally landed on my desk to review. As a long-time fan of the work of Jesse James Garrett and the folks at Adaptive Path, I was eager to read this book on “creating great products and services for an uncertain world” right away.

Several years ago when I was working in the LexisNexis User Experience Department, we had the folks from Adaptive Path come in for a workshop, and the organization has quite honestly framed my perceptions on design and product development. I eagerly picked up the book as soon as I was able.

Last year, I heard Jesse James Garrett (the President of Adaptive Path), speak at a local gathering. His presentation opened with a discussion of how Kodak fundamentally changed the field of photography. So too did “Subject to Change”.

I suppose it should be no surprise that many of the examples of successful design that Jesse shared then are in the book. I have no doubt that for people who haven’t yet been exposed to the ideas, they will be as intriguing and interesting as they were the first time I was exposed to them. Obviously there was more detail in the book than in the talk, so I did gain a deeper understanding about the ideas being discussed.

As ever, I am impressed with the deliberate nature of the work Adaptive Path does. While it may be simple to believe that great design stems purely from inspiration, the book draws attention to the formal process of product development. I eagerly jotted down notes while reading, hoping to internalize what I view as best practices:

Aiming to be better at an activity that everyone else has mastered isn’t a strategy. Strategy is about tradeoffs – purposely choosing tactics different than your used by your competition. Strategy means saying no to some activities so you can excel at others.

This is the same concept discussed in Made to Stick: determine your core value and align all your activities accordingly. It seems so simple, yet that doesn’t mean that is it is easy to put into practice. I believe as humans we’re naturally competitive, and it can seem like a realistic goal to achieve what someone else has – and then a bit more. But in such a race, there is inevitably someone else right behind you, eager to pass. Great design doesn’t focus on the solutions others have come up with, but rather on the problem to be solved.

One idea that was explored that was novel to me was the idea of looking beyond tasks and goals, and seeking to consider user behavior, motivations and meaning. As interested as I am in user experience and information and interaction design, I am still quite junior at it. The idea of task-driven process flow makes sense to me as a developer. Starting to consider things that are a bit more qualitative makes sense, but it’s not something that occurs to me naturally. While we do resign ourselves to using “unusable” systems if we must, do we not prefer something that is more engaging or in alignment with our preferences? This is a great point that is likely what separates me from “the designers.”

I admire the designers and strategists at Adaptive Path, but I will admit that their approach to technology always leaves me a bit underwhelmed. One of the final chapters in the book is entitled “the Agile Approach” and seeks to explain the agile development process to non-developers. As it turns out, I’ve worked in the User Experience Department at an organization that adopted the agile approach, and I can assure you that things are not quite so ideal as the book makes them out to be. While much of the book educated and excited me, this single chapter brought me back to the reality of budgets, timelines and scoping exercises.

Overall, however, Subject to Change serves as a fantastic introduction to product design and development in a logical, practical way. Anyone wanting to get into product design and development would do well to pick this book up, and learn from the best.

Related posts:

1. Designing the Moment Book Review
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At Web Directions North ’09, Rachel Hinman from Adaptive Path presented an inspiring session on the Mobile User Experience (further cementing my adoration for everything the Adaptive Path folks touch).

One comment that she made (slide 84, below) was that on the web we can annotate expectations. In accessibility, we’re explicitly told not to rely solely on color to denote something, so we add labels, icons, and explanational text. We have the real estate to do so. Working on mobile is obviously different, and we’ve seen some great developments in the field of gestural interfaces that offer alternative means to interact with the platform and the content (think about shaking or changing the orientation of your iphone).

As soon as the presentation was over, I couldn’t wait to ask Rachel if she thought the increase in these gestural interfaces was a matter of cause or effect: had they been developed because there was less opportunity to guide the user through an experience, and therefore it needed to be something they could explore more organically? She actually threw out a quote we’d heard earlier in another session on gestural interfaces:

The best designs are those that ‘dissolve into behaviour’
Naoto Fukasawa)

Hinman pointed out that keyboards and mice are intrusive: we need to learn to use them and gestural interfaces are simply more natural. This keyed off something for me in terms of languages and linguistics: in English, our written and oral systems are closely related. To use a keyboard we need to learn the physical way to use it, but the language capabilities are generally assumed to be present. Contrast this to Asia. A Washington Post article published in 2007 stated that illiteracy in China is still a significant problem, where up to 30% of adults in a particular community were unable to read and write.

So if a linguistic system is challenging for people to master, does it not make sense that other solutions will be primed for discovery?

After the session I asked Hinman if she thought this was a plausible reason for the dramatic difference in mobile phone usage and adoption, and she gave a more practical rationale: South Korea* was desolate a few years ago, which is the ideal environment for a strong technical infrastructure to be established.

Still, I would like to suppose that there is a more linguistic and cultural reason for the explosion of interactive and engaging technology coming from Asia. Just as small children are keen to pick up simple sign language before they can communicate verbally, we all have an innate need to communicate with others. I love to think that technology is serving this need in an engaging, entertaining way.

*The Asian market is years ahead of North America in terms of mobile phone features and usage, with South Korea leading the pack with a reported 90.7% penetration rate for mobile subscribers (as of May 2008).

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Yes, I know that as a good social media aficionado I should be following Gary Vaynerchuk (@GaryVee on twitter). He’s an Internet celebrity, largely as a result of his daily webcast about wine, and is recognized as a visionary in the arena of online marketing and social media.

I’ll never learn much from Gary directly, since his medium of information dissemination and my preferred medium of information gathering aren’t the same. Try as I may, I can’t bring myself to watch online video (other than silly parodies like those by the Sarcastic Gamer.

With the glut of information now available online, the means of delivery is just as important as the information itself. As I mentioned in an earlier post about personalization, while our goal for a particular site visit may change, we all have preferred learning styles.

I know that online video is expected to explore in the next few years, with eMarketer predicting that 88% of Internet users will watch online video at least once a month by 2012.

However, I’m not one of the majority. I attribute my aversion to a few factors:

1. I read quickly, but video takes the speed of information out of my control
2. I typically have the sound on my computer turned off (still recovering from too much “embedded background music” on websites in the ’90s)
3. My background in accessibility still causes me to see video as inaccessible (to search engines as well as users of screen readers)

Sure, I can turn my sound on, and my concerns about accessibility don’t actually affect my own ability to watch videos, but my aversion exists nonetheless. I know that creating a YouTube Channel is an increasingly common social media strategy, but it’s not one that appeals to me personally.

When coming up with strategy, are you offering visitors more than one way to access your content?

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