UXpod - User Experience Podcast

Gerry Gaffney interviews Ginny Redish about the communication needs of web users, about whether those needs are changing, and about how to meet them.

"It's not about the words," says Ginny, "it's about helping people accomplish their goals." She says that this has led to a change from command-based to task-based communication.

Ginny's book is "Letting go of the words: Writing Web Content that Works" (tinyurl.com/3m5fee).

Ginny mentions the forthcoming book by Caroline Jarrett and me - that's "Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability" (tinyurl.com/44muxd). In the interests of full disclosure, I must point out that both books are in the same series.

Ginny also refers to "Christensen"; that book is "The Innovator's Dilemma" (tinyurl.com/4otvnq).

"Older Wiser Wired" (aarp.org/olderwiserwired) is at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). An article by Tom Tullis of Fidelity Investments about designing for older users (tinyurl.com/537ooa) is also online there.

Gerry mentions a previous episode with Dave Grey of Xplane (www.uxpod.com/index.php?post_id=238707).

(References to individual books on this website are links to Amazon.com - we earn a small commission on any purchases you make on following such links).

Duration: 19:55
File size: 3.41MB

Gerry Gaffney interviews David Jaffe about customer service.

David talks about the "bizarre myth that the head of customer service is responsible for customer service", and the problems that arise from treating customer service as a cost centre.

He tells us that resolution, not handling time, is what matters.

David asks: Why do companies spend millions of dollars on customer research but not learn anything from the day-to-day interactions they already have?

He talks about how inappropriate measures result in the the wrong behaviour from front-line staff, and what happens when IT or Marketing departments have to take responsibility for the problems they cause?

David also tells us about how Amazon melts the "snowball" of repeat contacts.

David's very interesting book (co-authored with Bill Price) is "The Best Service is No Service" (tinyurl.com/68mtbu).

His company is Limebridge (www.limebridge.com.au)

The UK company whose customer service David praises is egg (new.egg.com)

Duration: 27:19
File size: 4.69MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Sam Ng from Optimal Usability in New Zealand
(www.optimalusability.com).

Sam is responsible for OptimalSort , an online card sorting tool (www.optimalsort.com).

Sam speaks about the challenges of balancing user-centred design practices with the need to meet deadlines. Do small development teams really need to use personas?

Sam says software can be "too convenient" if we rely too much on stats to "spit out" answers.

Sam mentions some other products:

Morae (www.techsmith.com/morae.asp)

Axure (www.axure.com)

LiveMeeting (office.microsoft.com/livemeeting)

GoTo Meeting (www.gotomeeting.com)

Google Analytic s (www.google.com/analytics)

Crazy Egg (crazyegg.com)

UserTesting.com (www.usertesting.com)

BaseCamp (www.basecamphq.com) from 37 signals (www.37signals.com).

Thanks to Jo Eaton for the photo of Sam.

And apparently if Optimal Usability were a person it would be Jackie Chan (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan)

Duration: 17:04
File size: 2.92MB

Gerry Gaffney conducts a wide-ranging interview with Jakob Nielsen.

Is web usability where it's at? Does usability have a say on climate change? Why is the keyboard so popular?

Jakob talks about having data propagate to multiple devices, about why government agencies continue to apply an outdated "waterfall' model, and about how usability can make developing countries rich quickly and thus improve the environment.

He talks about the need to make things easier if you want people to do those things, about future directions in user interaction, and about the need to start small if you're budget-constrained.

Jakob Nielsen's website is useit.com (www.useit.com)

His company is the Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com).

Jakob refers to Microsoft's Ray Ozzie (www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/ozzie/default.mspx) and Groove (www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/10/24/ozzie_interview.html).

He also refers to the anti-mac interface (www.useit.com/papers/anti-mac.html).

Jakob's forthcoming event is usability week (www.nngroup.com/events/).

Jakob's excellent books include "Usability Engineering" (tinyurl.com/4lsfdv) and "Designing Web Usability" (tinyurl.com/5ymz5t).

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Luke Wroblewski, Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! about what web designers can learn from the world of product packaging, about 'unpacking' as a metaphor for registration, and about embracing the fact that your content will be clipped, cut, copied and embedded.

Luke's forthcoming book is Web Form Design - Filling in the Blanks (www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/webforms).

Luke's company is LukeW Interface Designs (www.lukew.com); his blog is Functioning Form (www.lukew.com/ff).

Luke mentions Jumpcut (www.jumpcut.com).

The design patterns mentioned are from Yahoo! (developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns), Jennifer Tidwell (designinginterfaces.com) and Martijn van Welie (www.welie.com/patterns/index.php).

Gerry mentions a previous podcast episode (uxpod.com/index.php?post_id=122094) with Ken Carroll from ChinesePod (www.chinesepod.com), who spoke about edge competencies.

We also mention CHISIG (www.chisig.org) and the VALA conference (www.vala.org.au).

And the beer Luke discovered in New Zealand is from Mac's brewery (www.thebrewerybar.co.nz/shed-22-brewing-company).

Duration: 20:54
File size: 3.54MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Patrick Kennedy from Step Two Designs in Sydney (www.steptwo.com.au) about mentoring.

What are the benefits - and the pitfalls - in mentoring?

The book Patrick mentions is The Tao of Coaching , by Max Landsberg (tinyurl.com/yt8kaj).

(Our book links go to Amazon, and we get a small commission from books sold in this way).

Check out Patrick's Point of View blog (www.gurtle.com/ppov).

Duration: 17:05
File size: 2.93MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Patrick Larvie, Google's Manager of User Experience Research.

Patrick reveals Google's secret - rapid user feedback, early and often.

He also talks about the influence of culture on technology.

The book Patrick recommends is Karaoke Nights: An Ethnographic Rhapsody , by Rob Drew (tinyurl.com/2ewbft).

There was also a reference to the Google Image Labeler (images.google.com/imagelabeler).

Gerry concluded with a plug for Information & Design's usability training
courses in Melbourne (infodesign.com.au/training/courseschedule.asp).

Duration: 34:29
File size: 5.92MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Floyd Mueller about his work with exertion interfaces - where the world of video games meets the sweat of the sportsground, and where you can jog, box or play ball with people in distant locations.

Floyd discusses the impact of the Nintendo Wii, and how the lessons to be learned from sports psychology can be applied to video conferencing tools.

He explains that in virtual table tennis, the player puts meaning in the ball by imparting spin and force; the game carries meaning through the network; and the meaning is what matters for engagement.

For interesting videos and more, check out Floyd's website (floydmueller.com), exertion interfaces (exertioninterfaces.com) and 'Remote Impact' at the distance lab (www.distancelab.org/projects/remoteimpact).

Duration: 30:48
File size: 5.28MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Dr. Sofia Celic of Vision Australia (www.visionaustralia.org.au) about issues faced by the visually impaired and others.

Sofia says that a knowledge of accessibility should be "in any serious developer's toolkit".

Two screen readers were mentioned - Jaws (www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp) and Window-Eyes (www.gwmicro.com).

OzWAI (www.ozewai.org) is the Australian Web Adaptability Initiative.

Sofia mentions the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) (www.hreoc.gov.au).

Microsoft has case studies and videos online (www.microsoft.com/enable/casestudy/default.aspx).

Sofia is also involved in the ongoing development of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT).

Duration: 14:26
File size: 2.47MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Daniel Szuc in Hong Kong about the state of usability today. Although we were on the 22nd floor, in the background you can hear the sounds of the Hong Kong traffic.

Daniel's company is Apogee (www.apogeehk.com)

The Usability Toolkit is the one Gerry and Daniel co-authored (www.theusabilitykit.com).

UPA is the Usability Professionals' Association (www.upassoc.org).

Disclosure: Gerry and Daniel have various commercial connections.

Duration: 18:11
File size: 6.24MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Celeste Lyn Paul about the state of usability efforts in open source software, and about her card sorting method - the Modified Delphi.

Celeste mentioned Open Usability (openusability.org)

Gerry mentions a previous card-sorting episode of UXpod with Donna Maurer (tinyurl.com/3xzglj)

Celeste mentioned Michael Gladwell's book 'Blink' (http://tinyurl.com/235vnd)

The spreadsheet that Celeste spoke about is Joe Lamantia's on BoxesAndArrows (http://tinyurl.com/3742xt)

Celeste's blog is weblog.obso1337.org

Duration: 25:46
File size: 8.84MB

Gerry Gaffney asked Brian Donohue from iQcontent (www.iqcontent.com) about when, why and how to use web analytics.

Brian talked about avoiding 'zero insight', and how you can use analytics to understand users, improve your site, and validate success.

A few books and resources were mentioned:

Web Analytics Demystified by Eric Peterson (tinyurl.com/ys498j)
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik (tinyurl.com/2bnc8d)

Google Analytics Shortcuts by Justin Cutroni (www.gashortcut.com)

Sitescan (sitescanga.com)
Emetrics (www.emetrics.org)
Advanced Web Metrics is Brian Clifton's blog (www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/)
Occam's Razor is Avinash Kaushik's blog (www.kaushik.net/avinash/)

Duration: 22:49
File size: 7.83MB

Gerry Gaffney interviews social media maven Tom Raftery.

What does it mean to be a 'social media consultant'? In a wide-ranging discussion, Tom talks about:

The meaning and relevance of social media Whether bus drivers in Cork will use social media software Why companies should embrace complaint
Carbon-neutral data centres

Tom's blog is Tom Raftery's Social Media (www.tomrafteryit.net/)

You can follow the progress of Tom's carbon-neutral data centre - the Cork Internet Exchange (www.cix.ie/). Tom's presentation on reducing IT's carbon footprint is online (tinyurl.com/2u5bvz).

Several venues and conferences are mentioned:

Barcamp Galway (barcampgalway.wordpress.com/)
Barcamp Dublin (www.barcampdublin.com/)
Reboot Copenhagen (www.reboot.dk/)
Le Web conference (www.leweb3.com/)
Web 2.0 Expo (www.web2expo.com/)
DLD Munich (www.dld-conference.com/)

Duration: 23:17
File size: 8.2MB

Gerry Gaffney asks Jason Furnell about designing for mobile devices.

Along the way, Jason talks about the poetry of movement, the Agile development methodology, and how to navigate a career path in design.

He tells us that without a vision, great minds can go to waste; and how high-fidelity wireframes can help communicate a simple vision.

Jason's blog is 'the architecture of everything' . (jasonfurnell.wordpress.com)

The William Gibson book is 'Spook Country' . (tinyurl.com/2a7mf9)

Duration: 20:29
File size: 7.2MB

Dave talks about giving ourselves permission to draw, about how the printing press led us to communicate in a particular way, and about how that can limit our communication in a digital environment, about how PowerPoint can be both inhibiting and comforting, and about how where we are with video today is where we were with PageMaker 20 years ago.

Dave says 'You don't have to be an expert to start - you just have to start'.

There are several references in this episode:

Dave's blog is Communication Nation (http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/).

His company is Xplane (http://www.xplane.com/).

Edward Tufte's inspirational book is 'The Visual Display of Quantitative Information' (http://tinyurl.com/27dw8s).

Betty Edwards' book 'Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain' can teach you to draw - even if you don't think you can (http://tinyurl.com/36jbxj).

The culture map is Dave's representation of the culture at his company Xplane (http://tinyurl.com/3a27bp).

Dave's 'ListMania' booklist is on Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/25jqas).

I mentioned Lee Brimelow of Frog Design. One of his sites is the WPF blog - it contains his presentation to the Microsoft Remix conference. (http://www.thewpfblog.com/)

(References to individual books on this webiste are links to Amazon.com - we earn a small commission on any purchases you make on following such links).

Duration: 30:57
File size: 14.2MB

What is the current status of Version 2 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines?

Gian Sampson-Wild tells us the story.

She also explains how Flickr and Google have used Ajax without sacrificing accessibility.

For more on the Maguire vs SOCOG case, see Joe Clark's reader's guide (www.contenu.nu/socog.html).

A listener subsequently pointed out a USA case - National Federation of the Blind v Target , as described on the Disability Rights Advocates website (http://tinyurl.com/djrfd ) - thanks elDavo.

Gian's blog is The Kismet Heuristic (www.tkh.com.au).

You can also read her peer review of the Samurai Errata . (samuraireview.wordpress.com)

You might also want to check out the WCAG Samurai Group website (wcagsamurai.org).

Gian mentions the work of Cameron Adams and Jeremy Keith. Cameron wrote 'AJAX: Usable Interactivity with Remote Scripting' (www.sitepoint.com/article/remote-scripting-ajax) in 2005. Jeremy Keith's book is 'Bulletproof Ajax' (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321472667/informdesign); you can read an interview with him on Digital Web magazine (www.digital-web.com/articles/jeremy_keith_2)

... and the giveaway:

Andy Budd of Clearleft (clearleft.com) has donated a free ticket (worth 85 pounds sterling plus VAT) for dConstruct 2007 (2007.dconstruct.org) to a UXpod listener. To be in the draw, send an email to gerry at infodesign.com.au, with the subject line dConstruct, by June 28. Winner drawn on June 30, and notified by email. Ticket is non-transferrable, so please only enter if you or a colleague wish to attend.

Duration: 16:40
File size: 11.5MB

Luis Arnal speaks about usability in Latin America, about poverty as the mother of creativity (imagine usability testing at stop lights), and about the importance of observational research.

Luis is founder and president of In/situm (www.insitum.com).

You can read his article 'No pregunte, observe' online (PDF, in Spanish) (http://tinyurl.com/35bcch) .

Luis' 2003 article which I quote from during the interview is also online (PDF, in English) (http://tinyurl.com/2gmgr9).

Luis mentions Spencer Tunick's latest and largest nude shoot (18,000 people at the Zocalo plaza in Mexico city). Here is a short link to photos of the event on Flickr: http://tinyurl.com/2bvaoe

Thanks to Stuart Celarier of Portland Jugglers (www.portlandjugglers.com) for permission to use the image of the Toltec juggler as an illustration for this episode. Stuart is a software engineer who blogs at www.ferncrk.com/blog and points out that the ball over the juggler's head was not present in the original.

Duration: 17:30
File size: 8MB

Peter Benda describes University of Melbourne's work on 'QuitCoach' - an online service to help people stop smoking. Peter works at Melbourne University's Department of Information Systems - www.dis.unimelb.edu.au

He talks about some of the unique aspects of this research - such as participatory design as therapy, and the 'confessional' needs of the quitting smoker.

The current version of QuitCoach is at www.thequitcoach.org.au

The National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia is at www.nhmrc.gov.au

The New Zealand STOMP (Stop smoking with mobile phones) trial is at www.ctru.auckland.ac.nz/research/stomp/index.html

Florian 'Floyd' Muller's paper is 'A table tennis game for three players ' - http://tinyurl.com/3ylovs

... and the Northcote Social Club (Melbourne) is at http://northcotesocialclub.com/pages/giglist.php

Duration: 24:25
File size: 11.1MB

What makes good customer service?

Joel talks about fixing everything two ways, not outsourcing technical support, taking the blame, and about the puppet.

Check out Joel's blog (http://www.joelonsoftware.com)

I mention the Irish Guitar Podcast (http://www.irishguitarpod.com)

Daniel Szuc and I wrote The Usability Kit (http://www.theusabilitykit.com).

Duration: 23:10
File size: 10.6MB

Steve Krug talks about clarity, about deleting Solitaire from his Mac, and about his admiration for Douglas Adams and Jakob Nielsen.

He also considers how we can do things well with Ajax, and the importance of user testing.

Steve's excellent book is "Don't Make Me Think" (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321344758/informdesign
).

Steve also mentioned Jakob Nielsen's article on teengers' use of websites (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050131.html)

People ask me about the cartoons on UXpod. Most are done by Gina Ellis, but this one is by Naomi Tong.

This episode is just over 23 minutes in length. File size is 10.5MB.

William Gaver is Professor of Design at Goldsmiths College ,
at the University
of London .

He developed the 'cultural probe' user research technique. (We covered this in a previous podcast episode with John Murphy - uxpod.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=108708)

He also developed the 'drift table' and other items based around the concept of 'ludic' design.

In this interview, he talks about ludic design, and about systems that can help us while we 'find our own ways of leading meaningful lives'.

Sound quality, unfortunately, is not very good.

The book Bill mentions is Homo Ludens , by Johan Huizinga (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807046817/informdesign).

Bill also mentioned Andy Crabtree (web.mac.com/andy.crabtree/iWeb/Site/Home.html).

See the Interaction Research pages at Goldsmiths College (www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/interaction/exhibitions.html)

The company that provided the aerial footage is getmapping (www.getmapping.com).

Duration: 21:46
File size: 9.97MB

Genevieve Bell is Director of Intel's User Experience Group .
In this interview, she talks about what it means to build technology with the home in mind, about cultural influences in the use of technology, about the connection between religion and technology, and about sheds.

Genevieve says that part of what people want is for technology to be invisible.

"Computational power is important but what people see is the experience."

Security and usability are frequently in conflict. Workarounds are common, and there may be unrealistic expectations of what users would or should do.

I mention that ChinesePod made Time Magazine's Top Ten Podcasts of 2006. (www.time.com/time/topten/2006/podcasts/10.html)

The Usability Kit (Gaffney/Szuc) is available for purchase online. (www.theusabilitykit.com)

This episode is 7 minutes 10 seconds in duration. File size is 4.1MB.

I asked Apala about designing for low-income, low-literacy audiences.

Apala also talks about cultural differences between India and China, and between India and 'the West', about the dangers of being overly-polite, about why foreign insurance companies may not do well in India, and about the use of rasas for measuring emotion.

You can read more about Apala on the Human Factors International website (www.humanfactors.com/about/Apala.asp).

See Wikipedia's entry on Rasas (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasa_%28art%29).

(I referred to Paul Sherman's presentations at User Friendly 2006 in China - Paul's put them online, and there are pointers on his blog - www.usabilityblog.com/blog/archives/2006/11/my_user_friendl.php).

This episode is 20 minutes 43 seconds in duration. File size is 11.8MB.