User testing is more influential than you might believe

Published on 14 August 2007 in Technology and Visual/Technical Communication. 2 Comments

okcancel.jpgRecently the HATT list had its annual debate on the “Click the OK” or “Click OK” issue. (Yes, user assistance developers actually argue over this stuff. And it’s “Click OK“, if you’re wondering.)

Did you know that the OK button had its origins in usability testing? During interface development for their pioneering Lisa software, Apple designers noticed that users were having problems. When the software required positive or negative confirmation from the user, a small window appeared with two buttons: Do It and Cancel. The testers noticed that many users wouldn’t click Do It, and some were visibly annoyed. Via Folklore.org:

The team noticed one user that was particularly flummoxed by the dialog box, who even seemed to be getting a bit angry. The moderator interrupted the test and asked him what the problem was. He replied, “I’m not a dolt, why is the software calling me a dolt?â€

Get it? The nature of the low-pitch monitors required the use of sans-serif fonts, and most were reading the “i” in “It” as a lowercase “l” as in “Losery dude who writes about buttons in his blog.” The Lisa interface designers made the change to OK, it performed better in usability testing, and the rest is history.

What is even more intriguing is that this simple change reflected a new way of thinking about human-machine interaction. HOTB goes on to suggest:

“Do it!†is the same as previous versions of Enter or Execute. It’s commanding the machine to do something. OK is acquiescing to the machine, forming a partnership. In the end, the simple OK button may have contributed to the success of the Macintosh. It changed the relationship between person and computer, away from the master and slave mentality toward a friendlier world where the computer is a partner.

The moral? Any interface between human and machine – be it mechanical, electrical, or graphical – should be tested as early as possible during development. Make the case to those who fund you.

theMonkey is back

Published on 7 August 2007 in Blogging and Site news. 2 Comments

Greetings.

Yes, I am alive.

Regular content will resume shortly. Make sure you’re subscribed to the monkeyPi feed.

In the meantime, enjoy a few minutes watching this pinnacle of interweb awesomeness:

Digital ethnography & rapid culture change

Published on 8 April 2007 in Technology. 0 Comments

This entertaining video illustrates the massive and significant cultural change that has occurred over the past two decades, as a result of moving information into the digital realm.

From pencil-and-paper to Web 2.0, in just under five minutes:

Pre-space age art (repost)

Published on 6 April 2007 in Astronomy and Observations. 0 Comments

space art

In this era of space telescopes, satellites, and Photoshop, it’s easy to forget that only a few decades ago, we had no idea of what space actually looked like. The task of communicating the wonders of space was left to the dreamers and artists, and we depended on them to stir our imaginations and passion for the universe.

Men like Chesley Bonestell and Jack Coggins took paint to canvas and created worlds and vistas that existed at the limits of imagination. Some of their art was eerily prescient, some of it was dead wrong, and some of it seemed to make no sense whatsover. Occasionally space was presented as a terrifying place. Occasionally, it was presented with whimsy. Nevertheless, these artists were the first space explorers, and they don’t get enough credit for it. Their work influenced a generation of young children to grow up and become scientists, engineers, explorers, and dreamers.

rocket dreamThis wonderful collection of pre-space age art was gleaned from children’s books going all the way back to the late 19th century. Take a look and see if any of these look familiar to you. Even I was able to find a bunch that I owned as a young spaceMonkey.

 

UPDATE:
Donald Davis, an artist commissioned by NASA in the 1970s, has now graciously placed high resolution versions of his imaginative paintings into the public domain. Make sure you take a few quiet moments to peruse these as well.
H/T: Paleo-Future

Eye tracking goodness

Published on 28 March 2007 in Visual/Technical Communication. 4 Comments

Jakob Nielsen’s recent eye tracking study contains a lot of interesting data, but none more unusual than the unexpected discovery of excessive fixation on crotches by the males in his sample.

Yep, you read that right. Crotches.

georgeBrettEyeFixation.gif

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

Coyne [the Nielsen/Norman Group Director of Research] adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

Oy. Well, that’s kinda humiliating. Gives new meaning to “know your audience,” I guess.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that Coyne went from cognitive function to George Brett to implied bestiality in just two paragraphs? Holy cow that was awesome.

As a bonus exercise, now that I’ve used the “b- word” in a monkeyPi post, we shall sit back, make some popcorn, and watch the Google search strings pour in.

I never claimed I was a smart man…

Published on 22 March 2007 in Family, Food/Wine/Spirits and Humor. 7 Comments

“You shake my nerves and you rattle my brains…”

Over a recent weekend, my wife and I opened our home to an elderly relative of hers. The lovely lady, carrying the superior genes from my wife’s side of our union, enjoyed a few days of respite in our home.

Eager to prove I wasn’t totally useless, I made a pot full of theMonkey’s famous Red Sauce. I may not do many things well, but I can cook a good red sauce. The trick is to dice a half-pound of prosciutto so thin that it disintegrates into the bubbling, steamy tomato flesh, and then… well, I’d go on, but this isn’t a story about pasta sauce. I just thought that it was information that you might need to know later in the story.

One evening, expecting a large influx of relatives coming to visit, I looked at the rather large remainder of the sauce, resting quite comfortably in the fridge, the flavors getting better acquainted with every passing hour. Then inspiration struck. You know, I thought, the only thing that separates red sauce from salsa is cilantro, spicy peppers, and some sugar. Everyone likes salsa. Yes. I shall make salsa. I shall tread to the local grocer, and acquire the necessary items. I shall tell the grocer, “Excuse me sir, but I need some cilantro. And some spicy peppers.” What a captial idea! Which is exactly what I did.

At this point, dear readers, the habaneros enter into our story.

Or, as I shall refer to them from now on: Satan’s Insanity Peppers.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, all the possible anecdotes that could arise from someone working with hot peppers. But understand: no matter what you’re thinking about, no matter how terrible your imagination, no matter how many horror movies you’ve seen, nothing can prepare you for some of the details you’re about to encounter.

Trust me, it’s worse than you can possibly imagine.

Continue reading ‘I never claimed I was a smart man…’

RoboHelp Server 6 and NLS issues?

Published on 22 March 2007 in Visual/Technical Communication. 14 Comments

There seems to be a wildfire brewing among customers of Adobe RoboHelp Server 6.

Many have upgraded only to find that the legacy Natural Language Search functionality has not been included. Synonym search is gone, too. Apparently, Adobe has simply not included the NLS DLL file with the software.

What’s odd is that the functionality apparently hasn’t been disabled in the UI or the help. From the developer’s perspective, the feature just isn’t working. In other words, the features “appear” to be there, but aren’t. Users aren’t aware of the disabled functionality until they try to use it. Even the software’s help topics on NLS are apparently still present.

I’ve already gotten some comments from some who have encountered this.

Adobe has responded with an article in the RH Developer Center, alerting users to the “important change.”

Is it just me, or does seem a bit disingenous to alert users to the decreased functionality via a web article, rather than by removing the functionality from the UI?

It’s kinda like buying Microsoft Word, writing a letter, clicking Print, and then finding out that Microsoft didn’t include Print functionality with this version. So you open the software’s help to make sure you’re doing it properly. Yep, no problem… you think. Looks like I’m doing everything right. Finally, in frustration, you go to the MS website, and find an article “alerting” you to the fact that they didn’t put it in this time. No doubt you’d ask, Why did they include the ability for me to click “print” if printing wasn’t possible? Why include the help topics detailing the proper printing procedure, then? Odd.

Does anyone have suggestions for those who are dealing with this issue?