My new iPad Pro

I recently got an Apple iPad Pro. - Yes, the one with the fancy pencil, and the fancy keyboard.

Once again I was impressed by the overall user experience. Starting with the evaluation phase in the internet. Reading through the specifications and reviews. The lean product photography is already appealing and raises the desire to hold respective product in my hands.

Why do I want to buy an iPad Pro? - My old iPad Version 4 is seven or eight years old. Performance is getting limited, and that bulky pen with the balloon rubber bubble tip was a great user experience increasing usability especially when reviewing articles back then but not necessary today any more.

Why am I reaching limits in performance of that old iPad 4? - Probably mainly because my user behavior changed somehow. I am more often switching between apps, I am having several apps simultaneously open, and pushing the resources of that device. Everything else is working fine. It has been one of my best devices bought ever.

And then that fancy Apple Pencil on the new devices. - A gadget designed to the maximum of usability. But to experience this I need to go to the shop. No e-commerce will make me feel that experience over the internet. Haptic feeling and my biggest fear - will it work for left handed people - drives me to the next Apple shop.

But it‘s not only the hardware of this device which sounds appealing. It is also the imagination of what new possibilities such a setup could open up to me.
All my private and professional office in a small pocket, the possibility to do work wherever I am, bringing creative ideas - yes, the fancy pencil functionality again - to my digital devices as soon as possible...

I am walking into the shop. I tell the seller that I am interested in buying an iPad Pro. He asks me if I would be using it mainly for private or rather for business. My answer is - both!
Yes, private and business is blending more and more.

I am deciding quickly and walking out the shop with three well designed clean white packages. Spent some money on a new device which should bring some more joy to my life.

Am I a victim? - A victim of consumption? - Or, a victim of excellent usability and user experience design? - How did this all influence my buying decision?

Develop for the better - The new Netflix App swiping left and right experience

Netflix, a company known for innovation, creativity, and user experience.

Their recommendation system has been developed in a co-creational way using crowdsourcing in order to match best user experience. This competitional approach even made it into a Harward Business Review. This, as an example of user centricity and focus on the client.

And now, with the newest release of the Netflix App on the Apple TV I am back in stone age when it comes to swiping through these recommendations. - Why? What happened?

The entire user interface is built to scroll left and right for selection within one of my automatically identified favourite categories. And to scroll up and down for selection of respective categories.

And now, this "home", "search", ... menu bar has been moved to the very left and pops up every time I want to swipe left in order to go back while scrolling.

Going back, since the invention of computer terminals and the back space key, probably the most widely used function. The functionality of reflection, of reassessment, and of reconsideration.

I am wondering, what would happen to usage statistics, if you would take this "going back" feature away from the user experience.

So, Netflix in a way did, and probably knows these figures.

What I do not understand is, what designers expect me now to do? - Why has this been implemented?

Do they expect me not to reconsider any more? 

Meaning, always move forward, don't look back, think only about what is coming and do not reflect what you have experienced a fraction of a second ago.

Do they want me to not remember the order of my favourites in "My List"?

Why doing it this way then? Would this not be easier with just randomly sort and resort those lists in the same way grocery stores work against our consumer habits by changing the place of items in the shelfs from time to time?

Do they want me to quit from Netflix on Apple TV? 

If I get annoyed by non intuitive behaviour of the user interface, I will spend less time on the app, I will get stressed, and - since Netflix is rather part of recreational phases of my life - I will not turn back.

This can not be the goal!

So, what were they thinking?

Do they want to teach me to think prior to scrolling?

Slow down, decelerate, relax, ... If so, it does not work!

Now, how was the situation before deployment of respective change a couple of weeks ago.

Same, issue hit the end user actually while scrolling up and down in a way. Just, that the "home", "search", "settings", ... menu bar was seamlessly part of the rest of the experience. Integrated into the categories of favourites. And given the usage of respective functions, I am not sure why this was not a good solution.

I can understand that technically this was not the most logic way of doing it. But it worked.

Or was I just part of one subgroup of users who perceived this implementation as intuitive, while a majority of end users did not.

Is this the struggle with usability? - On one hand everything gest more granular and more personalised. On the other hand, when it comes to simplicity and reaching populations of users with simple implementations one needs to make tradeoffs in disfavour of certain populations.

Is this what is happening here? Is this what I am experiencing as a Netflix user on Apple TV? - Am I traded off against a statistical majority of other users?

Never mind. The current solution feels so odd that I can not imagine above scenario to be true. - But, who knows?

Latency - No. 1

Latency Definition. Latency is the amount of time a message takes to traverse a system. In a computer network, it is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of data to get from one designated point to another. It is sometimes measured as the time required for a packet to be returned to its sender. (reference: link)

Everybody working with computer systems is facing latency problems.

The time the computer needs to start in the morning - Windows welcoming the user for several seconds.

The time the washing machine takes to be ready to start the program when switched on.

Do you know that feeling? - The TV system asking you "Please Wait...", then "System downloading software upgrade...", "System updating...", "System rebooting...", ... your impatience levels are raising, until you finally get a TV image just to notice that the weather report you wanted to watch is over and you are supposed to consume some publicity instead.

Who guarantees that the reading of your newest smart watch is not compromised by latencies in the management of its computing resources?

Latency, now even when starting up your car, the coffee machine, the vacuum cleaner, ...

One of my favourites is when pushing the power on button on the remote control of my TV screen. The time it takes until the TV shows a visible reaction is so long, that usually I happen to press the button a second time which makes the TV to switch off again. There is no way of seeing wether the first push is doing the job or not!

Another example are SW applications with long response times. Leading to the user clicking around and inducing more and more actions to the system leading to even worse response.
The worst is if typing on a keyboard and the characters showing up on the screen are substantially delayed.

How much latency are we willing to accept?

On one hand we believe that digitisation is improving productivity, reducing inefficiencies, making us more productive and effective. On the other hand we are facing more and more time of enforced delays at steps of our working processes where we have many needs as users, but absolutely no need of waiting.

“For example, Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year.” (reference: link)

Already in the very beginning of broader prevalence of computer systems impact of response times on human performance have been performed. There are many studies on the subject being performed in the 1970ies and 1980ies (see: link). These studies have been focusing on response of command entry on keyboards, and response of database requests.

Now, with more and more digital technologies entering our daily life. What are impacts of response and latency times in our life processes?

Is it truly offering added value if my washing machine has a digital control unit which takes 10 seconds to start up compared to the electromechanical version 10 years ago which was instantly ready? - The time prognosis on completion of the washing program is still inaccurate by +/-10 minutes both in the digital and in the electromechanical world.

Having a backward camera on the car which activates when switching to the rear gear is definitely a major improvement compared to the cumbersome navigation by turning your head in non-anatomical positions and looking through small mirrors on the side of the car. But it only helps if switching on the backward camera does not take longer than a couple of tenths of a second.

Or DAB radio. Yes, it is beneficial to have good quality or no signal at all. No tweaking of signals with difficult to manipulate buttons. But, what is the benefit of having to wait several seconds when switching radio channels. In the analog world this was instantaneous with mostly acceptable instantaneous sound quality.

There are many examples where we are limiting ourselves by accepting latency times in the context of technological advancement.
Why are we doing so?
Is it because we are most likely driven by technological fascination and not necessarily by user experience.
Also, the willingness to accept latencies as reality is often too high because end users are not in the position to change anything. And adaptability of users to the current situation of response is quite high.

Nevertheless - for me focus on efficient response and low latency times is one of the most important aspects when designing user experience.
We should always ask ourselves what it we would have to accept in alternative solutions. If these alternatives are old analog or mechanical solutions. We should challenge if accepting longer response times than the mechanical solution can truly be part of a beneficial solution.
If we want to sell the digital solution as a major benefit in efficiency gain for a previous process. Then the tolerance on waiting times should not be too big.

An easy rule of thumb could be something like:

If the system's response times are longer than the reading, inspecting, and thinking times of the user, then it is definitely adding pain to the user experience.
If the response times are longer than the time required by the user between two manipulations then this is definitely not adding value but becoming a stress factor.

Apple OS X Lion's scroll direction

It seems that the "natural" feature is not very popular:

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/21/poll-lions-natural-scrolling-vs-reverse-scrolling/

What does it mean if almost 50% of users consider the "natural" way not to be the most intuitive way?

"Natural" might be intuitive on a touch screen display. However, using navigation devices such as a mouse or a touchpad our brain still needs to project the action of the navigational device to a visual reaction on the screen. Hence, popularity of "natural" is a question of imagination not of intuition.

This leaves the question out: when will Apple come up with Mac Books and iMacs exhibiting screen touch features? - Probably soon.

Changing Customer Habits

Recently introduced by Apple Inc. the new Mac OS X Lion confronts its endusers with a 180° change in the response of up/down scrolling direction using a mouse or a track pad.

For years, we got used to scrolling directions which, if we are honest, are counterintuitive. However, everybody got used to it and never thought about wether the functionality was implemented the right way around. 

Now, with the most recent introduction Apple Inc. wants us to change. - And they call the new mode "natural".

Wouldn't marketing experts tell us, that introducing usability concepts against customers habits was a bad idea?

The mouse scroll wheel was introduced 16 years ago. And nobody complained about the scrolling direction. Why should we change now?

A couple of days ago I upgraded to OS X Lion, struggling with the new scrolling direction. But, only three days later I find it intuitive and I am starting to struggle with my old PC mouse at my workplace.

Which way is the intuitive now? The one I was forced to for the last 16 years, or the one which I am getting used to against my habits in a couple of days only.

Back to my fundamental question. - Is it a good idea to change usability concepts endusers got used to for several years?

That the context on the screen was not following the users finger movements was never a question. Does it matter in the end?

Scrolling mouse wheels and swiping fingers over track pads in the end probably has no intuitive connection to moving context. It is a usability concept everybody has to learn.

And, the average user usually learns much quicker than one would think. Hence, changing some fundamentals in the usability concept is a hurdle to take in the very first moment, but it will become intuitive to each and every user very quickly.

Will it kill your business now, if you change something in the usability concept of your products even if your customers have been following another concept for several years and generations of your products?

How quickly can you change your habits?

Intuitive user guidance - the parkometer

Some days ago we have been visiting a pitoresque little town in northern Switzerland. Having found a parking lot near the center. The parking lot was well equiped with a number of parkometers. Those little machines allowing payment for parking time.

Usual user guidance of such a machine is:

Start at the top. An old fashioned LCD display shows wether the machine is currently in use by indicating the current time. Bellow a slit to drop coins is located. Dropping coins makes the display to indicate the so far payed parking time. Pushing a usually green button below will print the parking ticket to be placed visibly in the car.

There is an other concept for the same purpose. The machines, probably second generation, exhibiting not only a display, a slit for the coins but also a numeric keyboard. This particular parking lot was one of those. Each parking field has a numeric indicator which needs to be entered to the payment machine. The ticket is only considered as a receipt.

However, the location of the interaction elements such as display, green button, slit for coins and numeric keyboard is not really adapted to the new concept.

Starting at the top the display indicates the current time and date. Next the slit for coins is waiting for input. - Really? - Below the coin entry element the numeric keyboard is located and at the very bottom the same green button can be found. So, how does this work?

Starting from the top we start dropping coins which will not be accepted by the machine. Why? - I would guess that you have to drop coins until the desired parking time is payed, enter the numeric identifier of your parking field, then push the green button in order to get a receipt.

Several attempts would not lead to successful payment.

After a while I would discover this little note at the bottom. A little sticker communicating the right process.

1. Enter the identifier of your parking field
2. Drop coins for the parking time
3. Push the green button
4. Take your receipt

Logical? Intuitive?

At least the sticker implies that I am not the only one...

MS Outlook: My daily struggle

As an employee I am forced to use the tools, such as MS Outlook, my employer provides. For my work I have to send a couple of e-mails per day. And I can not get used to the first fact, that the autocompletion function in the e-mail’s TO field is not very smart. Furthermore, I can not get used to the second fact that when using the search function for contacts in the contacts database, no matter if my personal or the corporate one, I will never find the contact I am searching for on my first try since some people I know by first name while others I know by last name, not speaking of the names I am constantly spelling the wrong.

Autocompletion: Why is it that MS Outlook can not search through the global contacts database in order to make meaningful suggestions? 

Search: Why is it that MS Outlook can not find an entry in its contacts database if I am not typing the name in the same order as the contact name is saved in the contacts database? In addition, why is it not possible to perform the search globally through the local and through the corporate database at the same time?

There are plenty of examples where both of the problems are solved. Even in other applications by the same vendor. Where the software does a good job in facilitating user interaction.

How to improve the situation of my daily struggle? - Here, some solutions to get around.

1. Define a rule in MS Outlook which forwards each and every e-mail to your google mail account where you have large scale archiving and extended search functionality for free. However, I did not yet find a solution to easily import the entire corporate MS Outlook contacts database to my google mail account. Only drawback is that your employer might not like it.
2. Connect your iPhone or Mac running OS X snow leopard - both will perfectly do the job - to the corporate MS Exchange server. Then use apple mail and contacts which provides you with all of the above missing functionality in order to do the job efficiently. It comes as a handy frontend.
3. Define a set of rules describing how you enter contacts to your MS Outlook contacts database and get used to the correct and only way of searching through them. Important caveat: define the rules the same way your employer does it. Follow strictly the rules and hope they are complete and that your intuition does not try to overrule them.
4. Learn the e-mail addresses by heart and do not rely on supporting software functionality.
5. Are there more?