USE DESIGN blog

The difference between internet and shopping is that you cannot walk in and just gaze at things. Before you can do that, you are obliged to to search for what it is you want to gaze at. Internet used to be mostly text-oriented and so is every search. But there is more than just words out there.

Daily Slurp offers website search by color. When would you search a website by color? When you are a visual designer and want some inspiration. You can search by a combination of a main and an accent color. What is strange, however, is that the search itself is not offered by choosing a color on a pallet, but by choosing the name of the color in a drop-down menu, like ‘red’. Sooooo boring. Not only every visual designer knows that there are millions of colors of red, but scientific research has shown that every human being sees the colors slightly differently.



The discovery of Daily Slurp prompted me to see, if there are more ways to search than just by keywords. Retrievr offers an image search by sketch. However, my drawing of a red tulip gave me everything BUT a red tulip, so I suppose the engine can be improved.



FindSounds offers extensive help when searching for a sound.

There is a number of question/answer based search engines. An especially lively example is Ms. Dewey.

Besides, there is a number of search engines, which make an effort not as much as to offer an alternative search method, but to present the results in a more meaningful way. And when you try one of those, you find yourself thinking that Google results page is really nothing more than the stuff thrown in your face with the message ‘You figure it out’. For instance, Hakia presents the results in thematic chapters. If you type in ‘tango’, it will deliver you History, Founders and Innovators, Musicians, Venus and so on, including some illustrations. This is what I would call the encyclopedic search. However, if you type ‘interaction design’, it just gives you the plain old list of results. I wonder why.

Kartoo offers a relationship-based results page.



And then there is personalized thematic search such as this demonstration. Aetna Healthline proposes a search concerning your specific medical symptoms, including pushing the information to the user to give him/her a complete picture of the condition and its consequences.

When you travel and need to find a hotel, there are multiple criteria by which you choose one. Price, of course, but also the geographical location, closeness to certain interesting landmarks or even how noisy is the street outside your window. Searching for hotels on the internet can be very time consuming, looking at hotels’ pages, comparing prices and photos. The website Trivop has now found a solution. Now only it allows you to search hotels quickly on the map of the city (Google Maps did that already), but it offers you a video of the hotel exterior and interior.
Currently those videos are made by professionals, but the website claims that on short term travelers themselves would be able to post their videos of hotels to help other travelers.

Sur la plupart de nos applications, qu’elle soient à des fins professionnelles ou grand public, les accès aux rubriques et grandes fonctions de l’interface se font généralement soit au moyen d’un clic sur un lien textuel, soit sur un icone. Mais les choses vont peut-être changer…


En effet, il vient d’être dévoilé au MWC un prototype de téléphone portable développé par Nvidia (fabricant de processeurs graphiques) présentant une interface très proche de l’Iphone : multi-fonctions, tactile, avec tous les effets liés au toucher. Bref, un “Iphone like” de plus pourrait-on dire. En fait je ne crois pas, bien au contraire.


Il présente ce qui à mes yeux est un petite idée qui risque de faire école : à défaut donc des ces “jolis-tout-mignons” icones, l’écran d’accueil introduit une notion toute à fait différente, le “screen-shot de l’écran qui suit”.


Ce que peut-être déjà certains Flasheurs de talent auraient pu expérimenter sur un quelconque site de la toile, se retrouve ici sur un dalle tactile A5 pour un Device accessible au plus grand nombre. Comme vous le verrez sur la video, l’utilisateur fait défiler des réductions de l’écran vers lequel il cliquera.
Finalement l’idée n’est pas si révolutionnaire sur le fond, mais alors pourquoi n’y a-t-on pas pensé plus tôt ?
Car l’apport en terme d’usabilité est évident : pas la peine d’un long discours pour présenter la rubrique, pas la peine de s’arracher les cheveux à dessiner un concept qui au grand jamais n’a pu se satisfaire d’un modeste dessin, pas la pein de parcourir le thésaurus à la recherche de la perle rare… tout est dit dans cette simple image.


Je ne sais pas si cette “vignette” présente en temps réel les données de l’écran à venir, si elle présente l’écran à la dernière utilisation, mais même si elle se contente d’une “vue” générique, je considère déjà cela comme un pas en avant.


Reste à savoir si d’autres avant y avaient penser, et me concernant, quand je pourrais tenter de décliner ce concept sur un prochain service…

Virtual space is one big mountain of stuff and we just keep throwing stuff on it. It is the biggest pile of stuff in human history and nobody cleans up. At home you are forced to throw stuff away when it does not fit. You don’t buy a new house just because you have too many things, unless you are very rich. In virtual space we are all very rich people. When we have too much stuff we just buy more memory.

That is because virtual space is not really a space.

We are also collectors of every unimportant thing, like the character in the 19th century’s Russian novel by Nicolai Gogol “Dead souls”, the landlord Plyushkin, who has a manic obsession for keeping every single piece of stuff he ever owned. When coming to Plyushkin’s house the main character is shocked and disgusted. Nobody is ever shocked or disgusted by our Inboxes. A user complained to me recently that the work flow gets slower with digital documents because there are no more piles on people’s desks urging them to respond. In virtual space we are all tidy workers because the boss never sees how much work is left lying around. Virtual stuff does not rot, does not smell, does not invade our lives. We do not need to sort it out because when you loose something, full-text search finds it for you. (I wish I could full-text search a lost sock this morning.)

That is because virtual stuff is not really stuff. It has no substance. It is just images and words - the fabric of dreams.

All of our computers together are just one giant brain dreaming of us, humans. The command “Sleep” should be called “Wake up”.

I can say that I have done my share of world travel and have used train ticket vending machines in many countries, but the NS (Dutch Railways) machine beats them all.

The user interface is bright blue-and-yellow, like the trains themselves that seem like huge children toys. Once you have selected your destination, the available options appear next to it. Here literally all you see is all you can get for this trip. The big touch screen buttons react instantaneously.

Click to see a larger image

The interface is so simple and efficient, it is almost boring. You can get a return to anywhere in the country within seconds, including pay for it, with no prior knowledge of the pricing system. The choice of language is prominent, as the Netherlands is a small country welcoming many foreigners every day. The most common use scenarios are supported first. For complicated travel, such as trips abroad or a certain type of discount, the user dives into a deeper level of navigation.

To encourage the users to give up queueing at the counter, the NS (Dutch Railways) inflicted two measures: a higher ticket price when buying at the counter or in the train, and an online interactive demo of the interface so that the users can practice buying a ticket at home. In my opinion the NS console is not only a high-point of simplicity, but it reflects well the Dutch national character as I know it. In a few words: ‘cut the nonsense, get to the point and be at home for dinner at 18.00.’

En effet, la société japonaise Amadana, qui développe et commercialise différents objets électroniques, accompagne ses produit d’avertissements intéressants.

Voici par exemple, un éclaircissement sur les fonctionnalités de leur télécommande universelle.

Inutile de vous retournez contre eux, ils vous auront prévenu!!!

After living in 3 different countries I currently have 3 bank accounts and 3 bank cards, each with its own PIN number. Once I needed a substantial amount of money in cash and was standing in front of a cash machine ready to accept any of my cards. However, the French bank was refusing to issue me any more money because I had reached the weekly withdrawal limit. Trying my German account I realized too late that I was making a consequent mistake in the PIN, so after 3 attempts my card was blocked. As for my Dutch bank account, I have not used that card for 2 years and the PIN code had irretrievably sunk into oblivion.

So there I was, with my 3 bank accounts and enough money, and no possibility to withdraw a cent.

This is when you find yourself wishing for advanced technology, which would examine your iris, analyze your genetic code, scan your brain, listen to your voice, take your finger imprint, ask the maiden name of your mother and the cat you had at the age of fourteen - anything, as long as you don’t have to go around remembering numbers. This is when you wish for a ‘forgot your password?’ button on the cash machine.

Only mathematicians and autistic people love numbers! We ordinary humans are quite hopeless with numbers! There is a tribe in Amazon region who never had and still refuses to have a notion of numbers! Why are we forced to identify ourselves time after time by what we most easily forget?

Fortunately, in France they still have that strange old-fashioned way of writing out a check.

Depuis quelques mois, nombreuses sont les rumeurs de possibles rapprochement entre Apple et divers constructeurs automobile (Volkswagen, Mercedes ou Jaguar) voir aéronautiques (Airbus). Rumeurs assez floues et pas très instructives sur la forme mais qui témoignent sur le fond de 2 sujets clé de notre métier : oui, les designer dialogues entre-eux, et non, la révolution iPod n’est pas terminée.

Si ces rumeurs sont avérées, cela signifie que, bonne nouvelle, des experts dans un domaine ont suffisamment démontré leurs qualités au travers des produits qu’ils ont conçu pour que leur travail soit reconnu… et soit pour d’autres une véritable source d’inspiration. “L’équipe” d’Apple - on ne sait trop si ce n’est que le grand patron Steve OU une équipe pluridisciplinaire OU le designer en chef (Jonathan Ive) - continue donc à inspirer (”inspired” était son moto de campagne pub il y a quelques année) se retrouverai donc à participer de près ou de loin à l’élaboration de nouveaux produits/services dans des domaines qui lui sont apparemment étrangers. Ceci bien entendu au grand bénéfice de nous autres, futurs clients et utilisateurs.

Et voilà que dans son numéro de fin d’année la revue de déco/design IDEAT publie un dialogue avec le designer automobile de chez Volvo. Ce dernier résume en 4 lignes ce dont toutes ce rumeurs témoignent : les designer ont tous désormais compris que l’interface faisait partie prenante du succès de leur objet, et c’est l’iPod qui en a été le révélateur : “L’iPod est devenu une source d’inspiration pour tous les designers car, la façon de concevoir un objet complexe (…) est une révolution. Son design est une évidence. Tout l’industrie automobile cherche à inventer son iPod”
Que dire de plus ?…
L’iPod continue donc à “transpirer” : outre le côté “négatif” de faire transpirer ses concurrents et toute l’industrie musicale, il nous offrirait son côté “positif” en transpirant ses qualités de design pour le bien de tout un tas d’autre produits…
Oui, L’iPod est un exemple de “simplicité apparente”, et nous devons tenter pour tout projet d’adopter cette posture de départ. Mais ce que cela traduit surtout je crois, c’est que le plus grand nombre (et non plus uniquement le cercle réduit des Mac users) a enfin compris le bénéfices et les qualités d’une “bonne” interface.

Tel Raymond Lewy qui a fait découvrir au monde l’intérêt du design dans la conception produit au début du XXè siècle (Philippe Starck l’a relayé en France… 60 ans après), on peut peut-être aujourd’hui prétendre que le duo Steve Job/Jonathan Ive, fait à son tour découvrir au monde que les interfaces des produits contemporains sont les premiers vecteurs de leurs succès.

Rendons à César, donc… Merci l’iPod !

Voir aussi :
Apple et Airbus

Design simplicity

Sous le prétexte d’un documentaire esthétique, témoignage des ravages de la société de consommation moderne sur notre environnement, Jennifer Baichwal (réalisatrice ) et Edward Burtynsky (Photographe) nous démontrent comme si nous l’ignorions encore qu’à ceux-ci viennent s’ajouter ceux de la -bien pauvre- condition humaine.

Un voyage donc d’une heure trente aux pays des classes laborieuses qui comme il y a mille ans n’ont que peu d’espoirs de passer plus de trente années sur cette terre faut de conditions de travail descentes, de suffisamment de subsistances, d’un maigre espoir pour leur famille, bref encore moins que pas grand chose.

Mon propos n’est pas ici de dénoncer ces dérives du capitalisme qui perdurent depuis 3 siècles en occident et qui déferlent aujourd’hui sur l’Asie, mais d’émettre le modeste espoir que, un jour prochain, au delà de la “User approach” et autre “User Centered Design”, nous mettions autant d’énergies, de convictions et de passion à nous faire les apôtres de la “Human Approach” et autre “Earth Centered Design”.

J’ai effectivement l’optimisme de croire qu’après la “Customer Approach”, jalon du marketing du 20ème siècle, nous soyons aujourd’hui les témoins d’une vision orientée vers le “bien être” des utilisateurs, et donc que rien ne nous interdise d’ici moins d’un siècle je l’espère, d’aller au delà des considérations de clientèle puis d’usage pour parvenir à celle bien plus essentielle d’humanité.

Pour cela, il nous faudra des outils et là encore je me veux optimiste. Je verrais bien dans ce “Earth Centered Design” qui n’est autre, derrière cette dénomination trendy, qu’un idéal écologique d’une conception centrée, “au service” de notre terre.

Vision utopiste et naïve, peut-être mais comme la plupart d’entre nous, je me refuse de croire que nous ne serons dans le futur que de simples et impersonnels petits robots programmés à “designer” des paysages auxquels de jour en jour nous gommons l’humanité, la vie.

Blundering blogger, a storyd
For my small personal blog I use Blogger. It looks as if Blogger wanted to offer a very basic-looking tool, which would not scare off an average user. I have chosen it for its pleasant no-nonsense appearance. That I am an interaction designer does not mean that I am a fan of the coolest looking cutting-edge technology. In fact, the coolest looking cutting edge technology leaves me indifferent.

In Blogger you click on links to open edit windows, you have reassuringly big buttons. One day I wanted to fiddle with the template and found my text boxes suddenly in wrong order. I looked for ‘Move up’ or ‘Down’ buttons, but did not find any. In cold sweat I actually considered removing all the boxes and stacking them up again in the correct order, which would mean retyping everything they contained because ‘copy and paste’ would not work, for some reason, and I even did not expect it to work. Then I glanced at the top of the page and saw the words ‘Drag-n-drop the page elements to rearrange your blog’.

Remember your first user test? Users never read help messages, especially on top.

The user is a fish in a bowl…
Reflecting on this user experience from the user experience specialist’s point of view, I am surely not the first to be misguided by the fusion of desktop and web metaphors. We were trained by Web 1.0 not to expect anything fancy in terms of interaction. As a Web 1.0 user you were glad finding the information you needed. Now you can build things yourself, with the result that Desktop metaphors go Web.

Consider the paradigm shift. In your desktop environment your are in your own fish bowl where you can safely drag-n-drop things wherever you like. When you are on the internet you are ‘out there’, in strange open waters. How does it feel to drag-n-drop something in this ocean? What if you dropped it off the page? What if you dropped it on your desktop and it stayed there? Would this break your fish bowl open and would the big ocean come pouring in? The expert users know that nothing bad will happen, but picture your grandmother, the one who worries that her documents are gone if they are moved from the desktop into a folder. When people are confronted with something they do not expect in that particular place it pushes them to look for safer ways of dealing with the situation. It is a feeling, a behavioral pattern. How often did you close a webpage displaying a PDF document, as you would with a document on your desktop once you were done, loosing the whole navigation back? I still do. The ocean comes pouring in, but I keep swimming circles.

…so feed him
When no clues are provided about the mere possibility of drag-n-drop and no visible alternatives, many users quit or start doing unnecessary things. If we are bringing desktop interaction metaphors to the Web, we should give users like me a hint of the fancy interaction mechanisms lying in wait where they are conditioned not to expect them. A hint, and more than a message on top.

Related reading:
Minimizing Usability Risks in Web Applications
When to use drag & drop (some informal research results)