Category: User Experience
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“i” is for Jobs, “A” is for Cook, and Other Thoughts about Time
Two days after the big Apple announcement event in Cupertino I’m was just beginning to digest all of the content. One of the things that hit home was subtle, meaningful and very much Apple. Amidst the hundreds of rumors and musings about what would be coming, the iWatch and a…
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Mobile = Shift For Designers and Consumers
Humans have always been obsessed with what they need to “take along” whether it’s going to work or play. The advances of mobile phones and apps has led many of us to shift activities we once did exclusively on a desktop/laptop to our smartphone. This is naturally followed by an…
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Advancing the Useful, Usable, Desireable Framework
Forrester Research frequently advocates for their usability framework of useful, usable and ultimately desirable. The first two are table stakes and where designers spend most of their effort. When there is the luxury of time, which almost never happens, then one can strive for that elusive territory of desirability. If…
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Agile Development in Training
Many firms are giving Agile Development a go, and it’s easy to understand the corporate motivation. Get to market faster with the highest value projects. In our company we’re in the 2009 planning cycle and struggling with the prioritization process and a crushing number of initiatives. All projects are scored…
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Mellon Odyssey Ends, I Think
I set out to do the simple task of certifying my taxpayer identification number at the request of Mellon Investments, and ended up spending nearly an hour over three days and it’s still not done. You can see the earlier posts here and here. Today I tried again to log…
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Another Cross Channel Failure – Mellon
I received a mailing from Mellon Investment today with a request to identify and certify my taxpayer information. I was provided with two ways to carry out this request; over the phone or through the Internet. I had already set up my account so online was an easy choice. I…
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How to Frustrate Your Site Users
AT&T is my home telephone provider. I switched from MCI WorldCom (remember Bernie Ebbers now incarcerated for fraud and conspiracy) because MCI couldn’t understand that they needed to come to my newly constructed home to actually connect the phone wires from the outside of the house to the inside switch…
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NeuroMarketing – New Tools For Engaging Customers
Fast forward to some time in the future. The marketing game has completely changed, having evolved beyond test and control, research, etc. Imagine you can understand how your customers react to your products. By react I mean physical responses such as eye movements, heart rate, breathing pace, galvanic skin response…
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Hulu Raises the Bar on Social and Television
I have been having a lot of fun playing around with hulu.com for the past few weeks. It’s a joint venture between NBC and News Corp. It’s in private beta right now, so you have to make a request to gain access. Here is how Hulu describes what they are…
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Super Tuesday, Good Experience
We’re so spoiled. Anyone who grew up a U.S. citizen and is reading this has always had the right to vote under the rules of our democratic process. No dictators ruling with an iron fist, no military coups forcing regime change. We get to have our say. But so many…
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Pandora – Radio From Music’s DNA
For the last four months or so I have been exploring the Pandora music service from my computer (via the Internet) as well as my Sonos music system. Pandora uses the phenomenal work done by the Music Genome Project to serve up individual songs in a radio station format. In…
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Kindle Makes Electronic Books A Reality, Without the Web
A colleague of mine who is an avid reader of books (the analog paper kind) is very excited about her new Kindle from Amazon. She was kind enough to bring it in for me to play with over lunch last week; here are my observations. The Kindle is Amazon’s first…
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Netgear Fails to Connect on First Impression
In a previous post I wrote about a great out-of-the box customer experience I had with an Olympus E-510 SLR digital camera. Of course for every great experience there is likely to be one not so great. I think you know what’s coming. Very recently I opened up a new…
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Disney’s DVD Fast Play Technology Isn’t Fast
If you have kids you know what I’m about to describe. You have wiped the fingerprint smudges from a Disney DVD, loaded it in the player all while your kids are screaming to see it. On comes the FBI warning, then the Interpol warning (sometimes in French, that’s really helpful),…
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Apple’s Site Search Drives Brand Consideration Through Prospect Experience
Apple has always been one of my favorite brands as well as my first choice in computers. I have long admired their web site for how on brand it is, the clean look, crisp copy and easy navigation. My one criticism is that it doesn’t even try to remember me.…
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Extra, Extra, Click All About It
Subscriptions to newspapers are down. Newsstand sales are down. Most people get their news from the web (or Jon Stewart). This what we are hearing. But I would posit that we need both the analog paper and the online interactive edition found on the web. I have been a regular…
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I’m a PC and I’m a Mac: Enough Said
They do a lot of things right in Cupertino. In Redmond, well let’s just say they do a lot of things. Size does matter, but design ultimately wins the day.
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