Articles
Usability Testing Versus Expert Reviews 
By Janet M. Six
Published: 19 Oct 2009
In this Ask UXmatters column—which is the first in a series of three columns focusing on usability—our experts discuss the use of usability testing versus expert reviews. In the upcoming columns, we’ll discuss what usability techniques to use when money or time is tight and how to best conduct remote usability testing.
The Value of Asking 'Why?'
By Daniel Szuc
Published: 7 Aug 2009
When looking at a product have you ever heard yourself saying "why would anyone buy this?" or "why would people use this?" - I have. Unfortunately, there have been many times when I look at products and experience the "I don’t get it moment". I mean, I understand the functions being demonstrated but I don’t understand what problem the product team is trying to solve. So we put our doubts aside and start working on the product anyway as you know at some point you can help simplify, redesign and make usability improvements. But something still niggles at you. What is missing?
Understand My Needs
By Noriko Osaka
International Dept. HCD-Net
Published: 3 Aug 2009
You go to a restaurant for dinner a friend recommended without knowing exactly what time they open. Unfortunately you arrive half an hour before they open and disappointed to see "Sorry we are closed" or "closed" sign. You feel "shut out".
But what if the sign says "we will serve you later"?
The Jumbi-chu or sometimes Shitaku-chu - "we will serve you later" or literally "we are in preparation" signs are commonly seen at the front door's of Japanese restaurants outside of their business hours. The other day I read an article of a Westerner living in Japan talking about this sign and he thinks it's a very considerate way of saying "closed" because the guest feels the people working behind the door will welcome you later.
Resolving Conflict Between UX Designers
By Matt Wallens
Published: 22 July 2009
Manage a team of designers for any length of time and you're bound to encounter some conflict between designers. It's only natural; designers are passionate about their work and when they work together, you can't expect them to always agree. How can you create team harmony and mitigate risk to ensure a successful project?
Finding Gold in Your User Research Results
By Daniel Szuc
Published: 6 July 2009
As my company planned for a recent study, we noticed we were asking more questions about the product to help us determine how our research could drive key business results. For example, we explored product descriptions, market positioning, selling points, key differentiators, and other critical areas that might require deeper exploration with users.
Managing Design Scope and Team Expectations
By Cindy Lu, Ph.D., CHPF
Published: 29 June 2009
Sometimes you receive requirements from other teams for specific features to add to an existing system. You only have a few days to deliver the design. You analyze the requirements, start the design immediately, complete the design and deliver it to the team. The team comes back with questions and additional features. You revise the design and review it with the team again. More features are requested. Now the project is stretched to 3 weeks.
This article will share a successful strategy for managing design scope and managing team expectations.
Being a Successful UX Design Manager
By Matt Wallens
Published: 26 May 2009
Anyone who has managed a UX Design Team knows how hard it can be. As a team, we're often trying to justify ourselves in a world of tight deadlines, ever-diminishing budgets and layoffs. With these distractions, how do you keep your team motivated and productive? I'd like to give you some tips on how to work with your team so they feel valued and remain effective.
Selling what we do
By Daniel Szuc
Published: 21 May 2009
After finishing studies at University in Australia and promptly started my first job, I never really understood the value of selling. There was no class dedicated to teaching how to sell or how important it is. But know this - at some point in your life you will be required to sell - sell yourself, sell for someone else and sell what you do.
Interview with Daniel Szuc
By Craig Tomlin
Published: 20 May 2009
Today's interview is with a usability dynamo, Daniel Szuc. Among Dan's significant contributions to the usability profession are: President and founding member of the Hong Kong branch of the Usability Professional's Association, Principal Usability Consultant at Apogee Usability, Asia, co-creator of the Usability Kit, user experience author and speaker.
Selling Usability into Organizations
By Daniel Szuc
Published: 7 May 2009
Imagine we need to promote usability to an organization. Not all organizations have the same level of interest and receptiveness to the concept of usability – to the usability "story". Some just don’t care.
What should we know about an organization that will help us sell usability more effectively? What sort of questions should we ask about the organization, its people and its culture? What can we learn from organizations where usability has become part of the corporate DNA? What factors can increase our chances of promoting usability successfully to an organization now and in the future?
This presentation will tap into more than 10 years of experience in selling usability into different markets and organizations. We will share the successes, pitfalls and failures.
Moderating User Interviews in China
By Josephine Wong
Published: 22 April 2009
Moderating user interviews can make you feel a lot like an "octopus" and you need to be aware of and juggle a lot of things including –
- Focusing on the research objectives
- Question and task flow
- Improvising when things don’t go according to plan.
Some participants are coming to a new environment that they are not familiar with, so learning how to get them to cooperate and work with you quickly is important so that you can get to the data and findings you need.
Usability testing ≠ a good user experience
By Paul Sherman
Published: 22 April 2009
Let’s cut right to the chase: usability testing does not equal a good user experience. What do I mean by this? I mean that taken alone, usability testing cannot lead to a compelling and satisfying user experience. There are many reasons for this, but the most critical one is that design – or even better, strategic design – is the only sure-fire way to intentionally arrive at a good user experience for your product or service.
UX India: Where have we come from and where do we need to go?
By Jhumkee Iyengar
Published: 14 April 2009
“China is the ‘factory of the world’ while India the ‘back office of the world’. That means the world recognizes the achievements of the two largest developing countries.”
- Mao Siwei, Chinese Consul General at a seminar in Kolkata
Quoted in the Pune Mirror, 23 February, 2009
With this perception of China and India, what are the implications on UX? What if anything needs to change or move in both markets to impact external and internal perceptions about UX? Where do India and China want to take UX, product design and innovation in the next 10-20 years? What other factors are playing a part in this shift? What does the above quote mean for UX practitioners in Asia?
Design Implications
By Gerry Gaffney
Published: 6 April 2009
There is typically a gap between analysis and design. It's that somewhat scary period during which initial design occurs, and during which it often seems that our preparatory research (of user and business needs) is not as useful as we might wish.
Designing for Positive impact
By Liya Zheng and Jeanine Harriman
Published: 18 March 2009
As we live through the worst economy of our lifetime, many of us are asking what can we do to help secure a better future. That is a task too daunting and impossible for any individual to do. We thought a lot about this the last year because we are doing a lot of work in the finance industry where we create products and services that help mutual fund managers invest people's retirement funds to yield positive returns. A lot opportunities came our way that beg the question of how we can make sure that we help leaders we work with to make decisions that have positive impact on the future state of the finance industry. As experience designers and researchers, what is our point of leverage? We realized that our sphere of influence lies in the insight we draw from our research and in the way we do our design strategy work to uncover opportunities business leaders we work with will focus on. We began by taking a look at our design process and approach.
UX Challenges Today
By John S. Rhodes
Published: 2 March 2009
In this article I’m going to explain what I see as the challenges facing user experience (UX) today. It doesn’t matter if you’re completely new to UX or if you’re an old wizard on the mountain – these challenges are real.
Constant Cycle of Self Improvement
By Daniel Szuc
Published: 25 February 2009
It seems like we are hearing about bad news almost weekly, as companies in various sectors like finance, technology and automobile manufacturing (to name a few) cut back staff or look for financial help from Government to assist weather the economic storm. This has some "run on" effect as product departments are downsized with economies buying less and watching spending.
Conducting Your Own Research - Don't Wait for Permission
By Josephine Wong and Daniel Szuc
Published: 18 February 2009
This is the first of three articles to share stories about user research we commissioned ourselves in Mainland China in 2008 (as we have been conducting client user research for the last 10 years in the Asia)
The focus of the articles is less about the findings themselves (although we will share those too), but the journey we went on to conduct the user research and the lessons learnt. We hope this will encourage you to go out and explore the world around you.
Thinking About The Cultural Difference From The User's Point of View - User Friendly 2008 Report (English Version)
By Noriko Osaka - Mitsue-Links, Co., Ltd (Japan)
Published: January 6, 2009
Selling Usability In(to) Organizations
By Daniel Szuc
Published: December 5, 2008
Daniel Szuc on UX in China
By Jeff Parks
Published: November 3, 2008
In this show I had the great pleasure of chatting with Daniel Szuc from Apogee in Hong Kong, China.
Thinking About The Cultural Difference From The User's Point of View - User Friendly 2008 Report (Japanese Version)
By Noriko Osaka - Mitsue-Links, Co., Ltd (Japan)
Published: November 10, 2008
The Power of Field Studies
By Daniel Szuc
Published: October 23, 2008
Understanding how users truly interact with software products is difficult unless you visit users in the field like their home or workplace.
There is no substitute for field studies to collect rich data to see how users use products and the issues they face to help drive the workflow of a new product design.
Selling UX
By Daniel Szuc, Paul J. Sherman, and John S. Rhodes
Published: October 20, 2008
At some point in your career, you’ll be called upon to sell UX to someone in your organization. You’ve probably already done it. Perhaps you’ll need to justify what you do in an organization or industry that’s just beginning to adopt UX methods or sell UX to secure your position within an organization or get future projects. So, what do you need to know to help you sell UX? What challenges might you face?
Value
By Cindy Lu, Ph.D., CHFP
Published: July 28, 2008
You are hired because the business believes you can add value. To fund new projects, organizations or ideas you must demonstrate that you have potential to create value. To stay employed you must continually demonstrate your value.
What value do you create for your company? How do you demonstrate your value? Does your Client, Manager, coworkers and partners consider you as “valuable”?
The Airport User Experience - travel delays in Shanghai
By Daniel Szuc
Published: July 8, 2008
As part of a User Research project in China this month we are running in depth interviews in both Shanghai and Dalian. We arrived at Shanghai airport yesterday (7 July 2008) taking the super fast Maglev from the city expecting to take an afternoon flight to Dalian. Well ... that was yesterday and this is today and we are still waiting (fog over Dalian apparently making it hard to land the plane).
The Future of Usability is Mobile
By John S. Rhodes
Published: June 27, 2008
About 10 years ago I would have told any new usability specialist to spend time learning about the Internet. I might have even encouraged that person to learn about web site hosting, HTML, and JavaScript. I would have made these recommendations because the web ushered in such a profound change.
Usability doesn’t stop when you write the content
By Whitney Quesenbery
Published: May 5, 2008
Think about the last web site you worked on. You probably did card sorting for the information architecture. You created paper prototypes to try out different page layouts. You ran iterative usability tests to make sure people could use the site. But what about the information on the site?
Don't Make Me Work Hard!
By Daniel Szuc
Published: April 29, 2008
I have been thinking a lot about this recently in our projects now and over the years as it pertains to improving and simplifying designs and it comes down to this: "Dont Make Me Work Hard!" So ... what are some quick examples of products and services that don't make me work hard?
The Mobile Design Matrix
By Daniel Szuc
Published: April 24, 2008
Recently we worked on the design of a mobile application and to help the Product Team determine the type of activities and tasks people may want to do on their mobile phone using this particular application Apogee created "The Mobile Design Matrix".
Delighting Customers
By Daniel Szuc
Published: April 8, 2008
What does it take to delight customers? Here are a few thoughts you can refer to when working on products to help make them more usable, delightful and profitable for your company. It takes more than just a checklist to make great products, but think of this as something quick you can refer back to when designing for your customers.
User Friendly 2007: Connecting User Experience Communities
By Daniel Szuc, Paul J. Sherman, Jo Wong, and Liya Zheng
Published: March 24, 2008
User Friendly 2007 was held in Beijing on November 23–25, 2007, and—like the previous conferences in Beijing (2004), Shanghai (2005), and Hangzhou (2006)—was a rousing success. UPA China saw the 2007 event as an opportunity to return to Beijing, giving attendees the opportunity to visit the 2008 Olympics host city as it prepares for its moment in the spotlight.
Using the Right Words to Shape the User Experience
By John S. Rhodes
Published – 27 February 2008
Words matter. The words you're reading right now -- on this page -- influence you. They make you think. They cause you to react and respond. They shape your experience, and your life.
To understand the true impact of words on the user experience, we need only look at a small slice of psychology. Let's consider how words shape memories....
Usability Now - an Interview with Daniel Szuc
Published – 10 January 2008
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.
How Direct Marketing and User Experience Are the Same
By John S. Rhodes
Published – 4 January 2008
I've read several marketing books. In fact, I have an entire library of marketing books. The rooms of my home are full of these books.
Now, you might be wondering why a guy interested in usability and user experience (UX) would be so interested in marketing? The answer is very simple: direct marketing.
Before I explain that point, let me first tell you a couple of things about marketing. The average person sees marketing as a combination of advertising and sales. But, this is no better than saying that Freud or Pavlov fully explains the whole of Psychology.
Design in China - taking a great leap forward
By Liya Zheng
Published – 12 December 2007
The 4th annual User Experience conference in China took place in Beijing this year. The number of local speakers in 2007 increased dramatically from the last year's conference. Both the materials covered in the talks and workshops reflected a huge leap forward for the User Experience community in China. It was echoed in the opening speeches, that China's user experience and design industries are key to the country's economic growth. User Experience practitioners have an exciting future and an increasingly strategic role to fill. A key topic to address when we look into our industry's future is how can Chinese and foreign companies use our talents to help them succeed in the global market place.
Choice Kills Usability
By John S. Rhodes
Published – 20 November 2007
One of the easiest ways to improve usability is by focusing on just one thing. When you present something to the user, be sure that it's just one thing. All too often we try to hard to offer people several options.
The reason many people love Google.com is that it offers just one thing: search. A single-minded focus has enormous implications. Users can clearly understand what Google is about and what it does. Even new users to Google are instantly put at ease because of the outlandish simplicity. If your site or your web page is focused on one thing everyone wins.
Customer Support on the Web: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You
By Daniel Szuc
Published – 5 November 2007
When customers arrive at a Web site, they have goals and tasks they want to complete—for example, buying a movie ticket, transferring money, signing up for a service, applying for a loan, asking for help, and so on. An important requirement for a Web site is the ability for customers to serve themselves, so they can generally complete their tasks without needing to contact Customer Support or ask a friend for help. However, understandably, there are times when customers do need help from Customer Support—by either speaking over the phone or using live chat—so they can solve more complex problems or complete tasks they cannot complete on their own. In such cases, customers need email addresses and phone numbers that let them contact Customer Support directly.
Interview with Douglas Wang (Product Design Manager at Autodesk Shanghai, China)
Published – 27 August 2007
What changes have you seen in Usability in Asia since starting in the Design/Usability field?
"There was a much stronger voice in North America and Europe when I started my career in usability. Along with the popularity of outsourcing to Asia and local Asian IT growth around 2003, especially in web technologies, the awareness of usability has been increasing. The Asian voice of usability is starting to be widely heard. I think Chinese business find more and more value in usability, instead of "pure" technology advances."
Personas: Focusing on getting the design right – Part 2
By Fiona Meighan
Published – 15 August 2007
In Part I of this article, we discussed what Personas are and how they can inform design to ensure products and services focus on customer needs and goals. We also discussed the importance of using primary data about real users to create personas. A hypothetical case study was given for a company called SecureCam who needed to redesign their service, with the view to using personas to assist with this task. In Part 2, the individual components of a persona are described and an example persona relating to the SecureCam case study is provided.
Home Page Design
By Daniel Szuc
Published – 6 August 2007
It is time to review a company home page design. There are a number of stakeholders involved in home page design, and each of them wants a piece of the home page real estate. Are there questions you can ask before approaching home page design that can move it beyond the influence of specific stakeholders in the company toward a common vision? Are there tips to consider when designing a home page? This article will help you better understand how to approach home page design.
Cognitive Walkthrough and Heuristic Evaluation in the Contemporary Design Process
By Liya Zheng
Published – 6 August 2007
The craft of User Experience Design involves many different expertise working together. Some of us work in small teams with generalist backgrounds, others with larger teams of specialists. Regardless of team structure, some age-old usability methods can still help enhance your contemporary Interaction Design work.
The Four Horsemen of Usability
By John S. Rhodes
Published – 16 July 2007
It's been more than 6 years since I wrote about the Four Horsemen of Usability
Back in June 2001, the four web properties that garnered more than 50% of all
the time spent online by U.S. surfers were: AOL / Time Warner, Microsoft,
Napster, and Yahoo.
Reference: http://blog.compete.com/2007/01/25/top-20-websites-ranked-by-time-spent/
Well, times have changed. MySpace, Yahoo, MSN, eBay are the top sites now. Furthermore, the top four only capture about 28% of our time.
Another interesting data point is that Google only gets about 2% of our attention. Is this because they offer up easy access to information people want, and user quickly zoom away?
When you compare MySpace to Google, it seems pretty obvious to me.
MySpace is all about sucking you in and never letting you go. It's a place for
people to interact with other people. Google is an information gateway. It's a
conduit to other web sites.
No matter how many times you hit Google, you don't really spend time and attention there. Indeed, the idea is to find what you want and get away from Google as fast as possible, except for some of their tools like Gmail.
So, what do you think about the Four Horsemen now?
How to Deliver Bad News to Customers
By John Rhodes
Published – 4 July 2007
The intention of usability testing and user experience (UX) research is to help clients and end users. If you want to help people, you must first understand problems and issues. You have to explain the challenges you discover. After all, you can't fix what you don't know is broken. Your clients cannot take action without information. You can't improve something or make it usable without exploring what isn't working.
Walking Through Your Product Design With Stakeholders
By Daniel Szuc
Published – 4 June 2007
You are the lead designer-or perhaps even the sole designer on a product team. You have just completed your product design, and it's time to walk through your design approach with the project stakeholders, including management, developers, and users. What do you need to do to prepare for your presentation?
This article provides some basic tips to help you better prepare to walk through your product designs with stakeholders.
The Impact of Ajax on User Experience – Part 3
Strategies for User Experience Professionals
Cindy Lu, Ph.D., CHFP
Vice President - User Experience & Usability
iNautix (USA) LLC - An Affiliate of Pershing
Published – 30 May 2007
As User Experience (UX) professionals, our goal is to help businesses create products that will result in compelling experiences for our users. We achieve this goal by understanding users' needs, the product context and technologies that will empower the product and creating a design solution for the product. Understanding the power of new technologies and future technology trends, limitations and best practices help us to provide the best design solutions.
Interview with Rex Wong (Interaction Designer in Hong Kong)
Published - 10 April 2007
What changes have you seen in Usability in Asia since starting in the Design/Usability field?
"Have seen a boom in the usability field in Mainland China over the past 3 years. As a committee member of UPA China's - Hong Kong Branch I have been involved in the User Friendly conferences since 2004 and since that time have seen huge increases in participants year on year."
Personas: Focusing on getting the design right – Part 1
By Fiona Meighan
Published - 2 April 2007
Target audience: Product Managers and User Experience practitioners who have not yet created their own personas before.
Imagine this... You work for SecureTech Inc., a company that specialises in providing small business owners with a web camera security service called SecureCam...
Registration - Last chance for first impressions
By Gerry Gaffney
Published - 3 March 2007
Registration is often the first real interaction that a user has with an organisation. Perhaps they've browsed a few pages, or they've seen advertisements, but now they're actually ready to come up and say 'hello' and introduce themselves.
Six techniques for advocating design in your organization
By Liya Zheng
Published - 1 March 2007
This article discusses some techniques to help overcome challenges incorporating design into your product development process.
Usability in China: Encore
By Daniel Szuc and Paul J. Sherman
Published - 8 January 2007
The leaders of the China chapter wanted to raise the profile of usability engineering and user-centered design in China and create the biggest usability conference in the region.
The Impact of Ajax on User Experience - Part 2
By Cindy Lu, Ph.D., CHFP
HFE Consulting, LLC
Published - 15 January 2007
In Part 1 on "The Impact of Ajax on User Experience" we looked at the positive impacts of AJAX on user experience. In this article, Part 2, we will look at the negative impacts.
Do You Suffer from Familiarity Blindness?
By John Rhodes
Published - December 2006
If you are too close to something then you might ignore it. Similarly, if you are an expert or you have vast experience, then it is possible that you will disregard key items when communicating with others about that topic.
Tag Cloud in Chinese websites
By Rex Wong
Published - December 2006
Tag cloud displays tags in a website which emphasize some of the tags by showing them with larger font sizes, and/or in darker colors. Moreover, tags in a tag cloud are usually arranged in alphabetical order. Tag cloud seems to work in the English world as a means of visualization as well as an extra means of navigation - what about in the Chinese world or more specifically, what about in Hong Kong?
User Friendly 2006 - Usability in China
5 November 2006
This podcast contains four short interviews from User Friendly 2006, the UPA China conference in Hangzhou.
The Impact of Ajax on User Experience – Part 1
By Cindy Lu, Ph.D., CHFP
HFE Consulting, LLC
Published - 23 October 2006
Ajax has been a hot topic since Jesse James Garrett coined the term and published the essay "Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications" in February, 2005. Numerous Ajax-based web applications and development toolkits have been rushing to the internet in the past year.Web-based applications have become richer and more responsive, not only closing the gap with the desktop but also presenting new and fun ways for user-web interactions.
Hong Kong's Octopus Card - A Highly Usable Product
By Gerry Gaffney
Published - 23 October 2006
Users of Hong Kong's public transport system will be familiar with the Octopus card, which I consider to be exemplary in terms of the user experience it offers.
In this brief episode, I talk about some of the things that make it so easy to use.
The Lie at the Heart of Customer Service
By Gerry Gaffney
Published - October 2006
In the years when companies became enamoured with information technology, it often seemed that the individual had disappeared from view.
People became accustomed to adjusting themselves and their actions to fit new technologies. They came to accept 'computer error', which was the customary explanation for many of the problems they encountered when dealing with government agencies, banks, utilities, and other corporations.
Chinese Mobility Service Providers Website Usability
By Dr. Ming Zhao
Published 1 September 2006
This study reviews the usability of 3 leading Chinese Mobility Service Providers' (MSPs) websites.
For comparison three MSPs outside mainland China are selected, one each a leading MSP from Australia, Hong Kong and UK.
While the Chinese MSPs present a lot of general information, they lack specific information essential to support online customer experiences:
- Lack of product and service information
- Lack of support information
- Confusing and inconsistent site navigation
- Inconsistent web design
- Poor interactive applications
This impacts the use of the website as a true business channel to help support customers.
Usability in China (podcast with Josephine Wong)
17 July 2006
I spoke to Josephine Wong from Apogee - Usability in Asia about the state of usability in China.
Josephine mentions the "User Friendly" conference. That's run by UPA China.
Usability in Asia (podcast with Daniel Szuc)
9 July 2006
Fresh from the terrific 2006 UPA conference, Tim shares two interviews we know you'll enjoy. First, Tim talks with Giles Colborne, President of the UK UPA chapter. What does the UK UPA chapter do and how does it operate? Next, Tim engages Daniel Szuc from Apogee Usability Asia Ltd. in a freewheeling discussion about usability and Hong Kong.
CEOs and Usability
By John S. Rhodes & Daniel Szuc
Published July 2006
Talking to a CEO about usability can be wonderful or terrifying. The difference between raging success and total failure comes down to understanding exactly what the CEO needs to know and then adjusting your usability message to fit. This article explains how to understand various contexts, and in turn, how to position your usability message.
Chinese Banks Homepage Usability
By Dr. Ming Zhao
Published 20 May 2006
The homepages of three leading Chinese retail banks are assessed for their usability.
These pages provide a wealth of information but found to have the following issues:
- Excessive flashing advertisements, scrolling texts and moving graphics
- Weak navigation support and in-site search functionality
- Inconsistent branch homepages derived from inconsistent branch operations
- Poor interactive application generating negative user experiences, and
- Lack of content to assist potential customers to start a business.
However one bank does have an effective forum to provide online customer support.
How Much Effort Does It Take to Create a Great User Experience?
By John S. Rhodes
Published April 2006
How much money does it take to move a project from inception to completion? How do you fully consider the total cost of ownership? How do you know how much time to spend on usability and requirements?
Is Google Advertising Evil?
By John S. Rhodes
Published March 2006
What kind of company is Google? Ask most people this question and the answer you'll likely get is "search." While it is true that Google is a company focused on search, they don't survive through search. Instead, like all companies, they are judged on their profits. And as John Gruber points out, they don't profit from search, they profit by selling advertisements.
How Product Teams Benefit from Usability
By John S. Rhodes
Published 1 March 2006
Product teams can leverage usability in three simple ways. First, usability can disambiguate requirements. Second, it can push a product closer to perfection with a small investment. Finally, usability helps product teams inform the organization about potential and expected support issues.
Language and Usability
By Whitney Quesenbery
Balancing the 5Es
By Whitney Quesenbery
A Report from User Friendly 2005: Shanghai
By Qin Lin
Published February 2006
A Glimpse of China's Future at User Friendly 2005
By Robert Barlow-Busch
Published 20 February 2006
Practicing Usability in Hong Kong
By Eleanor Lisney
Published 26 November 2005
Chinese Home Site Visits – Tips & Hints
By Josephine Wong
Published November 2005
You may only get one opportunity in a home visit and good planning and preparation is important. Here are some tips and hints from recent home site visits in both China and Taiwan.
Choosing the Right Channel for Communicating with Customers
By Daniel Szuc and Whitney Quesenbery
Published October 2005
Technology continues to change the customer service equation. Making the right decisions about which channels to use for marketing, communications and customer service requires an understanding of tasks, users and optimizing the use of each channel. Comparing user needs and channel strengths will help you make the right decision for your business and your customers.
Planning for User Research Success
By Daniel Szuc and Gerry Gaffney
Published August 2005
Planning is crucial if you want your user research efforts to be effective. You need to think about what information you need to gather, and why, before embarking on any research. Good planning, well communicated to the client or project, and followed by careful implementation will ensure your research is effective.
The constant design balance
By Daniel Szuc and Gerry Gaffney
Published March 2005
Usability is about understanding your users, and designing and testing with and for those users. However, there are other competing needs that need to be considered to ensure product success. In architectural and technical drawings, different layers or transparencies are often overlaid to assemble the complete design solution. A similar "design transparency" approach can ensure that product teams are working towards a common goal, gaining a balanced view, and increasing the chance of success.
Customer Support on the web
By Daniel Szuc and Gerry Gaffney
Published 13 February 2005
Customers avoid web-based customer support if information is not relevant, out of date or hard to find. Without a business commitment to addressing these issues, customers will continue to prefer contacting a service representative by phone.
Back to Basics
Published 4 December 2004
Design and optimize products around basic features. The result - you will sell more products and improve the chances of people using secondary features (such as value added services).
Dashboards
Published 15 October 2004
Dashboards allow users to view and access information from a single location, without having to navigate to separate 'silos' to find the information they need.
Usability in Hong Kong
Published 4 February 2002
What is Card Sorting?
Card Sorting is a technique for exploring how people group items, so that you can develop structures that maximize the probability of users being able to find items.
What is Usability Testing?
Usability testing is a technique for ensuring that the intended users of a system can carry out the intended tasks efficiently, effectively and satisfactorily.
The Death of the Flash Splash Screen
For many people the reaction to a splash screen is similar to the reaction of David Jacques, a Customer Experience Consultant in Hong Kong - "For me, a Splash screen is a game: to find the skip button as fast as possible."
Mobility and Usability
Gartner quotes: "More than 50 percent of mobile applications deployed at the start of 2002 will be obsolete by the end of 2002. The lack of sufficiently useful and usable applications will be the biggest barrier to "always-on" consumer acceptance in 2002."
Why do Big Companies Keep on Getting it Wrong?
Many enterprises in Asia have web sites that provide poor customer experience and have low levels of usage. Information is often presented from a business perspective, without sufficient consideration of the customers' needs. The following are some of the common usability issues we have identified...
Usability in HK - Is There a Difference?
Are there differences in the way Hong Kong (HK) users work and interact with web sites? This article is a preliminary insight into some of the observations we have made during usability activities in HK.