Every other weekend or so I take a trip to my local Target store to stock up on necessities. Let me start by saying this: I love Target. For the most part I have a wonderful experience there…well, except for one section: the toiletries area. For some reason, I can never find the things I’m looking for in this section. Yesterday it was shampoo. I looked for minutes and could not locate my Pert Plus. The visit before it was my face wash. And before that it was the soap that I like.

My question is, does anyone else have this problem in this area of Target? Or is it just me? If it’s not just me, then perhaps Target is ready for a little reorganization.

Assuming it is a problem others have as well, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to reorganize this section of the store based on the needs of shoppers. First, I would want to do some user research, likely by bringing people into the store and asking them to find the things that they would normally buy. This would yield a few different results:

1. We would confirm whether others can find the products they’re looking for, and assuming it is still an issue
2. This would shed light on navigation patterns through the aisles
3. So that we could restructure the contents of the aisles

In effect, this is a little like what I do every day. Of course, I’m sure the people at Target work hard to make sure items are as easy to find as possible. I just wonder if they’re doing any contextual research to find solutions. It’s important to see people in the act of finding items…be they real items, or links on a webpage. Otherwise the solutions are based simply on theory. And when I’m desperately trying to find my Pert Plus, that’s not good enough.

It is truly one of my favorite design “tools:” A good notebook. Personally, I like the full size Moleskine models, but whatever you can manage to carry around will work best. I carry mine everywhere with me, always with a pencil attached.

Check out these notes, if you dare, which preceded my recent talk with Jeff Patton at Interaction08.

Here’s a first page of general notes about what could happen during the talk.

The crux of my thoughts here is that many Designers, Interaction Designers included, don’t really tend to think about software development methodologies in their day-to-day life. Thus, they may need a little brush-up on what a development methodology is, with some examples.

Still, it’s important for IxDers to understand why software is developed the way it is in their organization, and to be a stakeholder in this process.

The prevalent development methodology in use today is waterfall. It should probably look familiar to most designers & developers.

With Agile Methodologies, we have the opportunity to get our software working, and out in the real world quickly. This allows our concepts to see the light of day, so that they can be improved upon. Of course, these methods do have their drawbacks…

Some snapshots of what agile methods look like.

So, the big question is whether Interaction Design methods can fit within the Agile Context, or vice versa. The answer to this is complex, but I think the talk covered the topic well.

Back to the point — Sketching really helped me sort out these topics in my head. Sure, it took longer than just bullet-pointing out a PowerPoint…but I was able to visualize my thoughts, and look at them later with clarity, and pass them on to others to digest. Visualizing my thoughts really helps my process, and maybe it’ll help yours too.

How do you visualize your thoughts?

It’s a really nice bathroom sign. It really is. But seriously, can we do something about the air dryers in this country?

I appreciate the fact paper towels are a complete and total waste of resources, but the hand dryer situation is…well…out of hand. If those things could blow just 2 or 3 times harder, then they might actually work as intended.

My point is simply that signs on walls are all well and good, but its the design of the experience that determines success of a campaign. A huge proportion of people would indeed use air dryers, if they just did their job as expected.

Who’s with me? And who’s ready to build a new air dryer?

Alternatively titled: On Covering Your Ass

Check out that picture on the right. That’s from my credit card’s website. My favorite part is the red link on the bottom that proclaims, “See fewer choices.” You know what that option is? That’s a designer or usability person saying to the team, “Hello team, we have heard from users that there are too many choices on the screen.” Then the usability/design person recommends that we prioritize the options on the screen and progressively disclose them so that only the most used choices will be shown up front.

Then someone on the team shouts, “But we can’t remove links that are already there! Users will haaaaate that! Maybe we can just put an option to ‘See fewer choices,’ that way we can make everyone happy!” The designer/usability person shakes their head in disapproval. What the team did in is take the easy way out. Rather than analyzing user needs on a deeper level and getting an understanding about what choices are valuable at each point in time, they simply put a link to “See fewer choices.”

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

Building usable tools is about more than giving the user exactly what they ask for. It’s about designing for needs…needs that the users themselves can sometimes be blind to. It’s about thinking deeply about problems, and crafting creative solutions based on data (that has been gathered from the real world of the users).

Let’s work a little harder to make better software, shall we? I shall. Who’s with me?

I almost missed my flight this evening. Nearly every Sunday for the past few months I’ve taken a flight to Raleigh, NC. This flight is preceded by a trip in a taxi from my house to the airport.

Except tonight it didn’t go as planned.

As routine turned to complacency, I wasn’t alarmed when the cab wasn’t there 5 minutes early…nor was I alarmed that it still hadn’t shown up 10 minutes late. Then 20 minutes late. Finally at 23 minutes late I picked up the phone.

Me: Um…I ordered a cab for 7:15 and I just wanted to check the status of my ride.

Operator: Oh, he should have been there a while ago. Let me contact the driver.

…Waiting…

Operator: Yeah, he’s right down the street. You should go outside…he should be there any minute.

Me: Great! I’ll be out there.

…10 more minutes pass…

Me: *Muttering* I better call again… (This time was same as before, just with a new operator.)

Operator: Yep, my system shows that the driver is right up the street. He should be there any minute.

Me: Great! I’ll be out here. (I don’t know why I’m endlessly positive with people in service industries. I have patience well beyond my needs…)

Eventually Karen noticed that I was still outside and offered to drive me to the airport. I took her up on it…and it’s a good thing I did. The cab never showed.

But why did all this miscommunication occur in the first place? Perhaps it has something to do with the communications systems that the cabs are using. This technology is a likely culprit. If you look around at the driver’s seat in any cab in the US, you’ll find that it’s a mess of wires, screens, and sounds…and this is before you take into account the fact that the driver has to drive. Of course the driver says he’s right up the street…that’s how he gets the operator to leave him alone, so he can get to his destination/talk on his mobile phone (by the way, who do these cab drivers talk to on their phones all day? My guess is that they talk to each other. It couldn’t be their family members…could it?).

All of this is turning into one big rant. The point is, a cab driver’s seat holds endless opportunities for innovation. It is ripe and ready to be tapped. So, somebody, please (pay me to) do some ethnographic research and redesign this workplace. I’m sure us regular taxi riders would benefit immensely.

The last few weeks I’ve been doing a lot of CSS writing. While this doesn’t necessarily fall under my job role, on many projects I end up doing it because I’m the “designer”…therefore I am put in charge of implementing style. Whatever. Turns out I kind of like it, so I let it pass, but we need more developers who understand CSS like the back of their hand. We can also use more designers who understand and write CSS as well. If you’re either, send me an email (jevnin at thoughtworks.com)…we’re hiring.

Anyway, what I really came here to say is that the world absolutely, positively needs a tool that is dedicated to CSS testing. I do enough switching between browsers, browser versions, and operating systems to make one sick. In my opinion, this is a giant gaping hole in the process. If our users can’t see our content as we intend, the web-based tools we build will not be useful, if at all usable.

Of course, the browser companies could do their part to follow the standards. Some, for the most part, already do. Others blatantly defy the rules. Nonetheless, since these fellows don’t play well together, we (the builders of the web sites and web apps) are in need of a good testing tool in this area. I’ve Googled for some solutions, but really they all either look crappy or they charge up the wazoo.

There’s obviously a huge need for this tool. Where’s the open source solution?

If you’re not looking at this entry on my site, it’s not gonna look quite right. For the best view, look here.
Just wanted to let y’all know that I’ve fixed my blockquotes so that they’re hanging. You’ll notice that I not only hang my blockquotes, but list items as well. Check it out:

This is what it looks like when I have a blockquote. Notice how the quote mark does not get in the way, and there this block of text has perfect left-alignment with the rest of the text on the page.

And what about lists?

1. Here
2. is
3. an
4. ordered
5. list

and

• Here
• is
• an
• unordered
• list

Why do I do this hanging business?

Notice how all the text on the page aligns perfectly on the left? That makes it easier for you to read the text on this page, and after all, this blog isn’t just about me…it’s about you too! Typography is fun!

All sorts of automated tests happen on projects at ThoughtWorks. There are Unit Tests, Functional tests, GUI tests, and others that make sure the software we’re building runs well from the most back-end function all the way to the user’s interface.

One thing we don’t test, however, is where particular elements land on a screen. We make sure that the drop-down box you were expecting to be on a given page is there, and that it holds the values that should be there, but we don’t make sure it lines up right next to the label that explains what it is for.

I’ve brought this up a few times while on projects, and developers have told me that we don’t test for screen position because we just can’t. I wonder how true this is.

When it comes to visual design, the placement of elements on an interface does matter. When doing a visual assessment, it’s important to me that all the pixels on the left-hand side of the screen are aligned to a grid line. It’s important that that drop-down is placed right next to its label. It’s vital that the company’s logo is always on the top left. And even on a low resolution monitor, this input box needs to align with the others. On and on…there are plenty examples.

I understand that testing for screen position is a hard problem, and is impossible with our current automated testing tools. But is it really impossible altogether?

Hey all you developers out there, weigh in with your opinions. And for anybody else out there…how important would a tool that does this be to you?

From the burrows of my brain flows a fresh design idea. Hey Canon, feel free to implement:

So, you know how when you’re taking a picture with a group of people and the person who was elected to take the photo has to take it 12 times with 12 different cameras? Why don’t they make it possible to simply beam the photos between cameras. That way, only one photo needs to be taken, and it can be beamed to all the others.

Or! What if you could simply send a photo to someone directly from the camera. On board email? Should be easy enough…photos need not be sent in the moment, it could happen as soon as you dock the camera to your computer. This would simply help with the whole “Now, who did I say I’d send pictures to? And which ones were they” problem.

Anyway, just some ideas.