U to the X

This blog exists to chronicle my journey through the UX wilderness with only my wits and my intensive course at General Assembly to help me

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Day 1 and Project 1

So Day 1 came and went. I was a little too sleep deprived and overwhelmed to update this blog. I mean it was Day 1 and we already had our first presentation.

I keep seeing a pattern in my emotions, though, and it’s not just this:

Yes, I’ve been going through that chart like crazy, but more specifically the amount of work appears overwhelming and I psych myself out about it. But when we actually do the work, I enjoy it and have a good time. 

So ... hooray.

And now I’m starting to even out and calm down. I think it’s the natural acclimation time scale, but it felt more like panic because we accomplished so much in 3 days and we hit the ground running

Day 1: Learning each other’s names, discussing what UX is (hint: there is no answer and there will never be an answer - which frankly, I think just adds to my overall mystique), and then broken into groups and assigned to a business to study, analyze, and redesign. We then presented our findings.

Oh, and we were given our first project. Design an app: weather, to-do list, or news aggregator. We were assigned which one. I’m news aggregator.

Day 2: User testing lecture followed by user interviews for our apps. Then a lecture on data synthesis and a lot of practice using those principles. Then project time to do more user interviews and more synthesis until we had feature ideas.

Day 3: Morning lecture and lots of practice sketching. Then a lunch lecture on the job search process here at General Assembly. Then an afternoon spent prototyping.

So after 3 days I have a very basic, beginner prototype of a daily alert feature of a news aggregator app. I’ve really been enjoying the work and am finally feeling relaxed.

I also feel like I’m starting to get a handle on things and like this place is home. My classmates are great and I’m really getting to know them. This can only mean that disaster lies ahead.

Oh and btw, “caw!” is totally a thing now. I will never tire of it. Caw!

P.S. if this post is a little uneven it’s because it was written in bits and pieces over a day and a half and half got deleted by Tumblr once and had to be re-written.

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Day one. It begins

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LIRR Kiosk Usability

So today I got my first taste of in the field research. As part of my UXDI pre-work I went to Penn Station to study people using the electronic ticketing kiosks and even interviewed a few.

That’s right, this class wanted me to interview New Yorkers in a rush about their most recent financial transaction that I was supposed to be observing them partake in. Apparently, this class wants to kill me.

But lo, surprise surprise, I did survive. And I actually got some useful information. 

The kiosks are surprisingly effective. Pretty much everyone who used them were able quickly and easily select where they were going and what type of ticket they were buying. The entire process was very smooth. In fact, I only witnessed a few bumps.

I witnessed a woman have to hit buttons several times to get them to work because the touchscreen was not responsive enough. This is a problem I’ve faced myself when using these machines and one of the people I interviewed also noted as his only issue with the kiosks that sometimes “the keyboards don’t work.”

Obviously any piece of technology is going to occasionally malfunction or be out of order, but that can be headed off a bit by having regular QA checks. As well as better touchscreen technology, but that’s an unnecessary expense at the moment as for the most part as the touchscreens work well enough.

The only other hiccups people seemed to encounter were after selecting how many tickets, not being sure where to press and having to search for their method of payment.

When reaching the screen above people would select the number of tickets and then many people weren’t sure where to press next. A lot of people moved their fingers towards the bottom of the screen where the “Go Back” and “Cancel” buttons are before moving up to “Press to Continue” button. Even people who knew where the right button was, paused and hesitated to make sure they were pressing the right button before hitting it.

Nearly every other screen proved to have a quick, intuitive movement to it where even users who were clearly unfamiliar with the interface didn’t struggle at all. So this stood out. Especially since one of the subjects I interviewed who claimed to use the kiosks every day said the only problem they ever had with the machines was long lines. 

One way to solve this problem would be to put “Continue” in green down at the bottom of the screen next to “Go Back” and “Cancel” buttons where people expect it to be. Another solution would be be to have the page automatically continue once the user selects their number of tickets. 

The reason it currently doesn’t do so is to allow the user to select both adult and children’s tickets. If you were to have the selection of a number trigger a continuation to the next page you could have people select the adult number and then the children’s number. This would add an extra step and risk confusion for those buying children’s tickets so extra research would have to be done, but it is a potential solution (if this is determined to be a large enough problem to need solving, most likely it is not as most customer’s most important needs seem to be met by the current system).

The other hiccup could also be contributing to the potential line issue. I saw user after user, when it came time for payment either needing to search their bag for their debit or credit card or needing to call over a significant other or parent or sibling to hand over their card or some combination of the two involving fumbling and a hand off.

The machines make a sincere effort to prepare people that they will need to use a card. They have the words “Credit/Debit ATM Cards Only No Cash” on the machine more than once. And even if someone was using a machine that accepts cash, you’d think they’d be aware they’d be using their card and prepared to use it.

To some extent this is unavoidable human behavior. Especially for machines that accept cash as people may not be sure what method they want to use to pay and if people choose to use cash, well, that’s always a more involved process.

But I do think the Credit/Debit only kiosks could improve their signage to decrease this time waste. The current signage, both the wrapping and plaque kind of blend in with the machine. People looking at the machine just see that as part of the kiosk without actually reading it. Instead, if they offered a plaque or wrapping that offered the same message, but included logos of credit cards and one for debit I think that stimulus would affect people’s behavior more.

Overall, though, the kiosks are surprisingly well designed (I say surprising because I’ve had my own issues using them). All respondents interviewed had an overall positive view of them saying they’re “very easy to use” and “more efficient” than the human tellers. 

One interviewee said they chose to use the kiosks because it meant “less human interaction.” A statement that on the surface doesn’t seem to offer much, but behaviorally signifies that the kiosks are easy to use. As a fellow introvert, I understand taking the path of less human interaction, but I also know that no amount of human interaction is too much if the other option is a headache. 

Seamless allows me to avoid calling a place and talking to a human for delivery, but if there are no good delivery options on seamless or it causes a place to get my order wrong or my order doesn’t go through, or Seamless is just incredibly difficult to use, then I’m still going to call in. This analysis of that statement is further proven when that same interviewee described their experience with the kiosks positively with enthusiasm and without hesitation.

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Good and Bad Design: Macbook Trackpad

For this UXDI course I needed to get myself a Macbook. This was a new experience for me as I’ve never owned an Apple product other than a basic iPod. All the reviews rank the trackpad as best in class and it’s easy to see why with the ease of clicking and responsiveness of the cursor, but in this post I don’t want to talk about those things. 

Instead, I want to talk about the gesture controls. 

These gesture controls represent both the great design impulses that have propelled Apple as a company and the typical technological error of including extra functions without thought of their usefulness or ease of use.

The first error is probably one that’s unavoidable. That is there is no visibility to these gesture features. There’s no way to know that these functions exist without a manual or instruction. In fact, when you buy a macbook at the Apple store, they pull you aside and give you a quick class in these and similar functions. 

The fact that you need such instruction is a failure of design. However, I have to say that I don’t know of a way they could include these functions in a way that doesn’t require instruction. They’re also not necessary to operate the computer, but an added bonus. Some shortcuts.

The good news is that there’s immediate feedback. Either the gesture worked or it didn’t.

The divide between the genius design and terrible design becomes more clear when you look at the specific gestures. Two finger scrolling is so valuable, intuitive, and easy to use that it has become standard across all laptops. It’s as hard to imagine web browsing without two finger scrolling as it is tabbed browsing. 

Similarly, even though I have no experience with the device and have only owned it for 2 days, I have already mastered three fingers up to view all active apps and use it constantly. Same goes for two fingers to right click. Both are incredibly simple and indispensable.

I also have no problem using pinch to zoom, two finger swipe right to go back, and two fingers swipe left to see the notifications center. But those have varying levels of use.

Obviously for many people pinch to zoom is incredibly necessary, even if it hasn’t proven so for me. So far, I haven’t needed to notification center for anything, but it’s still nice to be able to access it so easily. Swiping to go back has proven more difficult than simply clicking back. So much so that I disabled that function.

Many of the multi-finger gestures have proven more difficult to learn and should either be wiped out or updated to be more simple. I haven’t been able to launch launchpad with gestures. And doing so would only be of minor use since I can just keep launchpad on my dock. Rotate is difficult to pull off and of extremely limited if any use. 

These features feel like they were thrown in just because they could be and weren’t particularly designed for. They don’t provide much value, aren’t easy to do, and aren’t easy to remember.

On the other hand, some of the gestures are extremely easy, intuitive, and make the experience of using the computer so much better.

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Bad Design: Windows 8

Now, I know Windows 8 is a bit of an easy target to the point that going after it at this point is a bit like 100 horse sized ducks take on one duck sized horse, but here me out. I actually like Windows 8.

Yea, how’s that for a starting point? I like a lot of the things Windows 8 does and I like even more what they were trying to do, but ultimately it was too much too early and it all comes down to design. 

If they had worked harder to make all the new functions work more simply and familiarly Windows 8 would have been a rousing success (see: the positive early reviews of Windows 10 which seems to accomplish this very task).

The truth is the metro interface was a good idea. The idea of having a single interface for desktop, tablet, mobile devices is smart. The problem was Microsoft tried to jump ahead before it was ready. The desktop interface wasn’t exactly the same as its mobile devices, but more importantly most users didn’t have the touchscreens necessary to make the most of the interface and the OS default booted to this screen instead of the normal desktop interface users were used to.

This confused users who just wanted to use the desktop as they had in the past and couldn’t even utilize the best of this new interface’s functions. Even on the the desktop, the familiar start button/menu had been taken away confusing users further. 

There’s nothing wrong with the metro interface itself, but users should have been eased into it, especially when most couldn’t use it. The desktop should have been booted to by default and the start button should have remained in place so that people could use the OS as they had every past windows iteration. They’d know where everything was and how to do everything and then the Metro UI would have been a nice bonus for those who were interested in using it and especially those with touchscreens.

In this way Windows would be moving forward and nudging its users toward where it sees the future of computing without confusing and disorienting them. When your design prevents people from completing the simple tasks they want to, your design has failed.

Furthermore the new features had problems as well. The Metro UI includes a lot of interesting features that its tablet and mobile competitors don’t have. For example, having multiple full screen apps open at once. However, these new features proved difficult to use as they were activated by a complex set of gestures.

Pulling down and to the left would do something, but I could never remember what. Each feature seemed to have its own set of gesture commands making them all very complicated. This is a classic mistake. As technology improves, designers try and find ways to include all the new features that its capable of, except in throwing in every feature possible performing each feature, even the simple ones, becomes more difficult. 

That’s not to say features should be left out, but that if it is to be included as much thought needs to be dedicated to how it will be activated as was dedicated to improving the technology to include it in the first place. There needs to be clear visual clues as to how to accomplish the feature and clear and obvious feedback that it has been accomplished.

Windows 8 gets a lot of flack, but technologically it made all the right decisions and made clear Microsoft’s vision for the future (one that I happen to agree with). It’s problems all come from design, leaping too far ahead into the unknown without thinking of its users thought process. It’s a problem that has plagued technology advances throughout history, so it was far from a unique failure, but fortunately Microsoft seems to be fixing these issues with Windows 10.

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Finally cracked this book only to realize within seconds what amateur hour my analysis has been so far. I've only been going on instinct. I have a lot to learn. Both very exciting and very terrifying.

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Good Design: Amazon Checkout

Ok, so that’s an image of a horse mask on Amazon, not it’s checkout, but putting a screenshot of checkout would mean sharing some pretty private information I don’t want to just put out there on the interwebs. So, this will have to do.

And even on this page you can see how perfectly designed the start of the process is. The price is in a larger font, bolded, and colored red (which is the easiest color to see). But your eye is only drawn to that second. First it’s the large, yellow, super clickable “Add to Cart” button. 

That button is incredibly inviting.

And then if you have an amazon account and have ever ordered from there before, all it takes is one more click as they have your address and credit card information saved. I’ve never experience a smoother or easier buying process. 

Amazon goes out of it’s way to make everything about the purchasing process as easy and inviting as possible. And again at each simple step Amazon provides a big welcoming and simple button. 

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Bad Design: ESPN

ESPN recently redesigned their homepage and while the switch to a flat design is an aesthetic upgrade, there are some serious problems with how the new design directs your sight.

For example the left column has a login where it’s supposed to keep track of your favorite teams, but if you don’t have a log in then it’s completely useless space in prime real estate. Even if you do have a log in, it’s of questionable use because it clutters the homepage.

In general the homepage gives off a cluttered, almost claustrophobic feel and other than the main picture and singular main story, nothing really stands out. My gaze keeps drifting over to the right right column where ESPN has a feed of tweets. Frankly, if I wanted to see what was being said on Twitter, I’d go on Twitter. This right column doesn’t add any useful information while drawing my interest away from where the information I want is.

The so called “Top Headlines” are in a relatively small font and has nothing to make them stand out. Even just making them a bigger font or bolding them would be a huge leap forward.

If I were to design this site I’d remove the left and right columns. Then, like the old design, I’d list the top headlines to the right of the main image while the area beneath the image is taken up completely by the main headline and article preview. Then there would be a clearly demarcated section below that for login/info on your favorite teams once logged in. Then a clearly demarcated section below that for features writers/articles. Then one last clearly demarcated section for featured tweets. 

That’s just off the top of my head. I might want to switch the personalized stories and featured writers section. Or maybe make an option as to which sections to include and where to include them for each user’s personalizes homepage once they’re logged in.

Basically, the most important thing would be to not minimize the latest news stories as this design does. As of now when I visit ESPN, I know longer get pulled into any of its breaking news and just go to look at whatever I wanted to when I went in or I scan the homepage and leave if I didn’t have a specific task. And because of this I visit ESPN less often.

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Great book!

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Good Design: Lumio

You may have noticed the picture I chose with my first post. It’s a picture of the Lumio, a wonderfully designed lighting device. I picked that image because it resembled a sunrise signifying the start of a new journey without being so on-the-nose and cheesy. Also, it’s pretty in its own right. 

The Lumio is the product of an incredibly successful crowdfunding campaign and was recently featured on Shark Tank where the creator was offered deals by all 5 sharks.

It’s easy to see why it’s been so successful in both these arenas. You don’t have to be an expert to see it has a truly wonderful design. In fact, I’m going to break down the ways in which this design succeeds into two categories: Aesthetic and Utility.

1) Aesthetic Design

Put frankly, the Lumio is beautiful. There’s no denying it. I mean, I was able to use it as a substitute for a sunrise.

The wood casing is gorgeous and book design makes it inviting and easy to carry. But the real treasure is when you open it, you’re greeted with this pop up accordion glow. 

It invokes a sense of childlike wonder. So much so, that even though you know it’s coming, it’s still a bit of a surprise each time and you can’t help, but smile at it. There seems to be something almost magical about it.

I think this is due in part to the pop up book nature of the device, which is deeply rooted in all our childhoods where it’s connected to emotions of surprise and joy. But I also think it’s the simplicity and other worldliness of the glow. They got just the right level of light. Not so little that it doesn’t do it’s job, not so bright that it’s anything other than comforting to stare at.

This level of light is perfect for reading in bed without keeping yourself up or disturbing a partner, setting the mood, or providing light for an outdoor space while you share drinks with friends. The fact that the light can inspire thoughts of all these pleasurable experiences in my mind is the ultimate in aesthetic design.

2) Utility

I’m going to break this section down further into 3 separate groups

a) Portability

It’s a small device, but not tiny. You can bring it with you on vacation or a summer evening picnic or anywhere you want. It would easily fit in any bag. 

b) Ease of Use

It’s literally as simple as opening a book. That’s all you have to do to get this product to light up. If your product is simple enough to use that an infant could probably figure it out, you’ve done a good job.

It recharges with a micro USB port. If you have a smart phone, you’ve used a micro USB.

c) Multiple Uses

I’ve hinted at this throughout this post, but one of the best things about the Lumio in comparison to other lighting products it’s that it’s easily used in a number of different ways. 

It can be opened as much or as little as you want based on how much light you need and can stand on it’s own no matter how much it’s open, from a quarter of the way as a reading light to a full 360 degrees as a table centerpiece. It can also be hung or using the magnets in its back attached to a metal post of some sort.

The truth is that the Lumio stands out. It draws attention. It’s a light, it’s not exactly something new. There are millions of lighting products out there. But what makes the Lumio different and innovative is it’s design.

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Allow Me To Re-Introduce Myself...

Hi, world. My name is Neil Prospect and I’ve started this blog to catalog my journey through the UXDI course at General Assembly in New York for which I am equal parts excited and terrified. (Ok, I’m more excited than terrified, but “equal parts” just makes that sentence flow really well and the fear is real).

I’m entering this course to build a new path for myself doing something that truly interests me. So, to get to why I need said new path, let’s take a look at my background first:

I graduated college in 2008, so perfect timing for the economic crash (although, the job market was already on life support before the banking collapse dropped a figurative weapon of mass destruction on it). 

My wonderful sense of timing combined with no clear idea of what I wanted to do to set me forth on a long journey of meandering futility. I had graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a minor in Creative Writing. This led nearly everyone to believe that I wanted a career in politics, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I had become interested in politics partially out of a strong sense of morality/empathy, partially out of having very strong and loud opinions, and partially out of the type of thinking it asks you to engage in. Critical thinking, analysis, problem solving. Politics provided me with hours and hours of it.

And so it naturally followed that I would want to spend my time on that time of thinking when I went to the place where you’re supposed to spend your time thinking. College. 

I think most people view my Political Science degree as merely ... well, I honestly don’t know what they think my classes consisted of because they seem to assume that it’s scope is limited to entering politics. In reality my studies focused on communications and media, philosophy, history, logic and how to build an argument, and reached somewhat into other areas such as psychology and sociology. 

Maybe people think my degree was in current events. Current events were discussed, but in the context of a larger picture, a collection of ideas, skills, and disciplines that go into how societies function and states govern.

My goal was never to enter politics. That world never suited me. I always felt more comfortable outside that bubble ... perhaps poking it with a stick. Maybe my future was in media or advocacy or maybe something else entirely. After college, instead of staying in DC or joining a campaign, I moved back to my parents house in New York (not that I had the money to stay in DC anyway).

In my dream of dreams I wanted to be a writer, but in reality I would have taken any job I could get. I wasn’t sure what I would like and what I wouldn’t, the best option seemed to be just to get something that my skills would allow me to do and work from there.

Over the course of the past 7 years I have jumped from job to job to job taking whatever I could get. With the economy what it was this meant a lot of unpaid internships or positions where I got paid in an extremely minimal stipend or at best got an hourly wage. 

I’ve had some writing and editing jobs and as anyone in the field will tell you, they were not among the paying (not more than a stipend anyway). Those jobs made me learn the basics of HTML and SEO and promoting yourself online which led me to digital marketing positions.

I’ve worked for content sites, startups, content farms, digital marketing firms, a dive bar, Martha Stewart, and more. Anyone that would offer me work, I would take it. 

And in terms all those hundreds of salaried positions I never got well, some of them I was just one of thousands applying and never got seen, some of them I wasn’t qualified for, some I was over-qualified for (which was a problem despite my insistence that I didn’t mind and that I’d take the less money), some the job got changed at the last second, some someone else was hired by someone at another office without telling anyone, some thought I was perfect for another job that was their pet project that hadn’t materialized yet and never would, and so on and so forth.

I’ve been working hard and trying to scrape by and applying to everything I could possibly be qualified for (albeit in seemingly saturated fields) and I haven’t been able to get anything. I needed to try something different, something new. I couldn’t keep banging my head against the wall and expecting anything other than a splitting headache.

Meanwhile while applying to everything in sight (including jobs all over the country and all over the globe, at companies I despised, and programs like Teach for America), I had come across some articles about coding bootcamps. They were interesting and they offered a chance to change gears and enter a high paying field. Plus, I always wanted to learn coding.

A few problems, though. While I always wanted to learn to code, I wasn’t passionate enough about it to want to do it for 90 hours a week or throw my life into it. Furthermore, a lot of these places only accepted a handful of people and I had almost no coding experience and I lacked passion. Others were really expensive. Too much for something you’re not passionate about. Too much in general as I couldn’t afford it.

A friend of mine had suggested General Assembly classes a lot over the last few years, but (a) which should I take? (b) they were all more expensive than I could afford and (c) they all started like 3+ months away and there’s no way I could support myself for that period of time without income. Besides, I was totally going to finally get that job I was looking for within that 3 months. 

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I noticed an alert on social media about a friend’s business expanding. I was so proud and excited that I went to take a look at the website .... and ... well, I couldn’t help myself but send an incredibly long, very much unsolicited, and extremely apologetic email explaining things about the website that needed to be changed or moved and why.

I was so embarrassed by the email because who the hell am I to tell her how to run her business? But I was just trying to be a friend and help her out with something I felt I had a talent for and enjoyed doing. I definitely enjoyed doing because I spent several hours on this analysis just for funsies.

I recalled a blog post I had read several days before about a UX consultant who did similar things professionally. And this was when I began thinking UX could potentially be a field for me, but I had no idea of how to break into it. 

But as I did a bit of research I realized that this wasn’t my first brush with UX. At a digital marketing firm I worked at we were encouraged to do a lot of reading in the field and stay up to date with new developments. For me the most enjoyable parts of this reading/research was always about user testing and the process of how users engage with sites. I remember wishing I could do that for a living. I think at the time it all fell under Quality Assurance, but it’s possible it was called UX and that terminology simply didn’t register.

So in trying to figure out how to find a way to get a job in UX despite not entirely understanding the field and having no experience in it, I decide to check with my old friend General Assembly. And to my surprise they not only had an intensive UX course, but one coming up in early June and there were payment plan options to help me afford it.

It was still a monumental risk, hence the terror currently taking years off my life, but sometimes you need to take risks. Researching UX has been like an epiphany. This is where I belong. It’s something that employs all the skills and types of thinking I enjoy. It’s creative and inventive and challenging. And most all look back on all the applications and interviews, this seems like something I’d enjoy more than 99% of those positions. 

UXDI will provide me with the skills I need to work in the field and a portfolio, so I can walk into an interview with confidence and show them what I can do. 

This is a scary leap I’m taking, but it’s one where I should land comfortably at a new start to my adult life. I’m excited to see what I can do.