User Experience Notes

Observations and critiques of user experience models and designs from the internet and offline.

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Youtube has started showing their sign-in/register commenting requirement only on rollover of the comments box. Less is more, you don't need to know such info unless you want to comment, so a smart move.

NICELY DONE

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These password rules demonstrate how to ensure all visitors forget their passwords by the next time they're back. Courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service.

POORLY DONE

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Google's Chrome browser recently introduced graphical buttons within a control dropdown, not something you see very often. The convention is that a dropdown disappears once you click on an item, so this breaks consistency, as when changing zoom the dropdown remains. Nonetheless it's a good choice for zoom, as you really want to play with the level until it feels right, and it'd be annoying to have to re-open the dropdown for each adjustment (which is in fact how it happens in many programs and kind of sucks.)

Graphical buttons for cut/copy/paste are a different story - they don't provide much improvement over 3 separate line items other than saving space. Nonetheless since they are arguably the most widely known computer keyboard shortcuts, trying to minimize their menu prominence makes sense. 

Google being Google, they'll probably test this quite a bit, so it'll be interesting to see if it sticks, and if so, whether other programs will follow suit.

NICELY DONE

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Courtesy of Microsoft Outlook for Mac, a great example of how not to design auto-completion technology logic. When spam gets through the program's filter, its address is added to Contacts and Recent Addresses, regardless of whether the user deleted the email, thus showing up later through the auto-complete feature.

Yes, please do invite Best US-Viagra to my team meeting. Hell, can we call and see if some Nigerian millionaires can make it as well?

Although it is already ridiculous this would happen while typing an email, it seems even more out of place while scheduling a meeting as shown here. Clearly these scenarios got past both designers and developers and are enough of a common annoyance you'll even be able to find an About.com how-to article on how to mitigate them:

How to Delete an Address from the Outlook Auto-Complete List

POORLY DONE

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Clever display of product counts in a filter dropdown. The number tells you how many items you'll see in that set, and the designer has chosen to display it only on mouse rollover. Although this treatment reduces the amount of useful info shown at a glance, it gives an important visual cue as to what row your mouse is on, helps you focus on choosing the one category you are most interested in seeing, and keeps the dropdown uncluttered on an already minimalist site.

From Luigi Bormioli (a site full of clever details. I'll be sure to mention it again.)

NICELY DONE

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Introducing UX notes

Hi and welcome. I am a professional interaction designer, working daily on designing and improving the user experience on a variety of large complex websites. This quick blog is meant as a way to share both good and bad user experience details that I notice along the way, online or off. Hope you enjoy.