Interface Design Blog: the good, the bad, and the utterly unusable...
Online Project Management Tool: unProducteev details make the registration process tiring
Posted on | September 21, 2010 | 1 Comment
One of my clients has switched to using Producteev (www.producteev.com) for its project management tasks. So I had to set it up as well.
Over the time, I’ve used many online project management tools – including such popular ones as 37 Signal’s Basecamp and Pivotal Tracker. But for some reason, none of them seemed to fit the bill entirely. Pivotal, for example, is an overkill for most tasks of a small multifunctional team. It is designed to fit development tasks best. And I could never get over the “story” metaphor – just doesn’t click with me.
I am just setting it up, so not too many comments on the overall usability, but the interface looks simple (yesss!) and clean enough. I didn’t have to learn any new words yet, and things seem to be clearly labeled. So far so good, though that can change once I actually use the tool.
However, when registering, I ended up spending a few minutes looking, of all things, for my Time Zone! There is no indication whether any fields are required (which, IMHO, is an oversight), but either way, I didn’t want to skip this field because for a project management tool a correct timestamp is actually important. So I click on the time zone field, and get this endless list:
Producteev - Where is my time zone?!
After spending a few minutes trying to find San Francisco, I pretty much gave up and treated myself to a quick geography lesson: looking up the exotic sounding names on the world map and dreaming up my next vacation (Rarotonga! Pago Pago! And I had no idea there was a place named Fakaofo!).
What’s most confusing is not just the sheer number of items on this list – but the selection. Names of islands are mixed in with city names, time zones, and I think even some country names. List organization by GMT plus or minus so many hours doesn’t really work. There is seemingly no order to anything. I first looked for San Francisco (the city), then PST (time zone), and finally, mostly by accident, found Pacific Time stuck somewhere between Gambier and Pitcairn. I hope it’s the ‘right’ Pacific Time because there are different ones listed as well (for Tijuana, Vancouver, etc – although it’s still the same time zone).
Despite the frustrating user experience here, I would like to thank the team of Producteev for expanding my geographic horizons. Though it does make me wonder – how often is Producteev tool used in Rarotonga? Wouldn’t it be better to prioritize the places that are likely to have more Producteev users?
Informational Icon Overload
Posted on | September 9, 2010 | No Comments
Traveling through countless world airports, it’s interesting to see how directional signs are used. International airports rely heavily on iconography because of the language variable. Airport’s target users – the passengers - may not speak the language of the country of any given airport (whether they are visitors or are in transit). Basic English signs such as Exit, No Exit, Baggage, etc. are well-recognized, but should a sign get more specific, there is still a chance that even an English word won’t be understood.
So using clear directional and informational icons is really really important in places like that.
Just this past July, while at the Ferihegy International Airport in Budapest, I found myself creating a bottleneck at the escalator, trying to understand all the warning icons posted right at the entrance:
Informational Icons - Ferihegy Int'l Airport Budapest. What dangers await the passengers on this escalator journey??
I did ride that escalator twice but both times didn’t get enough time to digest even a third of these icons. All kinds of terrible dangers were waiting for me on this short escalator ride, and I may have broken a few escalator laws – I will never know.
This experience was a reminder that icons should be used sparingly, only when needed, and unless an icon’s meaning is absolutely clear to the test audience, a text label should accompany it. This applies not just to the airports and other physical environments, but websites, mobile devices and applications.
Mindgames at Toys’R'Us
Posted on | September 3, 2010 | No Comments
In what appears to be an attempt to speed up the lagging evolution by weeding out the slow-brained, Toys’R’Us store in Redwood City, CA put this sign on its automatic sliding glass entrance door. David graciously took this photo for me as my camera was showing no signs of life.
Entrance Only sign at Toys'R'Us
What a fine example of a GUI twilight zone! Expertly blending the internationally recognized STOP/DO NOT ENTER icon design pattern with, essentially, an invitation to enter the store, Toys’R’Us caused my brain gasping for air while trying to reconcile the two. When we approached the glass door, the first reaction was, obviously, to not enter. After all, we all know what a red circle with a white brick across means. In any language and in any country. So, I started towards the other set of sliding doors. Turned out they had a similar (except yellow with a black brick) sign that said “Exit Only”. Which caused me to re-examine the original red sign and this time to actually read the words. Cautiously, we approached the door, still not completely sure if this was, in fact, the entrance (only). It was – the doors slid open.
Fascinating. Being a designer, I come across usability issues on the web all the time. I am used to it. But even in the virtual world, I rarely see something so disconcerting for the brain! When a person going through a sequence of actions on the web, an unclear next step makes a difference between a happy user (bought product, signed up for service, etc.) and an unhappy user (left the website unable to accomplish the goal). If I faced a similar navigational problem on a website, I would have abandoned it and looked for what I needed elsewhere. But in the brick-and-mortar world, we already drove to Redwood City, dealt with the weekend shopping traffic, found a precious parking spot… We weren’t going to leave so easily.
One is left to wonder what made the store managers decide to slap this sign on the door instead of a plain and simple “Entrance”. What bizarre occurrence or faulty logic led to this decision?…
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-11
Posted on | June 11, 2010 | No Comments
- from the trenches: http://live.gdgt.com/2010/06/07/live-wwdc-2010-keynote-coverage/ #
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