Showing posts with label usability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label usability. Show all posts

24 February 2010

Invalid Field Feedback Failure

Random musing on UI misdesign

A particular egregious error (seen in websites too numerous to list) is to validate a form, rejecting some field's value as invalid input, and then not telling the user the correct or acceptable values/formats. In other words, leaving the poor user in the dark over what they did wrong.

Only the most motivated and perseverant user will try more than once or twice before simply giving up and going away. And you will fail to capture some information/data the presumably would have been of some value. (Otherwise why would you have constructed a form in the first place?)

Example: Dzone user-profile editing rejects phone numbers entered in a format identical with the example displayed below the phone-number input field, and never provides and explanation of why. Just "Invalid input" over and over again. Result: users do not (cannot) provide valid registration information.

Somehow this failure is even worse when your form absolutely refuses to accept an entry that is perfectly valid in the user's world, but, through your own ignorance or provincialism, you reject as invalid in your own part of the world. A classic example of this crops up on websites requiring a postal-code (zip-code) as part of their input, but insist that postal codes contain exactly 5 or 9 digits. This might be a requirement for valid postal-codes in some parts of the world, but it is patently false for the vast majority of global users. Admittedly this problem has abated some over the past 10 years, but not enough, yet.

So: When you reject a user's input, please tell them how to provide something you will accept. Even better, use input mechanisms that only produce valid values in the first place, and both you and your users will be happier. e.g. Clicking on a map to indicate a position is inherently easier and more error-proof than typing in a latitude and longitude into a textbox.

[Repost from http://mikro2nd.net/bits/Wiki.jsp?page=UIDesign]

01 March 2008

User-interface Reboot

This article by Mr Mirchandani gets it exactly right: UI again ...don't pretty up, destroy!

I have never forgotten the experience of early last year. Our car had been stolen, and we were jumping through the licensing department's hoops to get the old car de-registered, and our new car registered.  Well, 10-year-old, 2nd-hand car, since that's all we could afford with what the insurance company deigned to pay out -- another saga for another day.

First we could not de-register the old car, because it was flagged on the licensing system as "stolen", so no changes to its details are permitted.  WTF?  We could not unflag it, since that would require the police to mark the car as recovered, complete with verification of engine, chassis, VIN and registration numbers.  Eventually we left the matter in the hands of one supervisor who took pity on us as I crumpled in the face of this actively-hostile "information" system.  She solved the impasse by going outside the system: phone calls to a special contact in Pretoria -- "high friends in low places."

Then we had to register the new car.  The details had to get captured no less than 5 times!  Twice, manually by myself, the remainder by the clerk punching a terminal.  And two of those instance involved recapturing the vehicle details from a form still-hot from their system's laser printer.  The system already had the details, yet they still had to be manually recaptured.  This is insane!  Weren't computers supposed to save us work?

29 April 2007

5 Trust Points for Website Usability

For a while now I've been working (slowly) on a new web application; the details are unimportant; I'll talk about the specifics in a couple of months when I'm ready to show something.  I have about 60% of the backend written, and am just starting in on the web frontend.

I am far from being a good "web designer", having the graphic-design and artistic skills of a newt.  The best I can hope for is creative imitation.  It worked for the Japanese car manufacturers, didn't it?  Consequently, I am paying close attention to what works and what irks on other websites, particularly the flow around initial engagement and user sign-up.  Here are the most irritating and unnecessary five things I've figured out.  These are all prompted by stuff I see over, and over, and over again on website after website.  It's getting old.

1. Don't Make Me Jump Through Premature Hoops

Allow me to explore the website. I am entitled to poke about and get some reasonable idea of what the site does, the why and how, before you ask me (or require me) to create an account.

I grant its really not a big deal creating an account, especially since most/all of the details I'll give you initially will be bogus because I have no reason to trust you at first. IBM still, about ten years after filling in a webform on their site, send junk mail (the paper kind) to "Lord Mike" :-)  But there's still some small effort involved in entering a Login-ID, email address and whatever other bits and pieces you require me to fabricate before you allow me into your walled garden.

If I cannot fathom enough detail about the site, if it does not help me to figure out the value proposition it offers me, I will just walk (well, click) away to somewhere else.  The Web is, for all intents and purposes, infinite.  For me to have stumbled across your tiny patch of virtuality was nearly a miracle in the first instance.  Don't block me from finding out whether I want to actually give you my time and attention.

2.  Don't Assume a Trust You Haven't Earned Yet

When I actually do sign up for an account, don't ask me for my whole life history, food preferences, sexual orientation and DNA samples.  I'll just lie, anyway.  I don't really trust you yet.  I only think that your site may have something I want.  This ties into the previous point: The more information I am able to glean before signing-up, the less likely I am to lie to you about myself, the more trust you will have created between us.

For the site I am building, I will be asking for:
  1. Your choice of Login ID
  2. Your email address.
Nothing else.  I don't need to know anything more about you yet; why would I assume that you're willing to give me any more?  I will generate a password and send it to you; I need to confirm that your email address works anyway, and, since I want to be able to send you email, I need you to confirm that you're OK with that, so I may as well send you a password at the same time.  You can always change it to that standard password you use everywhere later, if your browser doesn't remember it for you, anyway.

Incidentally, I just made the sign-up process as quick and painless as it can possibly get, didn't I?  There's only one way to make the process shorter.  Do you really, really need people to sign-up?  I know its an attractive proposition to a certain mindset, but is it really, truly necessary?

As I gain confidence in the site, I may go back to my profile page and fill in missing details, and correct some of the more egregious inventions.  This may take months or even years.  This brings me to my next point:

3. I Am Human, Ergo I Forget.


OK, so you don't burden me by asking for too many personal preferences and details early on.  Well done!  On the downside of that, I will repay your consideration by almost instantly forgetting that I left out details, lied about my birthdate or typed jarblewarblefarble into that form-field.  I know that you can actually make your site more useful and usable to me if I do give you those details, I just was not ready yet.

I suggest that you remind me occasionally.  Perhaps every second or third time I sign in, put a little reminder message on my landing-page, and ask me to fill in one specific piece of missing data.  And make it dead easy for me to do so, either by linking to my profile-management page, or by placing a relevant edit-field right there on the page.  Don't get tiresome by nagging me every time.

And while we're talking about reminders, if you're running any kind of email service, do remind me that I am subscribed, together with my subscription details and your unsub-algorithm periodically -- not more than once a month, but not less than quarterly.  Perhaps in the form of a newsletter.  (You did get my explicit permission to send me email, didn't you?)

4.  Don't Make Me Sign In Again

I'm talking about the phase immediately after initial-sign-up.  I've made the emotional commitment (however small!) to sign-up with your site.  Don't immediately demand that I do more work by signing-in.  I've just told you all that stuff -- login-id, password (twice, no doubt) -- don't make me type it all in again.  You're just being tiresome.

What?  Did you think somebody may have hijacked my IP address in the intervening two second?  That some malware may have sucked your session cookie out of my browser for nefarious unpredictable purposes?  Get over it: you already know who I am (for some value of "know".)

And then, once I am "signed in", don't forget it. (Hello, Feedburner!)

5. Reciprocate My Trust


Having
  1. signed-up for an account, possibly
  2. jumping through the confirmation email hoop, and then
  3. signed-in to that new account
Don't pretend you don't know me!  Don't present me with a page that says

Get an Account with Us!
Here is how:
Step #1: Create an account at Flibertigibbet.com
Step #2: Blah, blah, blah.
Step #3: Blah, blah, blah.

That's it!! What are you waiting for? Get major benefits, make money, win friends, influence millions! Create your account now!
Didn't I just do this?  Who are these idiots?
You just trashed my tentative trust in you.  Goodbye.

06 March 2007

Software That Makes You Angry

Isn't it peculiar?  Some pieces of software are actually an almost physical pleasure to use.  Others make one actively angry.  Or is that just me?

I will refrain from mentioning a specific piece of software, here -- it would just be a distraction.  The software in question has been pissing me off the whole afternoon.  All I want is to make a simple change to some templates.  But it turns into a huge bloody performance: hoop jumping, contortions, hystrionics and hysterics, all resulting in a Resort to Strong Drink.

The software itself is not such a terrible piece of work.  In some places it is excellent, and the rest of it certainly gets the job done.  But the thing taken as a whole just makes me angry.  Microsoft Windows has much the same effect on me.

On the other side of the fence are pieces of software that just slide effortlessly into your life.  When you stop and bother to notice them, they're just... effortlessly there for you.  No muss, no fuss.  They just get out of your way and work.

So what's the key?  I would certainly only like to write the latter kind of software and avoid foisting the former on the world.  I think it boils down to "Do things my way or else" vs. "Let me serve you; here's what I do... I'll stay out of your face, now."

What software pisses you off?  What software do you love?

01 August 2006

How to Screw-Up Your Web2 Application

If I were a marketing guy, I would keep you in suspense right up to the end of this post.  I would waffle on for ages about how and why I'm going to tell you "the secret," and what a super guy I am for letting you in on this.

But I'm a programmer, and time is precious.  All over the web I see this particular piece of egregious stupidity:

Apps that use email addresses as user-ids.

I strongly advise against the use of email addresses as login ids.  Consider the following 2 common cases:
  1. The user changes their email address (due to changing provider or whatever). 
  2. A user leaves the community.  Months/years later another user joins; they have the same email address as the old user, but are not the same person.  Are you going to refuse them entry?
In the former case, if you allow them to change their login to correspond to their new email address, you lose the trail of what they've done over time, since you've essentially changed their identity.

Worse, yet, if you're doing any kind of app that allows the user to build up a history, karma points, reputation, whatever, since you force them to throw away their entire investment in your site.  They may as well go elsewhere.  That history took the user time, energy and effort to build, and constitutes your only real barrier to entry against competitors who want to eat your userbase.

In Summary:

A login-id is an identity.  An email address is not an identity.  It is an address.
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