I recently had the opportunity to take Edward Tufte's one day course, Presenting Data and Information. Tufte is the master of the subject, and everything I've heard about his course was positive, I can now concur and recommend that anyone interested in data visualization and usability should take this course of you have the chance, it's really quite affordable and you get a set of his books with registration.
Usability Principle #1: You can't join the party if you can't find the front door.
Monday night, after using the three-day weekend to re-landscape my front yard and launch my new un-business, I faced the reality that I had to get to San Jose for the NetSquared Mashup Conference at 8am. (The day after a three-day weekend seemed a strange scheduling choice.)
I went to the NetSquared site to find the conference location.
This proved surprisingly difficult, as I couldn't find any link referencing the logistics of the conference. After clicking back and forth through 20 other links featured above the fold, I found it discretely hidden in a side bar labeled "Hot Spot."
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What I didn't realize until later was that the address didn't identify the building number (Cisco has 2 blocks of buidlings with the same general address). None of the the employees I asked in the parking lot had any idea where the "Vineyard Conference Center" was. Should I be looking for grape vines?
Yesterday I met CiviCRM co-founder Dave Greenberg to discuss potential usability improvements to CiviCRM, an open source constituent relationship management system. Dave is heading to Australia for the CiviCRM retreat and wanted to have wireframes in hand. Dave suggested we start by focusing on two specific pages: the Contact Summary and Search Results pages. A newbie CiviCRM user, I hoped my "beginner's mind" would help me understand the "pain points" our clients feel in using the new system. I quickly realized that I'd need to have a better sense of how people typically use CiviCRM in their daily workflow.
Here's a call-out to those who regularly use CiviCRM:
1. What do you use CiviCRM for?
For example: I use CiviCRM for our contributions database, our donors database, and our customer database.2. What are the most common scenarios in which you use CiviCRM (that specifically involve the Contact Summary or Search Results pages)?
For example: After receiving a few contribution checks, I go to the specific contacts to record their contributions.3. Describe the click path you use to accomplish your actions.
For example: Home>Search Results page>Contact Summary>Contact: Contributions tab>New Contributions4. What are your "pain points" on the Contact Summary or Search Results pages? Do you have any specific recommendations as to how to improve them?
For example: I think the "select records" radio buttons should be ABOVE the "print" and "more actions" buttons/drop down.
For example: I think there should be "Edit" buttons in each section of the contact summary page, not only at the top. Perhaps a "pencil" icon next to each collapsable field set that allows you to edit the date just in that section.Post your comments here!
Recently Ron pointed my attention to Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons From Eye-Tracking Studies. Interestingly, someone from virtual hosting emailed us about the study as well.
I found 6, 10, 19, 20 of particular interest, especially for sites that are already built. These items are largely related to content strategy.
I had a conversation earlier this week with Mindy Herman, and I mentioned that one of our clients had done eyetracking on some visual designs for their site, and she was fascinated by the technology.
This proved surprisingly difficult, as I couldn't find any link referencing the logistics of the conference. After clicking back and forth through 20 other links featured above the fold, I found it discretely hidden in a side bar labeled "Hot Spot."
.
What I didn't realize until later was that the address didn't identify the building number (Cisco has 2 blocks of buidlings with the same general address). None of the the employees I asked in the parking lot had any idea where the "Vineyard Conference Center" was. Should I be looking for grape vines? 
For example: I think the "select records" radio buttons should be ABOVE the "print" and "more actions" buttons/drop down.
For example: I think there should be "Edit" buttons in each section of the contact summary page, not only at the top. Perhaps a "pencil" icon next to each collapsable field set that allows you to edit the date just in that section.
Post your comments here!
I had a conversation earlier this week with Mindy Herman, and I mentioned that one of our clients had done eyetracking on some visual designs for their site, and she was fascinated by the technology.
