I got taken… almost.
Posted: May 9, 2011 Filed under: Perception | Tags: experiences Leave a comment »
I went to a pharmacy near our place. They were discounting winter products such as cough medicine, hand soap, and lozenges for sore throats. (It’s been getting cold in Australia,) So we found them and stood in front of the self where we saw a lot of red price tags. The red tags with prices in big text and small text that said they always give customers discount price. However, it didn’t say how much we can save from their normal price.
I actually don’t know normal price of the product but it has a red tag, I thought it must be cheaper than usual and the tags are only on the certain products. However, I was interested in the real price tag under the ted tag. Flipping the red tag and what I saw was the same price. I almost got taken.
I checked other red tag products and all are the same prices underneath. Psychologically, unconsciously, I was quick to assume the red tags were discounted products. Medicine prices are especially ambiguous to consumers. The pharmacy just made the winter products featured and got my attention.
This thing reminds me of when my sister and I went to an electric store for a TV. When we found what we wanted, my sister checked underneath the price tag. She wanted to know how much they discounted from the previous price. It was lower price than what we were going to pay. Of course, we negotiated. and got the TV with lower price.
The pharmacy and the electric store should have removed the previous price tags. I don’t think they did deceive customers but I felt a small disappointment when I saw the back of the price tags. So my shopping experience wasn’t happy.
A Design Process
Posted: April 15, 2011 Filed under: Design | Tags: thoughts Leave a comment »I have been involved in many projects from small business to enterprise financial, social network, and web applications to mobile devices.
Thinking back to how I design, including user experiences and usability, is that when I start sketching interface, I try thinking of every possibility that users might interact with. Through this process it arise questions about technical constraints. Some of them get solutions quickly but others need time to make decisions. I keep sketching with alternatives to explore the situation a user might have.
My goals are creating experience to support and correspond, depending on the users’ situations.
You could say it is guess work. I concede that even if I had enough research documentations as fact. It would still be guess work. “What if…” are the starting words when I think and sketch the interface.
Quality of user experience could have been already clear at the stage of wireframes. The problems that occur at the wireframe can be solved by design. Yet we might go back to the wireframes to review it or trade-off functions.
It would be great if we could plan every situation for users’ interactions perfectly. So we know the answers of how users would interact and we should always be one step ahead of our user’s situation.
Creating modest but stimulating interaction.
Products which are well situated
Posted: April 12, 2011 Filed under: Interactive, User Experience | Tags: software Leave a comment »I have owned 3 iPods since its first release. They have been entertaining me for the last 7 years, sitting in heavy traffic every morning. Most of the data on my iPod are podcasts. I certainly have been using iTunes but I never liked the system.
When I started using iTunes, I simply organized and played the data but that involved “Play lists” and when setting up podcasts to a Play list, I have to filter them myself, and so on. Now there is another option called “Smart Play list.” I would normally like to play around and figure out those functions, but I with iTunes, I lost interest quickly.
One day I tried to change settings of my podcasts, then, the system synchronized beautifully on to my iPod touch. I was impressed and felt proud of myself. Feeling that I accomplished something – which is a great user experience that makes users feel this way. After that, I added a new podcast subscription and I expected it to sync but it didn’t. I started asking myself why, why, why?
iTunes is for people who don’t have specific goal with it. So the system can manage on your behalf. Yet iTunes is not for people who have specific goals using the system to make their life easier. This is because the system doesn’t allow you to do specific things. The system has its own, certain goals already within the system so that what I am trying to do is out of their scenarios.
Thinking about other Apple products, there is a pattern of “no customization,” “we do it for you,” then “voila.” Their products are very focused about what users will likely do; it’s not what user can do. Most of their scenarios cover for he majority of their users. Great.
However, if you are an unexpected user who is trying to do something out of their scenario, of course you can try but it’s HARD.
I own 3 Macs, 2 iPods. Sometime I feel very nervous pairing iTunes and my iPod because I am also one who might accidentally wipe out all data with one click.
Hell is only a click away.
Books
Posted: April 11, 2011 Filed under: monolog | Tags: work Leave a comment »
Books: It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be./ Rework
I strongly recommend these 2 books, when you FEEL burned out with work.
A Design Process
Posted: April 10, 2011 Filed under: Design, User Experience | Tags: process Leave a comment »
samples
I have been involved in many projects from small business to enterprise financial, social network, and web applications to mobile devices.
Thinking back to how I design, including user experiences and usability, is that when I start sketching interface, I try thinking of every possibility that users might interact with. Through this process it arise questions about technical constraints. Some of them get solutions quickly but others need time to make decisions. I keep sketching with alternatives to explore the situation a user might have.
My goals are creating experience to support and correspond, depending on the users’ situations.
You could say it is guess work. I concede that even if I had enough research documentations as fact. It would still be guess work. “What if…” are the starting words when I think and sketch the interface.
Quality of user experience could have been already clear at the stage of wireframes. The problems that occur at the wireframe can be solved by design. Yet we might go back to the wireframes to review it or trade-off functions.
It would be great if we could plan every situation for users’ interactions perfectly. So we know the answers of how users would interact and we should always be one step ahead of our user’s situation.
Creating modest but stimulating interaction.
My Corners
Posted: March 27, 2011 Filed under: monolog, Photography | Tags: life Leave a comment »
My corner in the morning
See the slideshow: A. Townhall, Sydney 2009
See the slideshow: B. Townhall, Sydney 2009
In 2009, I took photos for 3 months in the mornings after I got off
the bus and in the evenings before I took bus. I stood at almost the
same position everyday. I remembered a movie called “Smoke”, starring
Harvey Keitel as Auggie, who owns a corner shop in town. He takes a
photo every morning. He says he took photos for four thousand straight
days. The corner became his corner.
I’m nothing like Auggie, but I have been seeing people waiting for the
traffic signals, rushing to work, tourists etc; people coming and going for
several years. It’s one of the most interesting corners in the City. So I
started taking photos. Though, I cannot say these are great photos but
I feel excited about how I captured a moment of the day.
This time I’m glad I put them together.
I have been busy these days. That would be my excuse for not doing
anything. I should and can make time for doing this again.
An elevator
Posted: March 22, 2011 Filed under: Everyday Life | Tags: experiences Leave a comment »
Are you happy using your building elevator?
Are you staring at the numbers inside of the box?
I thought it’s interesting to think about the system of an office building elevator as a user, rider, and as a part of everyday transportation. Yet it’s very important.
Hidden action menus
Posted: February 13, 2011 Filed under: Interactive | Tags: experiences, Social network Leave a comment »
I am not a power user of Twitter. Yet I often browse people’s tweets using my iPod Touch. One day I was tapping the application and discovered 6 action menu icons are behind each post. Swiping to the left, it shows all the functions you can use for the post.
I was surprised and don’t know how I come up with swiping my finger to the left. I may have wanted to go back to the previous screen, like we do on the home screen.
It was a late but happy discovery 
IA, UX conversations
Posted: January 23, 2011 Filed under: team work, work | Tags: thoughts Leave a comment »“If two conditions are mutually exclusive but you need both conditions, then you have the situation known as Catch-22”.
I sometimes feel like this when I’m having conversations about IA and UX. Besides we must make decisions as soon as possible. The first thing is that do not waste everyone’s time.
