Boxes and Arrows: Comments by rajat julka

rajat julka — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:46 GMT

Just read this entire article and feedback upon the same, I think you have not used xhtml/HTML Dom/javascript DOM to its fullest. If you use them you will see there are minimum cross browser issues.

My experience says that presentation layer should always be different than your logical layer… so take any language … i see people talking lot about java here… we can use tiles for layout managment but ultimately your presentation layer will involve HTML.

XHTML + css2.0 gives you lot of things in the field of accessibility, usability, faster downloads no plugin requirements on your browser….

you article is 3 years old now… if you have created any site without using HTML/JS/CSS please send me the link .. i would like to see how much future insight your article had…. facts speak louder and clearer… :))

rajat julka — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:52 GMT

This is a nice article which talks about creating wireframes instead of working HTML prototypes for the client to have a better and common understanding at the design level phase of the project.

The approach is best suitable when we are working on not very big project may be around 600-900 hours project. Bruce as you said that Sometimes it takes you a while to figure out which one is new and which ones you have already read. you can also just take the jpg’s for the design (with annotation) and import the same in flash and it will only take maximum of 8 hours to give a little interactions (you can just define click events on actual button area to call next screens)... and that can help the user to understand it better and will be more impressive way to present the UI wireframe (now interactive) to the client.

rajat julka — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:40 GMT

Nice approach. but do you really think that making the personas live (by using the design/development team) is no different than having the design team members make persona and profiles on paper.

You have given an example of a Robert DeNiro (taxi driver) but in that case he understands the role by actually being with the orignial driver (not an actor) and the motive behind that is too study the role. do you think in an average size project you can actually take your complete team to an end user environment and then can ask them to think and behave like the end user while making persona’s and even while using those persona’s ,profiles for a usable interface.

This approach may work for a big project which can handle that cost of making the team spent some time to feel and then act (to provide authentic data) as per the persona.

So i think the usability testing with a real set of users is a best approach to the most usable interface. as far as personas are concerned, be it live persona or a paper based thing only .. does not matter that much because both the approaches will document the views of designers and not the actual end user.

Thanks
Rajat

rajat julka — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:40 GMT

Good Article!

Web Anlaytics can be very usefull set of information to test wether the Information Architect has done the job correctly or not.

Web Analytics can help us calculate the difference between “how designer completes the IA work ‘THINKING from user perspective ’ ” and “how the target audience behaves/interacts with the application ‘IN ORIGINAL’ ”.

rajat julka — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:58:28 GMT

This is an excellent article.

Few inputs which you might like to add in your article.

There is another focused way of presenting the “registration” form to the users unlike GMAIL. On the main page of the site user is welcome with a first focused option to “register”. Have a look at www.linkedin.com . It takes the first 3 required fields on the very first page and asks for only “required fields” data entry for the registration to complete.

The emphasis here is usable and simple IA that makes sense to any novice site user for the registration process. Use of less (or only required fields) for the registration gives the breathing space to the page and excites the user that only 7 fields are required to be filled in for getting registered with the site. The less number of fields on the page enables designers to make the text fields appear big/bold/clear that gives lot of comfort to visually week users.

Even if the user is performing the registration process which is not taken with too excitement by web users (usually
because of lengthy forms and all) this simple IA helps in providing exciting user experience for the users.

Another thing which I personally have experienced in our user experience studies and I would suggest that you make should make it as a part of your research is the point of “validation Interaction”. As per my learning in the user experience studies the use of AJAX (asynchronous calls) for validating form fields have further helped in improving the user experience of forms. e.g When a user enters the intended username in the form field and he moves to the password field, the system interacts with the user by showing the message of “status” of the availability of the desired user name as entered by the user. This is an enhanced user – computer interaction where the current context of communication is not breaking as the system has responded to the user that the intended user name is not available and he/she must use another name in order to proceed with the registration process. Otherwise in the old sites (some people who still like to validate the form after the complete data entry by the users) the fields are validated when the data is submitted by the users and then the system tells them that (after entering whole lot of data) there is a problem with the very first field i.e. user name is not available or something, and that frustrates any user (novice or expert).

Meaningful interaction between user and application also enables us to design a rich user experience of form pages.

rajat julka — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:15:34 GMT

Good Article… Erin.

There are a lot more features and concepts (depending upon your target audience) available for social sites but the above points as mentioned by Erin are basic foundation blocks. I believe point number two and three are the most important points for consideration while creating a social networking site. More social interactions/participation on sites with little or simple UI interactions is the mantra for a successful site.

Again… thanks for sharing this nice article Erin… Keep posting :)