I Know By Experience » User InterfaceI Know By Experience

Positive Trends in User Experience: Panel Navigation

Jonathan Firestone — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 16:46:47 +0000

I refer to Mega dropdowns as “Panel Navigation”. It’s much more descriptive. But I do think of it as a huge opportunity to inform the user about the content that lies ahead. You might know this UX pattern by another name. In March of 2009, Jacob Nielson summarized mega dropdowns as “Big, two-dimensional drop-down panels [that are] group[ing] navigation options to eliminate scrolling and use typography, icons, and tooltips to explain the user’s choices.”

Reuters navigation panel example: Opinion category panel

Reuters.com’s implementation of them (as you can see to the right) is probably one of the best and most widely used examples of how you would make use of this type of panel navigation. In this instance, we’re looking at a story within the Reuters site. Imagine that the user has clicked on a link posted to twitter to read an opinion article. The user examines the content seen here, and decides they’d like to see what else catches their fancy. The user then rolls over the navigation and instead of making the user guess as to what might be interesting to them based on simple titles, or more content categories (or topics), the user is presented with something that is entirely different and a hundred times more usable and appealing. A navigation panel that incorporates content into the mix is much more engaging and informative to the user. In this example, the navigation panel is divided into four columns. In the first a few of the biggest active stories within the category of Analysis & Opinion. It appears to be a short-list of stories dedicated to summaries which fall under the Analysis portion of the content. Columns dedicated to “Breakingviews” and “Opinion” feature friendly faces and names of columnists along with the title of their latest column. The column to the far right contains a list of various columns and varied sections of interest within this category set.

Typical Dropdown Navigation Example (From the Washington Post)

This kind of navigation improvement is much more usable than something like what you see to the left. The questions I have to ask are “Is this informative?”, “Does the user understand what will happen next?” I think anything you can do to help the user remain engaged is a good idea, and as you can see this news organization has a dropdown for navigation, but it’s pretty typical. Regardless of how good the information architecture is, the risk you are taking is that the user won’t want to look much farther for items of interest, nor will they have an interest in subsections which might have a lot more to offer the user than just a simple topic. Immerse the user in your world. You’ve got nothing to lose, and technology like this, once you have a syntax to follow can be very easy to implement and maintain. Regardless of what you do, you should test it against your users, just as Mr. Nielsen recommends.

Five Game Changing Gadgets you should expect to see in the next decade

Jonathan Firestone — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:41:01 +0000

Following up on my version of the Best Gadgets of the Decade, I’m providing a list of five game-changing gadgets you should expect to see in the next decade, along with a description of the likely impacts.

Apple Tablet / iSlate - I do believe this is arriving (or at least due to be announced) in January. The iSlate (I do believe it’ll be called that) will be a hybrid between the a Macbook and an iPhone. It’ll be capable of using iPhone apps as well as desktop apps, I believe the specs will be be something similar to what you see on the Macbook Air, but of course it won’t have a cover over the screen. Over time, this product blows away the netbook, laptop and desktop markets, encouraging people to slip their “iSlate” into a monitor, or sitting on a conduction pad connected to a wall screen) instead of having a box sitting on their desk. This product just gets more powerful as the decade goes on, and people like the idea less and less of being tied to a desk, and chunky equipment. Techies of all stripes are struck by the similarities to the Star Trek like “Pad” and shun the traditional thinking of what a computer has to look like or be altogether. Dell has a heart attack wondering how they’ll ever beat Apple without going thinner (attempts to find and purchase a company producing paper-computers and fails) and consequently loses enough stock value that Microsoft sees them as a worthy hardware partner for direct purchase.
SixSense Tech Context Bar – On a parallel path, it’s shaped like a candybar, and interfacing with or as your mobile device — it hangs around your neck. In it’s most miniature versions sits in a pocket like a pocket protecter (we’ll call it the Geekbar) in a shirt pocket, and for men or women, a necklace holding a few small boxes with pinhole cameras and a projector inside – this wearable device originally designed by Pranav Mistry at MIT will blow the doors off you can do with a computer. A wearable computer, interfacing constantly with the net and providing you with an information (and unfortunately advertisement) enhanced reality. This enhanced reality will come with a few different versions, one by Apple using a new version of OS X specifically for their “iBar” version (which replaces the outdated iPhone) using OS X 11ER2 (Enhanced Reality Version 2.0), a Linux and Android/Google OS versions delivered through Asus and other clone manufacturers, and another by Microsoft/Dell partership with a new OS by Microsoft called “Interpreter” (Which makes use of gesture control, or PUI — Perceptual User Interface). The SST C-Bar will be as Pranav has envisioned, something very cost effective (Under $300) and bridges the world between your online world and the real one. Complete, low-intensity gesture control is now standard. Instead of having to go find a surface to work on (a white wall or piece of paper) all work can be done in the air with small motions. Popular culture comically refers to people using earlier versions of the device as “Bats” due to the long nature of the original bar (4″) shaped like a baseball bat and the other aspect of people seen waving their arms around vigorously trying to get the early devices to work properly. This product is so revolutionary that it encourages Apple to outfit their mobile devices with SST Context technology wherever possible.
Untethered VR “Sunglasses” followed by Wearable VR Contact Lenses (closer to the end of 2019) - Complimenting the Context bar, you’ll see Wearable VR tools that will help you see what you’re working with, since complete gesture control is now standard. It’s not necessary any longer to wear a glove or tape on your hands. The cameras, tools and processors now support this tech cheaply. VR “glasses” come in prescription form at $29 a pair, while the contact lenses are $599 on the clone market. Before the end of the decade, you no longer have to have an iSlate, computer or any other computer to initiate VR activity with, you can simply look at a target point on a wall and interface with the local systems to get VR access. Coffee shop customers, no longer content with WiFi, encourage shops to double in size to support the “Batty” activities and arm-waving accompanying the new devices and needs of VR users.
Full-Body Med Scanning Platforms - Rounding out the end of the decade, and fueled by a push to keep the insurance industry in check is a government program to offer complete medical scanning of individuals, with the promise that you can’t be disqualified for insurance or denied low cost insurance for any condition) that will tell you everything about a body’s current status. The scanning also stops sort of full DNA testing, but provides after a quick scan an understanding of all the systems currently underperforming on a patient and aids the doctor with potential support for treatment. Actionable doctor visits are now much more rare, as trips to a Platform is as simple as going to a mall or a nearby facility and tests can be “run” by a registered nurse and monitored by a doctor on staff. The design of the product may possibly come from Switzerland where the Biomedical Scanning Center has been researched for some time. Scans are uploaded to your doctor’s office. The platform is comfortable and easy to use. The patient can be standing, sitting or laying down when the scan is administered, but this gadget revolutionizes disease control as well as providing a clear, up to date status on the overall health of the population. This is a moneymaker for everyone, including the insurance industry, who after having to conform to a partial socialization, have now shifted gears to the much more profitable methods of holistic medicine. Gone are the days of people getting sick all the time and complaints of alien probing are way down.
Greenshoes – Popularized by the green energy conservation movement and the fashion industry, many shoes, tight-fitting undershirts and a resurgence of long underpants called “Huggers” all come with micro-gyro-magnet-charging technology, allowing energy to be captured, stored and transferred to mobile devices, iSlates and other gadgetry as you move throughout the day. Stored energy is delivered to syphon pads that sit unobtrusively under a table, chair or desk. This product begins sealing the formerly broken “circle of conservation” which attempts to re-capture “lost” energy through the use of wind farms, lightning recovery systems, wave-action power plants, gratuitous use of solar panels and now magnets and cantilevers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our little visit to the future and remember to consider those gadgets carefully when you see them. Version 1.0 is always a little “batty”… er… I mean buggy.

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Augmented Reality at the Lego Store

Jonathan Firestone — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Nathan Bowers, a fellow UX Hero for Hire, posted this video about his experience at the Lego Store. First, You hold a box in front of the “Digital Box” kiosk. moving the box around, you’re presented with an image of you holding the box, and the constructed Lego set moving with you as you move the box so you can see the constructed toy in action. Amazing. He’s also absolutely right — this tech should be in use everywhere. Can you imagine holding a suit up to a mirror (or holding it in your hand) and seeing the suit on you virtually? Wow, now that would be wild. Check out the details of his experience here.

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pleased by posterous

Jonathan Firestone — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:53:07 +0000

I am pleased by Posterous. The general user experience for this Web Application/Blogging/Posting tool is really very, very good. I have always urged app makers to tie their sites more closely to email when it made sense to do so — intranets, or extranets for example. I would argue that usability-wise, if you want to produce a blog post, or post media of some kind it makes a lot of sense to go no further than your email app for preparing it, since A) Almost all email programs or web-based services out there support rich formatting, with linking and upload capabilities. Formatting, spell checking and all sorts of features exist in your email program and generally they do it all quite well. Even Gmail. So, this makes posting correctly real easy. B) You also spend a good chunk of your online life in email right? I think it makes all the sense in the world for your blogging access to be close by. I’ll have to add more as I have thoughts on the subject. Now, all I have to do is fix it so if I’m sending a post out, it’s not including my signature line. So Far:

The Good: Very quick setup. They’re absolutely right. And it ties into multiple services easily.
The Bad: I’m not always fond of the interface layouts, but it appears every effort is made to give you the power to make changes. And of course it helps if you know what you are doing with with HTML and CSS (which I do, but haven’t mucked around with yet.)

Next Steps: Next steps are to consider adding other features. The Posterous.com Bottom Line: Way cool, more to come.

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