Cupcakes rank as one of my all-time favorite things in the world. They’re just so cute and yummy.

The next time I have an oven with temperature markings (unlike the one I have now that involves a certain amount of “cooking roulette”), I am SO making these…
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/fractalsnowflake

It’s the end of the year and the common response is to look at what has been accomplished in the last year and ponder what will be accomplished in the coming year.  Who am I to argue with well-established traditions?  And no, people who know me well should not actually answer that question.  ☺

2008, numerically…

1 Nephew born
2 Music festivals attended (Greenfield in Switzerland and Voodoo in New Orleans) – that’s actually a bit disappointing.
3 Papers written for my Masters degree with many more left to write in 2009.
4 batches of cupcakes – this is a disturbingly low number.
5 Places I’ve lived in 2008 – Sydney, Ann Arbor, Hong Kong, San Francisco, and London.
6 SCUBA dives in 2008.  Mostly at the Great Barrier Reef.
7 Countries (or Special Administrative Regions) visited for the first time – Hong Kong, Ireland, Macau, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Thailand.
354 Twitter updates (darcid).

Countless new friends made around the world.
Countless friends that I miss dearly.

2008 was full of travel, adventure and friends.  Hopefully 2009 contains much of the same (though admittedly, a little more stability would be appreciated.)

A few hours ago, I handed in three papers on ergonomics.  I lack the brain power to write about anything else even vaguely related to usability.

Instead, I’ll write about another obsession… cupcakes.

As a reward for turning in my papers, I went in search of cupcakes.  This is what I found…

lemon cupcake

After buying my lovely lemon cupcake (or fairy cake as they are known on this side of the ocean), I found a bench and prepared to devour my cupcake.  The aroma of tangy lemon frosting was divine.  The first bite of the cupcake was, well, disappointing at best.  Dry and dense cake covered with overly sweet frosting.

So it seems that the cupcake shop nearest me is not one that I will be returning to.  That’s probably good for me.  But it’s still sad.

Despite this minor setback, I shall not be discouraged… I have a recommendation for another cupcake shop not too far away.  Will try them when I turn in my next set of papers.

The little things in life and in user experiences are the ones that delight me the most.

Today, I was searching for plane tickets for an upcoming weekend trip.  As usual, I headed over to kayak.com to check out options and prices.  Because I’m currently in the UK, the website automatically displayed prices in pounds and the calendar was displayed in a Mon-Sun format.  I’m still not particularly good at calculating exchange rates in my head, so I switched my “location” to the US via the flag in the upper right corner.  When I opened the calendar again, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was now displayed in a Sun-Sat format!

Most people will never even notice a feature like that, but people will certainly notice when calendars do not match their expectations.

The best user interfaces are often the ones that people never have to think about… the ones that simply match expectations and work!

In the last couple weeks, a lot has changed in my life.  I left San Francisco and headed to London.  I began temporary leave of absence from TW.  And I began working on an MSc (MS for any American readers) in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics at UCL.

Life is an adventure and the next 12 months will certainly live up to that statement.  Wish me luck and stay tuned to my writings (rantings) about the transition back into academia.

A few weeks ago, I was working with a client who was very, very focused on “speed and performance” for a website relaunch.

I’m sure we’ve all had similar conversations with clients.  Probably more than once.

But what is truly meant by speed?  Speed and performance are defined by more than a simple measure of the amount of time required to display information on a computer screen.  How quickly a person can perform their intended task is a measure often more relevant to the overall concept of system performance.

While I know that some websites do seem to load faster than others, I lead the conversation away from technology constraints and quantifying acceptable response times towards the idea of “perceived speed”.  As a consumer of websites, I’m rarely concerned with actual data transfer rates (though the geeky side of me does care) – I’m typically much more focused on being able to accomplish my goal.  As long as the website allows me to efficiently and effectively perform my task, I’m happy. My perception of performance is related more to work-flow than transfer rates.

The idea of perceived performance does not negate the need for proper technological decisions, however meeting the requirement for performance and fast response times is often about more than just data transfer rates.

While my professional focus is on software and websites, every time I interact with an object in the world, I notice the usability (or lack-thereof) of every day objects.

I recently stayed in a hotel that had two lights and one light switch.

One turn meant the left lamp was on and the right lamp was off.  Another turn meant the left lamp was off and the right lamp was on.  Another turn meant both lamps were on.  Another turn meant both lamps were off.

While I would have preferred two switches, I could deal with the way these worked.  And hopefully I didn’t wake up the family member sleeping on the other side of the lamps when I tried to turn my lamp off.

This lead me to wonder how often software applications and websites are built with widgets/designs that make sense to the designers and developers but leave the people trying to use the system for real in the dark about how everything works?  Yes, it is a worn analogy, but it’s an important question… do the people we are designing for understand how things work when we are not there to guide them?

If you deal with fonts, you’ll be amused by this…

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

A couple weeks ago, a friend stopped by my temporary corporate apartment. I asked him to call me from outside my building so I could come down to let him in. He seemed puzzled that I couldn’t just “buzz him in” via the nifty intercom system.

I’ve personally never had much luck with apartment intercoms. My attempts at using them usually result in accidental calls to security. Despite working in usability, I tend to assume it is my own fault when I can’t use software/hardware.

Anyway, back to Sunday evening.

While in the elevator/lift headed down to let D in, I saw this…

“Recent reports of intercom failure have shown that some reported failures have instead been due to incorrect system use.”

Harsh words for someone who is simply trying to use an intercom to communicate with a visitor.

There are many things wrong with the whole story and I’ve put off writing this entry because I wasn’t sure which usability issue was the most critical in my mind. And this morning, I finally decided.

Don’t blame the people who are using your systems! Yes, people make mistakes, but hardware and software should be designed in a way to prevent errors. People are not perfect. Systems are not perfect. Designers are not perfect. But when things go wrong, don’t blame the users!

The visual indicators on the four buttons are not particularly clear. One dot means what? Two dots mean what?

There may be times when changing the system is not possible (the intercom for a rather large apartment building might be one of those things in the short term that is simply too difficult to change). But the solution is not to publicly deride people. That “solution” certainly doesn’t help fix the problem.

There are many other issues at play here, most of which have nothing to do with usability, but for once, I’ll just keep quiet and hope that no one ever tries to contact me via the intercom because I certainly won’t know how to let them in.

Recently (ok, a few months ago) I saw this poster as I rushed to catch a train.

At first I didn’t pay much attention. Then I saw it again. And again. And it made me think.

As a “User Experience Designer” for TW, I spend a lot of time thinking about people pushing buttons. Physical buttons, virtual buttons and, on occasion, emotional buttons.

This blog will serve as a medium for me to discuss my thoughts and experiences with people “pressing buttons for the hell of it!”

Enjoy!