Man with no Blog » user interfaces

Bad Interfaces – eMusic Getting it Wrong

Gary Barber — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:54:01 +0000

Times have just got to change. I’m a little sick of living in a world that is regionalise into sales and licencing zones for no real reason besides to restrict sales due to some arcane money grubbing corporate policy.

What makes matters worse is people building experiences that highlight this and rub our face in it time and time again!

I regularly buy music online from various places, I tend to favour non DRM music, or if I can buy directly from the artist which is even better – I don’t like iTunes much at all.

Now eMusic, which I use, have recently redesigned and tweaked their user interface towards a very strongly recommendation engine based sales model. Now I have no issue with this at all, in fact I applaud it as a welcome change, as it’s always good to discover new music.

It’s Very Simple

After you have signed in, eMusic knows your country of residency as it’s in your billing profile, they also know your likes, dislikes and previous purchases. Which is good as all this leads to a better browsing and recommendation experience.

Or so you would think.

Below is the home page of the eMusic site after I signed in. It shows you a selection of “New and Noteworthy” albums.

Now seeing as eMusic knows so much about me, I would expect the selection to be tailored towards my tastes; and yes it is, at least a few of the albums on the home page are of interest.

eMusic screen showing new music, and clearly indicating it is not available

However despite knowing so much about me, eMusic goes and destroys the entire experience by not allowing me to purchase ANY of the albums recommended. Due to licensing restrictions in Australia.

Here I am, wanting to purchase an album, but I can’t. To make matters worse eMusic decides to wave a large flag in my face, screaming, “HA HA you can’t buy this”…

Changing the Approach

Now what would it have taken to exclude the albums from being recommended. Emusic you already know they are “Not Available” due to my being in Australia, as we can clearly see this on the screen (above).

So just exclude the items “Not Available” from the query, really it’s not that hard. Just show me the “Available” high rated or new albums.

A recommendation is a waste of time if I can’t purchase it.

Maybe eMusic just wants me to move a few clicks away and download the music for free.

You know I try and support and do the right thing by the musicians, but sometimes the paper pushers just get in the way and destroy the experience.

The model and experience is broken, they need to change.

Bad Interfaces – Technology Leading the Way

Gary Barber — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:28:33 +0000

I don’t mind completing surveys, I even do those phone surveys. Having working with several different marketing teams and conducted countless UX information gathering surveys over the years. I can understand the difficulties of getting a good response from people. So I don’t mind taking the time to complete the odd survey.

Still I have to wonder sometimes if the teams behind the surveys are really understanding their audience that is completing the survey in the first place.

A few weeks back our fence was blown over in a storm. We put in an insurance claim, it was processed, and we got the fence repaired. No issue, good service all round.

Then I get an email request to complete a customer satisfaction survey from my insurance company.

What is Dissatisfied

The survey seems very standard. Besides being inaccessible in parts if you only use a keyboard.

All was good until we (partner and I) complete a question that asked us to rate the service from 1-10 (10 being outstanding). We gave them a 7. The survey responds asking why we were dissatisfied. We weren’t. We just rated 7/10. Not perfect, but not dissatisfied by our ranking. But the survey consider the rating of 7/10 as dissatisfied as it changed the questioning to suit.

This assumption, that if it’s not a 9 or 10 then the customer must be displeased, doesn’t in anyway take into account the personalised rating scale of the customer. We may never give a score of 10 or 1. We could be very happy with a score of 7/10, as we were.

Lesson to be learnt here is that you can’t assume that a 7/10 or even 6/1o indicates a negative emotion or dissatisfaction from the customer. This type of survey gleans towards a negative bias or an over inflated towards the extreme positive.

Now that was a minor issue compared to the next one.

Doing the Likert Scale

The presentation of a Likert scale question is never easy. A UX professionals we are always looking for a new way to present a question or interface without promoting any bias.

However when we were presented with the following question. We both starred at the screen for a good minute before we could jointly work out what was required.

Alternative likert question layout in feedback survey

What you are meant to do, and it took us a few goes to work this out, is drag the card (on the left) to the response boxes (on the right) and drop them there. They then appear as a box with text in within the response area.

There are a number of issue with this interaction:

It’s very different to the traditional layout, it was completely outside what we were expecting.
Initially you can read the page question as “How would you rate your experience in terms of:” Answer – “Extremely, Very, Reasonably…”
You may ignore the small help text “Please drag each item to a category”
You may ignore that card completely
There is no indication as to what an “item is” or what a ”category is”, they mean the card or questions and the possible answers (on the right).
The process of reviewing or moving categories isn’t as smooth as it could be.
There is bias to dragging the cards (items) to the responses (categories) at the top of the page.
It’s only usable with a pointing device.
I just don’t even want to think about the accessibility of this.
I still don’t know what the “+” buttons on the responses do.

Yes it’s fine when you workout what to do. But most people aren’t they concerned about the survey and are likely to leave if the question layout breaks a mental model.

Overall it just seems to be a fancy “cool” javascript insert, that frankly should have been killed off or tweaked to make it usable.

This is a classic example of a new interaction technique not being the best delivery method. Sometimes the cool tech is just not the best way.

Now the concept is still valid, but it just needs a little more refinement, and maybe a little proper user testing and it would be an innovative interface.

Still sometimes I do wonder if these insurance firms employ anyone to consider the user experience of their customers.

The Core UX Reading List

Gary Barber — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:13:29 +0000

I get asked this a lot. “What are the best UX books to read?”

In true UX tradition my answer is depends.

It depends on your experience as a UX practitioner, your experience with scientific research methods, psychology, interaction design, user interface design, product or visual design and your level of communication skills.

Still having a list of starter books would be handy.

Yeah sure others have their lists from the likes of Will Evans, Paul Seys and Nick Finck however some of the books on these are either too complex (for someone new to UX) or take way to long to get to the point. Bit like this post.

So here is a list of books I would pick as the must read UX books.

So what are your killer must have UX books, I’m sure they are few that are different to the list above.

Heretical Ideas – Stop Redesigning

Gary Barber — Thu, 12 May 2011 01:00:36 +0000

If you work with a client long term or are part of their internal team chances are you will see a number of redesigns of a site.

Over the years I have come to question why we constantly redesign things every few years. It’s usually a change in directional branding, a facelift. As if a website is just a fashion accessory that must be changed as the trend of the season passes by.

Problem is to often I see the same mistakes being made time and time again. The same old issues reoccur, as the central cause; lack of audience conversation and engagement is ignored.

All the corporate knowledge of one design is often thrown away as the new design comes in. Resources are wasted as we rebuild and redesign the same old wheel, just this time it will a green with a pink flavour.

Business Fashion Take

Now I can understand why sometimes you need to seriously redesign the visual elements of a site:

It gives a clear break from the mistakes of the past
A distinct rebranding or look allows for a change in attitude
Modernisation of the look and feel to match the latest trends
Allowing for a reworking of a site to make it more flexible to future changes
Take advantage of the latest technology
Allow for integration of secondary service like social media
Take stock and inventory of the site and review it’s direction

However just consider the audience for a moment.

Audiences Fashion Take

A good deal of the time the audience and users of a site are not on the same page as the business:

Major changes are a pain, you can’t find anything
Confusion over changed branding
Apprehension over use of new technology
Fear of breaking elements of the site
Loss of previously saved information

The Alternative – Transforming Design

What we need is an alternative to the endless and costly redesign process.

A redesign should be realigning the site back to the core values of the business and requirements of the audience. In the old days of web design this would mean a complete redesign.

We now have “easy to use” template based CMS, use of rapid design frameworks for responsive design with a solid but very flexible multiple platform interface. This gives us a lot of freedom and the ability to make wide ranging minor changes as we go.

Sure you can still plan and design the concepts for a redesign in one go.

But the key here is to roll them out in stages or as a slow piecemeal redesign of elements of the site. Any design needs to be adaptable, flexible and agile to the responses.

Combine these minor deisgn changes with A/B and preference testing and you can very easily determine which direction is the better in terms of usability.

This will result in a slow change of a site overtime, they can be fully qualified as soon as they occur. You can expect that over a year a site will morph from one design to another.

A kind of gradual morphing, transformation. A transforming design.

The Advantages

There are distinct advantages to using a transforming design process:

The budget is spread over a greater time period,
There is a easy acceptance from the users,
Rapid and responsive to issues as they arise,
Rebranding can be rolled in slowly and morphed to a new direct as required,
Sliding integration of older marketing campaigns with new ones.

Something to consider using transforming design, instead of the usually slash and burn redesign.

Bad Interfaces – Getting Dates Wrong

Gary Barber — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:05:29 +0000

When you use an interface it’s the little things that help make it either a pain or just outstanding.

Sadly, too often we have to put up with the bad interfaces.

In light of this I will from time to time be producing a few articles focusing on specifics of bad interface design and implementation practices.

First one off the ranks is date fields and calendar pickers.

This interface element never really seems to work the way you want it to. Making the overall experience very frustrating.

Date Format

To often you will see the required format for a date field indicated (dd/mm/yyyy).

Now this is good in that you now know which way to put the day and the month, but that’s about it.

What if you want to put in a date as – 1/5/11 or maybe 1.05.11 or 1-12-2011.

All of these are valid notations for a date. But for a poorly designed website they produce an error message.

How easy would it be for a developer to just allow for these other formats.

Or better yet allow for a freeform written date as well like - 1st May 2011, Nov 2 2011, or 21 December 2011.

Again a little more work on the programming side of things, but the ease of use would be outstanding.

Commonwealth bank online form showing restrictive date format use.

Restricting the Input

If you really must restrict the input then take a look at the airline industry. They will often use select lists of the possible dates, this makes it easy to pick the date from the list without any confusion, still not as fast as typing in the date however.

An example of restricting the date field format without pain.

Forced use of a Calendar Picker

Now I can understand that calendar pickers are great idea when you aren’t sure of the date in a relational sense.

However there is nothing worse than being forced to use a calendar picker to fill in a field, especially when you know how to type in the date, you even know the date in question.

Yet it’s assumed you need assistance to find the date. This is like escorting an able bodied person across the road.

It’s a very bad idea to treat your customer as idiots.

Activation Buttons for Calendar Pickers

The way we active a calendar picker needs to be obvious. However too often the way they are designed is with no consideration for the general community.

The activation buttons can be way too small, obscure or just make us unsure what they do. As is the case in the calendar picker from the Public Sector Commission.

PSC calendar picker launch button, indicated by arrow, very obscure as to what they all do.

Launch Window for Calendar Pickers

It’s very important a calendar picker is launched nearby to the date field it will populate.

From an accessibility view point it is extremely critical a new window is NOT launched for a calendar picker. As this will disorientate the screen reader or maybe invisible (off screen) for a screen enlargers.

However it seems time and time again we are seeing calendar pickers launch in new windows, often over on the other side of our screens. Often to get lost below the windows we have open.

In this modern age of web development why can’t a modal box just appear within a page in the right place.

Calendar pickers, shouldn't use a new window.

Clear Large Buttons on Calendar Picker

When you use a calendar picker you want it to be very clear what those arrows on the picker are for. Do they move the month back and forwards a month, year or a quarter. If there are multiple buttons what do they all do. The intent of the buttons needs to be very clear.

Never assume for example that you know the two arrows together means back/forwards a year .

Still even if you a have the buttons labeled well, you need to ensure they aren’t too small to use. Sure the 20somethings building the site might be able to use them, but can the site’s audience.

Use of larger buttons and dates on the calendars would make it easier for the ageing members of the community to use the calendar picker too. The example below is just a little too small.

Example of good navigation, however the buttons are a little small.

Smart Logic

Any calendar picker should follow the business logic of the application or form it’s supporting.

For example if you are dealing with a reporting function you generally don’t need to be able to navigate future dates. If there is a restriction to 60 days in the past, then this needs to be implemented into the calendar picker as well.

A little smart logic can go an long way. For example of you are using a start and end date, once the start date has been picked, restrict the end date to being after the start date.

Yes all this seems logical, pity it’s not being done.

Example form for report generation, but future end date is possible

The Key to it All

To often people are being forced into series of rules or procedures that just go against the way they normally think and operate.

This should not be happening. We aren’t operating in the age of 3270 green screen terminals and mainframes. The interface should not be restricted.

The reason for all these problems are happening comes down to:

Lack of any interaction design at the beginning of the design process.
Lack of thinking through the way real people are going to use the system.
Lack of real users (not developers) testing a system.
Lazy development, taking the quick easy way to build an interface.
Designing and building for easy development, not easy use.

So next time you are implementing or designing a calendar picker or date fields, take a moment and think about how people will use it, not the way you want it to be used.

Less is not always More

Gary Barber — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:00:24 +0000

There seems to be a trend of late to take the minimialisation of interactive design to the extreme. Now I’m all or minimialisation and making user interfaces simipler.

You know making an interface streamlined to just the solid functionality of the interaction and no more.

I have been noticing a very frightening tread. In an effort to make things more usable, we are designing interfaces without the very functions used to support usability in the first place.

It’s a bit like stripping back a breakfast of toast and coffee to just a single shot, in a paper cup and plain crustless white bread. Yes it’s eatible, but where are little extras which make it a plesant experience.

Sadly with the removal of usability functionality the component of the accessibility quotient of a design also takes a very large if not fatal hit.

Streamlining an interface isn’t a simple task of just removing a few things, it’s a pain staking process of failure after failure as we tweak the interface, slowly taking it back to its core functionality without removing usability.

Even the best interface and interaction designs had a hard time doing this. So why are just removing things with out any thorough.

Some examples of critically removed elements would be:

Any helper prompts from a form.
Any indicators for which feids are required, especailly on complex forms.
Field lables (names) themselves, especially on the username password pairs for login feilds.
Keyboard highlighting on form fields when navigating with a keyboard.
Grouping of fields on complex forms into like chunks, even if progressive disclosure is used.
Completely removing all word based labeling from buttons, leaving only confusing iconography.

Why is this happening. Well I can’t say first hand why, but I can damn well draw some conclusions.

Deleting Usability

The visual design is compromising the usability. You know all those extra elements (as mentioned above) well they can often look ugly and clutter a page, so from a design view they just need to go, or be hidden. Afterall we want to make things simple and neat.
Following the Leaders

There is a misguided following of the interactive design and usability principles. Too often younger or inexperienced designers will follow the trends that they see on mass, without real regard or thinking of the implications of what they are doing. They just see some wanky “big name” designer doing it, so it must be right. Often the truth is it isn’t at all.
Misunderstanding

Yes they may have read a few blog posts on minimialisation or discussed it second hand with a few other misguided designers. But overall what they should be doing is spending a little time on some professional development, read some of the authorittive some books on the subject, attend a few UX conferences. Get to understand the topic in full. Practice it, test the outcome, fail, fail, fail and learn from the failure.
Testing

Test with real people. Yes I know it’s obvious. however testing with the auidence of the interaction you have designed for will reveal very quickly the issues. Of course the testing has to be conducted correctly without any bias. Script testing will not cut it at all.
Only Good Reviews

To offen they will look towards “their peers” on some designy forum, which will just back slap them and tell them they are awesome. Being told something is great, is well nice. But frankly in order to become a better designer you need to know what is wrong as well as what is right. You need to get a fair review of your work. This is the fault of the communtiy and a core of various backslapping designers.

In a way these designs aren’t bad. Just lacking in understanding of what those small details are they have stripped away.

They have their heart in the right place, but in reality it’s as if they where desiging sites with CSS with an old school table layout. They are just lacking the bigger picture.

So if you are in this school or think you might be. I’m not having a personal go at you. As a designer you need to leave your ego at the door and think only for the betterment of the design.

All I want you to do is stop and think.

Good Work Bankwest – just a few things missing…

Gary Barber — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:20:30 +0000

Bankwest * – a local Western Australian centric bank, that has recently redesigned it’s web site. Now the interesting thing with Bankwest is that they have been slowly over time improving their site with each redesign. Making the site more customer focused and less about the bank, more about people.

This most recent redesign seems to have taken that last final leap towards a customer centric service, leaving the stuffy old school bank image behind.

Keeping it Simple.

The main thing that really hits you on the home page (see below) is that the site has been simplified. Making the Search function a key element over the site structure. Pushing aside the minor items and focusing directly on the major functions people are visiting the site for. In this case focusing on the online banking.

Overall in general terms the site is easy to use.

The site is simple, streamlined back to the core functions, something a good number of other corporate site could do with considering.

Bankwest Home Page March 2011

It’s Not Perfect.

However it’s not all rosy, after a few minutes on the site a good number of issues became apparent. Here are just a few.

From an accessibility view point Bankwest is failing in its legal obligation, which I find very interesting considering they are displaying an accessibility statement.

For instance the search form could have done with using fieldsets and having a label for the search field.

Looking at the source code is going to make any web professional cry. It’s a mash of div soup with inline styling and javascript called within the body using old school methods, and not an unobtrusive script in sight. This is a shame, here you have what is clearly a good interactive design, but it just has a poor implementation.

Bankwest second tier page example with closed information boxes March 2011

The site is made up of three tiers or levels of distinct pages styles.

A really good aspect of the site is its responsive design (not fully extended to the tablet level yet). It fails on the ipad portrait display and rotation back to landscape. But this really isn’t a major issue.

Also have the core of the navigation is on the left in two tiers, again breaks the corporate mold.

Accessibility and Readability

I have however noted there is no use of ARIA (for accessibility) within the site at all. Which is a shame as using ARIA roles is really easy to implement.

I also suspect that the design team working for Bankwest are all under 35, as a lot of the visual accessibility issues would have been picked up otherwise.

One major issue is the use of text over image backgrounds. Even with the ghosted colour fills, there is still a problem with the readability of the text.

First off this is going to be hard for anyone over forty to read quickly. Remember reading quickly is a thing we tend to do on the web.

Also people with any cognitive issues, which includes the aged, are going to have an issue reading these sections as well.

This readability issue gets worse with the smaller header and footer menus. Having a roll over background doesn’t really help if you can’t work out what the menu item is in the first place.

Consistency and Layout

Their are a few layout issues as well with lack of space for long titles on menus. Again it seems the implementation team wasn’t talking with the user experience team, which is a little sad.

I would be interested in knowing what the usability testing outcomes were for the positioning of the online banking login menu at a lower level. As it’s a little hard to locate. I would have recommended the colours and design be consist through out the site. Continuing on from the home page.

Bankwest second tier page example March 2011

Good with the Bad.

A good aspect is the use of the micro pages revealed via the tabs, this is a good example of streamlining the content down to minimal amount to inform the customer.

However looking at the code, these elements are hidden by a display:none. Making these hidden elements inaccessibility to screen readers. This is a major issue. A better way would have been to clip or reduce the height of the hidden text areas.

Bankwest second tier page example with automatic menu closure - March 2011

Don’t Use On Hover

Another issue occurs when the screen is reduced in width – the top menu reduces down to small sidebar. Now the problem is this sidebar, automatically expands on rolling the cursor over the home button to the left (see above).

Not a problem you think, saves you a mouse click.

Think again, maybe I didn’t want the menu to expand, what if I have shaking hands this will make it very hard for me to use this part of the site. Again an issue for ageing customers and the like.

Using a click would have been a better alternative.

The Happy Banking Tab.

Minor issues also result from visual confusion, for example the Happy Banking (bottom left) looks like a tab, but appears to be just eye candy. Makes you feel a little stupid when you go to click on it, and nothing happens.

It turns out this tab expands when you save a product. Okay that’s good, but how to I close it – using the standard X button.

But it takes a while to work out how to reopen it! You use the star at the bottom of the screen – yes it did take me a while to see that.

This functionality should have had two or three ways to achieve this open / closing of the hidden region, for instance using the tab itself.

Bankwest third tier page example March 2011

The Lower Pages.

The final tier of pages relate to the product detail pages, these are well presented with only a few minor issues, in general the design is good example of getting the lower level content right, especially if you consider these pages are the final sell of the products to the customer.

Now the star of the product pages is the credit card accounts page. You can compare and build your own comparison matrix dynamically, this is a wonderful little tool and shows just the type of thing that is possible.

Give Bankwest some Feedback.

Now this is just a quick review, but you can also provide Bankwest feedback on their new site too.

So it you think it’s cool or trash, go tell them. Big ups for Bankwest being open and taking on board the customers views.

Now I’m not expecting Bankwest to even read this post, be nice if the relevant people did; as this information has been provided to help them improve. Consider this a little free professional feedback from someone that works in the area of user experience, interface design and accessibility on a daily basis.

Oh and Bankwest if you want to discuss this with me, you can contact me at radharc.

* – Disclaimer I am a Bankwest customer, however in many ways that makes me very critical of anything Bankwest does.

Usability is Dead, it’s the Experience or Nothing

Gary Barber — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 01:00:13 +0000

What happens when the usability of a system is bad, can the overall (user) experience of the system save the day?

How important really is usability to the big picture.

During a recent project I had the opportunity to observe (in an ethnographic capacity) people using a system that had an unending list of shortcomings.

In fact I still haven’t really found anything the system did well. Yes it was a UX horror story.

The people using the system where amazing, they had taken this poorly designed and contrived system and turned it into a workable, functioning, and productive series of procedures and sometimes supplementary systems.

They had worked with the bad system. Seen the issues, studied them, learnt the system, coped with the shortcomings. They had just made the best over time of a very bad unproductive system. They had studied and learnt the system despite the bad usability present.

Bad Usability Rules

This got me thinking. We all see very bad usability examples around us all the time. Things that you know should never have occurred. We put up with them and move on.

Surely there are enough usability people in the web industry (and beyond) to fix all these issues?

Well it seems there isn’t.

There is barely enough designers and developers to really keep up with the demanded. Even if we train development teams in the art of usability we will still be behind the eight ball on this one on the cost verses demand.

Bad usability is so entrenched in some places that it’s doing to take generations to get over it at this rate.

Jakob Nielsen tends to think that Usability on the web is getting better. Maybe it is, or maybe we are just getting better at dealing with it.

Enter the Uber-Adaptable

However let’s just put the possibility of fixing this bad usability aside for a moment.

Consider the human condition, as humans we are extremely adaptable. Just like the team detailed above we learn and work around bad systems.

Overtime the more systems a person is exposed to, the more jobs they have dealing with bad usability, will over time make them more adaptable to using these poorly designed systems.

We often talk about people learning systems in UX circles, but do we consider the longer-term career wide exposure to poor systems and bad usability has on people. Does it build better users.

Maybe we are coming to that point, the point where people are now uber-adaptable.

With over 30+ years using personal computing resources bringing with it generations that have know nothing but 100′s of applications and badly designed web sites. Have we come to the point where usability is no longer a major factor?

Now more than ever before we are just working out the system’s issue and getting on with the task at hand. Working around the bad usability.

The Experience Remains

Now I’m not saying we abandon designing systems and sites with a good degree of usability, far from it.

However let’s consider what makes these bad systems work.

In general I had found it’s the supplementary add-ons people contribute to systems that make them work, that make the experience at least tolerable.

People tend to want to work in environments that are for at least some aspects pleasurable and they alter the environment to suit this goal.

As you know usability is but a component of the overall user experience. Where the usability is the functionality of the ease of use of system. The (user) experience is the emotive and overall feeling, perception, the sum of all the interactions or events.

It’s possible to have a system with a bad usability, but still give a positive experience, mainly due to the supplimentary items overriding the negative aspect of the uasbility.

Usability or the Experience?

It comes down to if you can’t fix the usability, you should at least be looking at the bigger picture and making the overall experience a good one.

After all as people adapt to the bad usability, that is writhe, all that is left when usability dies will be the overall experience.

If the experience is bad… people will just move on.

Stop using PDF and MS-Word Forms

Gary Barber — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:00:26 +0000

Look around the web, you’ll find them all over the place. MS-Word and PDF forms that you have to download and complete. I would be forgiven for thinking that we have not progressed on the web since 1995.

I know I’m not perfect I have been party to this crime against UX as well.

We know they are bad, so why are we still using them.

Let’s Consider

You’re feel inspired to join a professional association. The website seems pretty good, it lists all the benefits. There is a professional air about it. You can see that some of your respected peers are already members.

The annual fees aren’t that much either, well within your budget. You can see at a glance you’ll have no problem with your experience with the membership criteria.

The entire progression through the site has been seamless, almost as if the site was personally responding to your needs and wants alone. It’s been a pleasure considering joining this association.

So finally you press on the “Join Now” button.

The perfect reality is shattered. One brief sentence destroys it all -

“To Join simply download, complete and fax back to us the following PDF document”

This is not a little speed hump in the process.

Its a 10 foot wall! This is a user experience disaster.

Completing a Form

Just consider what you have to do to complete the form:

Often the PDF form can’t be filled out online, or it just doesn’t quite work right.
Download the form.
You print it off.
Find a Pen, that works.
Fill it in.
Find a Fax machine or scan it.
Fax it, ensuring the fax has been sent.
Remember to collect your copy of the fax.

Yeap, it’s just way to hard. Now consider, if we want people to complete the form why are we making it difficult. Why indeed.

Pros

Sometimes we don’t want a Form online.

Over the years I have run into a good number of agencies and corporations who deliberately go out of their way to make it difficult to complete certain forms. They rely on the fact people don’t like to fill in manual forms to restrict the number they get. In a way they are burying the form and the associated process online so you will not complete it.
Writing outside the fields

A manual form can allow for those incidences that an online form designer didn’t consider. You can write outside the fields, in the margins and the like. You may have a small comment box online, but on a manual form it can be limitless.
Easier to update

Sure, you just have to update the link for the downloadable form. However what happens if you don’t have the master document. Do you have to build the form from scratch just for a “simple update”.
Easier to publish

Yes the process of publishing a MS-Word or PDF form is an simple, one. Just upload the form and link to it. But consider the time taken building the form and getting it looking the way you want it. These are the hidden costs.
No special software or skills required

No special software is required. Most businesses have a MS-Office installed. Hence building a form in MS-Word isn’t that greater task. No real specialised skills like “web design” are required. It doesn’t take that long to build them either as all the pesky interaction component has been removed.

Cons

People are lazy

We known that people are naturally lazy, they aren’t going to want to fill in a manual form at all. Maybe it reminds them of an endless victoria bureaucracy of hideous forms.
Easy to add a CMS form

With a lot of CMS these days there are modules or plugins that allow the admin person, with no special design skills, to easily put together a form. These forms often have all the interactive elements such as error messaging and the like. All they need is to be styled correctly in the first instance. They also usually come with default styles anyway.
Electonic records

Provision of an electronic record, whether or not it is in a database allows for easier access to the information, and an increase aspect of data manipulation now or in the future.
Data validation

You can ensure with filters, and data validation that the data you get from an online form is pure and the best it can be. This is very hard to do with a manual form.
No double entry

It’s simple with a manual form you have to enter the data, manually type it into a computer system or at the very least scan it and use an OCR package on the result. This all takes time and resources. Also what do you do with that extra long comment that is too big to be collected and entered into the database.
Easy to development a custom form

Years ago designing and developing a form for a developer was a long process. But today with frameworks, form generators, specialised form tags and the like it is possible to build a form in a tenth of the time. This really eliminates the complaint of it taking too long doesn’t it.
Cost effective user experience

Overall if you look the process, sure building a PDF or MS-Word form may appear initially to be cost effective, but if you consider that it’s just not going to be what people are expecting. You are going to loose potential transactions with an manual form. They have started the process in the online world of the web, they expect to complete it there simply and efficiently.

Next time a client sends you a PDF form or worse a MS-Word document to be placed on a site as a form. Stop.

Have a chat with the client, discuss their real needs and the purpose of the form. If they really honestly want people to complete the form then realistically it has to be online.

Failing at Design

Gary Barber — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:15:56 +0000

I was talking to the local UPA Perth chapter (in formation) about aspects of UX visualisation. It was an interesting topic that brought up a good number of discussion points.

One point was on the design process. The way we design. The way that we just don’t allow ourselves time to fail at the design. Or if we do, it is hidden in the back room so we can appear to be “magical design wizards” that produce the perfect product, interface design, IA or the like.

Great! Nice idea if you want to really keep this air of the designer being someone “mysterious and magical”. Someone that can just disappear for a few hours and suddenly they have the final product.

Stop the Myth

We really have to stop this process.

You know how no-one understands design. They don’t value design. They just don’t get how long it takes to design something. They just don’t get the process. They just don’t understand the principles of the design.

Well we are to blame! We are the problem. We have build the wall between ourselves and our clients. We have build the prissy pedestal that we are standing on.

For to long we have been taking the design process and putting it behind closed doors where only a few audience members, team members and select client liaisons get to see behind the “Wizard of Oz” curtain from time to time.

We should go beyond just explaining the design process to the client, and flashing around a few final concepts when we need signoff. We should involve them. Even if it’s just in a small way. If we did this some of the issues we have would start to disappear.

Education is Important

It’s all about education. Educating the client’s decision makers, and even your team.

It’s about taking down the wall and showing your process. Discussing and explaining with your client the design process as you step through it. Not just showing the final stages of each process either, the steps along the way, warts and all.

Yes, that’s right, show them the rough sketches, the wireframes that have failed, the concept storyboards and mockup concepts that you have rejected. It’s simple, explain why these designs have failed and been rejected. Involve the client in the process.

Become human, not a design mage or a mindless web design monkey.

You may say, “but the client doesn’t want to see all the design process” .

Are you really sure. Most people, I find, are even just a little bit envious of us. They would love to help out in the design process. They want to be us.

Key is to just be patient with them, your clients are a design newbie, be understanding but firm, after all they are paying your because you are “the designer”. It’s a balancing act, don’t pester them with details all the time. Still in your progress meetings, show the design output. Show the progression towards the final concept.

Stop Perfection, Make Mistakes

If you are looking at me strangely by now, then I can tell that you tend not to really design in the traditional way, with multiple iterations of a design leading to the final outcome.

Whether it be sketching with pencil and paper, in a wireframing application or just using Photoshop, you should be cycling through a series of design concepts before you decide on the final product.

Yes you could say that there is all this user research that we have and it’s all you need to build the design. Well I agree, but I also disagree.

Granted you do have an outline a specification framework, restrictions on the design from the user research. Still there will often be hundreds of ways you can approach the issues and develop the design.

Even with applying the standard design principles on top of the user research findings, you should still have a good deal of approaches you can take.

If can only see one approach, maybe you need to take a fresh look at the problem, from a different view point.

Protosketch it

Like a good product design, there will be failures in a UX design.

However these failures are important. They give us ideas, they allow us to get frustrated, to look beyond the everyday and find that special design the client is really looking for.

Failure in designing allows you to iterate the design. They allow us to discount designs and to get inspired with new alternatives from the failures. Gradually over time, you will get less and less new concepts and start to discount more and more. Resulting in the final concept.

It’s a simple process. Just sketch out a concept, get others feedback, throw around some ideas. It’s like you are prototyping the base concept sketch. Iterate it, adding and removing concepts.

Maybe we should call it protosketching.

Involve the client, involve your peers, friends, team colleagues or maybe do a peer review.

Just work down that process of refinement to the final design. Now I’m not talking an agile process here, I’m talking about something that happens the first moment you put pencil to paper in the sketching process be it analogue or digital.

Remember design is not a robotic process, it’s a creative process.

I often find my best designs are the ones I don’t think about, the ones I mull over for days looking for inspiration from things all around me. Doing a little sketching, drawing, letting my mind wander. In case you ask, I only work with clients that know they will get a good result if they don’t push the process, sure this helps as well.

Fail or Don’t Design

Now in my mind if you are not failing at your design, well you are not designing. You are just processing an analysis, and producing one possible outcome. Maybe you should stop and think. Are you doing the right thing by your client. Does your client really just want a second rate concept.

If you like producing second rate designs, do us all a favour, stop. Just stop designing, the world has enough crap designs.

If you are failing. Well that’s great, design and fail away. God speed to you.