Category — Interface Prototyping

Google recently announced that Gmail users will now have the opportunity to take their communication abilities to a new level within the realm of the Google Voice user interface.  Instead of simple email or G-chatting, Gmail users can now make local and international phone calls directly from  their Gmail account. Google promises that all calls to the US and Canada will be free until the end of 2010.  International calls will be charged according to international calling rates set by Google.
In order to utilize this feature, Gmail users must install Google’s voice and video plug in. Then, by selecting “Call Phone” from the Chat menu located on the left hand side of the Gmail interface, users can use a keypad pop-up to dial a phone number. Users can also enter phone numbers under their contacts and then simply click on the contact to call.  The process is fast, easy, and so far free or cheap, provided your home account is registered in the U.S.; Google is working on extending the service to international users

The implications for UX and usability design

If the media and advertising industry is digitalizing itself then obviously interface design concepts like usability, user experience design etc. will play a central role in the implementation of new digital business practices.  Companies will need online advertising and commerce to be as efficient as possible while maintaining an element of authenticity and desirability known from the traditional print environment.  Thus, the market for those specializing in UX and usability design will be wide open and full of opportunity.  This will likely lead to innovations in the UX and usability design fields as the cutthroat world of digital business will force designers to gain the competitive edge not just in creativity and productivity as usual, but also in measurable impact, such as online conversion rates.  Hence one may well argue that a growing digital media industry could mean a creative renaissance for the usability and UX industry as well.

Digital Revolution shakes up media and advertising industry

After enduring the hardships of the global economic crisis of 2008, media and advertising companies seem once again optimistic about the future of media, communication, and sales. According to a survey from Booz & Company, however, the global financial crisis is not the main contributing factor to the recent shakeup in the media and advertising industry.  The digital revolution and new consumer habits have forced media companies to reevaluate the way they do business (ibusiness.de “Medienbranche: Ein Drittel des Umsatzes 2015 mit Digitalen Medien”).  70 percent of respondents in the media and advertising industry consider the development of new business and distribution models to be paramount to future success and 50 percent claim that investing in new digital business models is of the highest priority (Booz & Company). This means that companies will be looking for ways to transition from print to digital media, as the Booz & Company survey indicated that 40 percent of respondents feel that print media is negatively affecting their company (particularly financially).  In fact, Booz & Company predict that by the year 2015, one third of sales in the media and advertising industry will be generated by the digital revolution.

Understanding the mind of the user is one of the most vitals aspects of web development.  Every interface design that is created is dependent upon users, without them, the site goes nowhere.  This is why the field of user experience (UX) plays such an important role in interface design.  UX is a profession (some may call it an art) that offers us the methods necessary to lead us towards a goal of satisfied users and optimal usability.

The vast array of websites and applications created for similar purposes (i.e. amazon.com and Ebay are both eCommerce sites) force web designers to envision new ways of making their interface designs distinct to differentiate themselves; if a given user interface design is distinct then chances are users will pick that website or application above all others.  This is why UX design is quickly becoming one of the most important methods of development for web designers.  Web designers are learning that they need to approach their development process not just from a usability frame of mind, but also from a UX frame of mind. While usability is undoubtedly king of the interface design court, UX design is quickly becoming the king’s closest advisor because it gives designers the capacity to differentiate one similar interface design from another by responding to the exclusive needs and wants of the user.

The financing of this interface design project has been undertaken by Microsoft Austria. What this means is that this form of accessing the service is only available to users of Internet Explorer. From Microsoft Austria’s standpoint this is a relatively cheap way of boosting Internet Explorer’s 35% market share (according to the Wikinomics blog) in the country as well as a PR stunt. This, however, shuts off Mac and Linux users completely from this tiny bit of interface design innovation, as well as urging users of other browsers to switch allegiance. The toolbar itself is great and I can’t help but feel a wee-bit jealous at the Austrians for having such a great service with great usability.

The toolbar, with big clearly marked buttons, itself is found at the top of the interface design below the Address Field but above the Tab bars. It is itself distinct in the same red and white colors of the Austrian flag. The colors also add to the legibility of the text. The toolbar has its own search bar on the left of the interface design unlike the top right customary search bar of the browser itself. This, I think, is a good touch because it serves to further distinguish it as not being the same as full internet search but rather specific. Clicking on a service in the toolbar automatically launches it in a new tab leaving your hitherto browsing unaffected. The challenge now for the Austrian government is to work on incorporating their services into the interface designs of other browsers that work with different operating systems. Hopefully other governments will be close by behind them.

It is a platitude to say it, but usability tests are conducted to obtain feedback from new (i.e. unbiased) users of an interface design, so the most natural conclusion to draw is that all usability test participants are website greenhorns.  Of course this is not true.  While it is extremely common to have novice usability testers, testing users that are deemed experts also has its advantages.  Experts can sometimes be forgotten in the mad rush to get fresh, new user experience feedback, but experience shows: don’t forget about them because they are more important to the sustainability of your interface design than you might think—especially for interface designs that are already in existence.

Expert Users are Longtime Users

So what is the main benefit of obtaining user experience feedback from experts?  The fact is that at one point, everyone was an amateur— even the experts. Amateur users grow into expert users, just as your interface design matures over time.  That is why expert users play such a vital role in usability testing new developments for extant interface designs. Experts are longtime site users, users who have shown commitment to the evolution of your website, users who have buttressed your interface design’s success by sticking with it over the long haul. If you are running an eCommerce site you want to know what makes it most usable to your most loyal customers—the expert users. You want to keep their business as returning customer often make up a considerable portion of business for an e-commerce website. So increasing your interface design’s usability for expert users will make your site sustainable because you will be appeasing a core group of users who keep your website relevant and your business running.

VP8 seeking to become a de facto video codec standard

Much like Android, VP8 came to be a Google product by way of acquisition and, likewise, then released as open source code and available royalty-free for a number of uses such as online and mobile video. The VP8 video codec is paired with the open-source Ogg Vorbis audio to form the WebM container format which is directly aimed at providing high quality video compression for use with HTML5 video. Is there an immediate impact on the interface design of websites? Not really, but interface designers and web developers have to think carefully about which users they’re targeting when implementing video into their interface design. These decisions are more pronounced when developing a website that requires natively hosted video (i.e. not using YouTube embedded videos) because one has to decide on which format(s) to use. For now Flash is still the most popular player but, say, you are targeting a significant amount of iPhone users you’d have to use an alternative. And since Apple has embraced H.264, the use of that codec brings with it its own set of baggage as we saw with Nero. So, is open source the right way to create a video codec standard? Quite possibly, but we will have to wait and see what lies ahead.

Challenges preventing a universally accepted video codec standard

With HTML5 looming, video codec standards have recently become a hot issue popularized by the oh-so public feud between Apple and Adobe. Up until now Flash has been the preferred video format on the web due to Adobe’s Flash Player being installed in most web browsers. The HTML5 video tag is intended to become the new standard way to show video online. The question is which formats should be supported in the tag. Despite its tremendous popularity Flash remains the property of a single corporation, Adobe. Apple favors the H.264 codec and due to the success of the iPhone, iPod Touch and now the iPad (which don’t support Flash) many popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo and CNN, to name but a few, now have all or a growing number of their videos available in the H.264 format in addition to Flash. Criticism of H.264 is centered on the patents leading to most users of the format to pay licensing fees leading to the software company Nero to sue the licensing authority of the codec. This is where VP8 comes in.

In a bid to usurp Google as the world’s most popular search engine Microsoft’s Bing has been continuously updated in the past couple of months. And it would seem that Google is taking notice if its introduction of a Bing-like background picture to its interface design is anything to go by. Bing’s interface design is attracting the sincerest form of flattery for good reason. Both search engines have a winning interface design that displays search results with minimal noise, but there are some differences between the two that deserve mention.

In what ways does Google have a better interface design?

At first glance I found Google to score higher on usability. Firstly the advanced search option was more clearly labeled on Google as ‘advanced search’. The blue letting immediately made it clear that it was a clickable link. On Bing this option was only labeled ‘Advanced’ and even though underlined it had the same font color as the text next to it. The news items results for my search input (which in case you were wondering was Snoop Dogg) appeared much higher whereas on Bing I had to scroll down all the way to the bottom of the screen. Google adheres to the quasi standard of showing the login option in the top right corner, while Bing puts the ‘Preferences’ option in that spot, requiring users to search for the login.