As previously posted 6 months ago, I had been working on a solid design for HTML emails that would work in every client.  The design of that email worked pretty well.  However, since then, I kept getting asked to do the impossible.  Rounded corners, curved strokes and shadows.  As mentioned, Outlook 2007 doesn’t support positioning and doesn’t support background-images.  This combination makes it really really hard to create a decent design.

I just upgraded one email for Marketo.  I got the rounded corners to work in all clients, but it was really annoying.  Doing the curved corner stroke (not shown) was so difficult, I just skipped it. I used a great tool from ReturnPath called Campaign Preview.  Check out this output of all the different email clients.  That is awesome!  I don’t have to send all those email’s by hand anymore.

One question I have is about Lotus Notes.  They are on version 8.0.1, but the return path does 6.5.4.  Who uses Lotus Notes anyway?  I can’t believe they are still working on it.  And the 6.5.4 rendering engine is the worst I have ever seen.  Why don’t they just use Firefox to render?  Why do all of these different email clients feel they have to reinvent the wheel?

Anyway, feel free to look at the source for the template.  It’s pretty readable and works well.

1. Go to http://maps.google.com and search for your house.
2. Then click “Show search options” to the right of the search box.
3. Notice the box “Restrict Results to:”
4. Change the box to “Real Estate”
5. Click search again
6. Notice the left hand side shows real estate listings.
7. Click one of the listings.
8. Click on the detail bubble on the right.

Side note: 3bdr, 2bath, 1400 sq feet = $830k.  1400 sq feet!

Ok, back to the UX.  I think Google made some serious errors here.  This feature is BURIED under a pile of clicks and drop downs.  I suppose they are trying to keeep the main UI simple so people won’t get confused with too much functionality.  However, the design seems messy to me for someone who wants that functionality.

As Google grows, their products are starting to get more and more features.  This is a critical time in the evolution of Google.  How do they handle feature bloat?  Do they redo their signature UI to make it more sophisticated including menubars and other UI tools that have worked well in operating systems?  Do they bury features like this and have lower adoption and usage rates?

My opinion on this is that Google needs to introduce a structure across all of their products that combines several of their existing options.  Notice at the top of the page on Maps that their are links to lots of other google sites.  On the top right is Help, My Account, Web History, etc etc etc.  Lots of stuff.  Plus the maps themselves have options like Real Estate.

Side note:  The language of “Restrict results to: Real Estate” doesn’t totally make sense.  It sounds wierd.

As I was saying, Google needs to make a coherent and consistent options UX across their products.  I think the top of the screen is the right place, but they need more power in it.  Put things in menus.  Menus are extremely useful as a product line grows.

You cant just keep adding functionality and not consider the UI.  Google is in danger of making their products hard to use if they don’t clean up once in a while.

Of course, all of this does not say it’s not a great feature.  I love it.  Google UI is really well done for the most part.  I am just raising the yellow flag that they are introducing some UX that are awkward at best.

I love detective work, figuring out how things work.  Here is a quick sample.

Rey Bango (proud new papa) posted about a plugin called ShareThis.  The reason he posted it was because they are using jQuery on their website.  So I click around and see that it has a WordPress Plugin.  Easy to install, (click below, it’s cool) and easy to manage.  So, of course, I look at the source.  Turns out that ShareThis uses MooTools as it’s base to build the feature.

Interesting that they choose jQuery for the site and MooTools for the script itself.

Anyway, I like the plugin.  Although it doesn’t happen that often, I like to think that people COULD share a post if they wanted.

Katie and I just finished watching Dan In Real Life.  We liked the movie very much.  It was a little formulaic,  but the direction, acting and writing were good enough to overcome the formula.  The story had a big family on a yearly reunion as the backdrop.  It reminded me alot of my own family and Katie.

The paralels were really weird actually.  If Katie had actually met my brother Dan in a bookstore after meeting me and they fell in love and I ended up with some hottie, then it would have been EXACTLY the same.  But alas, Lindy met Dan first, so it was not meant to be.  Otherwise it would have been just freaky!

Anyway, we give the movie 4/5 stars.  It was very enjoyable, especially if you have a big family.  We highly recommend.  I also suggest it strong to my brother Dan, because his name is Dan.  That is freaky.

Rachel Luxemburg was kind enough to forward me this report from Jakob Nielsen on how people read on the web.

I have always known that people do not read a web page the way they do a book or email. On the web, people will skim. They will pass whole blocks of text. Their eyes will jump around like mad. There have been slews of authors who point this out, like Steve Krug with “Happy Talk Must Die“. This article brings much needed statistics to the discussion. Some takeaways I get from it.

1. The report itself is too long. I skimmed it.
2. On an average visit, users read half the information only on those pages with 111 words or less. See the chart below

There are some techniques you can use to take advantage of this knowledge.

1. Use color and bold and highlight and CAPS to emphasize the key phrases that you want the user to see. This also works on your resume. Red is the most “alert” of the colors, however anything with high contrast will do the trick.
2. Use fewer words. Use declarative statements. Eliminate the fluff. CUT CUT CUT. It is critical to say what you want to say without getting verbose. A picture is worth a thousand words.
3. Being repetitive is ok sometimes. Even though it’s more words, if you put your key message in multiple places, then the liklihood of someone reading it goes up. Luck of the skimmer.
4. Use bullets and numbers. Easier to read.

The boys and I attended the Markers Faire last weekend.  We first went in the morning and then had to leave for little league practice.  Then we biked back without Matthew to spend time before Katie had to go to the Opera.  Both times, we forgot the camera.  Ugh!  How lame are we.  Here are some pictures from other people.

The boys loved it.  There were tons of things for them to get excited about.  Giant Statues on Fire.  People riding giant cupcakes.  Solar powered vehicles.  This statue was just awesome to be near.  Man-eating robots. A giant-sized Mousetrap game.  A bus powered by the riders legs.  And much more…

I wish I brought the camera.  Anyway, we had a great time and wished we could have spent more.

One guy asked if I was a “maker”, and I said “Yes, I design UX for web applications”.  He said, “No, that doesn’t count.  It’s an abstraction.  You have to have something tangible and solid, not just code.”

I thought the guy was being mean, but he did have this cool robot kid on a tricycle.

When I was younger, I made more things like paintings and giant bubbles.  Now, I just made three boys.  (Katie did the hard work).  Despite the guy saying it doesn’t count, I think making great software counts.  It’s creative and people interact with it.  Someone made this wordpress software I am typing into.  I feel more of a connection to it than I do the keyboard that someone made that is “real”.

The Makers Faire was a wonderful celebration of creativity and ingenuity.  I recommend it to anyone who can attend next year.

The Office is a funny show. Started in the UK, it has since been redone for a US audience. I have been watching both on Netflix through the web. There is a fascinating difference.

In the UK BBC version, the main character David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is a total dick. There is nothing likable about him. He is rude and obnoxious. He will spread rumors because he doesn’t like someone. I hate David Brent. He makes me not want to watch the show. However, he is funny to watch because of how annoying he is. Sort of.

On the US version the same character is named Michael Scott (Steve Carell) is a very different character.  He is horrible and inappropriate most of the time, however, he has a soul.  His feelings can be hurt and he shows it.  The rest of the characters respond to this.  They often show him tenderness, the way you might a child.  Rather than a total asshole, Michael Scott is a pathetic loser who doesn’t really know any better.  In fact, he has some upside.  He can be a great salesman and sometimes say the right thing; like when he went to Pam’s art show.

The US version to me is much more nuanced.  I appreciate all of the characters more because of their depth and the way the direction brings out those interesting expressions and moments.  I laugh WAY more in the US version too.  I find it funnier, even though there are nearly identical scenes.  The attack on Tim by Pam’s boyfriend was hilarious.  In the UK version is was not funny at all.

I am not saying that the United States is better than England.  I am just saying that their is a major difference in these two shows and that I greatly prefer the US one.  I think it’s brilliant.  I can’t wait until I can get season 4 on DVD Netflix.

UX is not UI.  50% of the letters are the same, but they are very different.

Looking around the web their are some great resources/tutorials on the subject of User Experience.

• Montparnas has a wonderful UX summary which I highly recommend.  It has oodles of good info.
• This slideshow by Garrett Dimon has some wonderful quotes about design.  Reading them is inspirational to any designer.
• The elements of UX by Jesse James Garrett is a famous diagram in the UX community showing a breakdown of user experience, which I agree with.  The only extension I put into the diagram is to include product management functions inside that umbrella.
• Peter Morville at Semantic Studios has a nice approach to thinking about UX.
• The top 100 UX blogs.  Hmm, I guess I don’t count.

There are many more resources available.  This is just a sampler.  I think everyone who works on a product should be aware of the great work done here.  It will help you be more successful and will only cost a few minutes of reading.  Tough decision, I know.

Slideshare is a service that has been around for a while. I haven’t really used it much, but I had been asked to publish the Stanford presentation there, so I gave it a fresh look.

First the positives. This is a useful service. It makes sense to share presentations and to convert them to flash automatically. It is a good business with relatively low overhead. I like the model very much. They make their money on advertising and use the text of the presentation to target the ads. It’s simple and straight forward.

Now the negatives. The UI is way too busy. There are buttons and navigation and ads all over the place. I have no idea where to look. Some work on the contrasting (making certain parts darker or lighter) would help the information architecture tremendously. I think the ads needs a little more separation so I know what is content and what is ad. Maybe that is not what they want for their ad revenue, but the user would appreciate it.

Embedding the presentation here on the blog is pretty easy. They had a “wordpress.com” embed option, but I wasn’t sure what that did. I wish it had a little tooltip or something. I use Wordpress, but not wordpress.com.

Lastly, and most importantly. I don’t see the “notes” in the presentation. My presentations do NOT have a ton of text on them. They have pictures and some giant text bullets. This is the best practice for presentations. However, the one I uploaded loses 90% of it’s effectiveness without the speaker (me) to explain what we are looking at. The notes would have been helpful, but still, how effective can any presentation be without the speaker? If the answer is “very” then I submit that the presentation is too detailed and the speaker is not adding any value.

Anyway, overall, I think it’s an interesting and useful service, but I think it lacks some IA work and the ability to annotate each slide with author notes. Here is the embed below.

| View

UPDATE: Just a minor one. I was browsing some of the other design presentations.  Interesting quotes and some fun slides.  I probably could guess what the author said on that slide, so I got some value.  However, its just not the same as being there.

I am not thrilled with the Jets overall performance this weekend.  The first pick, Vernon Gholston, DE  made me happy.  Their are some questions about him, but he seems very talented.  However, it was was all lame after that.  The next pick they traded up 6 spots to get a guy that would have been available in the next round.  A tight end named Dustin Keller.  The Jets already have a tight end and needed a safety or cornerback alot more. Why trade up?

Glen’s rule #1 of NFL Drafts:  Never, ever, trade up.  All of the analysts say the same thing every year.  The likelihood of football player becoming a starter is not directly proportional to their spot in the draft.  If anything, trade DOWN and get another pick!  Picking two lower guys is more likely that one of them becomes a starter.  Why did they trade up?  What were they thinking?  Yuck.

Then they got Dwight Lowery, cornerback from San Jose State.  I hope he can play well in the NFL.  Then they picked Danny Ainge’s son Erik Ainge.  I would be very surprised if he ever took a snap at QB for the Jets, but it’s not like our QB situation is so good.  He might be the best on the team and still stink.

Finally we got Marcus Henry, WR and Nate Garner, T.  Both guys are backups.

Overall, I give them a C+.  They didn’t completely mess everything up, but in general, I didn’t think they improved the team.  Time will tell.  However, I give them high marks for their off-season spending spree.  They got alot of interesting players.  I hope they make a positive difference.  I’d like the Jets to make the playoffs if possible.  Can anyone make that happen please?