Breaking Shneiderman's Fifth Rule...

I was watching the new show What Would You Do? on ABC with my wife when the following message appeared:

I have no idea what even the most seasoned user is going to do with this error message. It was an error log or memory dump of some sort. The window was movable, so we were able to move the error off the viewable screen and continue watching the show until it was finished.

First of all, as the user, it seems like we were able to create somewhat of a serious error even though the site continued to function. Worse, however, was that the error message was not simple or comprehensible. We had no idea on how to correct or fix the situation and seemed lucky to be able to finish the show.

Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick

The Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick gives users the ability to receive HD broadcasts over the air and display them on their computer screens.  The end product of the Pro Stick is beautiful and the set-up is fairly easy. Along the way, however,  there are two important issues that appear to have been skipped by the Pinnacle company when working on their user designs.

The first is the remote.  It seems like they took all the HCI research that has been done with remotes over the years and chose to do the opposite.  The remote is small, but thick.  The buttons are closely squeezed together, and the labels are sometimes hard to understand.  Here is a sample picture:

The remote is a concern because my wife and I lay down in front of the computer at times for TV entertainment.  After using the remote for a little bit, it was quickly realized you have to be very careful pressing the right button.  It is very easy to click another button than the intended one.  If the lights are out, using the remote is impossible.

The second issue is that sometimes using the remote causes Windows Media Center to start.  The only way to correct the problem is to get up, close Windows Media Center, and hope it doesn't happen again during the current session.  We have found ourselves now completely unhooking the HD receiver and only using it when something is much preferred to be in HD (i.e. Sports or Awards Shows).

Solutions would be to scrap the remote control or allow for universal remote connectivity and making sure the remotes don't affect existing programs on the computer.

Programs Freezing in Windows...

It seems like we just come to accept freezing from within the Microsoft Windows operating system.  Today's latest adventure is the Apple update program.  Automatically on my screen a window popped up alerting me that I needed to update some Apple software.  First of all, the interaction was a nuisance because I was in the middle of something.  Secondly, it was asking to update the Bonjure software that I can only image was installed with Itunes.  Should I have to know this?

More importantly, when after updating the software it began another check to see if anything else was available.  After that, the window has stayed in this state for the past 1/2 hour and I don't think it will change anytime soon:

Who's to blame here?  Who knows?  Windows freezes so much that we've just come to accept the need for reboots and shutting down programs from tasks, but this is Apple software.  When you completely open up an operating system for anyone to program for, that's taking on every one's idea of what good code and HCI is.  

I wonder how many calls Microsoft gets for HCI when it really has nothing to do with them at all...

iTunes not always tuned in...

Recently I went to a co-worker and complained that iTunes doesn't let you directly drag your music or audio directly to a play list. What I mean by this is that if I have "song A" that I like and want to put it with the rest of my favorite songs, I can't just add it by using the mouse from within iTunes. He then said, sure you can, and proceeded to do it right in front of me.

I was perplexed because I had never been able to create play lists directly. For instance, I bought the Candice Millard audio book The River of Doubt. I wanted to be able to click directly to a play list as I worked my way though the book. In order to do so, I had to browse to the files through explorer and drag them from there.

After discussing the issue at length, we finally found the culprit. I use an external drive on my network hooked which has a media center built into the drive. I have this drive mapped to my computer, as well as having full access to it.

iTunes readily acknowledges that the drive is there, and by all accounts appears to work as if the files were directly sitting on your hard drive. However, under these conditions, if you drag an audio file from a media center it just sits there. No error message, no instructions, nothing. It just doesn't work. If the file is browsed to over the mapped drive, it drags over naturally.

It makes sense that iTunes reacts this way because there's no telling what access one has to a media center share. It's basically just stream access to the files. As a user, I would have probably never figured this out if my co-worker had not thought about the scenario described above. The solution would at least be to show a message stating that the file could not be added because of the source.

NFL Website Detection

Sal over at salgambino.blogspot.com was wondering how the NFL's website would render to a smaller device.  When one goes to NFL.com in a regular browser, there is an overwhelming amount of options for the user to choose.  How exactly would this translate on to a smaller screen?

From Sal:

1) There are 14 menu menu items running horizontally across/below the

 banner
2) The "Teams" menu pulldown has over 30 submenu items: one for each team in the NFL
(Does anybody remember the concept of "seven plus or minus two"?)
There are hundreds of links all over this page, most of which you don't even know they
are there unless you run your mouse over it, and then you are not even sure if you're on top of what you're trying to click to!

I decided to turn this into a blog post here because it didn't appear that I would be allowed to attach an image in Sal's comment section.  When one goes to www.nfl.com on a phone (at least on the Motorola Q that I tested), the user is redirected to wap.nfl.com.  The wap version is a scaled down version of the site and fits in nicely with the one touch scroll:

Overall I was impressed by the user experience on the device.  Often the same complaints Sal had regarding the full web version of the NFL site apply to sites browsed using a portable device. The issue is resolved by the NFL's WAP detection and refitting of the site.

Federated States of Micronesia

I was working through the Nova site in order to send my transcripts to a potential employer and I got hit by the Federated States of Micronesia.  What does this mean?  If you live in Florida you know.  On a state pull down menu for a web form, when you press the letter F, the form defaults to Federated States of Micronesia.

Nova's main campus resides in Florida, and the Federated States of Micronesia don't constitute a state.  Not only that, but the country is spelled incorrectly.  I'd be curious how many more students are from Florida rather than the Federated States of Micronesia.  Here is an example:

Not much later, I needed to make a payment to NSU.  The user experience is not uniform and in this case the Federated States of Micronesia was not present:

The possible solution is to make territories a separate menu, or possibly move areas such as Guam and FSoM to a separate area of the menu.

Motorola Q Wins Design Challenge

I was looking through Michael J. Darnell's blog (baddesigns.com) and came across a cellphone entry.  The cellphone looks like an older model Motorola so I decided to test his issue on my Motorola Q.  Darnell's problem is that he uses his cellphone as a watch, but can't see the time when the phone is locked.  Many of us lock our phones and place them in our pockets so that they do not dial out.

I just recently found the lock function on the Motorola Q by necessity because I have been dialing random people in my phone without it.  I also use my cell phone as a watch, so I needed to check to see if Motorola fixed this bad design.  Lucky for me they did!  Here's the phone in regular use:

After locking the phone, and then pressing a key to check the time, the phone display is not covered as in Darnell's case.  The screen simply shows that you may unlock the phone if needed: