November 24th, 2009
I was trying to leave work today when I came to the realization that parking garages might be the most user unfriendly places in the world. Perhaps that is an overstatement, but they certainly have their place high in the rankings of horrible user experiences. I’ve encountered many different garages and lots thought my life. And almost without exception they all seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult for the humble driver.
In the case of my work’s parking garage, their main faults lie in two places. One, the unbelievably confusing layout of the garage. I’d chalk this one up to the original architect, if only they hadn’t recently “renovated” the whole place last year with new signs, lines and car pathways. I’ve been parking there for over two years and still frequently get confused. There are constantly people driving the wrong way down the multitude of one-way only corridors. Not only do the one-ways have seemingly no correlation with each other, but the up and down ramps to get from level to level routinely skip levels and are almost all one-way as well. I once was trying to exit from some middle level floor and ended up on the top floor just because I followed a one-way path.
If the horrible layout was the only problem, I might be able to forgive them. But they also routinely close the path to one of the two exits. Sometimes it seems sort of legitimate, because nobody is operating any of the exit booths, but sometimes they’ll close the path to an exit and leave another path open. This is infuriating when the exit I need is closed only because of the exit path I choose to use to leave my level. I’m now stuck going out the wrong side of the garage and basically have to drive around the block to get back to the other exit. It’s sort of like going to the movies and being told that you have to sit in the front even though there are seats right in the middle and the reason is “just because.”
There really seems to be no reason for this beyond the fact that parking is based firmly on the supply and demand principal. They have the place to put your car, you have to put your car somewhere, you have to put your car in their garage. They don’t care about customer service and user experience. At all. Because they can charge whatever they want and know that tons of people are forced pay because they’re the only game in town. Does making lots of money excuse you from providing quality service? Not necessarily, but in the parking industry it appears to go hand in hand.
They could spend an hour or two actually plotting out some sensible navigation paths. They could think about why they’re closing a certain path and use some signage to let the driver know. They could spend a few more dollars and purchase a ticket machine that doesn’t break down once a week. Let me know when you do and perhaps I won’t be seen cursing in my car everyday around nine and five.
Tags: parking, UX
Posted in Rants | No Comments »
November 13th, 2009
I happened to be reading an WashingtonPost.com article on former DC Zoo resident, Happy the Hippo (why? ’cause hippos are cool). Anyways, I get to the bottom of the article, er, the bottom of page one of the article and see this nice bit of white space. Then I find the article navigation (placed weirdly off the the right) and realized they’ve split poor Happy’s article into four, yes FOUR, pages. And to do that, they didn’t even fill the whole content area for the article on page one. They left a bunch of white space, which was really there because all the ads in the right sidebar, just so they could stretch out their article. And why do they do this? Page Views.
Washington Post Page View Gimmick
With their ever shrinking ad revenues, WashingtonPost.com and most other major news websites seem to be constantly resorting to this gimmick. Certainly not for the benefit of the user. I know I love having to click through five pages to read some fluff piece about a hippo. So, thanks news sites, for sacrificing everyone’s user experience so you could make a few extra cents from your advertisers. This is yet another reason why you’re all going out of business.
Tags: design, pageviews, washingtonpost, website
Posted in Rants, Web | 3 Comments »
August 9th, 2009
I was recently re-reading some of Steve Krug’s great “Don’t Make Me Think” when I passed by his section on “The myth of the Average User. It might be my favorite section of the book. And the concept really came into focus for me again when my employer had some usability testing done on some of our Web apps. Basically the myth is that a majority of Web user’s like any particular thing. Or, in the case of our tests, take the same navigation path to complete a goal. This is simply untrue.
Every user has unique likes and dislikes when it comes to a Web site. It’s not even a case of a group of users being more advanced than another group. I saw users that seemed to be advanced make the same mystifying decisions that the seemingly novice users did. Mostly, I just watched people do things that I had never expected. Some users liked to use a drop down to find what they were looking for. Others liked the big button in the middle of the page. And a third set used the text link in the sub menu. Along with a lack of any kind of average decision making, most users seemed a little less aware of the things I had thought to be general Web practices. Watching this video helps emphasize that most Web users aren’t that much like most Web designers and developers.
So what does this mean for the poor Web designer? We’re screwed! Actually, all is not lost. While trying to guess if a user will like drop down menus or not isn’t a good idea, designing sites and apps that don’t trip them up in achieving their goal is. Testing is essential to this. Following best practices helps too. And having clearly defined goals definitely doesn’t hurt. What I didn’t mention at the beginning of this post, is that testing my employer did was the second round of tests. Months prior, we’d done a first round of testing on a working prototype of our new Web app. That test was even more surprising. But it enabled our team to identify our applications weaknesses and outright failures. Once you fix most of the places were all the users will fail, you start to find that those weird likes and dislikes aren’t quite the deal-breaker they were before. While not everyone said they liked using the drop down, they all were able to find their way to the right page and reach their goal when they got there.
While there is no way to know that an average amount of users are going to like the way your application returns its results, testing will tell you that the result display won’t work for most people. And that’s the real key. Don’t spend time arguing in a meeting about what you think a user will like. Build it using your judgment and experience in design, then test to find its weaknesses. Whatever the cost, it will undoubtedly be made up in a shortened development cycle and better end results. So the next time your planning a big (or small) project, make sure to add usability testing to the process. You won’t be sorry you did.
Tags: business, design, html, UI, usability books
Posted in Web | 1 Comment »
July 16th, 2009
The images below showcase the new design for my personal business cards. I attempted to tie the card design in with my new site design. The four color bars seemed well suited for the type of info included on a business card. The bars wrap around from the front to the back, to add a nice splash of color on the back side. I printed them online with Moo.com and was reasonably pleased with the results. Moo is pretty cool in that they will print ten cards for free, including shipping, so you can get a good sense of how your design prints on the card. The only slight annoyance I had, was the color bars didn’t print perfectly smooth. But otherwise, a nice, hassle free experience.
Business Card - information side
Business Card - back
Tags: business, design, Print
Posted in Portfolio, Print | 2 Comments »
June 16th, 2009
Home of the worst team in baseball!
Driving home from work today, I was flipping through my regular three station rotation on my radio. This rotation features DC 101, WJFK, and ESPN Radio, because I forgot how to set my presets and just have these stations on the three bands. I was halfway home when I heard Steve Czaban try to tell me that the Washington Nationals are not an embarrassment. I almost crashed my car.
Really Czaban? The worst team in baseball by a mile this year isn’t an embarrassment? The team that had that had a massive scandal involving its dominican operation? The team that had the wrong spelling of its own name on the front of its jerseys this year? The team that sent me an invite to buy tickets than had a totally overloaded server so I couldn’t even buy any? Sorry Czaban, that is most definitely an embarrassment in my book.
Tags: baseball, DC, nationals, rant, Sports
Posted in Sports | No Comments »
May 23rd, 2009
Welcome to my new site design. I’m really still in the process of updating the design, but felt it was close enough that I could flip it in for the old design. Most of the changes are actually in the backend, as the site now runs on WordPress instead of using a bunch of PHP includes like it did before. This will hopefully allow me to quickly post new projects as well as giving me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts on various subjects, which likely will range from web design to sports to how much the DC area weather sucks in July. Feel free to leave me feedback or ask me questions in the comments sections, via @galenw or by email.
Thanks for checking out my site – Galen
Tags: css, design, html, php, website, wordpress
Posted in Announcements | 2 Comments »
March 23rd, 2009
Description: The BBB.org iPhone site project involved creating a mobile version of BBB’s key product, their Business and Charity Search application. The Web interface was designed primarily for the iPhone, with the application able to also work well on non-touch screen smartphones. The design was kept simple, and included only what was most likely needed for a mobile user, quick access to BBB’s huge library of buisness and charity information.
BBB.org iPhone Site Business and Charity Search
BBB.org iPhone Site Business and Charity Search Results
Tags: BBB, css, design, html, iPhone, mobile, UI
Posted in HTML/CSS, Portfolio | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2009
Abstrakt-music.com was built for Cody Schram, aka, Abstrakt, as a site to showcase his music, writing and other thoughts. The site has an integrated WordPress powered blog, a custom photo gallery and music player.
Abstrakt-Music Homepage Screenshot
Abstrakt-Music Blog Screenshot
Abstrakt-Music Photo Gallery Screenshot
Tags: abstrakt, css, design, html, music, website
Posted in HTML/CSS, Portfolio | No Comments »
I was trying to leave work today when I came to the realization that parking garages might be the most user unfriendly places in the world. Perhaps that is an overstatement, but they certainly have their place high in the rankings of horrible user experiences. I’ve encountered many different garages and lots thought my life. And almost without exception they all seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult for the humble driver.