Great example of clear but bold website layout

Much too often news websites are designed to be newspaper like. Small pictures are here and there between the text. Layouts of the page are optimized for small screens and don't really use the capabities of the screens nowadays.

Cyclingtips is a fresh exception to the too common website layout. They really use big good pictures to fill the screen and the story. Check for example this article about tour de France's yesterday's stage - Chasing The Tour | Stage 11 – The Nail In the Coffin.

Here's a screenshot of their page.

Other news websites should learn from this. When people start to scroll they can scroll further. Large good quality pictures really make a difference.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Usability trick used in ATM’s

First ATM’s (at least in Finland) used to “eat” many forgotten cards. That made customers unhappy and it also cost a lot to the banks. Then the guys designing sw for it revisited their thoughts.

Users only goal in ATM is to get money. What used to happen was, that user put the card in, entered pin code and then told how much money they want. Then money came, they achieved their goal and left. And the card was forgotten.

Currently ATM’s work so, that users are not able to get money, before they take the card out from machine. How simply they fulfilled the need users didn’t know they have. Users would be so much unhappier if they would lose their card. Now they don’t even realise this trick.

Maybe smart homes could grow to be similar in the future. When you are leaving the house, system would check that there no lights on and stove is off. Or maybe there’s much more obvious case I don’t even now realise. Surely something to keep in mind.

I just love these simple tricks to make users being not unhappy.

This was originally posted 9.12.2010 at lostinux.wordpress.com. I've closed that blog of mine and I'm re-posting some of the most popular and best posts from there to here.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

What can we learn from UX in Grocery store

Have you ever thought user experience on grocery store. They have been thinking it for much longer than anyone on IT. Here’s my observations.

Often first ones when you come in are the fruits and vegetables. I think those have a couple of meanings. First those most often look nice and give a fresh look to the store. Second those actually takes most of the time in store, so having those first make store look popular, since there is always people there. Third, most of the people will always get something from that section, so it is convenient to have it first, to minimize the trouble from everyone.

Shelves in the store are designed so that in the level of the eye and hand there are the most popular and most used items. In the top and bottom shelves are niche products, which users of those will find even from non optimal places.

Many stores also use the trick on placing products, which have a best before date coming sooner, on the right side of line of products. There are more right-handed people, so those products will get sold before the date from the right side.

Then thinking about cash desk. There are products which are often bought impulsively, like candies and soft drinks. Also close to cash desks there are products which are easy to steal, so cash personnel can try to take an eye on those ones.

In addition, there’s lot of stuff ongoing in the background making sure there are things to sell and those are fresh. Logistics and everything is meant to be silent and unnoticed, still having one of the most important parts of user experience. If there’s nothing to sell in grocery store, user experience is always terrible.

If you compare this to any software, it’s not that different. You want your customers to think this is fresh and easy to use. You want to look popular. You want your content to be there. You want people to exploit some new stuff also on the way. UX in grocery store and SW are not that different. And I actually think no user experience is that different from another.

This was originally posted 6.12.2010 at lostinux.wordpress.com. I've closed that blog of mine and I'm re-posting some of the most popular and best posts from there to here.
Written by +Henri Hämäläinen