Category — Usability and Web

I love Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a free open source Linux operating system. Those of you who know me, know that I switched to Linux cold turkey about 4 years ago. Over the years I have watched Ubuntu mature in functionality, user base, and most importantly in innovative interaction design. For those of us who pay close attention to these things, it’s fun to play with new interface elements. The advantage Ubuntu (and all open source) operating systems have over Mac OS and Windows is that there is no penalty for failure.

Each new version of Ubuntu has some surprising new interactions.  I love to watch the interface features that work, show up years down the line in commercial software. Particularly when they receive buzz for their “Bold Innovations.”  And yes, your shiny new version of Windows is far behind. They are naturally slow (and rightfully so) to adopt new experimental design and interaction. By the time the average user gets to play with multiple virtual desktops and snapping windows, Linux users have been testing and perfecting the interaction for years.

One such innovation that drew my attention is the proposed new scrollbar for Unity. I know I’ve written about scrollbars in the past, but this is pretty cool and makes a lot of sense. We waste a lot of screen real-estate on scrollbars. We know where they are and we know how they work. Why do I have to waste my precious screen space on it? The open source community took, from what we are learning with mobile devices, and applied it to a desktop environment.

Take a look at this demo video. Then think about the benefits of a scroll bar:

• It tells us that there is more content on the current page
• It shows us where we are in relation to the size of the page
• It allows us to slowly or quickly scroll to different parts of a page

This proposed interaction accomplishes all of these things while saving screen real-estate for what we really need windows for: the content on the screen. With the growing number of touch interfaces each day and shrinking screens, why waste precious pixels on such an archaic interface element?

So what does the future of your operating system look like? Do yourself a favor and download an Ubuntu live cd and take a look.

ING’s web interfaces have long been the textbook definition of intuitive and innovative (see?). After years of being a customer, the great conveniences of the site start to fade into the background of an overall amazing user experience. Isn’t that the goal after all? One of these small intricacies popped out at me recently.

I was setting up a reoccurring automatic transfer from my checking account. I wanted it to take money out every pay period. In my case, this is always the 15^th and last day of the month. Having set this up with other bank sites in the past, I was prepared to set up a transfer every 15^th and a separate automatic transfer on the 1^st of every month. Because of the nature of the calendar, every 2 weeks wouldn’t work in my case and selecting a specific date at the end of the month would not apply to every month (since they have different number of days). 

I was pleasantly surprised to see that ING had done their research on when people get compensated and how they manage their money. A custom solution of “Fifteenth and End of Month” saved me from trying to mold the functionality the best I could to my specific need. Instead, the opposite happened. My specific need was natively supported by the functionality.

I often hear clients struggle to fit their process into a CMS (Content Management System). I have some opinions on what a CMS is and what a CMS should do.

• A CMS should fit an organization’s needs and improve the overall process without causing the organization to reinvent the wheel for existing processes that aren’t broken. This can mean:
  • Fitting into an existing CRM system;
  • Hooking into a current database, or helping to improve data collection.
• A CMS is a tool to help manage a website that reflects the organization.
  • The same way your materials should reflect what your are building;
  • It’s still going to rain regardless of how you build your house, so don’t skimp on the roof.

If your CMS is hurting the organization’s process or the end user’s experience, then your CMS does not work. The CMS should be able to bend and mold to work as a tool that reflects your needs and alleviate kinks in the chain. Not the other way around.

… End Rant