Archive for November, 2008

Google has done it again with Gmail themes

November 25, 2008 · Filed under Interface Design, user experience · Tagged , ,

I just wanted to mention how impressed i am with the new Themes introduced by Gmail earlier this week!

I was initially impressed by Googles approach to email, when they first released Gmail years ago (i forget how long ago it was now, but i was sitting in a lab at my university when a friend sent me an invite. At that stage it was by invitation only).

And i am still surprised to see people use Hotmail or Yahoo. I always wonder to myself “Don’t these people see how much easier it is to use Gmail?”. I myself could no longer be bothered to delete hundreds of spam daily from my Hotmail account, which effectively had no spam control (although they claimed they did). 

I later found out that Hotmail had introduced a new field I’m my settings called something like “Share my email address with other companies” which they had conveniently TICKED on my behalf!!!

So i figured i had nothing to lose by trying Gmail. And i was pleasantly surprised when my inbox was no longer flooding with unwanted mail.

Plus the masive storage space they provided ( i think 2 gig initially compare to the other webmails who offered 200mb) meant i no longer had to delete any emails! Plus i could search all my mail, which gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling (lame i know but it makes the user feel secure)!

I also loved their approach to handling multiple emails between 2 people, by listing them under one conversation! Makes scanning your inbox so much simpler.

Then comes the Themes!

That was then and this is now, and im really enjoying my gmail themes!

gmail-theme1

As you can see i currently have the Candy theme set just for fun, but if thats too much for you, then you can also select from one of the or toned down designs.

While i was on Twitter however, i heard afew people complain that they did not like the new themes, so i guess im interested in hearing why/why not?

Are you one of those people that do not like the themes?

Im interested in hearing your comments!

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Badly Designed UAC Form

November 4, 2008 · Filed under forms, user experience · Tagged , , , , ,

On the weekend, a friend asked me to help her change some course details, before she submits a postgraduate application to UAC (Universities Admission Centre NSW & ACT). She figured, being a software engineer and all, i should be able to help her send this form. At first i must admit i thought it would be a simple task, and that she ‘the user’ was making a mistake. I later realised it was poorly designed form.

For some reason the UAC postgraduate application process does not have a ‘back’ button to allow applicants to make changes to their application half way through the process. Change your mind about which course you want to study? Tough luck! You’ll have to start the process all over again.  

 

At the top of the form, it first asks you to enter all information in UPPER CASE. It then clearly states that “* indicates compulsory fields to be completed”. 

In the address box, only the street number and name, and suburb have a red * next to them.

Naturally the user assumes the fields ticked with a star * are compulsory.

UAC address form

But no, the State, Postcode, and Country are also to be filled in. But you only realise this after hitting the ‘Next’ button.

A small window opens to tell you to select a Country for correspondence.

 

So this makes me wonder, what is the point of including “* indicates compulsory fields to be completed”, when clearly non * fields are also compulsory?

So naturally I then selected Australia from the country drop down box. Then another error is thrown (see image below).

UAC error

 

From reading that error, you may think that I had entered a non Australian State or Postcode. But in fact both those fields were empty. So now UAC is assuming that my address is not Australian, simply because I selected Australia for the country!

In case you are curious, entering the State and pressing “Next” also throws another error asking for Postcode!

Finally i was taken to the next page (after filling in the postcode) and asked for my credit card details. Yet i realised there is not option for going back, if for some reason i felt i had to change my postal address for example. Although a window does open asking you to confirm your address detials by clicking ‘OK’, the designers of this form have forgotten the fact that a Cancel is also needed. What if those details are incorrect and the user needs to change them?

All in all, this is a very poorly designed form, for a organisation that depends heavily on applications online and off. 

If i were to take a wild guess, i’d say the uptake of UAC online applications has been poor, and their call centres have had to answer for it. Most users having had to go through that form, would end up calling UAC to complain, as did my friend. 

I would like to hear of any other nasty forms you’ve come across lately! :)

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Hello blogger world!

November 3, 2008 · Filed under personal · Tagged

Hi there!

This is my information architecture blog, where i plan to post about any good or bad sites or interfaces i come across. And i would love to hear your comments!

cheers

fay afshar

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Evil Authentication Questions

November 3, 2008 · Filed under forms, user experience · Tagged , , , , ,

Make sure when asking users personal questions for authentication reasons, that these questions CAN actually be answered by EVERY USER.

 I used to work for a company that had an ID system that you had to log into to request access to a particular company website.

The problem was that the person who designed these authentication question clearly forgot to take into consideration the end user.

 Some of the questions you needed to answer in order to log into this system were:

 What is the name of your youngest sibling? [What are you supposed to say to this if you happen to be the youngest sibling? What if you are an only child? Obviously the person who came up with these questions only thought about their own situation]

 What is your favourite football team? [What if you don’t watch football or have a favourite team? Are you supposed to make something up (that is lie) and then try to remember this lie everything time you need to access this system?]

 What is your favourite Pizza? [Once again there are people who don’t like or eat pizza, and this is another example of narrow minded the designer of these questions was]

 What street did you grow up in? [Well many families like mine moved and migrated a few times, and these days its rare for someone to live in the same street from the day they are born to the day they leave home]

 No wonder no one could ever get into this poorly designed million dollar system, no one could ever answer such questions. And to make it worse, there was about 10 questions you had to answer each time! The only humorous part was the number of people who swore out loud each time they were unfortunate enough to need this system.

 I personally was forced to answer ‘unknown’ and copy and paste the same response for each field, and then keep a copy of this in another text file (so I wouldn’t forget, seeing as there was another 20 systems I needed to log in, each with different login requirements and rules).

 There are many ways around this problem, and I’m sure you can think of more, but here are 3 that spring to mind quickly: 

1)      Let the users define their own questions, so that there is a slight chance they can remember their answers. And for gods sake, reduce the questions to 2, instead of 10.

2)      Create a drop down list of questions (appropriately worded so that everyone can relate to them) and let the user select the questions they want to answer. This way, if I don’t have a younger sibling, I can name my mothers maiden name.

3)      If you’re going to insist on asking set questions, ask questions like what is your birthday? What is your mother or fathers name (give both options in case one parent is not known) 

I’m interested in hearing your comments and thoughts on this topic. Has there been a horrible form you’ve had to fill in recently that make your blood boil? 

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