Keep The Noise Down

Microsoft Surface tips

  

 

The usual #Surface suspects have been posting their Microsoft Surface tips on Twitter.  To avoid losing these design recommendations for this interaction paradigm in to the twittersphere I have collated the first 20 tips below.  

If anyone wants to suggest further tips then please use the hashtag #Surfacetip and I'll continue to post them in batches of 20.

 

@wandster Microsoft Surface tip 1: ensure the project team share the same vision of a Surface experience to minimize risk of a paradigm face-off

 

@wandster Microsoft Surface tip 2: for optimal experience keep features trim & create a focused experience which contributes to a single purpose

 

@wandster  Microsoft Surface tip 3: playfulness is a must in the spirit of a Surface experience as this new breed of app has an enjoyment factor

@stevedawson agreed, playfulness is important for #Surface - the best experiences balance playfulness with accessibility

 

@wandster  Surface tip no.4: Don't do it just cos' you can. Only use object recognition where it adds to the experience. Avoid gimmickry...

@stevedawson Yea, that is a tough one - especially when object recognition is a core #Surface tenant and differentiator vs. other multi-touch

@stevedawson Fortunately, I think most experiences can benefit from object recognition - so it's not just about the "magic"

@wandster it's about using it well to add to the experience - the concierge app is a great #Surface app that doesn't use obj recognition

@lhamilton objects should insinuate user expectations of the exp & reinforce behavior & interactions; its a huge differentiator for #Surface

@lhamilton OR is the power of #Surface, it brings the analogue and digital together. Yes, some are butchering, but that's why we have jobs!

 

@wandster MS Surface tip no.5: Engineer the #Surface interface to 'encourage' social interaction.

@lhamilton Agreed, it should be the catalyst

 

 @stevedawson Tip No. 6: No, you should NOT try and mount #Surface on a wall :) - we get the question all the time.

@wandster  am surprised no-one has youtube'd what does happens you wall mount a Microsoft Surface unit!

@stevedawson I'm sure #surface on a wall will happen eventually - the whole "gravity" thing wouldn't mesh well with object recognition

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip no.7: the best gestural interfaces need to be discoverable, except when they're used in a point-of-sale process

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip no.8: If it needs instruction, there's room for UI improvement; surprises are good but exp should not be dependent on them

@wandster absolutely - #Surface experiences should be immediately learnable. However, enterprise apps can afford some cost of setup

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip no.9: its not what's just on screen, the environment is key to user engagement and attraction affordances

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip no.10: i think @odannyboy said it best, the complexity of the gesture should match the complexity of the task

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip no.11: visual and auditory responses are key to reinforcing successful user interactions and building trust w/ the user

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip 12: vision-based systems measure both location of a touch & its direction; utilize the user(s) orientation to enrich the XD

 

@lhamilton: MS #Surface Tip 13: Surface unit's make great work-space heaters in the winter time, however they do not make hot chocolate

@phenomblue so true!

 

@lhamilton MS #Surface Tip 14: avoid putting vital features/info, like labels, below interface items that can be touched, the user's hand could hide it

 

@swervinerv MS #Surface Tip 15: UI orientation should be 360 degrees and/or easily interchangeable based on user direction/interaction

 

@wandster Microsoft #Surface tip no.16: Use audio to i) complement the interaction and visual design, and ii) to enhance the users sensory experience

 

@joshblake #SurfaceTip #17 Both #Surface and real life are continuous experiences. Design a continuous UX: smoothly animate every visual change.

 

@wandster #Surfacetip No.18: Check the room lighting before you install your #surface unit - light spill is your enemy.

 

@joshblake #SurfaceTip #19: When you think of a cool application idea, also consider: "Would anyone actually pay money for it?"

 

@meekalbajaj: #Surfacetip 20: Design for different interaction durations. Applications should cater to interaction times of 2, 10 & 30 min

Consider the entire customer journey before you go blame the checkout...

I’m taking a respite from my recent glut of multi-touch posts and jumping back in to the web paradigm with one of my favorite ecommerce topics – the online checkout process. 

An online retailer has asked me to solve the mystery of why a high number of shoppers are going AWOL during their checkout process. My concern is that I am expected to concentrate all my efforts on identifying and rectifying problems in the checkout itself.  But the full story can only be understood by following the entire user journey from start to finish and reviewing all the site evidence.

A high abandonment rate is an unnecessary evil.  For many online retailers the percentage of people that add an item to their basket but drop out before completing the purchase sits somewhere between 50 and 70 percent. In simple terms over half the people who show intent to buy don't submit their order.  wow - it's easy to understand why the checkout gets so much bad press if it's responsible for so many potential customers saying adieu.

I find 50-70 percent high and expect to see this below 50 percent so most retailers have some way to go before they can sit easy when recounting their abandonment rate. It’s amazing when you think about the large sums of money online retailers invest in driving visitors to the site but then drive them out with an inexcusable checkout faux pas.  Checkout problems are possibly the largest cause of lost revenue for most ecommerce sites.

However...the checkout process is not always guilty, sometimes guilty of little more than being caught napping at the scene of the crime.

An analytics package will track where in the checkout process customers are dropping out.  The analytics show where potential buyers exit but they can't tell you WHY with absolute confidence.  And this point is key.   A guilty verdict must be beyond a reasonable doubt. It is this doubt which should encourage us to explore other lines of investigation.

So before you go and string up the architect of your checkout process you need to take a holistic view of your online proposition.  The checkout process is present at the scene of the crime - yes - but is it the main perpetrator? Maybe not...

The crime against conversion can stick out like a sore thumb but often the reason is far less obvious.  Customers may exit when their goodwill is exhausted. Customers will persevere but everyone has a limit.  For some customers this limit is reached far quicker than others.  Many potential buyers walk wounded as they battle on, with their goodwill slowly being drained. In many cases the checkout process lands the fatal blow but to truly address customer abandonment you need to identify and eliminate the early blows.

Sites that can be proud of their abandonment rate continuously improve their websites.  These impressive conversion rates don't come overnight, by implementing piecemeal enhancements to the checkout process but a broader strategy and commitment to their customer’s experience.  Designing an effective checkout process begins outside of the checkout process.

Sketching User Interfaces

So often criticised for its crimes against usability, Visio has been a loyal servant to me during the industrial years of the wireframe factory.  Yet this tool of choice for the past decade is now at risk of being retired as the shift from Web to Surface paradigm sees my toolkit evolve. With the rich interactions of natural user interfaces the good ole fashioned pencil and paper is back in vogue.  Sketching is the visualization tool do jour in this interaction paradigm.   

Yet pencil & paper has its challenges for the artistically challenged.  Years of keyboard abuse has seen my handwriting suffer and I never progressed beyond disproportioned stick men.  My hand drawn sketches are no Picasso so I need to discard those napkin sketches and find myself a tool that enables me to quickly scamp up the designs whilst keeping that rawness of a work-in-progress.

I am not advocating that we jump in to a design package and produce hi-fidelity designs but that we use simple tools to quickly and efficiently mock up hand-drawn line sketches such as this (below)

  

One of our User Experience Architects used Omnigraffle to create these digital sketches (above) for our Microsoft Surface Enterprise Search Application, using a stencil of shapes built from illustrations created by our design team.  I have built my own sketching toolkit from collections of stencils such as Konigi and Graffeltopia – great sources of free stencils for creating user interface specifications.

But are these complex diagramming applications the most efficient tools for sketching designs?  In my pursuit of the killer tool for visualizing the behaviour of an application I posted a tweet for designers to come forth with their digital sketch tool of choice. I received responses from the usual suspects in the #Surface community -  @joshblake, @stevedawson and @lhamilton.  My question was timely as these chaps were individually considering developing a UI prototyping tool for NUI’s.

Joshua (@joshblake) posed a question back to me - what features would I want from a UI prototyping tool?

I thought I’d open Joshua’s question up to a wider audience... what would you want from a digital sketch tool for the early stages of UI design? so please step forward and suggest a feature wishlist so we can see what existing UI prototyping tools (e.g. Denim, Balsamiq etc) meet our sketching needs and if they fall short then we can possibly see what these clever chaps can do about it.

Microsoft Surface: the Master of Digital Ceremonies

On multi-touch devices like Microsoft Surface and the SMART table multiple users interact with digital content concurrently.  These digital social experiences extend beyond a poke and a tweet as users interact face-to-face.  The success of these multi-user social platforms depends on the familiarity of the users, a cocktail of cultural and situational factors, and the interfaces ability to encourage social participation.

The way I see it is that the role of the Microsoft Surface interface is akin to that of a compère of a public show, whose job it is to engage the audience and keep the show moving.  The success of the show depends on the compère’s ability to not only entertain but to make the audience feel at ease.  The audience’s social confidence is drawn from their familiarity with the people around them. Therefore the role the compère plays in encouraging social interaction is significantly influenced by the audience’s degree of familiarity. It is this role of as Master of Digital Ceremonies that forms an important part of our Surface interface design strategy.

I recently worked up two Microsoft Surface concepts which took very different approaches to engaging the audience.  These approaches were influenced by the familiarity of the target audience.  The first concept was a collaborative enterprise search application.  All the users are from the same company so the audience has a degree of familiarity. The second concept was a CRM application in a public space.  The participants are in the main strangers and do not know one another.

This is what Microsoft refers to in their Surface User Experience Guidelines as multi-friends and multi-stranger scenarios.

And it is this distinction around participants’ degree of familiarity which requires a different social design strategy. How your interface welcomes the users?  How does the interface provide a way for another user to join? How the interface rewards cooperation? Does the interface make it clear to a user how to join in? etc

Poor social engineering means the interface will fail in its role as host of a cooperative social experience.  We endeavoured to ensure the interface succeeded as host of the digital show and did not exlude or discourage social particpation. 

 

Consider the following 'somewhat obvious' example: In the multi-friends scenario of the enterprise search application a busy screen showed no negative impact in encouraging new users to join the experience. User testing further showed that a 'cluttered' interface actually appeared to intrigue new users and encourage conversation and social participation. In the multi-stranger scenario of the CRM application new users showed reluctance to enter what they referred to as a ‘messy’ interface and this created a barrier to entry. In this scenario the Surface interface needs to work harder to encourage user participation and social activity.  We achieved this by simply reducing content clutter, which had a significant improvement on social participation.