100 Things You Should Know About People: #43 — People Expect Online Interactions to Follow Social Rules

Friends talking and laughting together
Photo Credit: Katie Ricard

When people interact with each other they follow rules and guidelines for social interaction. Here’s an example: Let’s say I go to a café and I see you sitting by the window. We know each other, and so I come up to you and say, “Hi Richard, how are you doing today?” I expect you to interact with me, and I expect that interaction to follow a certain protocol. I expect you to look at me, in fact to look me in the eye. If our previous interactions have been positive, then I expect you to smile a little bit. Next, you are supposed to respond to me by saying something like, “I’m fine. I’m sitting outside here to enjoy the beautiful weather.” Where the conversation goes next depends on how well we know each other. If we are just casual acquaintances we might wind down the conversation, “Well, enjoy it while you can, bye!” If we are close friends, then I might pull up a chair and engage in a longer conversation.

We have expectations of how the interaction will go — and if either of us violates the expectations, then we will get uncomfortable. For example, what if I start the conversation as above, with “Hi Richard, how are you doing today?” but you don’t respond. What if you ignore me? Or what if you won’t look at me? What if you say back, “My sister never liked the color blue”, and stare into space. Or perhaps you give me more personal information than our relationship warrants. Any of these scenarios would make me uncomfortable. I would probably try to end the conversation as soon as possible, and likely avoid interacting with you next time the opportunity arises.

Online interactions follow the same social rules — When people go to a website or use an online application, they have assumptions about how the website will respond to them and what the interaction will be like. And many of these expectations mirror the expectations that they have for person-to-person interactions. If the website is not responsive or takes too long to load, it is like talking to a person who is not looking at you, or is ignoring you. If the website asks for personal information too soon in the flow of the interaction, that is like the other person getting too personal. If the website does not save your information from session to session, that is like the other person not recognizing you or remembering that you have already established a relationship.

There are cultural expectations too — Different cultures have different expectations of social rules and interactions. In the US when I meet someone new I put out my hand for a handshake, but in other cultures a handshake would not be the normal social rule for meeting a new person. In the US it’s common to ask someone new that you meet “What do you do”, but in some cultures that would seem too personal. Similarly, if a website is not modified to meet the expectations of a particular culture (called localization of the website), then it will miss the mark because it will violate social rules of the target culture.

A new definition of social media? — Some people are saying that “social media” has reached its peak and is dying. But maybe the definition just needs to get broader. Is social media just about how to connect people together online? How to use online networking as a way to promote brands or products or services? Aren’t all online interactions really social interactions?If people expect their online interactions to follow the rules of social interactions, then isn’t something as simple as showing up at the home page of a website actually a social interaction. Is filling out a form at a government website to renew your automobile registration a social interaction?

What do you think? Should web designers think about the interactions that they are building as social interactions? Should they consider how to mirror person-to-person interaction? Would they design different interactions if they were thinking this way? Is this a new definition of  “social media”?

———————————

Did you find this post interesting? If you did, please consider doing one or more of the following:

add your comment
subscribe to the blog via RSS or email
sign up for the Brain Lady newsletter
share this post

100 Things You Should Know About People: #36 — People are Inherently Lazy

Photo Credit: Mr. Thomas

Ok, I’ll admit it, I am exaggerating a little bit when I say people are inherently lazy. What I really mean is that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done.

Is lazy another word for efficient? — Over eons of evolution humans have learned that they will survive longer and better if they conserve their energy. We’ve learned that we want to spend enough energy to have enough resources (food, water, sex, shelter), but beyond that we are wasting our energy if we spend too much time running around getting stuff.

How much is enough? — Of course questions about how much is enough, and do we have enough stuff yet, and how long should the stuff last (and on and on), still vex us, but putting the philosophical questions aside, for most activities most of the time humans work on a principle that is called “satisficing”.

Satisfy plus suffice = Satisfice — According to Wikipedia, Herbert Simon was the person who coined the term satisfice. It was originally used to describe a decision-making strategy whereby the person decides to pick the option that is adequate rather than optimal. The idea is that the cost of making a complete analysis of all the options is not only not worth it, but may be impossible. According to Simon we often don’t have the cognitive faculties to weigh all the options. So it makes more sense to make a decision based on “what will do” or what is “good enough” rather than trying to find the optimal or perfect solution.

Designing with satisficing in mind — So if people “satisfice” rather than “optimize”, what are the implications for those of us who design web sites, software, products, or even design surveys? Satisficing leads to some interesting design guidelines which I’ve listed below.

Design web sites for scanning, not reading — In his excellent book Don’t Make Me Think, Steve Krug applies the idea of satisficing to the behavior you can observe when someone comes to your web site. You are hoping the visitor will read the whole page, but we know that “What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don’t even look at.”

Assume that people will look for shortcuts — People will look for ways to do something faster and with less steps. This is especially true if it is a task they are doing over and over.

But if the shortcut is too hard to find — Then people will keep doing it the old way. This seems paradoxical, but it’s all about the amount of perceived work. If it seems like too much work to find a shortcut then people will stay with their old habits (they are even satisficing about satisficing).

Provide defaults — Defaults  reduce the amount of work. When you provide defaults on a web form, for example, the person’s name and address is already filled in, this means there is less that people have to do. The downside of this is that people often don’t notice defaults, and so may end up accepting a default without knowing. Here again, the answer lies in the amount of effort. If it takes a lot of work to change the result of accepting a “wrong” default, then think twice about using them.

Take care with the order and wording of your survey questions — Satisficing is particular difficult for surveys. People will get into a “groove” of answering all the questions the same way because it’s easier and they don’t have to think. If your survey is more than a few questions long you will have to mix it up, and provide different options and formats for the questions or you will find that a given individual has chosen twenty-five “6’s” in a row on your scale.

What are your experiences, either as a user or a designer, with the concept of satisficing?

Photo credit by Mr. Thomas

—————————————————

Did you find this post interesting? If you did, please consider doing one or more of the following:

add your comment
subscribe to the blog via RSS or email
sign up for the Brain Lady newsletter
share this post

100 Things You Should Know About People: #33: Bite-Sized Chunks Of Info Are Best

Map of Portugal at tourism siteI am about to head to Portugal for a week, and I was interested in exploring different possible destinations in Portugal. I may not have much time for touring (I’m going to speak at the UXLX conference there), but if I did have time, where should I go? I have to admit to pretty much total ignorance about Portugal, the different regions, landscapes, and parts of the country, so I went to the official tourism web site for the country.

Give me a little bit at a time — The Portugal tourism site did an OK job of  what is called progressive disclosure. This is fancy term that is used in the field of psychology to refer to providing information in increasing chunks of size and complexity.

We can only handle so much — Humans can only process small amounts of information at a time (consciously that is… the estimate is that we handle 40,000,000 pieces of information every second, but only 40 of those make it to our conscious brains). One mistake that web sites make is to give too much information all at once, like this web site from the Canadian government:

Canadian government website with no progressive disclosure

There is no chunking here, there is not progressive disclosure. It’s just all the information thrown on the page all at once. The result? You don’t read it, you just leave.

Feeding bits of information — The Portugal site was just OK when it came to progressive disclosure. New Zealand does a much better job. The New Zealand tourism site has multiple levels of disclosure, feeding you the information bit by bit. Here’s the first page on the regions of New Zealand:

where I see the overall map and names of the different regions. If I hover over one of the regions in the list then I see a thumbnail of information:

Portugal site with thumbnail picture and info on a regionContinuing on with this idea of progressive disclosure, if I click on that region then I link to a page with more pictures and little more detail:

Detailed map of the region from the Portugal site

there is a big map and there are tabs to go to for more information. If I scroll down I’ll have details on the region:

Detailed information on the region from the Portugal site

This is a great example of how to use progressive disclosure.

It’s not the clicks that count (pun intended) — One thing I’d like to point out is that progressive disclosure requires multiple clicks. Sometimes you will hear people say that websites should minimize the number of clicks that people have to make to get to the detailed information. The number of clicks is not the important criteria. People are very willing to make multiple clicks, in fact that won’t even notice they are making the clicks, if they are getting the right amount of information at each click to keep them going down the path.

Think progressive disclosure, don’t count clicks.

Should I let the web site design influence whether I book a ticket? Not this time at least. This time I’m headed for Portugal, where I plan to use the Portugal tourism site as a case study in my workshop!

——————————————————————-

Did you find this post interesting? If you did, please consider doing one or more of the following:

add your comment
subscribe to the blog via RSS or email
sign up for the Brain Lady newsletter
share this post

Initial Impressions Of The iPad

Picture of IPadMy (long awaited) iPad arrived last Friday, and I’ve had a few days to start my relationship with it. I have the wireless plus 3G version. Here are my initial impressions, from a user experience point of view:

Fingerprints, fingerprints, fingerprints — I am beginning to understand the use of fingerprints in forensic science… certainly they are all over my iPad! Luckily they are easy to clean off with a little windex and a soft cloth.

It doesn’t replace anything — I’ve read some critiques of the iPad saying it can’t replace your iphone (doesn’t have a phone) and it can’t replace your laptop (not enough storage space etc.) My take is that it isn’t meant to replace anything… it is its own device in its own right. I don’t think that is a bad thing. The iPad is different.

The iPad apps are what it’s all about — As soon as I got the iPad I started downloading apps. Most of them are free, a few cost from .99 to 9.99. The apps are great, and I find myself scanning my 3 news sources more than I do on my laptop. I’ve started reading books. I know, it’s not a Kindle, but I like reading books on the iPad. Apps for the iPhone “work” but essentially are useless… they look bad and show up tiny on the screen.

Small differences have huge results — The user interface for calendar, and email (both ical and gmail) is subtly different than on a laptop, but the difference in the interface makes a huge difference in the experience. Although a keyboard is important for composing an email, perusing emails, reading them, deleting them, looking at your calendar is all much more intuitive on an iPad than on any other device I’ve used. Having said that, you need to add the keyboard (I got the wireless one) if you are really going to type anything. I find I use my laptop when I really need to type, and the iPad when I don’t. I am going to experiment with using the iPad and the keyboard while travelling in place of my laptop.

The iPad is my new pet — Maybe I’ll be able to articulate this better as time goes on, but in the few days I’ve had the iPad I’ve become attached to it. It’s something about the size, the shape, the speed of response, and the user experience of using your fingers to navigate rather than a mouse and keyboard… all of these things make me feel attached to the iPad. It’s like a pet. I want it near me, I reach for it first thing in the morning and often during the day.

It’s not perfect, and I’m sure the whole concept will evolve over time, but there’s a new device in town that I believe is here to stay. Maybe I’ve just got the glow of a new relationship. I’ll let you know if it lasts!

Do you have an iPad? Want one? Don’t want one? Write a comment with your opinion.

——————————————————————-

Did you find this post interesting? If you did, please consider doing one or more of the following:

add your comment
subscribe to the blog via RSS or email
sign up for the Brain Lady newsletter
share this post

Sometimes The Best Idea Is To Steal One

bottle of Method laundry detergentWhat do rolling luggage and Method laundry detergent have in common? Bear with me while I tell some stories, and I’ll explain.

The Mayans had wheeled toys, but not wheeled tools — I’m listening to a Financial Markets course by Robert Shiller from Yale. In one of the lectures, Professor Shiller talks about the Mayan culture. When the Spanish came to the New World in the 16th century they were impressed with the Mayan culture, for example, the buildings of the Mayans, and the Mayan calendar, which was more accurate than the calendar used in Europe at the time. But they noticed that the Mayans did not have any wheeled tools — no carts, no wagons, not even a potter’s wheel. Interestingly, the Mayans did know about wheels. Archeologists have found many wheeled pull toys, for example, animals made of fired clay that stand on a platform with four wheels, and a string around the neck. So the wheel existed, but not for a utilitarian purpose. here’s a picture of an early Mayan toy with wheels.

Picture of a mayan toy

The invention of rolling luggage — Professor Shiller goes on to talk about rolling luggage carts. Luggage itself has been around for a long while. First there were large “steamer” trunks that were used on ocean voyages, and then later on many variations of suitcases. Wheels have been around for a long time, yet like the Mayans, no one had thought to put wheels on luggage. The first time that someone married wheels and luggage was 1973! Robert Plath, a pilot, is often credited for creating wheeled luggage in 1988. Though he is the one who created the rolling luggage that we are all used to these days, Bernie Sadow was actually the first person to put wheels on luggage. Bernie’s rolling luggage is different from the carry-ons we use today, but he was the first (and he has a patent to prove it). And if you want to get picky, a man named Denton Chester Crowl In the early 1900’s invented a set of wheels that could be attached to luggage temporarily. Here’s a picture of one of Bernie’s  versions of  luggage with wheels.

Picture of Bernie Sadow's rolling luggage

Innovation is all around us — Professor Shiller’s point is that there are always new inventions in any field. Even when we think we are quite advanced, we can assume that there will be more innovation and inventions. I think the key is to be willing to steal ideas. In other words, look around at what works in one arena, and figure out how to apply that existing idea to the design of something new in your field.

Where the laundry detergent fits in — In a more recent example, Method One has recently come out with laundry detergent. I use liquid laundry detergent (Purex is the brand I’ve been using for at least 15 years or maybe more). The typical liquid laundry detergent bottle is large and clunky. You take off the lid, then pour detergent in the lid as a measuring device, pour the liquid from the lid onto your clothes, and then replace the lid. It kind of works, but you always end up with a sticky mess on the outside of the bottle, as the liquid drips down the side. Method One is different. They took the pump dispenser used in other products (think window cleaner or hand soap dispenser) and put it on a small, sleek bottle of laundry detergent. You just press down 3 or 4 times and out comes the correct amount of laundry detergent. Small, easy to handle, no mess.

What do you think? — Have you ever had a design problem that you were stuck on? Did you try looking around you to see if there was a design from another object that you could use to get unstuck?

——————————————————————-

Did you find this post interesting? If you did, please consider doing one or more of the following:

add your comment
subscribe to the blog via RSS or email
sign up for the Brain Lady newsletter
share this post