Warum nicht mehr aus den bestehenden Technologien machen? Viele gestalterische Ideen und User Interfaces liessen sich auch mit bestehenden Technologien realisieren. Klar, das streicheln und swipen auf dem iPad macht Spass. Doch auch bestehende Seiten könnten ihre Usability und User Experience verbessern. Joy of Use wurde nicht erst mit dem iPad erfunden. Die meisten Softwareoberflächen fristen ein tristes graues Dasein mit Standard-Buttons aus dem Baukasten. Auf dem iPad würde niemand eine solche Augenschande programmieren. Warum? Weil die Leute besseres gewohnt sind und weil sie entsprechende Erwartungen haben. Warum nicht die Benutzer herkömmlicher Software mit einem ansprechenden Design und einem durchdachten Interaktionskonzept überraschen? Ich bin mir sicher, die Benutzer werden es danken. Spass ist nicht auf Apple begrenzt. Spass, Ästhetik und gute Usability sind Konzepte, die jeder in seine bestehenden Produkte und Dienste einflechten kann. Was würden Sie wählen, wenn sie die Wahl haben zwischen grau und umständlich oder ästhetisch und einfach zu bedienen? Geben Sie Ihren Kunden was Sie selbst zu schätzen wissen. Joy of Use.

Markus Heidmeier diskutiert mit Gästen über das iPad und die Auswirkungen auf die Mediennutzung.

Gäste
Armin Rott, Professor für Medienökonomie an der Hamburg Media School
Vera Brannen gründete 2004 Brannen Usable Brands. Sie ist Brand Experience Design Consultant.
Sascha Venohr, Entwicklungsredakteur bei Zeit Online

Hier zum Nachhören

Die Diskussion geht den Fragen nach: Was kann das iPad, was kann es nicht? Welche Nutzungsszenarien gibt es? Was macht die Konkurrenz?

Für Medienanbieter, zum Beispiel Verlage, schafft das iPad neue Angebotsmöglichkeiten. Zerfallen Printpodukte in Einzelerzeugnisse oder werde Magazine zu multimedialen Formaten oder kann das iPad am Ende sogar die Zeitungsverlage retten?

Auch Zeit Online wird eine solche fürs iPad optimierte Seite anbieten. Zusätzlich wird die gerade entstehende iPhone App der Zeit auch auf dem iPad laufen.

Schließlich stellt sich aber auch die Frage nach der sich ausdehnenden Marktmacht von Apple. Entsteht so nicht eine publizistische Abhängigkeit von den Regeln eines Unternehmens?

Auch für die Nutzer, die sich auf Apple-Produkte einstellen, könnte die Entwicklung aus dem offenen Netz etwa hin zu einem Netz der Apps werden?

Auch dieses Jahr war ich wieder mit dabei in der Nomminierungskommission des Grimme Online Awards.
Es hat super Spass gemacht, die zahlreichen Einreichungen im zehnjährigen Jubiläum des Awards zu bewerten und im Team zu diskutieren.

Seit gestern ist soweit! Aus den 2.000 eingereichten Vorschlägen haben wir 23 Angebote für den Grimme Online Award 2010 ausgewählt. Sie zeigen ein breites Spektrum an Themen und Formen von Qualität im Netz.

Zu den Nomminierten

The continued growth of this sector is the result of a growing commitment within organisations towards usability and user experience.

E-consultancy’s Head of Research Linus Gregoriadis said: “The growth of this market reflects the on-going buoyancy of the digital sector and the strategic importance of this channel within businesses. The agencies and consultancies profiled in this report continue to report high levels of demand for their services while companies recruit and expand their own in-house teams.”

Gregoriadis added: “A growing desire for more usable websites from public and private organisations is not the only source of growth for the industry. Many usability experts are transferring their skills to non-web activities and are already finding them to be a significant source of income.”

Headline market trends:

-) Increased competition in digital marketing drives investment.
-) Awareness of the importance of usability moves beyond the web.
-) More organisations embrace user-centred design.
-) Accessibility becomes ‘hygiene factor’ rather than separate discipline.

The most difficult task is to define the technical requirements your search engine needs to fulfil. Once you have decided on those, 3 major points for the design of your search interface are:

1. Place the search clearly visible and offer the search entry field on every page.
2. Make the general search interface as simple as possible. You might want to add an additional filter option such as availability, gender or product category.
3. Don’t go overboard with defining the detailed search. Studies show, that not too many people ever use it.

And what are people looking for in the result page. 5 points

1) Inform the users of what they typed into the search field.
2) How many results were produced
3) The results should have a clear title and a short summary
4) Show where the result is placed within the site (URL)
5) Let the customer filter the results (i.e. from cheapest to most expensive)

e-bay for example lets you filter the search results, shows an image and a title and in addtion even offers the option to save the search criteria.

Check out the entire series:
Part 1) Navigation and homepage
Part 2) Product overview
Part 3) Product detail page
Part 4) Search

To come:
Part 5) Check out process
Part 6) The shopping basket

Looking at their new homepage, I noticed three main points regarding usability and branding:

#1 Fast access to information on homepage

The main purpose of visiting a news Web site is usually to quickly learn about what is going on in the world or in the personal field of interest – for example sports. This means users want to be able to quickly scan the site and then pick an article.

It is exactly this which is impossible on the new BBC home page. Counting the visible news (at a 1024 resolution) entries on the home pages of major news sites today:

• BBC: 9 articles (not counting weather)
• CNN: 19 headlines
• NY Times: 18 headlines
• Yahoo: 14 headlines

Most other news sites make it much easier to get a quick overview.

When the user personalizes the homepage he can get up to about 12 visible entries without scrolling. However, studies have shown that usually only a small percentage of users make use of personalising a site. And why can the user not move the big picture on top; the one that is actually taking up most of the space?

Studies have shown that a minimum font size of 12 px and a bigger line spacing leads to the best results in reading efficiency and information transfer. So this is solved nicely on the new homepage. However, especially on the homepage there is too much unused space. For example the weather and blog quote are huge compared to the information they transfer.

#2 Accessing other topics via the homepage

In addition, the user has no chance to quickly access the topics provided by BBC. The user has to scroll to the end of the home page to find these:

These links are provided as a general navigation on almost every other news Web site. They allow easy and convenient access to the user’s field of interest. BBC offers those links also on all its subpages. Why not on the homepage?

For example Yahoo has solved those points on their homepage in a good manner: The navigation to the left with easy access to the main topics and lots of information in the content area.

#3 Visual consistency and branding

While the homepage looks like a clear attempt in trendy design with rounded corners, fading colours and light effects all the subpages have a totally different look and feel. They are flat 2 dimensional design, squared corners, no shading. What does BBC stand for?

The more the branding strategy is in accord with the corporate identity, the stronger the brand will be reinforced with the target group in the long run. By focusing on brand essentials, unnecessary wastage can be avoided and a strengthening of the brand image and therefore also of the brand value can be achieved. The total expenditure for branding activities will not be increased though the overall branding impact will be improved.

Trust in the brand
As soon as the communication strategy in all media is built upon the corporate identity, the user receives a consistent image of the company and its products: with each contact, his trust in the brand is reinforced and affirmed.

Information transfer targeted for your audience
Appeal to the intellect of the user by enabling him to find all the necessary information that he seeks about a service or product. Communicate your company’s message using concise language which is based on the user’s level of experience with your products or services; avoid using trade jargon. Make additional information easily accessible.

Emotional communication
The distinct use of colours, fonts, wording, forms, and images creates the desired emotions and virtual experience of your brand, which should always be based on the company’s corporate identity. The resulting corporate design needs to follow the same rules in all media.

Product and web experience
A user’s interactive experience with the website strongly influences his perception of the company. Flaws in usability and branding can therefore easily lead the user to conclude that the services and products are also inadequate. In contrast, ease of use highly influences the brand

Fulfilment of expectations
It happens rather frequently that websites are a direct reflection of internal company structures, since the website creators are themselves very familiar with the topics. As a result, internal needs and expectations are prevalent. Good usability assures that the site focuses mainly on the expectations and needs of your target groups and functions in accord with their habits regarding online behaviour.

High quality
Every website must achieve its intended purpose – providing information, entertaining, selling products, building a user community, etc. In each of those cases the user does not want to think about the interaction itself. The more intuitively a user can use the site, the better. If the site meets user expectations, a feeling of trust and quality is established. This is a great opportunity to distinguish the site from the competitor’s.

Increased retention time
The better the site’s concept caters to the target group and the more intuitively it can be used, the longer the user will stay. The focus is, for example, on how the user can be stimulated to look at further content on the site and on how fast central questions of the users are answered.

Higher interaction rate
Intensive use of a site is the result of a targeted structure as well as information and good interaction design. The site’s benefit is obvious to the user, and he can easily find valuable information. How quickly and how intense does the user get involved with your site? What are the incentives to visit the site again? How are interactive elements used?

Reaching a broader audience
By complying with certain design and publishing guidelines the website can reach a broader target group. The site will be accessible for the elderly as well as for the physically or visually impaired.

Joy of use
Over the last few years, the notion of “joy of use” has received increasing attention. It describes the degree of experienced joy of use of a site or software and indicates the personal satisfaction and motivation to interact.

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a
distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in
theflower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under
Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs,
such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5 and then installed
undesirable programs such as NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1.
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply
crashesthe system. I’ve tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems,
butto no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,
Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE,

First keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while

Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.html and try to download
Tears 6.2 and don’t forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update. If that
application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically
run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

But remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0
to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1. Please
note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the
Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus
in the background that will eventually seize control of all your
system resources.)

Also do not attempt to reinstall Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are
unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider
buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We
recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good Luck,
Tech Support

This is one of my all-time favourites. Why? It’s a fantastic, quick read packed with insights and full of wisdom on what branding is all about. I think it’s a great read for anybody involved in selling a service, product or idea.

Marty explains in a very descriptive and in easy-to-understand language how to keep any brand on track and why brand consistency will pay off. He defines 5 disciplines on how you can build a sustainable brand and which obstacles to look out for. And it is often exactly those obstacles why even big brands are struggling.

What also stands out is that Marty practices what he is preaching with his own book: focus and differentiate. His book could not be any more condensed, and his book itself is a brand. Great illustrations and graphics visualise his ideas in a way you won’t forget.

Here is a condensed version of his book in PDF format – enjoy:
Powerpoint version of “The Brand Gap” by Marty Neumeier (PDF 3.5 MB)

I am not sure if the following is still valid, but if you need books for your branding team:
Bulk discounts on the THE BRAND GAP are
available for educational and corporate groups.
Contact STEPHANIE.WALL@NEWRIDERS.COM.