UIRC Article with Adobe's Ethan Eismann

UIRC (User Interface Resource Center) has just posted a new interview with Ethan Eismann, Senior Experience Design Lead on Thermo.  If you have yet to check out UIRC, you're in for a treat.  There are some outstanding articles from a number of thought-leaders in the UX space (Jared Spool, David Armano, Stevent Heintz, etc.).  True, the site is sponsored by EffectiveUI (a.k.a. my bread and butter) but it's the ideas and info expressed through the site that keeps me going back.  

Wyld Stallyons - eBay Desktop 1.5 Preview

I've been given the okay to show some of the approved comps for eBay Desktop 1.5, code name Wyld Stallyons. Right now the developers are hard at work bringing it to life and I'm looking forward to the upcoming user testing.  The design goal for this incremental update was 1) to create a more intuitive user experience, 2) improve consistency of interface metaphors, and 3) provide an extensible interface model that will allow for future growth of the application.  

In subsequent posts I offer larger screens of particular section and discuss the reasoning behind the changes (functional, aesthetic, and production -- the big news about this last one is that we are using Degrafa to create most all the assets) from the 1.0 San Dimas version of the application.  For now, however, here are a few comp thumbs.

For more news about developments with eBay Desktop, check out Alan Lewis' eBay Desktop blog and, of course, if you don't have eBay Desktop, you can get it here and give it a try.

Crying Over Spilt Milk

Costco and Wal-Mart have adopted new milk jugs which, according to NYTimes reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom, "are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less."  Hooray, right?  Well, not so much.  Apparently the new jugs are a spectacular failure when it comes to user experience.  Awkward to grip and difficult to pour without spilling, the jugs represent a conflict between efficiency and usability.

Read the article here (NYTimes account required - but if you don't have one already, it is really worth the two minutes to set one up).

Yahoo & Google Crawl Flash

RJ Owen, a Senior Developer at EffectiveUI who also blogs for O'Reilly just alerted us to this delightful tidbit.  Adobe has been working with Yahoo and Google to make Flash content more searchable.  I think this is a very wise move on Adobe's part (and not only because it will mean that a certain Flash-hating friend will lose one of the only strong arguments he had -- that's just the cherry on top).

Read RJ's article.

Barbarians at the Gate

Damn!   

Another Take on Google

Development manager Sergey Solyanik is on his way back to Microsoft after having putting in some time with Google after having worked for Microsoft. A little drive around the block as it were. Given that Google is the figurative Tom Jones of the tech industry at whom most can barely resist flinging their undergarments, this reversal may seem somewhat curious.  What is most interesting however, is Solyanik's explanation of the decision in his blog 1-800-MAGIC particularly in light of the last post about Google's user experience principles.

Consider Solyanik's assertion that,"Google software business is divided between producing 'eye candy' - web properties that are designed to amuse and attract people - and the infrastructure required to support them.  Some of the web properties are useful (some extremely useful - search), but most of them primarily help people waste time online[.]"   This impression is exactly what the Google UX manifesto seeks to avoid as stated in their very first principle -- "Above all, a well-designed Google product is useful in daily life."  At the same time, however, the principles focus much more on the holistic, experiential quality of the Google's offerings more then it does on strict utility.

Of course Solyanik points out a number of Google's strengths but I find his position that Google's culture is "not geared to delivering enterprise class reliability to its user applications" to be very intriguing in light of their recently released UX principles.  Read 'em both and let me know what you think.