One of the most frustrating things for me as a consumer is when I can’t figure out what a particular design choice is supposed to mean. When I can tell the decision wasn’t arbitrary, but I can’t figure out its logic, it sends me into a tailspin. I must be able to figure out the rationale, and I will dig until I do!
Recently, Google launched a new interface for its calendar service. While the functionality remained mostly the same as the previous version, the makeover came with a new color palette (RIP custom colors). And suddenly, some of my events had stripes, while others did not.
Noah and I were determined to get to the bottom of this. Events we did not create were striped, but events we created were not? That seemed to be true, but it didn’t explain every case. Were the stripes on events we’d been invited to but hadn’t accepted yet? Nope. Events on other people’s calendars? Not necessarily.
Finally, I gave up on sussing out the logic myself and turned — where else? — to Google. There, I finally found my answer: Events I could not edit were striped, and events I could edit were not.
Granted, my confusion didn’t fundamentally change my ability to use my calendar; I could still tell where I was supposed to be and when. But I still think there’s a lesson there: If your design signals that two things are different from each other, it’s a good idea to be absolutely clear about what the difference is, lest you cause unnecessary angst.
Got an invite to try out the latest social service Google launched today: Google+, thought it would be good to give a few “fresh” UX comments on it 
Circle‘s definitely the first feature that I paid attention to. By placing contacts into different social circles (one contact can be in multiple circles), you’ll be able to choose your audience for sharing. This is definitely not a new concept, as you can group your friends in whatever way you like on Facebook as well. What’s more, the fact that people have the need for this kind of optimal and selective sharing is not a “secret” any more. Back in Cornell, one of the published studies I did with Professor Jeff Hancock and a few fellow Cornellians was exactly looking at this particular issue. However, the strong contrast we found was, despite of people’s needs to filter who they want to talk to on Facebook, they were still too LAZY to group friends, and do all those privacy customization. Although they might not intend to, people would still carelessly post the photo they took in crazy parties on a platform on which their boss could see the same photo as well.
I guess there are two approaches Google uses here to at least make the notorious process of friends grouping easier and more intuitive for users. The first is of course through the UI design. The first impression I had about this wheel-shaped friend circle was “VERY NEAT.” The drag and drop action’s definitely quite easy and intuitive, and the visual effects made it quite a pleasant experience to place friends onto different wheels (At least must pleasant compared to Facebook’s grouping feature, you couldn’t drag and drop, so users have to customize the friend groups as if they are configuring their bank accounts. One detailed design feature was that users could select multiple friends and drag them all together. Grouping is one thing, to be able to easily share is another thing. That’s where the newly updated black Google tool bar came into play. Once the groups are set, as long as you are browsing content under Google (e.g. viewing search results, google reader content, etc.), as shown on the left side of the image below, you could use the tool bar to conveniently share the content (also attach location, photos, files to it…), and choose the specific friend circle to share it with. It IS pretty much like a cross platform Google Buzz. So instead of going to the buzz app or gmail to share things, users could share it on the top right corner of the web page.
So how does this different from Facebook‘s friend grouping mechanism? As shown on the right hand side, whenever FB users post their status, by clicking on that little lock icon, they could choose among “friends”, “friends and Networks”, etc. If this were 5 years ago, when the concept of Network still matters, i mean when people can pretty much group their online friends by what school they went to or what company they worked for, i guess that’s fine. However, as the social networks are developing into this “long tail” fashion, even within a same network, everyone of us might have different “inner circles”, plus there are social circles overlapping with each other, so what people really need now is that little “customize” thing to select a specifically customized group of people to share certain information with. However, by clicking on that customize thing, users would be taken to another window (an extra step right there), AND, that’s not where they could customize the group, only the place where they could choose groups… so that adds a whole layer of complexity to the user experience of grouping friends on FB, which makes it not hard to explain why people are not quite into “grouping friends” on Facebook.
So the Steam thing is pretty much just like the Facebook Wall. Not sure how folks from Facebook would feel about this, but pretty much you can find every feature in Stream matches with a feature on Facebook: “Share what’s new…” = “write something”; “+1″=”like”, comment, share, etc. all the same, it’s just on each feature, it made selectively sharing via friend circles much easier.
To be honest, I am not quite sure how far the circle thing will bring Google+ to, cause you know, sometimes, people do need that kind of “blast” feeling by posting random stuff out there, to shout out loudly to all their friends, i mean ALL their friends. Who knows what kind of surprising responses you’ll have, good or bad, and that’s how you establish connections with those weak social ties you have on SNS, which is exactly what’s interesting about SNS, not only to maintain existing social connections, but also to potentially foster new ones.
By turning Google+ into a Facebook, that also adds another interesting phenomenon, that is, users started to pay attention and customize their Google profile, which for fairly a long period of time, nobody really cares… all of a sudden, google profile becomes a place where your new friends on Google+ would use to “stalk”, “research” and “learn” about you, so you might as well change a profile picture and write some good things about yourself as if you are building your Facebook info page. However, the information richness on Google profile now is far from Facebook, so that’s a potential area which might attract a lot of attention if Google+ gets popular.
I immediately tried to use the “hangout” feature once I got on Google+, simply because this is the first REAL unique feature about this platform (all those share, comment, grouping stuff are not new…), and this is where the hard core rocket computer science could possibly rock the stage. Basically this feature enables several people to start video chatting and text chatting at the same time. I tried this with Bill on my mac. He’s on his mac too, with a webcam. The beta version wasn’t stable enough for us to start the video chat, he could see my video, but I could only hear his voice though.
Well, here’s a video shows how it works, so now I could only imagine:
An article on TechCrunch describes this as “if your neighbor is sitting there, you know that they’ll likely be interested in striking up a conversation. In fact, it would be rude for you to walk by and not say anything.” Is that true? Probably not. You know how high the bar is when you want to start a video chat with your friends? VERY HIGH…
At least for me, unless I am chatting with my parents, I could never imagine start a video chat with a friend (doesn’t really matter if this is a close friend or not… ) immediately, video chat still need you to totally put yourself together, don’t have messy hair, don’t be in your pajamas, don’t be weirdly looking into your webcam, etc. etc. So that’s exactly why text chat is way more popular than video chat among friends. The light-weighted and pressure free kind of communication is what friends need. Whereas video chat’s either for families and business occasions.
With all that being said, it’s still a cool feature (if it actually works…), and might be useful in a different context.
Only briefly looked at the Sparks feature yet, looks like Twitter‘s gonna be -_-!!! this time. Sparks is where people can first customize their interests, and search and share relevant information with their friends. So Twitter is more like a real-time news sharing platform, but Google is where people would go for both news and general longer lasting information. For instance, I would search for how people react to the latest SF Giant’s game, but I wouldn’t search on Twitter for the information on how to play baseball. You would do the later on Google, which makes Google+ a perfect place to share that less real-time but more longer lasting information.
It seems that Google+ has found this “sharing vacuum” where Google can combine its search strength with people’s social sharing needs. However, I am still hesitated if the Sparks would work or not though. And the reason for that is, in order to create conversations for people based on their interests, you need not only the relevant information, but also the relavent people, which means, you are building a conversation while building this community. Twitter is successful in that it fosters thousands of communities, which might be consist of total strangers in real life, but that doesn’t matter, they come together due to the same #keyword they all care about, whereas on Google+ now, one only started out with their friends, and there’s no search for stranger users who might have super interesting and relevant content. It’s like, no matter how much I like karaoke, no matter how much information I can find out about karaoke on Google, if none of my friends on Google+ is interested in that, I will still die from the social “loneliness” and “hunger” of not being able to find people of this interest with me…
There are other stuff on this platform that I can keep on talking, the mobile feature, the huddle feature, the linking it with Picasa, potentially with Google readers, but I am just gonna stop right now… to avoid myself putting too much preconceptions on this platform and let the users and data speak for themselves.
Of course, this is like the 3rd or even 4th attempt from Google to try to be SOCIAL. Previous ones, orkut doesn’t really have a main user group in North America, Buzz is only hanging there, and wave has already disappeared. A key component to those previous “failures” is, the lack of a stable and loyal user group, which leads to the consequence of the lack of valuable content. It’s the friends and the related content that ultimately drives people to use the platform. It’s like my experience with Buzz, of all these time, the people who are active on Buzz are always those 5% so called “pioneer users.” Again, on Google+, I saw it’s that group of people are actively trying out this new “toy”, but what about the tens and thousands of “critical mass” on Facebook, they were not attracted by Buzz, will they ever be attracted by Google+?
Lastly, to bring the issue to a different level: according to Gundotra, who’s one of the lead designers of Google+, his vision is “Today’s web is about people. To organize the world’s data, you have to understand people” and “We think connecting with other people is a basic human need. We do it all the time in real life, but our online tools are rigid… Real life sharing is nuanced and rich. It has been hard to get that into software.”
“Sharing, connecting, organizing, understanding, etc.” Yes, yes, yes, they are important; but, how far away are we from the actual content creation now. Someone’s gonna be the source of sharing. By sharing, I am not saying the information about where you had dinner yesterday, the photo you took on a concert, I am saying the original and valuable content that this world needs to move forward. Indeed, technology makes broadcasting to the whole world possible, it significantly reduces the time and resources people need to share information, which is good to shorten the distance between developed and undeveloped areas/fields, but not necessarily good for motivating innovation and originality. The majority of the people will be soaked and trapped by reading existing information non-stop. Should fostering the kind of seemingly social but in fact inefficient information sharing be the primary goal of the “greatest company” of this age? Probably not.
Anyways, let’s give Google+ sometime, to see if it’ll + some surprises and more importantly + some substances to this SOCIAL age…
I think startups have a dirty little secret. It’s not something that’s ever talked about, and it’s especially easy to gloss over when it seems like we’re in the midst of the next bubble. It’s also hard to put a finger on it with all of these slick products that startups are putting out: shiny “web 2.0″ goodness, easy sign ups, intuitive interfaces, built in gaming fun, engaging visuals, seamless integration between the web and phone apps, location-based…everything. When you add it all up, it sure feels like behind every startup there’s a Steve Jobs doppelganger pulling the strings (and we all know how designers who think of themselves as Steve can get us in trouble).
Lifting up the kimono
Is there a concrete Ux process behind any of these startups? Did they do their user research, test their prototypes, iterate on their designs? I, for one, can’t tell, because in the last 3 years I’ve only seen 3 startup clients at EchoUser, while we’ve worked with dozens of bigger companies. We all have friends in startups, too, and very few express more than a passing interest in investing in Ux. I presume they’re all too busy trying to get more users in order to IPO. And the really interesting thing? The startups we have worked with knew on a fundamental level that they needed Ux – but they also wanted to make sure they had done their due diligence before getting more funding. So good Ux = more $$$. Sounds like a safe equation, right?
And why aren’t we seeing VCs doing more of this? I can count on one hand the number of VCs who publicly tout having Ux (defined as usability testing, user research, prototyping, etc.) as part of their investment process. I know investors are often quiet about their process for investing in companies, but there’s no reason VCs shouldn’t talk about user experience – I mean, that’s like a bank not talking about a credit check before issuing a new account. It should just be standard procedure.
So if startups generally aren’t interested in Ux, and VCs aren’t asking for it, what does that say about the state of the startup industry today?
Ux isn’t about pixels
Before I comment on the tech bubble (which I’m as wholly unqualified to talk about as everyone else), a few words about Ux:
Ux is not about pixels, yo.
Sure, the end result of a good Ux process will be a change in UI – but these changes will be based on a thorough understanding of user behavior, wants, and needs. Not some ethereal desire to make a cool-looking, “me too” product. And don’t tell me Ux doesn’t work with products that push the boundaries of what people want or need – a well designed Ux process is meant to map the system of user behavior so that gaps can be identified – and opportunities capitalized on. It’s not just about moving buttons around (though Amazon showed that this can be very helpful).
Good Ux can make a company bubble-resistant
Yep. You read that correctly. A company that invests time and money in a solid Ux activity will effectively immunize itself against a bursting bubble. Markets doesn’t drive the bubble, but user behavior sure does transcend the bubble. The companies that survived the last bubble had a product and user experience that were in line with long term user behaviors (::cough cough:: Google ::cough cough::). It’s when the startup community and VCs take a gamble, make a bad guess about what they think users will want – that’s when things go awry. And to think all it might have taken was a little Ux.
Ux is addictive
The silver lining? Ux is catching. Working with real users, hearing feedback from the horse’s mouth (as it were) – it’s fascinating, and every single client of ours has come away jazzed. Nobody has come away going “wow, that was a waste of time. I hate actually listening to my users.”
More importantly, quite a few have taken the Ux process that we helped them with and internalized it – and why not? We don’t want to be a crutch, and spreading the Ux gospel is way more enriching an experience for us in the long run anyway.
So here’s my TED-style wish for today: startups and VCs – please take Ux to heart, and make it part of your product growth and investment process and strategy. The world will be better for it, and you’ll have some primo bubble insurance.
Flickr pic from Keith Barlow, CC license.
Quality post, stylish site theme, carry on the good work
