Incredible analysis of a display

The XBox 360 dashboard is the user interface to the XBox operating system. When the game console is booted up, the user is presented with a display that looks like:

The user can navigate to different sections of the display using the XBox 360 controller to switch “Blades” - between, Games, Media, and other functions. It’s a fairly usable design, though it is difficult to make sense of initially (at least, based on my experience).

Over at the blog The Fanboys, there is a fantastic analysis of the 360 dashboard display. The dashboard is broken down into pixels and classified as being used for the user’s content, interactive items (buttons, menus, etc.), ad space, or blank space. The results are startling but also inform a smart redesign that minimizes dead space but does not lead to increased clutter. It’s a really impressive redesign.

The Fanboys: Dreaming of Dashboard 2.0

As someone who is starting to propose a display redesign for a submarine tactical system, this kind of analysis could be incredibly useful to implement. At the very least, it gets the mind thinking in a visual, yet quantitative, manner. Oftentimes, it is easy to be descriptive about changes that need to be done. But when you get sensible and realistic numbers, the case becomes far more convincing.

Bill Gates’ 2003 e-mail detailing usability nightmare

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently published an e-mail from Bill Gates to several Microsoft employees about his experience trying to download Windows Movie Maker for Windows XP. It’s scathing in the level of detail Gates goes in to, number of steps he had to perform, and the fact that he never got it working. Bill Gates didn’t get it working. He created Windows.

Now THAT is user testing!

Best Bill Gates quote from his e-mail: “So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package. I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself. I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.”

Best quote of the replies in response to Bill’s e-mail: “Guess we should start working on a list of things that need to be fixed withe web sites. W1J, and with windows, and identify owners. Bill’s frustration is not unreasonable.”

Note: This e-mail is from 2003, but I’m sure much of the content is still relevant today.

Link to article
Link to the original chain of e-mails (PDF)

Alleviating Office feature bloat with text-based search

A common complaint about Microsoft Office is how many features and commands it has. The new “ribbon interface” introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 was designed to help users find their desired command more easily. A prototype feature that was recently shown off let the user type in their intention. It almost works like the good-old command line of DOS or Unix, but with much more flexibility.

This is a keyboard analog of the “virtual intelligence” that would be an ideal interface. Instead of pointing and clicking, many users would like to talk to their computers in a (more or less) natural language and have the computer understand. The command lines of DOS or UNIX are rigid in their syntax, which did not correspond to natural language at all. Being able to type “Insert a picture” in Microsoft Word is much more natural. For that matter, there are many search engines striving to accurately reply to a request like “Give me census data for Illinois in 1997.”

While this will likely help users navigate the confusing Office interface, this screenshot shows just how many features there are. Type “insert” and get 205 command options? Page 1 of 23? This would take an incredibly long time to sort through this many options to find the desired one, which is not the best solution. Nonetheless, Search Commands is a decent first step, though.

Hard vs. Soft buttons

Our world is surrounded by buttons and dials with permanent labels. They are labeled with numbers, letters, symbols, and words, telling us what will happen if we push them. There is no better example than with remote controls.

The problem is that complex devices contain many functions. Remote controls then become button behemoths that require squinting and searching through a ridiculous amount of clutter to find the single button you want. Too much clutter leads to long visual search times and frustrated technology users.

So how do you make it easier to access a variety of functions without presenting too many choices at once? A great example that isn’t often thought about is that of the menus in a computer interface. The large number of functions are organized (and hidden) under larger category titles. Remotes attempt to mimic this by at least organizing similar functions together. For example, Play, Pause, and Stop all tend to cluster together.

The one hardware requirement for something like menus is a screen. You can create buttons of any size or shape at any time, leading to a dynamic display, similar to opening menus on a computer. This philosophy is taken by several products, including the iPhone and a universal remote, the Logitech Harmony 1000. By not having (many) dedicated hardware buttons, the user interface becomes infinitely flexible, allowing for more creativity to get at a multitude of functions.

One unexpected, interesting, and downright sensible complaint, however, is the lack of tactile feedback by pressing on a screen. Users don’t actually know if they’ve pressed the button or not. The iPhone, for example, displays an on-screen keyboard, and users have complained about how hard it is to type on a keyboard like that. Other devices, such as the BlackBerry or Palm Treos, have a dedicated hardware keyboard. While this leaves less screen space for the device itself, users love being able to quickly hammer out messages.

The BlackBerry may offer the proper compromise: have some dedicated hardware buttons for commonly used features, but have a touchscreen that can hide away other features and provide the dynamic interface that is so often called for. In terms of remotes, the Logitech Harmony One may do the trick: a number pad to change channels, video controls, and a directional pad. Buttons that are common to many electronic devices, and then a touch screen to take care of the rest.

Microsoft Packaging Craziness

A very funny video circulated a long time ago asking the question, “What if Microsoft designed the iPod box?” The proposed re-design that followed Microsoft’s packaging guidelines was HILARIOUS and embedded here for your viewing pleasure:

While the Microsoft Vista box is not as ugly as the Microsoft I-pod box, it apparently is hard to open. Hard enough that it warrants a help page on the Microsoft site that includes the 3-step instructions on how to open the box. There are pictures involved, thankfully, since the text instructions are ridiculously confusing:

1. On the top of the box, cut along the grooves on either side of the Microsoft Certificate of Authenticity label.
2. Peel the red tabbed label off the front of the box and discard.
3. Holding the box with the Windows logo facing you, grasp the red tab on the top of the box, and pull it to the right to open the box as shown here.

This is an excellent example of why we need Human Factors.