- Product and development people might want to keep an eye on Chrome Frame, the component that IE may ultimately need to display rich media such as VP8 video. In this article, the author predicts that Google is ultimately going to transcode all YouTube content to VP8 and in doing so force IE users to either switch to Chrome or install their plugin.
- Somebody get these guys some venture funding.
- A bunch of different commentators have written about Apple and other tech companies' employee security policies in the wake of the recent lost iPhone saga. In this pretty interesting Gizmodo article, Steve Wozniak himself comments on employee security, secrecy, and Apple's hard-line enforcement approach. It's interesting to see how different engineering and product management teams approach this, and there's probably no right answer - but it's hard to sympathize with Apple in the example described in the link.
few quick items
Wednesday, April 21, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Product and development people, especially those focused on front-end development in the portfolio, might want to check out these slick HTML5 video effects. It'll be interesting to see how HTML5 and the Canvas end up performing on the netbooks and smartphones of the world, especially if you're Adobe.
- For product management teams thinking about developing for iPhone/iPad: Why Apple Approved Opera and Not Google Voice. The Internet has been sliding ever-further into Apple is Evil mode - and the Gizmodo editor raids are probably not going to help things.
- Finally, here's an interesting article for management teams thinking about current and future structures for product management and development: Want to Know The Difference Between a CTO and a VP of Engineering? The article, complete with charts, gives some color on how extremely small to expansion stage companies can think about product and development management. Since efficient, reliable technical development is especially important in the pre-revenue and pre-funding days (where the margin of error is so small), it's worth thinking about this set of topics from the very beginning of a company's lifecycle.
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items
Monday, April 12, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Those in product and development organizations are generally already familiar with the Apple/Adobe conflict related to Section 3.3.1, which limits developers' use of certain coding and compilation tools to create apps for iPhone/iPad OS. In case you haven't seen it, also check out Job's response, released late last week.
- An MIT grad posts a scathing account of working for BCG in Dubai. Not a good reflection for the top-tier strategic consulting services out there, though I'm sure there are a wide variety of projects and experiences within.
- Question for staff focused on CRM implementation in the portfolio - has anyone yet experimented with Google Apps' Zoho CRM?
- An MIT grad posts a scathing account of working for BCG in Dubai. Not a good reflection for the top-tier strategic consulting services out there, though I'm sure there are a wide variety of projects and experiences within.
- Question for staff focused on CRM implementation in the portfolio - has anyone yet experimented with Google Apps' Zoho CRM?
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additional items
Thursday, April 8, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Here's a creative 404 page from Blizzard Entertainment. We've covered user-friendly fault tolerance before; just another reminder for product and development staff to keep tone in mind when thinking about error messages.
- Product management teams, especially in the media and content spaces, should keep an eye on the CSS5-directly-to-HTML5 developments. How easy is it going to be to create rich media for the canvas element? Relatedly, how HTML5-compatible is your browser?
- The above reminded me that I wanted to link to the ProcessingJS project, a phenomenal port of processing to the browser. Went to a ProcessingJS event in Boston last week where everyone was incredibly smart and friendly; really impressed with the library and the team.
- Finally, on the technology and law front, the IBM/TurboHercules situation is worth keeping an eye on as the relationship between corporate interests and OSS gets ever more complex.
- Product management teams, especially in the media and content spaces, should keep an eye on the CSS5-directly-to-HTML5 developments. How easy is it going to be to create rich media for the canvas element? Relatedly, how HTML5-compatible is your browser?
- The above reminded me that I wanted to link to the ProcessingJS project, a phenomenal port of processing to the browser. Went to a ProcessingJS event in Boston last week where everyone was incredibly smart and friendly; really impressed with the library and the team.
- Finally, on the technology and law front, the IBM/TurboHercules situation is worth keeping an eye on as the relationship between corporate interests and OSS gets ever more complex.
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network graph / html5
Thursday, March 25, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
As a follow-up to the posts a few months back on the future of Flash, here's an interesting development: Network Graph is now written in HTML/CSS/JS using the Canvas element. According to the developer, it took around 4 days to re-implement the Flash version's feature set, and is working reliably since deployment after the rewrite.
The linked blog post is a pretty good summary of where the current Flash/HTML5 debate is at. Advantages boil down to a) improved performance (especially on Linux/Unix-based OS's), b) usability (better pointer control, keyboard input), and c) easier debugging of HTML/CSS right in the browser using Firebug or equivalent, and challenges center primarily on having to independently handle a bunch of stuff that Flash does for you (clipping, fonts, etc). I imagine much of this stuff will be solved by the frameworks and libraries, and many of the current development experience's rough edges will be smoothed out.
For product and development leaders and management teams at expansion stage companies who are trying to plan whether or not to use Flash in new dynamic site content, it'll be key to keep an eye on both the browser version usage percentages and qualitative writeups of the developer- and user-experience like the one above.
The linked blog post is a pretty good summary of where the current Flash/HTML5 debate is at. Advantages boil down to a) improved performance (especially on Linux/Unix-based OS's), b) usability (better pointer control, keyboard input), and c) easier debugging of HTML/CSS right in the browser using Firebug or equivalent, and challenges center primarily on having to independently handle a bunch of stuff that Flash does for you (clipping, fonts, etc). I imagine much of this stuff will be solved by the frameworks and libraries, and many of the current development experience's rough edges will be smoothed out.
For product and development leaders and management teams at expansion stage companies who are trying to plan whether or not to use Flash in new dynamic site content, it'll be key to keep an eye on both the browser version usage percentages and qualitative writeups of the developer- and user-experience like the one above.
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usable content / nyt
Thursday, March 25, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
Readers interested in content and the transition of print media to digital formats should check out what the NYT did with this article on personal finance. The incorporation of digital-specific formatting - interactive checkboxes, the "remove from list" button, etc - into what is essentially a text article struck me as pretty interesting. If content providers can make a strong case that some content is just better consumed on digital devices, it'll be good news - for both readers and CPMs.
It'll be up to management teams, content creators, and product and development staff for digital content providers to figure out what works and what doesn't in this context. It will be interesting to see if any venture funding takes place in the interactive media space in the wake of the iPad launch. The right mix of capital, changing consumer behavior, and new devices could make this one of the most active areas in terms of innovation/financing/buzz in 2010.
It'll be up to management teams, content creators, and product and development staff for digital content providers to figure out what works and what doesn't in this context. It will be interesting to see if any venture funding takes place in the interactive media space in the wake of the iPad launch. The right mix of capital, changing consumer behavior, and new devices could make this one of the most active areas in terms of innovation/financing/buzz in 2010.
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rebranding
Monday, March 22, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
An interesting thing I've had to give some thought to recently is web application rebranding and redesigns, especially for applications that are already in relatively stable customer use. In the expansion stage, this can sometimes happen when a younger, hipper competitor begins gaining traction and making your UI/branding materials look stale in comparison, or as a result of hiring design-oriented people into a company that was previously heavy on tech and sales resources.
Redesigns also frequently happen because of issues revealed by expansion stage market research (surveys, lost customer reviews, sales team interviews, etc), which will tell you your brilliant design, logo, or user interaction scheme are uninspiring in a way your friends and employees probably won't.
Here are a few resources I've come across that are relevant to the rebrand/redesign process, and that product and development people might want to keep on hand:
Redesigns also frequently happen because of issues revealed by expansion stage market research (surveys, lost customer reviews, sales team interviews, etc), which will tell you your brilliant design, logo, or user interaction scheme are uninspiring in a way your friends and employees probably won't.
Here are a few resources I've come across that are relevant to the rebrand/redesign process, and that product and development people might want to keep on hand:
- Jason Lander's Software Rebranding Tips
- OpenForum's Tips on Rebranding Using Social Media
- Adventures in Entrepreneurship's Rebranding Tips
- 35 Logo Design Resources
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17 apps
Monday, March 22, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
I wanted to share a link to 17 Attractive Web Apps, since I think it contains some pretty innovative examples of several interesting usability elements that haven't yet entered the mainstream UX lexicon.
There are a few sites on the list that I found particularly worth checking out based on a quick glance at each. These include Utterli, which I think makes good use of selectable text on the front page of its site, and MashLogic, whose site counter on the front page is an interesting and slick take on a classic retro web element. Take a few minutes to look through and let me know if you came across anything useful for your own site - either from a product UI perspective and from a website marketing/pricing page perspective. I'll post any sharable observations from around the portfolio as they come in.
There are a few sites on the list that I found particularly worth checking out based on a quick glance at each. These include Utterli, which I think makes good use of selectable text on the front page of its site, and MashLogic, whose site counter on the front page is an interesting and slick take on a classic retro web element. Take a few minutes to look through and let me know if you came across anything useful for your own site - either from a product UI perspective and from a website marketing/pricing page perspective. I'll post any sharable observations from around the portfolio as they come in.
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13 things
Monday, March 22, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
One thing product and development people need to be prepared for is the inevitability of switching between providers of various types - whether it's software component or API vendors, web hosts, development groups, or something else. With that in mind, readers (especially those at smaller companies) may want to check out the following: Thirteen Things to Do Before Migrating to a New Web Host.
Some potentially non-obvious items on the list include: making sure your DNS and hosting agreements with your old vendor and any 3rd party registrar are properly separated so that you aren't paying for services unnecessarily, running all scripts/firing up the databases/etc on your new server before committing financially to the migration, and going through each dynamic element on your site closely in order to figure out if they are going to break in an unexpected way due to the DNS changes.
Some potentially non-obvious items on the list include: making sure your DNS and hosting agreements with your old vendor and any 3rd party registrar are properly separated so that you aren't paying for services unnecessarily, running all scripts/firing up the databases/etc on your new server before committing financially to the migration, and going through each dynamic element on your site closely in order to figure out if they are going to break in an unexpected way due to the DNS changes.
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mind mapping
Friday, March 19, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
For those of you who incorporate mind-mapping into your product management process, you might want to check out a slick new tool called Bubbl.us. Users can start creating surprisingly polished and functional mind-maps without signing up, and can pretty easily share/collaborate from there.
One usability advantage Bubbl.us has over a lot of similar tools is great keyboard support - creating a lot of nodes and edges with the mouse can be extremely tedious, especially in suboptimal mouse/screen environments like conference rooms. Bubbl.us, which lets you add nodes with CTRL+ENTER (for child nodes) and TAB (for sibling nodes), has clearly done a bit of user research and come up with a pretty seamless solution.
[via]
One usability advantage Bubbl.us has over a lot of similar tools is great keyboard support - creating a lot of nodes and edges with the mouse can be extremely tedious, especially in suboptimal mouse/screen environments like conference rooms. Bubbl.us, which lets you add nodes with CTRL+ENTER (for child nodes) and TAB (for sibling nodes), has clearly done a bit of user research and come up with a pretty seamless solution.
[via]
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pricing page design
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
One thing expansion stage companies do a lot is tinker with various alternative pricing models. This is generally a good thing - it's tough to arrive at the right business model without experimentation, and pricing/bundling/premium-ing your software package is generally a pretty simple and effective way to generate some empirical buyer behavior data and learn a few things about the market.
With that in mind, I wanted to point out the following site: 97 Best Practices in Pricing Page Design. A few things to think about: how are you using color, area, visual weighting, orientation, rotation, number psychology, and word choice to generate the most (and longest-term) profit from each pricing page visitor?
With that in mind, I wanted to point out the following site: 97 Best Practices in Pricing Page Design. A few things to think about: how are you using color, area, visual weighting, orientation, rotation, number psychology, and word choice to generate the most (and longest-term) profit from each pricing page visitor?
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quick link
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
Here's a link that product and development people across the portfolio might want to check out: the excellent and relatively short-winded resource 52 Weeks of UX.
Each week, the site posts a short essay on a UI/UX topic of the authors' choosing - this week's focuses on clear visual hierarchy and is worth taking a look at for anybody involved in designing expansion stage product interfaces or collateral, where strong command of a user's attention typically has to stand in for pre-established brand identity.
Notable previous entries include those on the product management lifecycle and the importance of audience empathy - take a minute to scroll through the history and consider sharing a few with your product team.
Each week, the site posts a short essay on a UI/UX topic of the authors' choosing - this week's focuses on clear visual hierarchy and is worth taking a look at for anybody involved in designing expansion stage product interfaces or collateral, where strong command of a user's attention typically has to stand in for pre-established brand identity.
Notable previous entries include those on the product management lifecycle and the importance of audience empathy - take a minute to scroll through the history and consider sharing a few with your product team.
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additional materials
Friday, March 12, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
People with an interest in Cappuchino or other desktop-like web application frameworks might want to check out the Single Page Interface Manifesto. The document does a pretty good job of distilling the design principles behind the movement into a nice, managable format.
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supplementary items
Friday, March 12, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Product and development people with an interest in status quo-challenging business UI/UX might want to check out these.
- This infographic, which lists the ten largest online publishers and their subsidiary sites by total unique views, is an interesting window into the results of recent traffic acquisitons - huge consolidation of pageviews among a relatively small number of organizations, each concerned with competitive positioning in a variety of content / marketing spaces. One thing I would have liked to see on this chart is what percentage these 10 make of total internet traffic, and how that proportion has been changing over time - is the general trend towards consolidation or fragmentation?
- This infographic, which lists the ten largest online publishers and their subsidiary sites by total unique views, is an interesting window into the results of recent traffic acquisitons - huge consolidation of pageviews among a relatively small number of organizations, each concerned with competitive positioning in a variety of content / marketing spaces. One thing I would have liked to see on this chart is what percentage these 10 make of total internet traffic, and how that proportion has been changing over time - is the general trend towards consolidation or fragmentation?
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additional items
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Smashing Magazine just published a How-To on Web Design Criticism. Some of the ideas here are probbaly with incorporating into your product management process - the article is a good blend of usability-heuristics type theoretical stuff and easily consumable business advice.
- Kind of a crazy few days for Activision, who fired two IW lead developers and shut down a fan-created game based on its King's Quest series after 8 years of non-commercial development. I'm not sure how much money they think they're saving here, but I can't imagine this generating a positive return from an influence marketing standpoint.
- New report out on how over half of published software fails basic security testing. Pretty interesting for product and development people to think about, though I'd take their 60% figure as ballpark at best, given the chance of a) a potentially significant selection bias in one direction given that only shops who choose to submit their code for testing are included in the report, and b) an observer bias in the other direction considering that an appication security company was the one doing the testing and reporting.
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wired article / search product management
Wednesday, February 24, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
There's been a fair bit of Google wondergazing in the tech media recently, not all of which I think is particularly justified. But one article I did think was really interesting, if only for its somewhat rare window into Google's search product management process, was this Wired article from the current week. Short version: Google's search product management team actually sits in a room just trying search after search, trying to "break" the algorithm by searching for confusing or difficult phrases. They continually tweak the algorithm, week-by-week, until all or most of the violating search phrases return reasonable results.
Also interesting from the article: Bing's reaction, which boils down to "we literally cannot compete on search algorithm right now, so we're going to try to integrate structured data sources (e.g. Farecast for flight information) to compete on non-technical aspects of the search user experience."
In my experience, this approach ("we recognize cateogry X is important, but we just cannot work on it well enough right now") meshes particularly well with agile development methods, and while I don't think I'd advise expansion stage product managers to emulate Microsoft in too many ways, this is definitely one.
Also interesting from the article: Bing's reaction, which boils down to "we literally cannot compete on search algorithm right now, so we're going to try to integrate structured data sources (e.g. Farecast for flight information) to compete on non-technical aspects of the search user experience."
In my experience, this approach ("we recognize cateogry X is important, but we just cannot work on it well enough right now") meshes particularly well with agile development methods, and while I don't think I'd advise expansion stage product managers to emulate Microsoft in too many ways, this is definitely one.
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additional items
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- More evidence of the importance of experimentation in a robust product management process.
- One of the more sophisticated and functional HTML5/Canvas applications I've seen (requires latest Firefox). Is Flash Dead (No)?
- This is a cool thing.
- The Internet Archaeology Project is archiving images from the history of the Web. There is a lot of great stuff on here from the 1996-2000 era - take a few minutes to scroll through if you enjoy memories.
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items
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
- Developer Fabien Sanglard did a pretty interesting code review of classic FPS and recent popular iPhone port Doom. His analysis also addresses the specifics of the iPhone version, and will be an interesting read for those interested in video game development, code critique as part of the product management process, or both.
- Google appears to be phasing out IE6 compatibility in its applications. Thinking (and equally importantly, communicating) about compatibility is actually an important and overlooked part of the product management lifecycle - what are you telling your developers about supporting old version of IE, and how much is this costing you in story points? New versions of Firefox? Chrome?
- This article on code optimization and performance was recommended to me and was a great read. The article deals specifically with Mac development in Cocoa, but the key point is as follows: instrument, measure, and optimize based on evidence (not conjecture about what "should" be the most computationally intensive component of your application." If performance is becoming a challenge for any part of your system, it may be worth adding something like this to your product management lifecycle.
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agile defect handling
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
Here's an article (and accompanying process diagram) from James Pipe at EMC about constructing a defect-handling process that fits well with your Agile development approach. A few things to consider:
1. How does information get collected? Is it possible for product feedback (especially bugs) to be reported seamlessly from within your product? Keep in mind that people reporting defects are likely to be frustrated - make their lives as easy as possible.
2. Is there an information bottleneck? Do all defects, feature requests and usability questions get directed to a single person for processing and prioritization? Is there a way to architect the process so that issues are routed more directly to those who can solve them? For instance, you might consider having some or all IT/performance issues routed directly to your IT organization to be fixed directly instead of having them enter your product management process where they need to be clarified, sized, prioritized, etc.
For each segment of your process, try to play a few alternative approaches forward in your head and count the total number of clarification/handoff e-mails each one would spawn. Pick the option with the smallest number.
3. Let the users know what is going on as frequently as is practical. Depending on how your end-users like to consume information, this could take the form of a weekly e-mail (here is what you suggested/submitted, and here is where it stands!), a blog post, or even in-product notifications. In order for your users to trust that you and your system are responsive to feedback and serious about improving their product experience, they need to be kept in the loop in a reliable but non-intrusive way.
Clear communication with users on defects ensures that people will keep submitting issues as the product evolves. While having users find and report product issues can be painful, it is ultimately much more painful for the organization to have users lose confidence in the product organization and stop reporting issues in the first place.
1. How does information get collected? Is it possible for product feedback (especially bugs) to be reported seamlessly from within your product? Keep in mind that people reporting defects are likely to be frustrated - make their lives as easy as possible.
2. Is there an information bottleneck? Do all defects, feature requests and usability questions get directed to a single person for processing and prioritization? Is there a way to architect the process so that issues are routed more directly to those who can solve them? For instance, you might consider having some or all IT/performance issues routed directly to your IT organization to be fixed directly instead of having them enter your product management process where they need to be clarified, sized, prioritized, etc.
For each segment of your process, try to play a few alternative approaches forward in your head and count the total number of clarification/handoff e-mails each one would spawn. Pick the option with the smallest number.
3. Let the users know what is going on as frequently as is practical. Depending on how your end-users like to consume information, this could take the form of a weekly e-mail (here is what you suggested/submitted, and here is where it stands!), a blog post, or even in-product notifications. In order for your users to trust that you and your system are responsive to feedback and serious about improving their product experience, they need to be kept in the loop in a reliable but non-intrusive way.
Clear communication with users on defects ensures that people will keep submitting issues as the product evolves. While having users find and report product issues can be painful, it is ultimately much more painful for the organization to have users lose confidence in the product organization and stop reporting issues in the first place.
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crimes against uxmanity
Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by
Teddy Sherill
One thing I recently came across on the typically-excellent Usability Reddit is this article, which lists the 15 worst and most common user experience mistakes found in contemporary web applications. Take a look at the article and think about whether you might be committing any of these -- have you completely eliminated the need for the users to download and load PDF's on your website?
Better yet, does your product management process include a quarterly poll, segmented by user personae, asking them to list the top 3 things that tick them off while using the product?
Better yet, does your product management process include a quarterly poll, segmented by user personae, asking them to list the top 3 things that tick them off while using the product?
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