Activity for Next Meeting
Andy Ferra
I was speaking with Chris and we thought it could be fun to explore a
re-design of a popular application or website at the next meeting as a
group.
Perhaps we could find something that a lot of people are familiar with
and find less than satisfactory and explore the problems inherent in
it's current design and share ideas for how we could improve it.
How does that sound?
Any thoughts on the object of discussion?
Thanks,
Andy
Todd Moy
http://www.oombrella.com
oombrella /a/ gmail.com
James Britt
> My only suggestion would be to limit the scope to perhaps one section or
> workflow within a site. It wouldmake the redesign and ensuing discussion
> a more tightly focused.
That's a very good idea.
--
James Britt
"Take eloquence and wring its neck."
- Paul Verlaine
Andy Ferra
Perhaps we can get one of those big easel pads or something we can doodle on.
Andy Ferra
(480) 703-1683
www.monospacedmedia.com
"If you aren't making mistakes, you probably aren't learning anything."
Chris Tingom
for fun would be a hotel or b&b scheduling page, and an MLS Listing
Page (I don't have an example link).
http://www.innres.net/rm_dispn_pic.asp?InnID=sta001&MaxCats=3&LinkBack=
Chris
On Jun 18, 8:19 am, "Andy Ferra" <afe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On-The-Fly. I thought it would be fun to have something to talk about as a
> group.
>
> Perhaps we can get one of those big easel pads or something we can doodle
> on.
>
Andy Ferra
Thanks,
Andy
Todd Moy
Surprisingly, I actually like that design. There are quite a few
things that I do take issue with--and there is definitely a lot of
room for improvement. The grid pattern, however, is an interesting
approach. As a quick redesign, it seems very digestible too.
Per the MLS listings:
Uggh. The whole cabal around home listings is very annoying and
confusing. Why do different sites, who supposedly use the same MLS
listings, have greater or fewer images than one another? Maybe I'm
wearing my ignorance on my sleeve. ;) Annoyances with real estate
listings aside, I was *incredibly* happy when companies started
mashing with maps. IMHO, this is huge.
Also, FYI, the IxDA mailing list has an interesting conversation
raging about the impending redesign of Ebay. Here's an interesting
tidbit that I didn't know until today: When ebay changed from a grey
background to a white one, they faded the grey out incrementally over
30 days.
Original article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/technology/18ecom.html?em&ex=1182312000&en=7525844407dc931e&ei=5087%0A
Discussion:
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=17365
http://beta.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=17376
-Todd
On Jun 19, 5:28 pm, "Andy Ferra" <afe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think that hotel one would be great... I haven't seen the MLS stuff in a
> while but, I suspect it would be an excellent candidate as well.
>
> Thanks,
> Andy
>
Todd Moy
restaurant reservation service. I've never used it, but I know quite a
few people who have. So, I'll toss it out as another possibility.
To keep the scope manageable, we could base our redesign around a
single task. That might be something as basic as "Make reservations
for a business dinner." We could further qualify the task by using the
following constraints:
1. User needs to accommodate 8-10 people
2. User doesn't have a particular restaurant in mind ahead of time
3. User knows the specific date, say July 23rd.
4. User has a limited knowledge of the restaurants, and how they
compare
5. User would like restaurant to be in an area relatively close to a
certain hotel or conference center
6. User is flexible with time, within a window from 6pm - 9pm
7. User predicts that certain diners in the party might be vegetarian
8. User has never used OpenTable before, but has set up an account.
All of these constraints might not be satisfied by opentable. On the
other hand, those that can't be might be good areas for letting UEx
inform OpenTable's business strategy. For example, perhaps there are
opportunities for partnership with other data providers like Zagat's,
Yelp, Citysearch, etc.
Thoughts?
Opentable
http://opentable.com/
Original Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/business/18opentable.html?ei=5090&en=72bacc2faf882b1c&ex=1339819200&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
-Todd
On Jun 19, 8:12 pm, Todd Moy <oombre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Per the hotel booking site:
> Surprisingly, I actually like that design. There are quite a few
> things that I do take issue with--and there is definitely a lot of
> room for improvement. The grid pattern, however, is an interesting
> approach. As a quick redesign, it seems very digestible too.
>
> Per the MLS listings:
> Uggh. The whole cabal around home listings is very annoying and
> confusing. Why do different sites, who supposedly use the same MLS
> listings, have greater or fewer images than one another? Maybe I'm
> wearing my ignorance on my sleeve. ;) Annoyances with real estate
> listings aside, I was *incredibly* happy when companies started
> mashing with maps. IMHO, this is huge.
>
> Also, FYI, the IxDA mailing list has an interesting conversation
> raging about the impending redesign of Ebay. Here's an interesting
> tidbit that I didn't know until today: When ebay changed from a grey
> background to a white one, they faded the grey out incrementally over
> 30 days.
>
> Original article:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/technology/18ecom.html?em&ex=118231...
>
> Discussion:http://beta.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=17365http://beta.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=17376
Andy Ferra
I like that... I like the idea of having goals for the re-design.
I think it might serve the group better, for the sake of keeping the meeting brief, to chose 2 or three items from the list to shoot for during the re-design session.
Andy
James Britt
> Hey, I was reading a NYTimes article on the rise of OpenTable, the
> restaurant reservation service. I've never used it, but I know quite a
> few people who have. So, I'll toss it out as another possibility.
I almost used it last night here in Santa Fe; I decided it was too
annoying to sign up when I could just call the restaurant.
It got me thinking about registration and sign-up procedures. I'd never
seen OpenTable before. I ended up on the site because the O'Keeffe Cafe
Webs site said I could book a reservation on-line. I thought that was
slick (and sort of made up for offering their menu in PDF format only,
perhaps a topic for some other meeting of UX goodness.)
However, they use OpenTable, and I was asked to provide assorted contact
info.
Gripe #1: I was enticed into completing the date/time form before being
informed of what would be asked of me to actually process that request.
(I think; that's my recollection at least.)
Gripe #2: I had no reason to think that the effort spent using the site
would pay off in the long run.
#2 is perhaps a more subtle UX matter. I didn't find the site hard to
use in anyway, but I was reluctant to bother turning over assorted info
just to save a phone call. Would I ever use the service again? Would
using the service be more reliable than calling the restaurant directly?
This may be a service that's more valuable to the seller than to the
customer.
Anyways, food for thought. :)
James
Todd Moy
OpenTable. Yes, it was conceived for the backend and directly marketed
to restaurants. The front end for customers was a secondary ui --
almost an afterthought.
For me, it's opentable's limitations that make it compelling to
review. Yes, it's klutzy. Yes, it doesn't do a good job of managing
expectations. But it has something that no other companies do--which
is a close, deep relationship with many restaurant reservation
services. What can this offer? Well, reservation time comparison for
one...
I'm thinking this might be something to explore -- especially just to
see how we can characterize the users. How do the features provided
accommodate a diverse population with many different motivations? What
are the motivations of foodies vs casual diners vs all the others?
There are lots of different ways to look at this, each with a
different feature set that may need to be accommodated.
-Todd