Category: Usability

An ontology of Collaboration patterns

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In trying to gain some understanding of collaboration patterns, I came across an interesting article that proposes a layered ontology or model of collaboration that reconciles the many ideas on collaboration patterns expressed elsewhere.

Towards an ontology of collaboration patterns proposes a “collaboration stack” which clarifies the relationship of collaboration patterns to collaborative services and to the underlying communication technologies.

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Confluence: create structure to help new wiki users get started

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Once you’ve created a shared online space for your coworkers, you may discover with some frustration that it doesn’t receive the level of interest you are hoping for. One reason for this reluctance to contribute may be lack of structure. Wikis don’t make a lot of assumptions about how you want to structure or navigate through your data, and this lack of structure can be confusing and somewhat intimidating to users, particularly if they aren’t sure where to put their information. This confusion is not limited to non-technical people: I’ve seen IT community sites and wikis lose members largely because of poor planning and navigational cues.

Although theoretically, the ability to add labels or tags to wiki pages eliminates the need to put them in any particular location within the site structure, people still like to know “where they are” within a site because the relationships between documents carries a lot of information about the significance of the document itself. Users need clues as to what else might be there and what to expect when they click to other pages.

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Decision support tools, performance support systems and just-in-time learning

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Where is the best spot for an educational (or other) intervention?

When there is a workforce performance or knowledge gap to fill, trainers understandably think first of using training to fill it. But is more training really always the best answer? Depending on the skills involved and the characteristics of the audience, process improvement, usability improvement, training or performance support may all be worth considering.

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Advanced interfaces, “Smart Ecosystems” and performance support systems in the workplace

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“A civilization without instrumentalities? Incredible.” –Forbidden Planet

Although it often seems that computers and communication devices have been growing smaller and smaller with no end in sight, for some purposes, they are still far too intrusive and unintuitive. There are many workplace scenarios where data and communication services would be very beneficial as performance support systems, but the constraints and awkwardness of existing computer interfaces would interfere with the task at hand.

Fortunately, researchers have been working steadily for decades to make computers and communication devices nearly vanish by embedding them into our surroundings and networking them so they can sense the environment and interact with us in a manner that would integrate better with our living and working situations. 

Early research groups developed scenarios to demonstrate the utility of these systems, which included independence support for the elderly, meeting facilitation, augmented driving and enhanced social interaction.

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The role of search in corporate learning programs

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Enterprise Search as Learning Technology

With the current training industry interest in elearning trends like informal learning, social and collaborative Web 2.0 learning technologies, it’s easy to overlook the importance of the humble search box as a learning tool.

More important now than ever

As companies seek to increase productivity with fewer people and resources, one way to improve efficiency is to create better connections between people and the information they need to do their jobs. It’s not hard to make big improvements in the search situation companies’ internal networks: the barriers that exist between knowledge workers and and information resources within company intranets are profound and economically significant. They fall into several categories:

  1. Information is hidden away in personal folders in documents that cannot be accessed through the web, and are not searched by a search engine.
  2. Web-based information that could have wider access is locked down to a small group of people.
  3. Information is available, but not located where people think to look for it.
  4. Information is available and can be searched but there are problems with the search engine’s judgement or display which prevent the user from finding it.
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A brief complaint about Microsoft Windows Media Player!

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A colleague at work needed to know how to turn on captions in Windows Media Player. I started to write her a note explaining it, but needed to check exactly how to get to the setting since I knew how to do it in older versions but not 11.

This turned out to be just another opportunity to experience Microsoft’s creative approach to usability.

Here’s a snapshot of the the player. Note, there is no "File" menu, no Open command, nothing that appears useful unless you are purchasing music from their store or ripping from an old CD. And really, aren’t "Rip" and "Burn" SO 2006? Who even cares about ripping CD’s anymore?

ifLooksLikethis.jpg

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What would a truly Senior-friendly Operating System look like?

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From many sessions helping seniors with their computer problems, I’ve gleaned some idea of how they think a computer should behave.

Note that the ideas listed here only apply to the current generation of seniors. It is doubtful that when the current generation of children grow old, they will have the same requirements.

My usability wish list:

  • Most important is that the interface be DOCUMENT-based, not application-based. There should be no distinction between the operating system or shell (Finder, Desktop, whatever) and the applications. In other words, there should be only one big application that does everything.
  • For example, the idea that there is a separate application to manage and edit photos and one to edit text is a needless complexity.
  • Tree-based file systems are completely lost on them – there has to be a simpler way to find documents.
  • Documents should end up in only one place, with no alternatives. They should not be asked to add meaningful metadata to anything. The computer must figure it out somehow. Perhaps they could be asked once to find a picture of each family member, and from then on, the computer could recognize that person and tag them for searches.
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Dialogs too big in Vista to fit on small laptop screen

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My first attempts to work with Vista have definitely been an “experience”. I’m trying to get a Lenovo ThinkPad set up for use primarily for Qwizdom and Powerpoint, which would seem to be well within the limits of what Microsoft intended, but you almost have to wonder if they ever tried Vista on a laptop before releasing it! What a mess!

The default size of windows is often just a little too big for the screen. I’ve double and triple checked the screen resolution – it is set to maximum. We did set the default font size larger than the minimum because it is too hard to see otherwise.

Yet the windows are all over the place in sizing – sometimes they are correct, sometimes obviously wrong, with title bars above the top of the screen or dialogs with Accept/Cancel buttons below the bottom of the screen.

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Installing Adobe Reader on Vista

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The case of the missing confirmation dialog
A problem I’ve encountered several times on Vista: dialogs will open, then refuse to disappear, and the Windows Task Manager simply tells you they are “expecting a response”. They are “expecting a response” from a confirmation dialog that has completely disappeared.

This seems to happen when another window pops up and steals focus unexpectedly. The confirmation dialog is not hidden behind any other windows, nor minimized, but simply vanished. This can be very confusing even when you know what you are looking for. This happened while I was installing Adobe Reader. Here’s what it looked like when it got stuck:

adobeReaderInstaller.JPG

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