You may have noticed that a few people are blogging about Blendie right now - the blender that you growl at to make it go.

If you like the idea then try downloading Racing Pitch - a prototype PC game from Skinflake that works on the same principle. You make an engine noise into your microphone to make your car go. Your pitch determines your speed, and if you ‘accelerate’ too fast, you make your car skid.

It’s only a proof-of-concept but it’s quite fun, and when the novelty of playing it wears off, you can watch your friends making a fool out of themselves. All in the name of interaction design research!

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I read a nice factoid on this topic this morning in Eric Schaffer’s Institutionalization of Usability book. It’s a quote from Jared Spool:

In April of 2002, Princeton Survey Research Associates surveyed 1,000 adult Internet users about their concerns with privacy on the Internet. In the survey, only 18% said they never read privacy policies most of the time, or every time they shop.

Yet, in our study of more than 1,000 shopping sessions, where we actually observed what users did while shopping, we noticed that only two users ever checked the privacy policy. And for these two users, it had no effect on their shopping behaviour. This is yet one more case of users doing something different from what they say they do.

To reiterate this point -

What users said they do:
82% of users said they read privacy policies (from survey data)

What they actually did:
0.2% looked at privacy policies (in user tests)

This ‘observational data vs self-report’ argument is a road well trodden (read Jakob’s 2001 alertbox on this topic here, or a great signal vs. Noise post here), but I like this factoid because it sums up the argument so well.

[Note - typos have been removed from the original post. Thanks Jared!]

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If you don’t know much about Personas, or have your doubts about them, read this article and the comments thread over at Signal vs. Noise (the 37signals blog). Here’s an excerpt:

We don’t use personas. We use ourselves. I believe personas lead to a false sense of understanding at the deepest, most critical levels.[…]

I’ve never been a big believer in Personas. They’re artificial, abstract, and fictitious. I don’t think you can build a great product for a person that doesn’t exist.

As you’d expect, there was a bit of a backlash in the comments thread. It makes interesting reading, not because it gives 37signals a bashing, but because it clearly articulates some common misunderstandings of Personas, and explains how they are wrong, e.g.

• Personas are “baseless fictions” (Actually, they are the synthesis of your research findings)
• Personas are a replacement for user-research (Actually, they complement user research)
• Personas don’t get frustrated or express opinions (Ok, they don’t really exist, but they are used to simulate exactly this kind of user feedback to help making design decisions)

> Read the Signal vs. Noise article

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Interesting piece of copy in this Windows Vista dialog box. Basically it’s saying:

1. Type your product key in now.
2. But you don’t have to.
3. But if you don’t, you could loose everything.
4. And you might have to buy another copy of Vista.
5. So on second thoughts, you probably should enter your product key in now after all.

Luckily, due to the way people scan-read when using a computer, few will actually read this paragraph and most will skip ahead to fill in their product key without even noticing the content.

Thanks to Peter Otto for picking up on this.

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This isn’t really hot news, but it was news to me when George Oates mentioned it in passing during her piece at Dconstruct 07.

In an age of curious-sounding Web-site names, “Flickr” came largely by accident. The domain owner of “flicker.com” wouldn't sell, so Caterina suggested “Flickr,” which Butterfield says made the service stand out. “We always had to spell it out for people, which helped make it stick,” he notes. [read more]

Unsurprisingly, correctly spelled domains get loads of hits from people who don’t know how to spell web 2.0 brand names, and assume that the correct spelling would be the right way to do it. So if you mis-spell your brand name just for a bit of ‘web 2.0 distinctiveness’, are you really doing yourself any favours? After all, just two weeks ago, Del.icio.us decided to make the switch to delicious.com. How very sensible.

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A great quote that sums up the art of User-Centered Writing: “Bad writers worry about whether the reader will understand them. Good ones are more concerned about how well they understand the reader.� - Paraphrased from Lindsay Camp (2007) 1 comment

Finally we’ve managed to get our new site out the door. Please do drop by and take a look. In case you’re wondering, Flow interactive is a London-based User Experience consultancy. I’m a consultant there. We’re hiring.

By the way, my posts from this site (90percentofeverything.com) will also be appearing over on the flow blog.

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This should be the mantra for user experience designers everywhere.

Image stolen unashamedly from Jonny Baker’s Photostream. The concept came up in a chat with Simon Johnson today over lunch.

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I was in Finland a few weeks ago, and this was the control panel of the lift in my hotel.

Imagine this scenario: you get in the hotel on the ground floor, you press a button, nothing happens. You try pressing all the buttons. Nothing happens. What are you meant to do to make the lift work?

In a way I kind of respect the designers who steadfastly stood by their beliefs in minimalist brushed metal aesthetics.

During my stay I watched a funny scene where a loud pair of American tourists completely floundered with it, while the reception staff pretended to ignore them.

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Has anyone else noticed how great Facebook image tagging is?

Granted, it is only for putting names to faces, but it’s incredibly quick to use (say 5 seconds per photo), and it’s really satisfying. Your friends see you’ve tagged them (the images appear in their news feed on their facebook homepage), and usually respond with a comment or by tagging some of your photos in return.

Compare this to Flickr where image tagging feels heavyweight, tiring and you get no quick payback for your effort.

Come on Flickr - you’ve dropped the ball on tagging. It should be a rapid, social and fun activity!

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