Users

As User Experience consultant I often recommend, if it is appropriate, that a website promotes a richer browsing experience by enabling users to customise certain areas of the website, for example the homepage, user account pages etc. The main argument is that customisation can encourage repeat visits (as well as gathering lots of lovely customer data for the website provider). This is because the user feels a sense of ownership by choosing factors such as layout and appearance. In addition where appropriate, users love the option of being able to prioritise what content they either receive in their e-mail inboxes or what they view when visiting a website. To further the argument, allowing customisation creates a website that is constantly changing, fresh and a source of endless entertainment. Thus users will prefer the website over competitor websites. Read more…

Last November the European Union approved new legislation amending an existing privacy directive relating to the way websites collect data about visitors. In essence this would prevent sites from using cookies without prior consent from web users. Cookies are small snippets of code that sit on your computer and identify you as a visitor to a particular website. They may be used by a retail site to remember what you have put into your basket or used by an advertising network to understand what ads you have seen online and target you with specific messaging. Read more…

At Foviance we’re becoming increasingly involved with gaming clients who are capitalising on new growth technologies – such as mobile.

Some of our clients are still investigating what their users want from mobile games and how and when they will be played. Some have developed prototypes and others are a long way down the path, simply looking for assistance in improving what they have already. Read more…

The rise of social media and web 2.0 has encouraged a worrying trend – the philosophy of permanent beta. This recognises that an application or website can never be perfect and continue to evolve long after that initial release. The feedback channels that have become so important in social media provide a never-ending source of user reviews and comments, which any conscientious development team will study before working on a new, improved release. Read more…

I want one now…not.

A new Apple product is always an exciting design moment. iMac, iPod (I have owned one since 2002), iPhone, iTouch …and now iPad. Of course when I saw the photos of this sleek, sexy machine, I wanted to get my hands on one. Now. Then the reviews started coming in, and I started reconsidering (there is also, alas, the small matter of budget…) In the end, reason won the day, with two sets of considerations which will help me hold on a little bit longer before I splurge… Read more…

The other day I deleted a note on my iTouch. I hit the little bin icon and just as I unthinkingly hit the red “delete note”, suddenly realised that I had not copied the phone number it contained – too late. That’s when it hit me that, contrary to a mental model acquired from long and intimate acquaintance with PCs, I did not have a recycle bin on the “phonetop” from which to retrieve the deleted note. Confusingly though, the application uses a bin icon to represent the “delete” action. Read more…

This article, written by Neil Mason, was originally published on Clickz.com on 12/02/10 and is republished here with permission.

One of the things I like about my job working is a customer experience consultancy is that I’m surrounded by people with a very different outlook on life. Our user experience consultants tend to come from a behavioural psychology background and are great at using qualitative research techniques such as lab testing, eye tracking and ethnographic studies to get into the mind of users and to understand what makes for a good or bad experience. Read more…

“Never try, never fail, those are the words I live by”, or so says Drew Carey’s character Crank in the animated kids film ‘Robots’. I heard these words coming from the back of the car a few days ago as I headed off on holiday with the family for a week in North Devon. You could run a business by that motto but I’m not sure it would last long or be an exciting place to work.

On the contrary,  it is the belief of both my team and I that we must try, that sees Foviance opening for business in China this quarter, with a new office in Shanghai. Read more…