Presentation Transcript

1. To message or Not to message

   4-6 June 2014 http://www.uxsofia.com/en @dsimov
2. Our goal today Talk about messages Good, bad or necessary evil No recipe – be practical
3. I do not like to write messages
4. What’s in a message?
5. Sign warning prohibitory mandatory priority indication source of UI icons: http://www.iconarchive.com/show/soft-scraps-icons-by-hopstarter.html
6. Text 0. Who shows the message 1. What happened (or did not happen) 2. Why it happened 3. What users can do about it often usually sometimes rarely
7. Closing Traditionally a button
8. what are messages?
9. Install Twitter app on my mobile I do not want them to upload the contacts from the address book on my phone, so I cleared the checkbox Then on Sign In…
10. …from Twitter … I get this Now they speak of friends no idea what they mean!?! And I do not know any of the 48 people they want me to follow
11. Warning I get this every time I start Windows fix: Do not show OR: Show more info so users know why this is important and what to do
12. Critical I get this every time I start Windows as well fix: Show option to remove from start-up list OR: Allow re-installing
13. Validation Is it that hard to ignore the spaces? fix: Parse the input and ignore spaces, dashes, dots…
14. Confirmation Translation: Your electronic signature is valid and you can make money transfers online fix: Hide the gibberish. Show a normal message.
15. Informative fix: State that the downtime will be at night and last only 1 hour and use my timezone
16. As you type fix: Accept Cyrillic OR: Add to the message that only Latin characters are OK
17. Guess what On Yes, the program starts On No, the program does not start fix: Do not show OR: Ask users to select a library location
18. Numbered Glad I did not encounter the previous three fix: Say what happened, why, and what users need/can do
19. Another time Access is blocked! Reason: #34! Please call the Eurobank officer who serves you. fix: Fix the site to work 24/7 OR: Tell users to log in only in business hours
20. Another place fix: ?!?! OR: Link to a travel site so users can book a ticket to USA
21. Make me think a lot what!? fix: Simplify and state the acceptable range
22. Make me stop thinking Now I’m lost fix: No idea
23. Series of increasing severity Unusual error… not enough storage Unusual error… no scroll bars Unusual error… catastrophic failure fix: Fix the code
24. Schizophrenic Not available… Not accessible… or Access denied? fix: See the next slide
25. Why not this instead You may have no permissions to view the content of the folder, or it may be located on a computer with which you do not have a connection. Check your connection and try again or contact your administrator for permissions.
26. Useless fix: Show the list of external references
27. Unnecessary fix: Do not show
28. In progress fix: No fix needed
29. In progress fix: Use a normal progress indicator - see how the others do it
30. Predictive fix: No fix needed
31. Preventive fix: No fix needed OR: Avoid the popup – see the next slide
32. 2014: jetBlueeliminated the popup
33. …the message now obscures the input fix: Make the message non-modal OR: Make the user input visible
34. CAPS LOCK IS ON
35. CAPS LOCK We sometimes need to type in all caps Caps Lock is a mode, we often do not notice it is ON The Caps Lock key is too easy to hit, next to Shift When we type passwords, we don’t see what we type fix: I leave it to you to design one or two
36. Do and don’t
37. Try to avoid messages especially modal ones Reconsider the limitations: why limit the password to 12 characters Parse the user input: 12 May 2014 is the same as 14/05/12 Change the UI: a calendar picker might work well
38. Try to avoid messages - 2 Save the technical details: most users do not care how the program works example: Search results found but will not be shown in the current mode. Users are to do the search again on another screen.
39. Use modal messages as a last resort Show a modal message only if you: have no idea what else to do have no time to do a better thing feel it makes business sense know it will never show up to users
40. Jimmy’s axiom on messages Any internal message that is not supposed to be seen by users finds a way to float to the surface and shows up to users
41. Keep messages short, yet complete We want to do work (have fun, find information) not read messages Yet we do not want to guess what is going on
42. Frame messages positively You have only view permissions is better than You do not have edit permissions
43. Think twice before you try fun and before you write “oops“
44. Ask for help Have a reviewer Better a colleague to find your splling mistakes Work with a writer These people are trained to write words and sentences Test with users
45. Take home Try to avoid messages don’t write messages, design interactions If you have to give a message, make sure it says: what happened why what users can do about it Be practical
46. Bonus
47. The best message FISHING PERMITTED CARP 1 KG – 3 LV source: http://tangra.si.umich.edu/~radev/public/onlybg2/Only_In_Bulgaria_08.jpg
48. The best message - ever Non-ambiguous Language familiar to target users No excessive info; just the necessary Substantial information - price Gives direction Large font – can be read from a moving car Unobtrusive
49. you are welcome