Blog posts on usability

Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Toyota's Planet Kaizen

  It requires flash to view Planet Kaizen. I think it has amazingly bad visual controls (as do many flash applications). I can’t figure out why it would be done in flash – other than some marketing person, or IT person, thought it would be cool. I certainly don’t see how kaizen practices could have produced such an application. It seems to me one of the examples of how far Toyota still has to go.
  
  Of course, as an automobile manufacturer failing to develop web applications well, is better than failing at manufacturing cars well.

  continue reading: Toyota's Planet Kaizen
• Suggestions to Improve Google (2006)

  I have suggested all of these for years and I still want them:

  1) Let me chose the type of files searched (exclude pdfs, word, power point..). Then if I can’t find what I want I can expand to include them. At the very least give me some way of making the type much more visible (I realize it is there now but I often click before my mind notices…).

  2) Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google’s normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people “block” The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can’t figure out how to do so.

  3) Let me create site search lists, where I create lists of sties I want searched – then I can target my searches how I want. Actually now that rollyo does this...

  continue reading: Suggestions to Improve Google (2006)
• Great Charts

  Karl Hartig displays some excellent charts that he created (for the Wall Street Journal) on his web site. The charts seem very similar to what would result from applying Edward Tufte’s ideas. Rarely do I see charts that do such a good job of visually displaying data. The lack of such effective visual display of information is another example of how much improvement could be made just by applying ideas that are already published.

  continue reading: Great Charts
• Visible Data

  Take the time to find the important measures and then don’t keep data hidden in some drawer or computer file out of people’s view and therefore out of mind. Post the important data for everyone to see. Review the data as changes are made and see that the changes had the desired result. 

  continue reading: Visible Data
• Good Customer Service Example

  Recently I bought a new digital camera, Canon A700. Part of the reason I bought it was I had heard they actually provided customer service – you could call them and they answered and helped (plus they have long practiced good management improvement concepts, in general).

  Well I received my camera and I could not open the battery compartment: which was quite frustrating. I tried following the instructions but I couldn’t get it to open. So I tried calling Canon and I got a person on the phone within 30 seconds (there was system to direct me to the right person but it was as speaking the answer to a couple questions).

  Within a couple minutes the service person (based in Virginia and a Canon employee, as I understand it) had picked up a Canon A700 and explained how to open the door.

  continue reading: Good Customer Service Example
• If Tech Companies Made Sudoku

  We often seem to add unnecessary complexity to software; creating fragile code that is frustrating to use.

  Unnecessary complexity in internet development has increased greatly since I wrote this in 2006.  I can't believe how often simple actions like clicking a link on web sites with huge budgets fail because instead of just being a link it is some complex code that is fragile and fails.  The huge downloads needed for many websites today should shame them but the explosion of waste continues unabatted.  At some point it will stop, but I am amazed how long the extermely poor management practices have continued. 

  Related: The Edge-case Excuse

   

   

  continue reading: If Tech Companies Made Sudoku
• Edward Tufte’s new book: Beautiful Evidence (2006)

  Beautiful Evidence by Edward Tufte is now available. Beautiful is the right word. Tufte’s books are an example of what can be created when someone truly loves what they do and takes pride in every detail of their work. His books are excellent.

  In Beautiful Evidence, Tufte explores how to best display evidence looking at: mapped pictures; sparklines; links and causal arrows; words, numbers and pictures together; the fundamental principles of analytical design; corruption of evidence; and more.

  continue reading: Edward Tufte’s new book: Beautiful Evidence (2006)
• Quality and Innovation

  I really don’t understand how people can talk about innovation as if it were some new discovery. Yes I understand we can bring a different focus to innovation. We can reconfigure management structures to encourage and support innovation. That is good. And new ideas are being developed, but the innovation fad is silly. And accepting the notion that this innovation stuff is some new idea will make managers less effective than if they understand the past.

  New Economics by W. Edwards Deming, published in 1992, page 7:

  Does the customer invent new product of service? The customer generates nothing. No customer asked for electric lights… No customer asked for photography… No customer asked for an automobile… No customer asked for an integrated circuit.

  Innovation has long been important to those interested in management improvement.

  continue reading: Quality and Innovation
• Usability Failures

  I guess if you operationally define “nothing wrong” as a failure to work as the manufacturer intended that would be true. But is that what really matters? What is the number of defects that should be counted?

  The design of the phone is broken if 63% of the returns work as intended and customers still think they are broken. You might argue that the instructions are bad, but really shouldn’t people just be able to use the phone if it is designed well?

  continue reading: Usability Failures
• Complicating Simplicity

  This post on the excellent signal vs. noise blog illustrates how one can lose their way when trying to simplify. Lean and other management improvement folks can learn a lot about eliminating non-value added steps, clean design, simplifying systems to improve performance… from this blog. The examples are mainly relating to software development from a true understanding of lean thinking(though I don’t have any evidence they are familiar with the Toyota Production System or lean tools/concepts)...

  continue reading: Complicating Simplicity
• Designing In Errors

  When you design products that create more possibilities for more errors you create products that will in fact fail more often.

  Related: The Edge-case Excuse

  continue reading: Designing In Errors
• Simple Cell Phone

  Complex devices with many points of failure (both technical failure and user inability to figure it out) should not be the only option. Simple, easy to use, reliable devices would have a big market. Creativity is not just about more complex devices.

  continue reading: Simple Cell Phone
• Change Your Name to Work With Our Software

  My advice. Don’t create stupid restrictions (in IT systems or otherwise). What do you care how long people’s names are? There are many people with 2 character names (even if your software says they are invalid, and + are a valid email character even if your software doesn't think so).

  Also, have customer service personnel who are trying to improve the system, not trying to get the customer off the phone to meet some arbitrary numerical target. Most often the representatives seem most concerned with getting you off the phone. An effective system to discover what needs to be improved is not something that management has bothered to design into the system. Big mistake.

  continue reading: Change Your Name to Work With Our Software
• Data Visualization Example

  In Myths About the Developing World, Hans Rosling shows some great graphics to display data on health care outcomes.

  The presentation also gives a concrete example of faulty knowledge (people thinking things which are not so - related to theory of knowledg). See gapminder.org for good additional material.

  continue reading: Data Visualization Example
• Looking in the Mirror at Customer Focus

  Most organizations say they are focused on meeting and exceeding customer needs. But, as a customer, this often isn’t what I experience.

  Delighting customers is critical to long term business success. Satisfied customers will remain your customers until they see the opportunity for something that might be better or is cheaper. Delighted customers are loyal and much more likely to remain customers.

  Delighting customers is often about paying attention to the small details. Paying close attention to customer’s jobs to be done is a powerful tool. Then apply creative thinking and a knowledge of your industry, technical possibilities and business realities to provide solutions that delight customers.

  continue reading: Looking in the Mirror at Customer Focus