1. The "close / minimize / maximize" buttons are now VERTICAL!? WHAT? Every, and I mean EVERY app in OSX has them horizontal. Why would you do this? A central theme of good UI design is that you keep things consistent and strive to meet the user's expectations. This just confuses people. ESPECIALLY if they're COLOR-BLIND. Big fail here. Not to mention that putting the buttons here makes the top bar of the app super skinny, thus making it hard to grab and move around (same problem Google Chrome has). Luckily, there's a fix for this one - and it works great!
   
   
   
2. The color has been completely sucked out of the UI. So many people navigate using those colored icons. People don't look at whether it's a little "gear" or "music notes" - people look for "green" or "blue". Plus, from an aesthetic standpoint, it's all boring and monochrome. I have a COLOR monitor for a reason. Looks like there's a fix for that as well.
   
   
   
   
3. In the podcast section, the checkboxes have been moved into their own column, thus putting them outside the hierarchy of the dropdown. This is a BIG no-no in UI design. Things that relate to each other need to be NEXT TO each other (see Gestalt Law of Proximity). I see what they're trying to do (put the checks in their own column so they're moveable), but I can't figure out why that's needed. There's no reason to move the checks away from the actual item they refer to - it only confuses and makes me think. DON'T MAKE ME THINK!
   
   
   
4. This isn't so much a UX complaint, but they sure missed an opportunity with the new iTunes app icon. They removed the CD, and I get that (I haven't bought a CD in YEARS), but it's still just music notes. There's so much MORE in iTunes than music. But, then again, maybe they would have needed to change the name of the app. Here's an iTunes icon that at least matches the iTunes icon on the iOS devices.

Here's a SMALL sampling of quotes from around the Twitterverse:

"whichever vampire drained the color from iTunes 10 should be taken out back behind 5IL and staked to the basket ball court." @rudyrichter

"the only thing worse than iTunes 10 is Ping. #justsayin" @timschraeder

"What do we hate! ITUNES 10! Why do we hate it! BECAUSE IT IS UGLY! <chant>" @sh

"my computer is asking me to dl iTunes 10.0 but I don't think I want to cuz I don't want the new ugly logo." @jb140

"Is it just me, or is the new iTunes 10 73% more ugly, cluttered and unnecessary? More ugly" @sirhcllenrad

"Every version of iTunes has had it's own 'unique' UX. And it's horribly inconsistent with their OS." @studuncan

Needless to say, people aren't happy. I have to wonder how much testing is actually done on some of Apple's internal stuff, or if they just let designers have their way with things. Either way, I sure hope they'll do something about it eventually. For now, I'm going to go see how much SPAM is on Ping...

Then I asked myself, "Steve, what's the most effective way to increase conversions on a website?" to which I responded, "A killer user experience!" to which I agreed.  I checked with Whitney Hess for permission to use the 4 steps she outlines in her "DIY UX" talk, to which she kindly agreed, and the presentation turned out pretty good (if I do say so myself). I also borrowed a couple slides from my DIY Usability talk, to which I also kindly agreed. (Oh, and I stole the "Zune vs. iPod" idea from Jared Spool)

If you'd like to see me give this presentation in person, stay tuned for an announcement of where and when (hint: Art Lab, Fort Collins, Colorado - sometime in the future).

We recently got rid of our dinosaur of a roaringly loud microwave, and got a nice & shiny new one. The number of options for microwaves out there are stunning, especially when you think about the fact that 87% of the time you use it for reheating your coffee, and 10% for thawing frozen chicken breasts because you forgot to take them out this morning and the wife wants you to grill them and everyone's hungry (that other 3% is, of course, popcorn).

The other annoying thing about a new microwave is that you have to learn a whole new magic combination of buttons just to do the coffee thing! The first microwave we had (that I can remember) when I was a kid was the kind with the dial. Turn it to 1-minute, it cooks for 1-minute and *ding* you're done. Easy. Then everything got all digital and fancy, and now I could choose between 44 and 45 seconds, but I had to press "Clear"+"Time"+"45"+"Cook"+"Power"+"10"+"Start" when ALL I wanted was "45"+"Start".

So imagine my joy and delight when I went to warm up my coffee the first morning we had this new microwave and ALL I had to press was "45"+"Start". That's IT!! *[insert sound of angels rejoicing]*

Bask in the simplicity

Okay, okay, it's just a microwave (as my exasperated wife reminded me when I took the above picture), but the SIMPLICITY of the basic function is a thing of beauty. Sure, there are all KINDS of other options like cooking temp, a fancy defrost feature, blah blah blah, but I'm most concerned with that 87% of my time.

The lesson here: Simplify. If you have a website (or product) that has a bunch of different functions, fine. But figure out which of those functions is most used, and make it DEAD simple to do THAT. The other stuff is useful and necessary, but people want and need to do that ONE thing more than anything else.

What's that ONE thing for you?

And, on the advice of the wonderful Whitney Hess, here's a sampling of the Twitter responses to my talk at WordCamp Boulder. Thanks again for all of the kind words:

Website usability is like a virus. You go along for most of your life, happily (or not) clicking through websites, finding (or not) the stuff you're looking for, never really thinking about the usability of the sites you encounter every day. Sure, some websites are hard to use, but you think "it's probably just me" or you simply click back to Google and go to the next site, hoping you can figure it out this time.

Then someone comes along and, in their most helpful and innocent voice, teaches you all about "Usability" (with a capital "U"). They explain that, no, it's NOT just you - these offending sites should know better or at least should do something about it. They even show you how easy it would have been for these sites to be tested to find problems, and how easy and cheap that really could be!

Now you're in trouble. You've got the virus, and there is no cure.

Basic symptoms include:

• inability to visit a website without silently critiquing its usability issues
• complaining (often loudly to those in the room with you) about how "HORRIBLE 'Brand X's' website is, although they've OBVIOUSLY spent tens of thousands of $$'s on it!!"
• emailing examples of bad websites to the person who gave you the virus in the first place
• lying awake at night worrying about the usability of your OWN website, and if others with the virus are secretly laughing at you

Advanced symptoms:

• a voice in the back of your mind telling you that you can't rest until all existing usability problems have been remedied
• your obsession with "Usability" bleeds over into the "real" world, and you start to stay things like, "The button on that coffee maker is REALLY not in the right place. Where's that customer service number?!"
• your spouse tells you to "get over it" and "just change the stinking diaper and quit griping", etc.

So yes, Solomon, the more you know about Usability, the more annoyed you're going to be with the web. But do not fear: Together we, the infected, can make the world a happier and more usable place to be. We shall overcome!!

I started off the day at the "Creating a Blog Community" panel, then moved on to the "WordPress Consulting Discussion" which was really good, then hit the "WordPress Development" session which was WAY over my head. After lunch with Steve & Josh I got to the Techstars building early to set up for my presentation but the DOOR WAS LOCKED. No biggie - we still got in with 2 minutes to spare.

My presentation went AWESOME (if I do say so myself). It was a full house, and everyone told me they learned a lot and had a good time to boot! Mission accomplished. We did a live usability testing session using the Deep Rock Water site, and it turned out to be a perfect choice: serious OBVIOUS issues right out of the gate, many things to change (boy does that company need my help!), and everyone got a good feel of how a testing session works. Several people told me afterward that they had always WANTED to do testing, but weren't really sure how it looked & worked in real life, so watching a test live helped immensely. Glad I could help :)

After my presentation there was only one session left, so I went to "What’s Next for WordPress" which was a presentation by Jane Wells, UX designer for WordPress. Good stuff. I even got to talk to Jane a bit afterward - super cool and super smart woman.

Many asked both at WordCamp and after about the slides for my talk, so here they are. I TRIED to upload them to Slideshare, but my fancy animations and stuff were too much for it to handle, so I've exported everything to a Quicktime Movie.

Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have any questions.ENJOY!!

CLICK HERE to download the full-res version (53MB .mov file).

****UPDATE**** : I finally got Slideshare to accept my Keynote file. (Don't get me started). The full video version linked above is still there, but here's a more USER FRIENDLY version (with notes and everything!).

For me, I went to the WordCamp Boulder site, bought my ticket, and then thought "Hmm… wonder who's speaking this year." So I went to the speaker page and it basically said, "We're still looking for speakers. You interested?" Well shoot, yeah! So I submitted my idea (even though it wasn't strictly a WordPress theme) and a couple weeks later I got confirmation that they'd picked me to speak! It's going to be awesome, and I'll post slides/video up here as soon as I can. Wish me luck.

• Their website was #1 in Google for EVERY keyword they wanted
• They were getting almost ZERO leads from this #1-ranked site

Shouldn't a #1 Google-ranked site be getting them some serious sales? Isn't SEO rankings what it's ALL about? Well, NO!

It was obvious from looking at the site that it needed an updated design (at the least), but that wasn't going to be enough. FC Tree Care's main goal was to get people to submit their information for an estimate which they could follow up on. Period.  So along with a redesign of their site, I developed the information architecture and conducted user testing to figure out in which direction we should go.

So using what we'd I'd learned through user research and developing an intuitive site flow, the site was redesigned.

The day the site launched, they started getting 2-3 requests for estimate per DAY, and now, 4 months later, they're STILL getting that many. It's become a vital part of their sales process, and their job estimator works almost exclusively on web requests.

The effectiveness of this site - or any site for that matter - isn't due to fancy graphic design (the design is nice, but nothing super special) - it's due to taking the business objectives, finding out what users wanted, and crafting the site around that desired experience.

In the light of this (somewhat) depressing statistic, Brian came up with a great idea: give your users an idea of how long it will take to read your content. Simple yet brilliant. If users see "Reading time: about 1 min 14 sec", they're much more likely to go ahead and read it all because, hey - what's ONE minute, right? It's also a great way for you long-winded writers out  there to reign yourselves in (please, please reign yourselves in!). Unfortunately, there's no research on exactly what the tipping point is at which people WON'T read - is it 5 min? 3 min? Who knows (although for me it's probably around 3 minutes). It also varies based upon too many factors to count, but it's still a great way to nudge users on to read your brilliant insights. Why is this important? Simple: the more eyeballs, the more influence.

(Oh, and I've implemented his great php code snippet to calculate the reading time on all blog posts - the code is included in his post on the subject)