UX Marks The Spot

Hiatus

2011-09-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to those who have supported UX Marks The Spot for the last couple of years.

As I've mentioned in a blog post on my personal blog, I'm doing some streamlining on my online presences and one of my decisions was to fold my coverage of user experience, usability, and web matters into Weboplex and in effect put UX Marks The Spot on an indefinite hiatus (similar to Standard Web Standards).

I'd really appreciate it if you'd now follow Weboplex and continue supporting my blogs.

One Edge Facebook Has Over Google+

2011-08-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that ever since Google+ was launched a couple of months ago, Facebook's luster for me diminished.

Why?

From the user experience point (UX) of view, Google+ simplified the approach to managing friends/connections and got the best elements from Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. My use of Facebook has decreased since getting added in Google+.

But I soon realized an edge that Facebook has over Google+: Nostalgia.

Given that Facebook has a seven-year headstart over Google+, people who are in Facebook has invested more time and uploaded more stuff in their accounts. There are also more wall posts, chats, and status updates on personal milestones, both big and small.

Which now brings me to a practical application of this on Facebook: I recently saw a section on the secondary content area (the right-side column) with the heading "This day in 2009." And underneath that heading is my status update exactly two years ago.

I was like "Whoa!" Facebook was able to make history more personal.

I'm sure you've read features in news sites that placed major historical events like an almanac, but this kind of history puts the context to the person.

Well played, Facebook, well played.

Practical Usability Engineering Seminar at DLSU

2011-08-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Center at the De La Salle University will be having a seminar on "Practical Usability Engineering" on September 1-2, 2011.

The seminar will focus on how to integrate usability into the design process of products and services, with consideration of the business strategy.

For interested folks, please email Dr. Rose Seva at coers2000@gmail.com. Pre-regisrtation is required for this seminar.

World Usability Day 2011

2011-06-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

The theme for the World Usability Day 2011 is EDUCATION: Designing for Social Change.

Get involved! Here's how:

Register a local event– it’s free! Create an account on www.worldusabiltyday.org. Energize your company, community, university or collaborate with your local UPA Chapter and business associations
Volunteer - be part of our team locally or globally
Be a Sponsor– get recognized as a leader
Submit a story for our website– share your experiences
Sign our Charter– show your support now!
Sign up for our email newsletters– keep informed about the latest news and information

The Philippines has been part of the World Usability Day events since its launch in 2005 and this year will be no different. The big change will be the people behind the events. (Yes, this is a hint!)

Idea: News Q&A Expert Matching

2011-06-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

I have another idea submitted to the Knight-Mozilla Challenge at Drumbeat: News Q&A Expert Matching

Why News Q&A Matching? People have many questions about the news. News Q&A Expert Matching will match the experts in a particular topic to answer the questions of the public. Think of it like a smart Quora for news and current events.

Questions and answers will be rated and top rating questions and answers will be featured.
People not classified as "Experts" can also answer questions, but will be segregated in a different section.
Folks who answer often and get good public ratings may be promoted into an expert for a particular field.

The News Q&A Expert Matching in Action

A news story about a protest in the Middle East is posted on the app
The app will select experts from the pool of users. The criteria could be the industry, experience, quality of answers. Some experts may be added manually by admins.
Once people can then post questions about the event and the experts can answer them.
People who are not yet experts can post comments or answers.
If a particular question becomes very interesting and informative, it will be featured in the app.

If you think this idea is cool, please do vote for it at the Drumbeat Challenge.

Idea: Wikified News Dashboard (WiND)

2011-06-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

I recently submitted an idea to the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership (MoJo) challenge for People-Powered News.

The challenge submits the questions: What would you build on the web that actually makes news better for the people who create and read it? How would you involve the public in the news making, editing or sharing process? The only constraint: your idea should be built using open technologies and languages.

My submission is the Wikified News Dashboard (WiND)

Wikified News Dashboard (WiND) presents news as Rich Event Pages (REPs). REPs are news pages visualized like an infographic, with timelines, sentiment analysis, and multimedia. As events unfold, people can contribute via twitter & Facebook, post pictures and videos, and comment on facts. Each REP will have an quality score algorithmically based on the aggregate authority of the individual contributors.

At the most basic level, each REP will answer the basic questions (What, When, Where, Who) and make these information easy to see. Also presented is a quick summary of the event's highlights.

The REP will also contain infographics that depict how the event unfolded: (1) An adjustable timeline that can be scaled depending on the recency of the event; (2) Photos and videos from people. Images and videos posted by people who are actually at the event (via geolocation) will be given priority. Each posting can be rated; (3) List of related stories

Also included would be real time sentiment form Twitter and Facebook, which updates in real-time, with Tweets of authoritative folks getting featured. Folks can login to their Twitter and Facebook accounts to post an update or add photos/videos.

Each REP will have a score that is algorithmically rated based on the authority rating of the individual contributors. Folks who contribute to highly-rated REPs get higher authority rating.

What do you think of this idea?

Practical Usability Engineering at DLSU

2011-04-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

The Human Factors and Ergonomics Center at the De La Salle University (DLSU) will be having a seminar entitled "Practical Usability Engineering."

The seminar will be on May 23-24, 2011 (8am-5pm) at the Science and Technology Research Center (Room 218), DLSU Campus in Manila.

The seminar fee is PhP 5,000.00 and it is inclusive of meals and materials.

For more information, contact Dr. Rose Seva at rosemary.seva (at) dlsu.edu.ph.

First Week with the MacBook Pro

2011-04-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

I've just switched to a MacBook Pro (13-inch Intel i5) from a Dell Inspiron. I've been primarily a Windows-based PC user since grade school, but I've had my encounters with Mac machines in the last few years. This is the first time I've owned a Mac and one week in, I'm seeing the contrasts in the user experience between a Windows and a Mac.

One of the main tasks I've been doing is learning the ropes of the Mac OS X (Snow Leopard). My Windows instinct started to kick in when I was looking for apps that replicated the ones that I had in my Dell notebook. I've learned that on the Mac OS X, there aren't a lot of apps the same way there are applications in Windows. But I figured that you only need a few apps in the Mac. (iLife, iWork, a few utilities).

One good thing I've come to know is the App Store for the MacBook, which has a steady list of free apps. It also helped that there are also a good number of blogs that recommend the good and free apps.

There were a few times I was stuck with the spinning colored wheel because an app was going rogue on me, but it has been pretty rare. The Force Quit function is useful, but needs to be in a better location

Snow Leopard's behavior is quite different from Windows 7 and I've been feeling a lot of uneasiness in the transition. Here are some of the items I'm still getting used to:

Windows behavior - the three buttons on the upper left corner of windows gets me disoriented a bit
The Apple icon on the top menu - I wondered what that Icon was for for the first few days.
Installing and uninstalling apps - The whole "drag the icon" method is not consistent in apps I've installed. It's a good feature, but needs to be more explicit.
Finder - I'm still used to Windows' Explorer
Not much customization and tinkering under the hood

On the plus side:

Thanks to The Cloud, my reliance on pure desktop apps is not that high. Mozilla Firefox has been the most used app in my MacBook Pro
Installing fonts has been easy
The state restoration after standby is snappy
Installing devices via USB is also fast

My initial assessment is that there's a lot of implicit shortcuts on the Mac, but once you master some of them, the experience becomes easier. You also need a lot of time to look for the essential apps-- there are a few gems out there.

Let's see how things will fare in the next few days.

12th Philippine Web Awards Finalists

2011-04-07T20:57:00.000-07:00

The awarding of the 12th Philippine Web Awards is tonight at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorim, RCBC Plaza in Makati City.

Here's a list of the finalists for the different categories:

ARTS AND PORTFOLIO

Bridal Book - http://bridalbook.ph
Dottystyle Creative - http://dottystylecreative.com
Minimalist Web Designer and PHP Web Developer in Philippines - http://jeffsimonsdesign.com
Philippine Art Awards - http://philippineartawards.org
ProjectSkyRocket - http://projectskyrocket.com

BLOGS

Melissa Marasigan Official Blog Site - http://melissa-marasigan.blogspot.com
NoBenta: Reminiscing the 90's - http://no-benta.blogspot.com
Noobfoodie - http://noobfoodie.com
Eli Soriano Blog - http://www.esoriano.wordpress.com
The Otaku Fridge - http://otakufridge.com

COMMUNITY AND PORTAL

KahelOS - http://kahelos.org
Official Website of Red Horse Beer - http://redhorsebeer.com
e-Yellow Pages - http://eyp.ph
The FEU TAMBayan - http://tamarawbayan.com
WebGeek Philippines - http://webgeekph.com

CORPORATIONS, FOUNDATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS

7-Elections-Every Gulp Counts - http://7-elections.com.ph
Ayala Land Residential Website - http://atayala.com
Belomen - http://belomen.com
Members Church of God International - http://mcgi.org
Triskelion Radio - http://triskelionradio.com

E-BUSINESS

Hot Pink Lingerie- http://hotpinklingerie.com
PinoyJobs.ph - Jobs in the Philippines - http://pinoyjobs.ph
Jobs180.com - http://jobs180.com
Kamusta Cards - http://kamustacards.com
Sulit.com.ph - http://sulit.com.ph

E-GOVERNMENT

Government Service Insurance System - http://gsis.gov.ph
Official Website of the National Commission for Culture and Arts - http://ncca.gov.ph
Philippine Community eCenter Portal - http://philcecnet.ph
Philippine Postal Corporation - http://philpost.gov.ph
UP Manila National Telehealth Center - http://plone.telehealth.ph

E-LGU

City Government of Zamboanga - http://zamboanga.gov.ph
Municipality of Padada, Davao del Sur - http://padada.com
Official Website of Del Carmen Municipality, Surigao del Norte - http://delcarmen.gov.ph
Province of Lanao del Norte - http://lanaodelnorte.gov.ph
Province of Sulu - http://sulu.gov.ph

LIFESTYLE AND LEISURE

Boracay 360-Virtual Tour of Boracay Island - http://boracay360.com
Juice-What's Going On? - http://juice.ph
Myshoephoria-Online Shoe Organizer - http://myshoephoria.com
Natural Health Philippines - http://naturalhealth.ph
Ragnarok Online - http://ragnarok.levelupgames.ph

NEWS, ZINES AND ENTERTAINMENT

Appetite- http://appetitemag.com
GMANews.tv - http://gmanews.tv
JAM 88.3 We Get the Hits First - http://jam883.fm
Mens Health Philippines - http://menshealth.com.ph/
UNTVWEB.com-Kasangbahay Mo! - http://untvweb.com

PERSONAL

Mike Mamaril: Freelance Filipino Web Developer - http://mikemamaril.com
Milo Timbols Website - http://milotimbol.com
Official Website of Mayor Alfredo S. Lim - http://fredlim.com
Panlasang Pinoy - http://panlasangpinoy.com
Personal Site of Joseph Manalastas - http://theweb-developer.com

SCHOOLS

Aquinas University of Legaspi - http://aq.edu.ph
Caraga State University - http://carsu.edu.ph
First Academy of Computer Arts - http://firstacademy.net
Southville International School and Colleges - http://southville.edu.ph
STI Colleges and Education Centers - http://sti.edu

SMEs

ACROSS Corporation - http://across.ph
Limechalk Media - http://limechalk.com
Mosbeau: Mosbeau Whitening Products Better than Glutathione - http://mosbeau.com.ph
NextIXsystems, Seamless Business Communication - http://nextixsystems.com
World Balance - http://worldbalance.com.ph

Good luck to all the finalists!

The UX of Acer's Dual Touch Screen Notebooks

2011-03-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

I attended the Philippine launch of Acer's latest line of notebooks. Launch events like these are one of the best ways for me to think about the user experience of emerging products. Simply because I believe that the user experience of a newly released gadget is one of the key factors in its success.

For the newly launched Acer notebooks, it was a field day to put on my UX hat as it presents a UX innovation-- dual touch screens. The model, the Acer ICONIA, is said to be the first device to sport dual touch interfaces.

No doubt, this devices tries to get the best of two worlds: the notebook and the tablet. The form factor is predominantly derived from the notebook, but the screens are like two tablet computers joined in the hip. But based on how the Acer ICONIA is being touted, it seems to be more notebook than tablet.

The area where the keyboard used to be is home to the secondary LCD display. It can function as an extension of the desktop and the main application that is open. It's made of Corning-made glass and it's pretty sturdy. When the user wants to type, the LCD screen becomes a virtual keyboard and you activate the multi-touch screen by tapping with your five fingers, the Acer Ring Control Interface is activated:

This present a new use case for notebooks for sure. I'm a bit skeptical about the virtual keyboard replacing the physical keyboard in doing a heavy writing. I do write a lot and I have a hard time envisioning writing a lot on a touch interface. (Perhaps this is because this a new feature in any device). I'm sure Acer did a lot of user testing for the device and let's see how this will fly.

One plus for the touch interface though is the importance of gestures and even hard-writing input. The Acer ICONIA can let the user define gestures to be shortcuts for actions. I think this is a welcome addition, as long as the users find it easy to define the gesture shortcuts.

The Acer ICONIA is a very interesting device. If this becomes a huge hit, we may see more devices with virtual keyboards-- this could be a game changer in the notebook space.

My Challenges in UX for Mobile Devices

2011-03-07T01:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've posted an update in this UX blog, but it's with good reason. I've been busy with UX work on a banking application since late last year.

The challenge has been to revamp the web and mobile applications for the electronic banking application and it has been a ton of work, among other things. I've just decided to make posts here to blow off steam on the stuff that I've been working on.

Since working on the bank app, the web part has been a breeze. I did the research (although the data was limited). Thanks to some past focus group discussion, I had something to work with. That part is pretty much done with the wireframes, information architecture, and mockups done. The tough part is the mobile app.

This is quite a challenge for me because this is the first major app that I'm designing for mobile. I've always thought that designing for mobile was a constraint in screen size, but there's more to it, especially with touch interfaces.

Then there's the issue of various screen resolutions. Is it HVGA? or VGA? It feels like the early 2000's when people were deciding to optimize for 640x480 and 800x600.

Anyways, that's just a start. I'll post more updates when the stress levels call for it.

2010 Philippine Blog Awards Finalists - Main Categories

2010-12-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of the finalists of the main categories of the 2010 Philippine Blog Awards, as compiled by Jaypee:

Personal/Diary Category

Literature Category

Advocacy

Beauty and Fashion

Tech Blogs

Entertainment

Culture And Arts

Business

Food & Beverage

Gaming

Hobby & Recreation

Home and Parenting

Humor

Lifestyle

Photoblog

Travel

Society, Politics and History Commentary

As a part of the judging committee, I extend my congratulations to all of you. :)

Mozilla Firefox 4 Makes the Status Bar Obsolete

2010-11-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

Browsers today are trying to innovate the user experience by extending the screen real estate of the viewport, especially in Windows. It started with Google Chrome, which did away with the traditional tool bar and extended the tabs all the way to the screen edge. Opera followed suit, and then Internet Explorer 9 Beta.

Mozilla Firefox has been seen as a laggard in this department, with the current stable version (3.6.12) still maintaining the toolbar, the status bar, and the bookmarks toolbar as the default views. Those three already eat up a lot of the screen real estate, leaving less for the actual view port.

For the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 4, the GUI of the browser has been revamped. I want to focus on the status bar, which contains the preview of the URL to be visited, plus additional icons of add-ons. For me, the must useful function of the status bar is the display of the URL of a link on a mouse over.

If I want to extend the viewport, one of the easiest ways to save space is removing the status bar. However, without the status bar, one of the most useful functions in Firefox is removed.

What Mozilla did for Firefox 4, the status bar is no longer. But the URL preview function has been transferred to the URL bar, ash shown below:

This is an excellent move if you ask me. I think most people don't put much attention on the URL's of the current page they are viewing, especially if they are very long. This makes of underutilized space, and extends the viewport.

It's also worth noting is the relocation of the refresh bar on the right side of the address bar, which tries to associate the refresh of the page on the current URL.

The layer of interaction of browsers are slowly thinning and this phenomenon says how people want to maximize their web user experience. Mozilla Firefox has made a good user experience move in helping users maximize the viewport.

World Usability Day in Manila 2010 Highlights

2010-11-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

The World Usability Day in Manila 2010 was held last November 13, 2010 at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Center (HFEC) at the De La Salle University in Manila.

This event was the sixth World Usability Day in Manila, with a select group of usability professionals and enthusiasts in attendance. The day's agenda was a set of talks from the HFEC folks, plus some networking afterwards. After a short introduction about the event, Ms. Jennifer Gutierrez introduced the HFEC to the attendees. Ron Polancos then gave a talk about usability.

Unlike previous World Usability Day in Manila events, this year focused on strengthening the Philippine Usability/User Experience community. This year's number of participants is not the biggest, but the most concentrated and focused ever. Contingents from SGS Philippines and US Auto Parts were there, plus entrepreneurs, consultants, and community members.

The Philippine usability and user experience community may not be that big, but events like the World Usability Day in Manila aims to grow and nurture the local community.

The World Usability Day in Manila 2010 event would not have been possible without the support of Globe Labs.

Photos of the World Usability Day in Manila 2010 can be found at http://bit.ly/wudmanila2010photos

World Usability Day 2010 in Manila List of Attendees

2010-11-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

Here's the list of the attendees for the upcoming World Usability Day in Manila 2010 event this November 13, 2010:

Maria Clarizza Ching
Jose Decolongon
Jillian Tracy Cruz
JC Transfiguracion
Rubie Casana
Sabrina Par
Laurence Abas
Joanne Vergeire
Christine Velasco
Noel Feria
Andres Montiel
Marissa Estepa
April Cabello
Kit Sumabat
Jasmine Junio
Allan Caeg
Rey Mendoza
Michelle Santos
Edmundo Reyes
Priscilla Jacinto
Louvette Siriban
Jinky Cabrera
Nelirene Dablio
Michelle Gacusan
Rolando Cruz
Carlo Flores
Cherrilyn Roces
Michael Marin
Glorie Mae Olivares
Kevin Leversee
Philip Roger Seralde
Oscar Ryan Santillan
Jayson Obos
Reena Alcantara
Elymar Apao

If you think you should be in the list, please send me an email at regnard@raquedan.com by tomorrow.

Context in Localization and User Experience

2010-11-04T21:30:00.001-07:00

Getting "lost in translation" is the phrase that would summarize the challenges in communicating in a global context. While the connectedness of the world is increasing, the friction between different local cultures is increasing as well.

The way I see it, there are already universally accepted standard symbols and words, e.g.,

the "i"symbol for information
the cross for medical-related matters
the fork and knife symbol for places to eat
the red sign post with "stop"

These aforementioned symbols already do a good job in communicating simple ideas. But for more complex concepts, there has to be a better way of placing context. Universality and complexity are the two forces pulling communication in opposite directions.

To smoothen the interactions in a multicultural setting, there has to be steps to discover what the communicating parties already know and recognize as standards. These steps can provide proper context through a feedback system.Possible solutions:

An application that will figure out which words are not understood by a community and provide a short explanation
A translation intermediary that doesn't only give direct translations but specific examples in the foreign culture's context (perhaps an Wikipedia page)
A crowdsourcing tool to connect a person to a community of volunteer translators

From my point of view, universality and complexity can be bridged by proper context and contextual information can be discovered with the aid of technology.

World Usability Day 2010 in Manila

2010-11-01T19:10:00.000-07:00

For the sixth straight year, the World Usability Day will be celebrated in Manila.

This year's event will be following the global theme of Communication, but at the same time, it will be an event where usability community will be strengthened.

This year's event is a free, invite-only event where the usability professionals and students in the Philippines will get together and listen to key usability & communication findings from the DLSU Human Factors and Ergonomics Center team members.

To get an invite to the event, register at http://wudmanila2010.eventbrite.com to request for an invite. Several usability professionals in the Philippines will be invited and will no longer need to request for an invitation.

Dr. Eric Schaffer in Cebu

2010-10-28T17:33:00.000-07:00

Dr. Eric Schaffer of the Human Factors International will be in Cebu this December 14, 2010.

Dr. Schaffer will have the talk "Institutionalization of Usability" at the Marco Polo Hotel and this event is organized by the De La Salle University and the Philippine Ergonomics Society.

The registration fee is PhP 5,000 for academe and PhP 6,000 for non-academe folks, but there is a special early bird rate of PhP4,500 for academe and PhP5,000 for non-academe. The early bird rates will apply for registrations before November 29, 2010.

For more information, email rvpolancos@yahoo.com or day_723@yahoo.com.

UX Marathon 2010

2010-10-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

Starting today is the online conference UX Mararthon 2010, a set of talks devoted to practical issues of usability and UI design. This annual UX Marathon is the third installment in the series, but previously it was known under the name of The Usability Marathon. Though the name is different, the format and high quality are unchanged.

The list of speakers include UI-experts of leading world companies – Nokia, Intel, Walt Disney Imagineering, and usability gurus – Jared Spool, Luke Wroblewski and Rolf Molich.

There will be a free webinar on the last day of UX Marathon 2010, plus a raffle of Axure RP licenses and books in usability and UI.

The event will run from October 25 to November 2, 2010.

Fore more information about the program, registration and fees is available on the UX Marathon 2010 website.

Chikka's UX Philosophy

2010-08-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

I attended Chikka's media launch for its upcoming new version. The said version will be available on August 25, 2010.

Chikka CEO Chito Bustamante and Chief Imagination Officer Dennis Mendiola shared a lot of things in the event, from Chikka's inception to what's new in the upcoming version. But one thing stuck to me.

Dennis said that the vision for Chikka is that it should be as seamless as using SMS to communicate with your friends and family. He said that despite being a technology that ran on PC's and interfaced with different mobile devices, folks should feel like they are just texting other people.

For me, that makes complete sense. Mobile phone penetration in the Philippines is pretty high and SMS-ing or texting is a common activity to all mobile phone owners. Any piece of software that has something to do should be able to leverage on its users' familiarity with simpler technologies and applications.

From the UX point of view, one key principle is to reduce the effort and mental load for your users. And that means leveraging on something they already know and like.

Th 3M Experience: Innovation Tour

2010-08-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

I was invited at 3M Philippines' recent media event, the The 3M Experience: Innovation Tour and it was a very interesting experience.

I've known about 3M's innovation culture since my MBA days, where 3M has been a landmark case of corporate innovation. If my memory serves me right, 3M encourages innovation by making it a key performance metric for employees, and scientists and researchers are given ample portion of their time to work on pet projects. The result is often an glut of innovative products for the company.

The Innovation Tour is essentially a showcase of the company's different business groups and the products they offer. The interesting part about it is that it's presented in a practical and novel way, something similar to the Mr. Wizard's World in the 1980's.Each of the ten business groups had a chance to strut their wares.

Not all products were mainstream as most of the businesses catered to B2B markets. I personally was surprised that the unit that served familiar brands like Scotch, Post-it, and Scotch Brite was only a small portion of 3M's business.

From a design point of view, there were few notable innovations provided better user experiences. One example is a tiny toothbrush that acts similar to dental floss (cleaning gaps between the teeth). Another one is a very uniquely designed tape dispenser. Finally, who can forget those little tapes that you attach to your documents to let you know where you need to sign?

The Innovation Tour was a great reminder that 3M is one of the pivotal innovators of products, design, and user experience.

Top 5 Most Searched Terms in The Philippines (July 2010)

2010-08-11T00:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Aileen Apolo, I got some interesting information on the five most searched items in the Philippines last month:

Pacquiao
Charice Pempengco
Panfilo Lacson
Basyang
73rd Season of UAAP

Here's the Zeitgeist video from Google:

I'm a bit surprised that Manny Pacquiao still got the top spot despite the absence of a boxing match last month. Charice is getting a lot of airtime in TV with her upcoming Glee stint. The rest of the top five reflects the news makers of the last month.

Mockingbird to Move out of Beta

2010-07-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite wire-framing tools moving out of beta. And that makes me sad.

Mockingbird, one of the best online wire-framing and prototyping tools out there, has announced in their mailing list that they will launch on August 15, 2010. The good news is that multi-user collaboration will be added, but the bad news is that free accounts will only have one project with three pages.

What does that mean for existing users? All old projects with more than three pages will no longer be accessible. From the email message:

Projects made with beta accounts will be automatically archived and will not be accessible after August 15, 2010. Customers who choose to upgrade to a paid plan may re-activate beta projects, but free accounts will not be able to access old beta projects, so please make sure to log into your Mockingbird account to export PNG or PDF versions of any projects you need.

Ouch!

I understand that products like these have to be sustainable and cannot be offered free forever unless they got money from other sources. But I'm not willing to pay if there are alternatives out there (like Cacoo.com) that are as good. So, I've decided to move out of Mockingbird.

Still, the idea of me no longer using a fave tool still has to sink in with me.

5 User Experience Design Tools Worth the Look

2010-06-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

If you ask me, gone are the days when user experience folks are just completely limited to Microsoft Visio and Omnigraffle. From creating defining requirements to designing wireframes, there's now a healthy selection of tools available in the market. What makes this even a better time to be a UX person is that there are nifty tools that are free to use.
Here are some user experience design tools I think are worth the look:

Justinmind Prototyper - developed by a Spanish company, Justinmind Prototyper is a robust tool to document requirements and map it to a wireframe. While it's a little clunky on some areas like the wireframe designer, it's strength is in the requirements analysis and gathering side. Mature web design/development and user experience companies will find this quite useful. It's free to try and the single license is $495.
Mockingbird - My fave mockup tool right now. Why because it's web-centric and it's free. I admit, it's not the most powerful and comprehensive tool out there, but something about the way it simplifies the creation of navigation menus and tabs that I just like.
Cacoo - Cacoo is probably the closest thing to Visio on Web 2.0 dope-- it's intended for a wide array of diagramming functions, but it has a nice set of wireframe features. Cacoo is also good for creating documents like site maps, task flows, and use cases. It's richer than Mockingbird, for sure, with the collaboration features and a chat function. Cacoo is free and is still in BETA.
Axure RP - Axure RP is perhaps the best paid tool out there not named Omnigraffle. It's one of the priciest tools available and I think it's justified-- Axure RP is full of features and made for the enterprise. In the UX-related mailing lists I'm part of, Axure is getting good reviews and companies are starting to look for user experience designers and information architects with Axure RP experience.
Balsamiq Mockups - Balsamiq Mockups looks deceiving because it emulates the rough sketch mockups designers often start with on paper. But it's quick and its license is pretty affordable for the small web startup ($79). It's available on multiple desktop environments (Windows, Mac, Linux) but its online version is still in development and collaboration is not yet included. But still, it's the best value mockup tool out there.

User experience designers should be pleased that there are nice tools like the five I mentioned. There are more out there and I'll share through this blog what I think of them once I get to try them out.

Winila: The Good & The Bad

2010-05-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

One site I've had a roller coaster-type of experience is Winila, a new auction website.

Winila's concept is very straight-forward: You spend money to buy "bid points" and you use one bid point to bid on an item. Most of the time, each bid increases the item's price by $0.10. That's why you see nice gadgets like a Playstation 3 or an Apple iPod getting sold for under $20.00.

But Winila has a different take compared to the popular eBay: once a person bids on the last 30 seconds of the bidding period, the bidding period is extended by 10 seconds, thus making it a sniping war at the last ten seconds of the bidding period. It can generate excitement, but it can also be frustrating as well as.

My experience with the site, like I said, is up and down. More than a month ago, a few days after the site's launch, I was able to win an Applie iPod shuffle for around $2. The bidding was easy and exciting, especially since I was only up against 3-4 people by my count.

I then went on vacation, and got an email 3 weeks later reminding me of my won item. Obviously, I couldn't claim the item as I was set to return to Manila a couple of weeks more later.

After returning, I then got an email saying that I've forfeited the item I won because the 21-day holding period has elapsed. (Doh!) I talked to the customer support folks and they said that Winila was exercising its right to forfeit won items. I explained my situation and, in fairness, they credited back the bid points I used to win the item.

I with extra bid points, I bid on another item, but alas, there were around 8-10 people bidding now. (I guess the site's popularity has increased). I lost all my bid points in vain, very frustrating indeed.

Here are some of the lessons I learned from this whole experience:

The Winila customer service folks are nice, but they will not hesitate to enforce their policies no matter what.

After I won the item, I actually had a couple of days to redeem my item, but given my crazy schedule then, I wasn't able to attend to it. Lesson: If I wanted my iPod shuffle, I should have found time to claim it.

Winila is popular now and having 25 bid points is not enough to take on 10 people zeroing-in on an item. My estimate is that you need around 100 bid points to blow the competition away, plus careful timing.

Anybody here tried Winila? How was your experience? :)