{"id":8,"date":"2007-03-10T13:31:06","date_gmt":"2007-03-10T19:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/?p=8"},"modified":"2007-03-11T21:56:25","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T03:56:25","slug":"getting-to-consistency-dont-make-your-users-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"Getting to Consistency – don’t make your users think"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, March 10th @ 11:30 am<\/p>\n

Paul Schreiber\u00a0\u00a0 Screen Real Estate Agent,\u00a0\u00a0 Apple
\nJennifer Fraser\u00a0\u00a0 Lead User Experience Designer,\u00a0\u00a0 Corel Corporation
\nAlex Graveley\u00a0\u00a0 Sr Engineer,\u00a0\u00a0 VMware Inc
\nSteve Johnson\u00a0\u00a0 Sr User Experience Mgr,\u00a0\u00a0 Adobe Systems Inc<\/em>
\nWhat is consistency? <\/strong>
\nmenu commands differnt names\/commands for same thing
\nusps postal machine
\nvoiting machines<\/p>\n

consistency for consistency sake is bad – where in the workflow should this happen? (Adobe)
\nbrand important – user by user & workflow by workflow
\nconsistency is just a guideline – always a moving target because things are always changing<\/p>\n

visual consistency sometimes and extra consistency between similar aps<\/p>\n

Costs of inconsistency<\/strong>
\nexpectation that things work the same way (focus, drag\/drop, open, save, close)
\nMake users feel comfortable and create a brand.<\/p>\n

Adobe lightroom, new design, but keep some of photoshop consistencies<\/p>\n

difficult between different platforms<\/p>\n

Adobe gets calls whenever they remove something – elements remove undo\/redo buttons highest call volumes. It can hit the bottom line.
\nThere needs to be a reason for the change – customer needs to know\/see\/feel that reason – the benefit of the change is immediately clear.<\/p>\n

Goals<\/strong>
\ngoals for company and goals for user
\nconsistency greatly improves usability – pickup discoverability, at some point you must evolve
\nfeatures not important – goals important
\nhow to make a clean break to make a change (no floppy on macs) – it’s easier when there is a new product, you have freedom to rethinkg some of the old descisions
\nsee what the customer is doing and make those breaks on what they need or what they are trying to do with current\/old versions and look where things are migrating to in the first place<\/p>\n

Achieving constency<\/strong>
\ncreate buffer between what you are doing and your source of inspiration – useing ipod control and it doesn’t perform exactly like ipod control throws off users
\nuser needs, what is workflow of your user and what are their needs? workflows for everyone are different even doing the same things
\nfind lowest common denominator between all users
\nfocus on the target users for your app
\nAsk the user what they are almost always fails because you end up removing features and pigionhole the users w\/labels – find a way to unveil features based on usage<\/p>\n

Crossing platforms<\/strong>
\nHow much to you make it like native platoform or like a competitor product on the same platform?
\nhow it looks and how it works – pick up patterns that os already has and leverage those. stylistic differents, little visual cues make sure if feels like it is supposed to be on that platform
\nweb is more difficult because there aren’t any base guidelines like w\/an os – good\/bad, easier to implement, but can be across the board<\/p>\n

Accessibility (508)<\/strong>
\nInconsistencies make it harder to be accessible, accessibility makes a good tool to bring consistency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, March 10th @ 11:30 am Paul Schreiber\u00a0\u00a0 Screen Real Estate Agent,\u00a0\u00a0 Apple Jennifer Fraser\u00a0\u00a0 Lead User Experience Designer,\u00a0\u00a0 Corel Corporation Alex Graveley\u00a0\u00a0 Sr Engineer,\u00a0\u00a0 VMware Inc Steve Johnson\u00a0\u00a0 Sr User Experience Mgr,\u00a0\u00a0 Adobe Systems Inc What is consistency? menu commands differnt names\/commands for same thing usps postal machine voiting machines consistency for consistency sake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techory.com\/sxsw\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}