YouTube interface redesigned

YouTube introduces widescreen format and a larger viewing space

After the changes in Gmail a few days ago, I noticed a similar ad hoc behavior with YouTube today. And I meant ad hoc as in while I was using the website it was still using the old interface, and then after I clicked on a few pages, the layout changed instantly.

Witnessing an interface change before your eyes

The change is pretty evident – videos are now shown in wide-screen format and are noticably larger than before. It’s confirmed on the YouTube blog, and it may be that they are slowly rolling it out to certain people at a time since I only noticed the change a few minutes ago. I recall someone saying that Gmail themes had a same effect – some people noticed the new themes feature while others didn’t, and it was because Google was rolling them out to users in phases (presumably).

A more ‘immersive’ YouTube?

I actually like the wide-screen format and the larger view, because the videos do look and feel bigger. Despite its popularity and ubiquity, YouTube’s overall experience isn’t all that ‘immersive’ (Vimeo comes to mind). I think with the new format, it’s a step closer in that direction.

Judging from the comments from the blog post, not all users are happy with it, though. Some users prefer the screen to adapt to the original video size – which means some pages may look different than others. It’s important to note that YouTube doesn’t stretch uploaded videos, but pads the borders with black. This means that the majority of videos that use the 4:3 format will have black rectangles on the left and right.

Interestingly, though – the thumbnails are cropped to fit the whole area. So 4:3 videos will have the top and bottom parts clipped in the thumbnail (which sort of makes sense, since keeping the black rectangles might make it look ugly).

The clipping thing wasn’t very obvious to me as I was in the middle of trying to look for cooking videos. If my goal ultimately is to watch videos, a larger view of the video gives me more of what I want. I could care less about videos being cropped or ratios, unless it negatively impacted my viewing.

Introducing interface changes as a usability topic

This brings me back to the usability aspect of websites – this kind of change is a fairly straightforward one. Not much else has changed, but even then – having a wider, larger player has a dramatic impact on the way users experience the site.

Also, I don’t know if there were any formal studies done on the design of the new layout and screen. It almost seems as if this was a simple case of understanding what users want and trying to give users the kind of experience they prefer.

And often times, this is the case with websites, especially ones with any element of social networking. Users grow with the site. As initial users, who were novices at first, turn into regular/intermediate users – their goals also ‘evolve’. And thus, the site has to adapt to the changing needs of the community.

This is particularly difficult for any site that needs to appeal to a wide spectrum of users. Recent interfaces changes in Flickr (video in Flickr) and Facebook (major facelift) drew a lot of criticism as much as it did praise.

Who’s responsible?

Does this fall under the responsibility of interaction designers and usability practitioners, whose goal is to place users before all things, to address the often conflicting reactions of real users when faced with upgraded layouts and new features?

It would be interesting to see find out how the industry deals with this sort of ‘user politics’ when it comes to the increasingly ubiquitous use of technology.

iPhone usability

Create with Context did a study on iphone usability by “regular” users, new users, and non-users. There were some interesting things I observed from the presentation:

  • touchscreen interfaces really benefit from good feedback and good button placement
  • visual trims like shadows, bevels, icon quality and transparency can help communicate affordance
  • smartphones can get overly complicated due to inconsistencies like modes
  • iphones use good metaphors (natural-feel scrolling) but it can be implemented in a way that confuses people
  • you just can’t assume anything about users, sometimes

Take a look at the presentation below:

Google Mail offers THEMES

I am overjoyed that Gmail now offers Themes, not just to spruce up my mailbox, but that it also provides some kind of look and feel variation that adds to the experience of an already great email service – different, but great. Like iGoogle, some of the themes offer a “dark/day” background to denote the time of day – a nice reminder, definitely adds to the experience, doesn’t get in the way.

I’m using it to process all my mail, and I’m glad I made the decision to do so. Google’s commitment to the service has been excellent, and I added the Calendar tab to my sidebar a week ago and I like it. Not all of the lab features are what I need, but I think if the teams are listening to users, that’s a really good way to go.

Not every function, interface change, feature, design has to be usable. It can be enjoyable too. Remember Emotional Design – Why we love (or hate) everyday things. Gmail is my everyday thing, and I want to love it, and I do.

That’s what it’s all about, really.

The Ergonomics Society website is not ergonomic

Why?

Because they send your passwords to your email address, when you register on the site. This is despite the fact that if you forget your password, they can reset them and send you a new one to your email.

For a website to send passwords to your email upon registration is a dangerous thing because people typically re-use old passwords for website registration, so copies of their passwords on emails can be found in inboxes – and they typically only get there because of registration sites. I can’t think of any other way in which a password would get sent to an email, but you can help me here.

This is a good thing for identity thieves, bad for most other people.

I also don’t understand why new members to the Ergonomics Society aren’t automatically registered to the website and are sent an introductory email. I’ve had to register on the website separately. That’s just dumb.

World Usability Day, talks at LBi

Today is World Usability Day. I attended an event hosted by UPA at LBi, on Baker Street. The usual light refreshments were served, and the talks were interesting – on the topic on transportation. There was another event going on at System Concepts where talks addressed the topic of Global Positioning Systems, which had a more ergonomic slant.

In conjunction with the UPA event, Aquent launched a directory for User Experience practitioners. I picked up a copy and there were a lot of interesting articles contributed by UPA professionals and other practitioners. The topics seemed to be cover a lot of trends that have been impacting the usability industry lately, such as the poor economic situation, advancing mobile devices, and employable skills. There’s a lot of subjectivity with a lot of usability topics, but the articles are mostly relevant and useful, if not timely. You might be able to get a copy from Human Factors International, UPA, or Aquent as they were the main sponsors.

I couldn’t remember all the names of the speakers featured today. Scott Weiss from Human Factors International opened up the session with a brief introduction to the transportation topic by sharing his own gripes about the TfL website and how challenging it was from a usability perspective for him to get from his home to the UPA event. He made an interesting point that the exemplar bus service routes displayed prominently on bus stands should be reproduced on their online variants for the same visual clarity. It was meant to be lighthearted, but it caused a bit of stir in the crowd as it was only scratching at the surface of both the merits and the pitfalls of the complex government-linked organization and its services.

Nevertheless, it got us thinking about transportation.

The next speaker then got us thinking about online airline ticketing websites, and how that has fundamentally changed the way people travel. A bit of historical backdrop reveals how the early ticketing websites were a far cry from the large computers that were used in traditional ticketing systems – surfacing from three months’ worth of three guys hacking away at computers in a garage, and ended up being sold for millions of dollars. There were references to EasyJet’s online ticketing system, which led to the next talk about a prototype future ticketing system, presented by Peter Otto from Flow Interactive.

The exciting part about this “EasyJet 2.0” system was about how it also deals with users’ questions of “I want to go somewhere but I’m not sure when” and “I’m not sure where I want to go” – rather than the buyer’s method of dealing with flight tickets. EasyJet 2.0 identifies pricing options for tickets on various dates in the year, giving users some idea of planning for a trip.

Also, for the case where users wasn’t sure where they wanted to go – they could browse major destinations from their home starting point, based on a specific budget. This was produced on a slick visual interface using charts and maps, that showed immediately which slots in the month were most cost-effective, and which places were best to visit at a certain price.

There’s an interactive page that shows how the whole thing works.

I’ll be attending the last UPA event for the year in a few weeks, hopefully.

Usability vs. Innovation? Stop already.

I was attending a UPA talk yesterday, and although I came in toward the end of the session, managed to catch a glimpse of what was about to turn into a flame war about how companies aren’t really innovating to their fullest potential. The speaker also apparently implied that usability is becoming less effective a tool in making great innovation happen, to which some people clearly disagreed.

It’s interesting to note that Martyn Perks has mentioned these things before, in a similar way a few years ago, also at another UPA event, so it seems he’s making a name for himself on this.

I’m setting aside the obvious flame baits here, because innovation and usability can too often be defined in ways that mean lots of things depending on what you’re talking about. Maybe what Perks was referring to reads something along the lines of this research article, which evaluates how (occasionally rigorous or ‘standardized’) usability work can hinder the creative progression that may be essential to produce effective innovation (whatever that innovation means).

I feel this comparison is partly pointless already, but I am summarizing my reasons as to why I feel this is so.

1. inevitably, all solutions are aimed at the long term and the wider good

Cast the net, aim for the greater good – let’s make both the usability and innovation folks happy. Let’s make them celebrate why they believe usability and innovation are so deeply connected to one another, it would be ridiculous to separate them – even if there are differences between the two.

2. don’t be afraid to use the P word

Politics are an obvious reason why we often do any innovating or usabilit-izing(?), or not. It may not have to be the case of the-bad-boss, since even small groups at peer level suffer from organizational behaviour influences. One case study I learnt this week revealed how a information architecture project failed because some people were afraid they would lose their jobs to an effectively redesigned website. This is one reason why I don’t think we’ll be seeing robots more than we’ll be seeing secretaries over the next 100 years (secretaries always do a better job).

3. many different people are good. many different people are bad.

Information architects. Brand strategists. Marketers. Usability testers. Users. Organizational psychologists. How many terms do we need for people who get paid to solve “new” problems for old and clueless people who can’t understand it anyway? And it seems that everyone has a specific trait, formed quite commonly by a shared interest in being really creative, solving real problems, and making real users happy. So why is there such an internal confusion? Let’s be nice to one another, since the future is inevitably ours since old people die anyway, and the clueless move on.

4. So what if the word usability and innovation has been overused?

Everyone knows what it sort of means, just work around it. We’ve beaten this to death.

I’ll do my best to attend the next and final UPA talk in London before 2009 comes around. Hopefully with less flame baits.