Yovav (Jay) Meydad's Personal Blog

A month ago I suggested to MyBlogLog to improve the way they display user’s online identities under the profile page. Today I noticed that they have listen and added favicons, with the matching social service name as Alt text, next to the usernames. This is a small change that makes a big difference.

Kudos for listening and fixing.

During the 4th year of my undergraduate degree studies I took a Human Computer Interaction course. I remember that our professor used the ATM machine’s interface as an example of how to design a good interface to a product that is used by millions of people on a daily basis.

For many years I though that people who design and build ATM machines do not really use them. Otherwise, how would you explain the minimalist graphic design, poor messaging, lack of personalization and the length flow the user is required to go through in many cases.

Yesterday, I stopped at a Bank of America branch today to get some cash. A new machine made by Diebold was recently installed there. This specific machine was out of service, but instead of the typical small dark green screen with an “Out of service” message, a large full color screen with a very helpful message welcomed me. The screen listed all the nearby ATMs (I wonder when will they add a “Map This” feature using one of the popular mapping API services) — killer feature #1.

Since there were two other ATMs at the same location, I went and used a working one. This new model has another killer feature called “Fast Cash” – simply insert your ATM card, type in your PIN code using the touch screen interface, click on the Fast Cash button and you are done – it saves at least 3 key strokes to the average user and especially useful for those who tend to double park their card and block the road just to get some cash…

The machine lets you customize the “Fast Cash” amount, so every time you withdraw money using one of these new ATM machines, you are being presented with the same amount — killer feature #2.

Now this is what I call a user friendly product and a well designed interface.

While doing a search on eBay I noticed an invitation to try their new search at the Playground. I took the plunge and immediately liked the new experience and that fact it became cleaner, more visual and with better search refinement controls – just like how a product search should be (see Like.com, thefind.com, PriceGrabber.com and others).

Here are a few additional observations on the new interface:

• The active search criteria is clearly displayed above the result set. The user does not have to guess which options are on. In the old version it was more difficult and less clear – the user had to look at the drop downs located at the long left column (often this required scrolling). In the new interface, it is also very easy to remove a criteria using the red [x]. One things that would be a nice addition is the ability to add multiple options from the same category where it is applicable (for example – Brand or Technology)

• As can be seen in the image above, a new mode for viewing results was added called “Snapshot”. It displays a tile of product images and when mousing over an image additional information is being displayed — just like Snap’s Snap Shots. This makes me wonder – is “Snap Shot” becoming a generic term (and verb) similar to what happened to Xerox and Google…?

• The “Refine your Search” left column was redesigned and is now cleaner, shorter and displays most of the options above the fold line. This was achieved by moving some of the less frequently used options into a popup window (although some design work is still required to make sure all options are visible and there is not need to scroll), the usage of cleaner controls like the price slider (very popular on travel search sites like Kayak and Farechase) and simple controls instead of check boxes and drop downs.

Bottom line – Kudos to the eBay team for creating an improved search experience. My only suggestion to you – add a “Filter by Color” option where applicable (Clothing, Shoes, Accessories and more).

Update: Renee VonBergen, a sr. manager for buyer experience at eBay, corrected me – a color slider is available in certain categories. The direction is really good but could be improved:

• It would be helpful to see it on more products – some people pick their cell phone or guitar by the color
• If you pick a color that returns no results, you get to something that is similar to a dead-end. In this case it would be helpful (for both eBay and the user) to get recommendations to similar products (“We could not find green shoes but we have blue ones”)

SearchMash, the playground for Google engineers keen to invent new technologies and interfaces, has just released a Flash-based version that uses Snap.com’s website previews.

The more I use it, it feels like Snap.com. Ain’t previews great when you browse and search the web!

Read more here: http://blog.snap.com/2007/10/25/breaking-major-news/

Or try the new SearchMash

Since June ’07, a MyBlogLog user can add services to his profile. These are the user’s online identities on over 30 popular social services (Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, del.icio.us and others). This is very useful and creates a richer profile.

But viewing someone’s profile and figuring out which username belongs to which service is a frustrating process that involves trial and error. Labels (text or favicons) would greatly help here.

Make labels for data fields distinctive, so that they will not be readily confused with data entries, labeled control options, guidance messages, or other displayed material.” (Jakob Nielsen, Sixty Guidelines)

I am happy to announce that the experience for my readers who use iPhone or iPod Touch to read this blog has been upgraded.

I installed the iWPhone WordPress Plug-in on my blog. This plug-in automatically reformats the blog content for optimized viewing on an iPhone and iPod Touch.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: WordPress, iWPhone, iPhone, iPod Touch, Usability, Mobile

I have not had a chance to try it myself although I really want to, but from the video below it looks like a cool on board instant messaging feature which is part of the on flight entertainment system on the new Virgin America air planes is becoming an annoyance to many passengers, especially those who are not into chatting or high altitude matchmaking.

Perhaps Virgin needs to add instant messaging/chat privacy settings to the flight preferences section on the eleVAte passenger profile page. Or how about installing a shock absorber at the back of every seat so people will stop complaining that others poke their chairs.

By the way, the mood lighting looks really groovy!

Technorati Tags: Instant Messaging, Virgin America, Usability, Product Design

I don’t want to add any fuel to the flame, I just want to report an annoying problem that I hope will get addressed soon. After all, according to Sue Decker’s memo, Yahoo is going to focus more on the customers, rather than on the advertising products.

Here is my problem – as a premium Yahoo AT&T user I want my Yahoo Mail to be ad-free. Well, for some reason Yahoo insists on showing me ads. . No matter how hard I try to hide the advertising panel on the right it keeps coming back the second I move between tabs within the application (read message, compose, back to inbox etc).

Take a look – just follow the cursor:

Technorati Tags: Yahoo Mail, Usability

[This post is for those who read Hebrew websites...]

TheMarker is one of the few Israeli web sites that constantly introduces new products, features, technologies and improvements such as: Tag Cloud, Social Network and experimental UI

I visited TheMarker earlier today and was surprised and pleased to see something new once again. TheMarker IT (still in Beta) which covers the Israeli Internet & technology industry is their latest product and from a first look I can say that the TheMarker team did a pretty good job.

Things I like in particular:

• The site seems to load faster compared to TheMarker (although there is always room for improvement when it comes to speed). Hopefully this will continue to last even with the (expected) increase in the number of ads on the site as well as the (expected) increase in traffic to the site
• Overall design style
• The width of the pages was increased by 200 pixels and more information is now visible above the fold. The extra width makes the page feel lighter and less cluttered compared to TheMarker. I assume that this change is due to the fact the majority of the readers are IT professional using high resolution/large displays and they all saw large empty margins screaming “Use Us!”

Things I think can be improved:

• I have an issue with the fact that the site has no navigation bar and that the only way to access different sections is by using the tag cloud at the top bar. Tags are great but should not be the primary navigation method
• “Popular Stories” section could be moved above the fold to increase visibility and serve it’s purpose. The “Upcoming Events” section is probably not that important and could be moved down
• The integration with TheMarker can be improved. It is not clear to me why top stories on TheMarker’s High-Tech section would not show up on TheMarker IT. Perhaps this is a symbolic sign that the there needs to be a better connection between Israel’s Technology and Internet industries & the rest of the world

Final suggestion – The Search results page could be greatly improved using Snap Shots next to each search result. This will improve the user experience (especially since some of these pages load really slow) and would add some web2.0 glam to the site.

Technorati Tags: TheMarker, Usability, Snap Shots, Website design, TheMarker IT

I landed tonight on eBay’s new home page (they are testing new versions and making it more personalized) and was a bit surprised/lost in the first minute.

Although the direction eBay took is right and the page is better organized and much cleaner and with less clutter compared to the old one (clutter is one of eBay’s home page trademarks ) I think that too many elements were moved from their original location making it somewhat difficult for existing/loyal users to find their way. 

Some of the elements that were moved are now in non-standard locations compared to other high traffic web sites, making the orientation of average Internet users difficult. For example: The welcome and register buttons in center-low right area (vs. upper right corner in many cases), the “What’s Hot” was buried below the fold close to the bottom of the page (power feature that should be better highlighted). In addition, the page is longer and require the user to scroll down more if he/she wants to see all the elements on the page.

One thing that I do like and think is a smart move in order to increase the number of searches/products being browsed is the horizontal layout of the categories at the upper area in a hotspot.

Bottom line, I think eBay should continue to test and optimize. Their new home page still does not fully work for me.

BTW, one page eBay should redesign & improve is “My eBay” and the preference page. I was trying to setup IM Alerts earlier today and had to look really hard for this option. Defining the “Send alert X minutes prior to end of auction” alert would be a nice feature as well.

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