Without revealing too much about the client or the project, the problem was simple: The fonts used in the website design were not the best choice.

One of the things I always recommend to clients is this: Look at your design in its intended medium. If you have a hard time reading the text on it, then so will many others. This particular client, however, assured me that all would be well since the designer said it would be OK to use this font because it was optimized for that specific font size. Looking at it however, the issue to me was very clear: Serif font packed densely into a small on screen area. Broken down at the font level, the component parts of the issue can best be described as:

1. Inadequate kerning, leading, and measure.
2. Creation of unnecessary ligatures.

Unless you have a background in typography the terms kerning, leading, measure, and ligature probably mean nothing to you. Not to jump ahead too far in this posting but, kerning, leading, and measure all relate to spacing. Ligature is a result of spacing, and refers to the creation of shapes from letters. Before we begin, I’m assuming everyone reading this post knows the difference between serif font and sans serif font. If not, here it is:

Next, are the concepts of baseline, meanline, and x-height. Baseline is just what it sounds like, the line upon which the main body of a letter rests. Meanline is the line resting on the top of the body of lowercase letters. The meanline usually cuts through an uppercase letter. Finally, x-height is the height of the body (main element) of a letter that equals the distance between the baseline and the meanline. Baseline and meanline give rise to two important pieces of letter anatomy: Descenders and ascenders. Descenders are the portion of a letter extending below the baseline. Ascenders extend above the meanline. Just to be clear, descenders and ascenders DO NOT contribute to a letter’s x-height. Please see the image below for a clarification of these different concepts:

Before we move on, one last point about x-height. As I mentioned earlier, x-height is the distance between the baseline and meanline of letters. It’s this feature that impacts a reader’s perception of the size of a font. For example, look again at the first image in this post showing serif and sans serif fonts. The sentences “This is serif font.” and “This is sans serif.” are both 60pt. font. However, the serif font, Times New Roman, looks smaller than the sans serif font, Lucida Grande. This is because of the difference in x-height. A smaller x-height means a font will look smaller to readers.

Finally, we can understand the first issue mentioned earlier in this post: Inadequate kerning, leading, and measure. The definitions of each term are found below:

1. Kerning, the adjustment of space between individual letters.
2. Leading, spacing between lines of type. (Note, it is pronounced ‘ledding’, referring to the use of lead strips to add space between lines in the early days of printing and typesetting.)
3. Measure, the length of a line of text.

So, based on these definitions, we can now understand a few key concepts…

Kerning, if too small, can lead to overlap between letters, rendering them illegible. Rounded letters (o, c, e) will experience this sooner than straighter letters (i, l). On the other hand, too much spacing can destroy the perception of a word itself, or make the whole copy look ugly. This concept applies to paragraphs of text as well: too much spacing between words can destroy the continuity of the paragraph, making it difficult to understand and less than aesthetically pleasing.

Leading can also make or break the legibility or aesthetic quality of copy in a design. For fonts that tend to have less whitespace around them, such as smaller fonts and fonts with larger x-heights, larger leading is necessary to ensure readability of the text. Leading also interacts with line length, or measure. To sum that relationship up, the longer the line length is, the more you should consider increasing leading to reduce the likelihood of readers doubling over lines.

With measure, a bit more explanation is required. As stated before, measure refers to the length of a line of text. Research has demonstrated that long lines of text force readers to search for the start of new lines of text in paragraphs. Also, longer lines of text with inadequate leading will cause readers to lose their spot and read the same line multiple times. (This plays a bit on short term memory–so much information coming in over an extended period of time will make it hard for the reader to recall what they initially read.) Conversely, shorter lines require a lot of back and forth eye movement on a page that can lead to visual fatigue. That being said, line length is governed by the amount of copy in a design, the size of the font, and perhaps any sort of effects you mean for the text to create in the design.

Now, we can address the second issue: Creation of unnecessary ligatures.

A ligature refers to multiple letters that appear joined together and form a shape. In the past, ligatures were used to aid the readability of certain letter combinations. And certainly, back when printing was a new technology, this helped readers recognize the words on the page. Now that most everything is digital these days, and that there are many different fonts to use, ligatures are not as necessary as they once were.

Does the image illustrate why ligatures might not be a good thing sometimes? More importantly, can you see how ligatures might be created?

Putting all of the above concepts together, you now have the very basics of typography. I hope that it can help you in future projects recognize good and bad usage of type in designs.

(However, there is one final word I’d like to say on this point. Before criticizing the use of type in a design find out if there is a purpose behind it looking the way it does. As much as many people only think of type as a form of language, it also has the ability to inspire emotion and reinforce the goals of a design. If the design uses cramped and difficult-to-read text, perhaps it is to inspire discomfort in order to reinforce the design.)

And how long did it take you to realize that, instead of the file displaying in your browser, it downloaded to your computer? Did you wind up clicking on the document link several times before that realization dawned on you?

Unfortunately, more often than not (and sometimes by reputable companies), we are forced into downloading documents. Sure, web programmers and webmasters can argue that it’s more convenient because it skips the step of making users look at the file and then figure out how to save it to disk for later access. This is bad for two main reasons. First, you’re assuming your file will be valuable to users before they’ve had a chance to determine that. In past user tests that I’ve conducted most people wanted to see the file before they downloaded it. This way they know if they really need to take up space on their hard drive storing your file. Can you honestly say you know what criteria your users have when evaluating whether to immediately download your document? Do you know if your document content even meets those criteria?

Bottom line: Let the user determine if your file is important enough to download by giving them the opportunity to view it in their browser first.

Second, forcing a file download on users can cause anxiety. Some users might have security concerns when downloading files, such as work computers not permitting file downloads, or concern about malicious content included with a download. Also, some users don’t know how to find downloaded files on their computers. This lack of familiarity with one’s own computer is something that cannot be entirely accounted for by programmers or designers, and it is a phenomenon that cuts across Apple and Microsoft platforms. In response to this some browsers have done a lot to make it easier to access downloads. For instance, the newest version of Safari on OS 10.7 uses visual cues to let users know a file is being downloaded and where they can access their downloads. But not all browsers use such cues.

Bottom line: You don’t know what a user can do when it comes to downloading files, so let them see the document in their browser.

Of course, this article stems only from testing I have done. Others out there might have observed something different, with the differences arising from the type of website presenting the downloadable document to the purpose for needing the document. (In fact I have had discussions with people in favor of forcing document downloads on users and they have made some excellent points.) So again, this article is only my $0.02.

While killing time between facilitating sessions, I ventured over to the Playstation Blog. They have an older article there (read: April 2011) I just found that details the history of augmented reality in Sony gaming products: From EyeToy to NGP: PlayStation’s Augmented Reality Legacy.

One particular quote from the article really stood out to me: “There’s a popular misconception that augmented reality is just “kid’s stuff,” but with more than eight years of experience under our belt, we’ve found there’s a wide variety of compelling and cool AR experiences that everyone can enjoy.”

This statement left me wondering: How much of this misconception stems from a lack of understanding, and how much of it stems from hardware not supporting the technology? Thinking about it, I’d have to say that the latter fostered the former. Augmented reality was really made popular first on mobile devices, but until things like gyroscopes were included in phones, augmented reality was a bit sluggish and buggy. These recent advancements in mobile devices has led to augmented reality becoming quite a useful tool. For example, over the past two years several cities in France started incorporating augmented reality into tourism and transportation information related to their cities. In Denmark there were companies developing apps for smartphones that leveraged augmented reality for similar purposes. And in the US, you can use apps to learn more about well-known landmarks, such as the Statue of Liberty.

Sadly, not many people know about how great augmented reality is–even those who think of themselves as ‘techy’ have limited awareness of augmented reality. Essentially, augmented reality allows people to receive an overlay of information on the screen of their device that is relevant to their current location. In many wayfinding apps, users receive information about nearby landmarks or restaurants they have previously indicated interest in finding. That is an extremely useful, and grown up, way of using augmented reality. However, in keeping with the perception that augmented reality is part of kids’ toys, the next major item to incorporate it that got a fair amount of attention is the Nintendo 3DS.  As the proud owner of an aqua 3DS, I can tell you it’s pretty nifty. I think that,  given the purpose of the device and the hardware limitations, Nintendo did a fine job working in 3D and augmented reality as major features. But, the augmented reality feature is limited to built-in games (‘face raiders’), and AR cards that users can place on a flat surface to play minigames and boss battles with really angry dragons. And–as an added bonus–one man even tatooed an AR card on his arm and can get images to pop out of it using his 3DS. So there’s a little bit of added mileage onto augmented reality there. That being said, augmented reality is not the feature that is most-talked about by consumers or that is being played up by Nintendo–they’re all talking about the 3D image capability.

I would certainly like to see more awareness of apps like ‘AR USA’ by presslite, even though I know that walking around and using your phone as a viewfinder is a good way of slamming into things or getting robbed. (Read: People won’t do it.) But I think a very nice use of it would be in the form of in-store shopping assistants that direct you to sales by department or brand. Some retailers out there are already developing things like this, and having done research on different consumer segments, I think it would definitely appeal to the younger, more wired crowd as well as men (in general). Younger consumers have always been a group willing to try out the newest nifty tech feature offered by businesses, and men (who tend to be harder to entice to shop in stores) might find such apps can take the boring out of a shopping session.

These are all just part of my $0.02. Next I’ll likely be wondering about applying augmented reality to things like finding in-game secrets (L.A. Noire with augmented reality to guide you to clues? Meh.), or use in large financial institutions for quick updates on trends.

Something I’ve noticed while working with technology is that remaining a moving target is a good thing. Take Apple, for example. Back in the day when the iPod was all the rage (despite that awful, awful clickwheel), other manufacturers immediately jumped in the ring with their portable MP3 player offerings, like Samsung, Rio, and Microsoft. So, by virtue of being first to market, Apple exposed the consumer want/need for portable MP3 players and also the weaknesses of the iPod for exploitation by competitors. But then Apple evolved the iPod product line–nano, shuffle, touch–all of these came over the following years accompanied by general improvements in hardware and advances in the programming languages used to support the devices’ functionality.

Basically, as the lineup of Apple products evolved so did the customer’s experience. This happened on two levels. First, there was just the validation that came with owning an Apple product. By owning an Apple portable music player, you were seen as someone who was in on the latest-and-greatest technology. And as a result you were someone who probably became a bit more fluent in the changing interaction language of portable devices that Apple was driving. The interactions that came with these devices were the second part of the evolved experience. These interactions were more physical. So, instead of interacting with menus through some thingy you probably couldn’t name on the outside of the device, you were randomizing song order by shaking your device or directly tapping the item on your device’s screen. Such interactions were novel, cool, and gave users an increased perception of control over their device.

The combination of how Apple played into the perception of their customers and the way they evolved their products made them stand out even more from their competitors. In fact, it even made some of their competitors look silly by comparison. And now, everyone is trying to do what Apple did. Some companies are doing a good job of evolving their devices to compete with Apple, but they are lacking in how they validate perceptions of their users. Other companies have done a great job of offering a good user experience and creating a validated perception of their users. For example, think of owners of Android-based phones vs. iPhone owners. Both groups of owners can claim pretty decent user experiences (depending on what they do with their device). Both definitely perceive themselves in certain ways, and the companies that market their products to each base do what they can to support those perceptions. As a result, there is some pretty heavy competition between Android and iOS. But between other mobile phones and them? Not so much.

I’m going to be curious in the coming months to see which companies it begins to hit home that good user–customer–experience can set competitors apart.

This article makes a connection between the long-standing fascination with killing/blowing things up and being male. And since it is a moderately serious article appearing on IGN–the greatest gaming website in my opinion–it’s definitely worth the 5 minutes spent taking a break. (But shameless plug for IGN aside, this is a fairly interesting article.)

But it is a bit difficult getting companies to understand that, while it’s fine to constantly tinker with things here or there in an effort to fix what’s broken when it comes up, attention needs to be paid to the development of experiences based around what people need to do. Often times asking people the question, “Is this what your customer needs to do at this point?” is met with, “Well, that’s what we let them do currently.” And the discussion from that point goes on to how to develop the same experience in a new package. If I dig further to understand why the current experience is what it is, I usually find that little or no research has been done around actual tasks. So, many times I see companies creating processes based around “We know someone wants to buy a kitchen cart.” But there is no consideration to how people think about certain activites and when they need to perform those activities.

The other sad–and frustrating–thing I have found is, companies are not leveraging their researchers appropriately. Most of the time the researchers are relegated to a lab environment where the methodology is canned: Limited activities are performed with restricted outputs. This gets old and useless very quick. Allowing UX researchers to study what users need is an integral part of product development as, not only will it lead to the creation of a better user experience when all is said and done, but it also saves the company money in the long term by cutting down on nitpicky fixes that cost man hours and development dollars.

Alas, it is that last point that is the hardest to communicate despite being the most important. But it is one worth insisting upon communicating to others. It not only benefits the company overall, but it also keeps the UX team relevant within the organization.

Yes, UXers, HBR does have articles related to UX that you will find interesting. What I like about this particular article is how personally relevant it is for me. I’m currently working as a researcher at a company that has recently hired a VP of Customer Experience. At first, I wasn’t sure what that would mean–customer experience is a fairly nebulous term to me. What is a ‘customer’ varies by industry, but where I do my work it can mean someone in a store, someone online, someone on a mobile phone, someone on a telephone, or a business person trying to create a relationship. So ‘customer experience’, by extension, is going to cover a very wide set of activities. Given such a large scope, how can one person possibly have any impact?

Well, the HBR article linked above proposes the concept of experience co-creation. For those of us who have been around for a while, that terms sounds similar to the dreaded concept of bringing users in and including them in actual design sessions. My past experience with that has shown me business is not a fan of such a process, and neither are some researchers. However, after working closely with organizations (read: Not as an offsite vendor), I’m inclined to think there are some merits. Especially in this day and age where technology is making brick-and-mortar locations less relevant, why not find a way to engage directly with your actual customers?

Honestly, recruiters can find people similar to your customers–maybe even people who are actual customers. However, you know for certain that someone in your store or on your website is an actual or prospective customer, and that makes them ideal for such co-creation processes. So why not grab them? Why not find out what you do currently that made them stop in or purchase from you? Why not find out why they didn’t purchase from you, and what would have tilted the scale in your favor? It’s these people that need to be addressed if companies want to improve their experiences.

And honestly, if you want to revolutionize your designs, wouldn’t that be a good way to gauge just how far you can push your new ideas? Or, to gain perspective on different pathways of development?

For instance, offering only design commentary is limiting because the UX team isn’t helping to solve the problems–or even encouraging solving the problems. Offering only design commentary is similar to being a trained monkey: You test a design, report the test results, and give the results to the project team. But what happens after that? What benefit does the UX team offer beyond “10 out of 12 users did X when on Y page?” Not a lot. The next time anyone will think of the UX team after that will be when they need to “prove” or “disprove” something to some other group in the organization. And after a while, project teams will begin to learn that certain things don’t work while certain others do–thereby making the UX team less useful.

So what’s my point here? My point is this: MAKE PROJECT TEAMS THINK. It’s very easy to report what you see in a study, and maybe occasionally point out some vague suggestion for improvement. However, it’s more interesting to start discussions around adapting designs to advancing technology, or revolutionizing existing designs by presenting common tasks in novel ways. As UXers, we should have some basic understanding of recent technological advancements, and be able to talk about what those advancements mean for design and user behavior. We should be fostering innovation if we want to get attention.

Yet this seems to be frowned upon by some team leads. To someone like me, who has worn the hats of information architect, interaction designer, and researcher, this is puzzling and frustrating. UXers should be strong in one particular area, but competent in others if they are to be truly effective as UX people. And demonstrating the ability to work with some reasonable competency in multiple areas–and speak intelligently about each area–is a way to gain the attention and respect of other teams. It’s a way of remaining relevant.

How is that bad?

At first when I saw the above article’s title, I thought Toyota had managed to take the Prius to a whole new level. Thankfully I was wrong, as this article signals something that can be so much more beneficial to mankind than being directly wired to a vehicle. It could actually be used to refine prosthetics, even more so than this: Bionic breakthrough: The prosthetic arm that amputees control with their MIND.

If our scientists can actually create such amazing technology as mind-controlled prosthetics, nerve-electronic hybrids, and gaze-controlled interactions…Why are so many interfaces out there plagued with usability issues? Have we not learned enough about the human mind and its capabilities to design usable and useful interfaces? The platforms on which we create have moved–quite successfully–beyond the point-and-click interfaces most of us grew up using, meaning that as UX specialists we can create more intuitive interaction paradigms for users. And with advancements in programming languages (creation of HTML 5, jQuery updates), there is no reason why designers and programmers alike can’t support bringing new interactions to life.

So, why do I keep seeing silly things like fancy search tools with too many clicks and inappropriately spaced buttons, links, and checkboxes on modern websites? It makes no sense.