Blog: musings like no other

User Experience Design (UX) enhances interaction between a user and a digital product or service as part of the experience of a brand or organisation.

What User experience designers use to create UX Design (UX)

Effectiveness: 

• The product or service UX enables users to achieve goals when using a product or service or to complete a task.

Efficiency: 

• Ensuring users accomplish goals with minimal effort. This helps reduce the number of steps to complete a goal or task.

Learnability: 

• Is the product or service easy to learn? Is it possible for the user to get through a basic task? How fast can the user understand the controls needed to work with the interface (UI).

Memorability: 

• How well users recall how to interact with a product or service after some time. 

Accessibility:

• Design products or services accessible to everyone meeting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). 

Interaction Design: 

• Designing for the user’s behaviour when interacting with a product or service.

Information Architecture: 

• Organisational structures that are clear and concise to help users efficiently find information and complete tasks.

User Research:

• Involves understanding user behaviours, needs, and motivations through techniques like observation, and task analysis and methods including interviews, surveys, usability testing, and analytics. However a combination of techniques maybe used to reach a conclusion.

Aesthetic Design: 

• Enhancing the aesthetics of design with suitable images, typography, space, layout, and color. This supports the overall user experience and brand identity for both UI/UX.

Prototyping and Wireframing: 

• Low-fidelity (wireframes) and high-fidelity (prototypes) of a product or service to test ideas.
• Allows for early testing and validation of design concepts.

Goals of UX Design

User Satisfaction: 

• Is the product enjoyable and satisfying to use?

Efficiency: 

• Users may achieve objectives quickly and easily.

Effectiveness: 

• Does the service or product do what it is intended to do?

Engagement: 

• Creating a compelling experience that encourages users to continue using the product.

UX Design Process

Research:

• Understand user needs and problems.

Analysis:

• Interpreting data collected during research to identify key insights and areas for improvement.

Design:

• Design solutions based on research findings then Sketch, wireframe, prototype. Working with developers and product owners to bring a design to life.

Tests:

• Usability test to identify issues and areas for improvement.
• Iterate tests through regular feedback processes.

Tools 

Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, Axure, UserTesting, Google Analytics, Miro, Trello

UX basics

Our top ten UX skills

The top 7 User experience mistakes

A quick guide to what the user experience designer does

UX Design definition: UX is for creating products and services providing meaningful and relevant experiences. 

Projects we love them and we often get asked what are our top UX skills that we use regularly. So here are our top 7:

User Research: Understanding user behaviour to gather valuable insights to inform on the design process.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

Get inspired with some of our favourite UX quotations! We use them for brainstorming sessions, or for inspiration on projects in our consideration of how users feel, and use an interactive product.

We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better. –

Jeff Bezos

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. – 

Bill Gates

It takes no skills to make something crappy. Skills are only required to make something great. – Jared Spool, Founder at User Interface Engineering

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”Steve Jobs

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” –Albert Einstein

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Strange, strange things… At ixdlab_ we aren’t convinced that Chatbots can fully replace a trained human employee entirely.  We do believe they offer business added value in supporting out of hours contact, or brilliant for handling regular simple tasks like applying a flag to customer bank accounts that the customer is using a card in another country. They can be useful for answering customer queries on delivery dates for ordered goods, or to help identify and apply voucher savings on a range of products for promotional reasons. 

Building a Chatbot to successfully respond to every customers query isn’t without its challenges. Researchers currently predict that within the next five years 70 – 90% of customer queries will be successfully dealt with by Chatbots, the resulting cost saving making Chatbots worth considering. 

So how do you work out how to construct a useful and successful chatbot?

1. Work out what questions your customers ask on a frequent basis.

This could range from simple queries:

• Delivery times
• Shipping addresses 
• Order status 
• Onboarding 
• Updates to pricing 
• Discount

and simple tasks

• Changing a PIN number 
• Applying a discount to the right product 
• Password resets 

2. Work out how many of the regular queries answered by your staff can be directed to the chatbot

Time savings for your staff answering customer contact queries and completing simple tasks can be measured over a typical day, week, or month. So if a member of staff regularly addresses the same queries in say the average industry time of 10 minutes for responding to a customer query with a specified time period then it is possible to benchmark the most common queries and work out an average cost of handling responses.

3.  Chatbots have problems recovering from incorrect input by customers or deviation off topic

Chatbots often work on linear scripts that have very specific steps. It’s better if the design of the Chatbot is far more flexible, and adaptive to identifying changes in request for what the Customer wants. This is not however without issue. Designing a Chatbot which can identify context of query is better than designing with a tightly scripted linear type script which is too inflexible to adapt to customer changes. Other ways to compensate for incorrect input is to show the Chatbots menu to the customer to help resolve a query.

Typos and indirect questions can also challenge the Chatbots responses. So make sure that a design compensates for these eventualities and has flexibility in the interpretation of contexts from the customers answers.

4. Sometimes understanding between customers and company Chatbot need a little help.

If all other routes to answer a customers query become too over complex. Provide alternative contact to the customer such as a phone number, access to a human being, or a reasonable alternative. 

5. Never hide the fact from the customer that they are conversing with a Chatbot 

Avoid the frustration of the customer by making it obvious that contact is with a Chatbot initially. If the customer of the chatbot cannot find the right answer put them in contact with an actual customer advisor, but advise the customer before you transfer the conversation. 

That by designing flexibility into a Chatbots scripts and into the design of its responses in context of a customers query can prove to be a valuable addition to your business strategy. Despite the problems with a Chatbots high interaction cost and the questions around spending more on a website or app to avoid the need for a Chatbot they still are useful for providing coverage 24/7 for simple queries and tasks. They can also lessen the distractions associated when a customer is making a purchase.
Chatbots have potential to improve on the return on investment for your company so that you and your staff can concentrate on the less mundane aspects of customer support. 

Improving User Experience with IXDLAB

At IXDLAB, we help the world’s top brands to create digital experiences that work for their users. From user research and design, to evaluation – our UX experts will ensure that your digital products are right for your audience.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Here are some of our top ten tips for working at home.

1. Meetings.

Stuck for a way to have a meeting with more than one person? Use Google Hangouts, or Zoom for meetings. For a more personal approach try Skype.
Always, always have a decent suit jacket to reach for if the occasion arises.

2. Its lunchtime. I do sport or go to the gym.

For those of us sporty types, an online class or two for yoga or pilates is enough to while away an hour. Check your gym for online classes. Use ‘Youtube’ to find a pre-recorded exercise class session. We recommend les mills online but don’t do bodypump in a confined space!

3. I’m Wanting to Network!

Try an online community boasting a pub, a beauty salon, a gym, the kids club, the travel clinic at the virtual village. Startup or Entrepreneur? try Startup nation , use twitter hours to network and advertise your business. Join your local chamber of commerce, or the yorkshiremafia but remember no hard sell!

4. Productivity apps

Worth checking out for writing documentation as an alternative word processor is Grammarly. Grammarly has the ability to store documents. It offer’s targeted content tonality checks. This means you can tell if your writing is ‘friendly’ to your audience. It is also lightweight for use in the browser.

5. Space

Find a decent sized workspace when you can sit unhindered by life’s distractions. Yes. Right! Okay, okay i hear you. If your fighting for workspace with your cat, your housemate, or your family try this approach. Create an uncluttered area in your home which is off-limits to them between normal working hours. Remember that the understairs cupboard won’t do if your in IT and don’t forget that you still need a source of light.

6. Lists

List everything you need to do at the start of the day, get a schedule, or get alexa to remind you. This helps you to focus on what needs to doing. As opposed to how many jobs in the house need doing.

7. Get a break…..

Normally we would suggest going for a long walk at lunch. Unusual but valid approaches to this include using a running machine for a ten-minute walk in the house. Getting up to have a cuppa and a few biscuits. Or doing something completely different.

8. Call people…

That’s right call them just to say hello if you are missing your office social life, or even skype them for a chat.

9. At some stage you will get distracted.

If you can stop distractions like tv, and neighbours calling round. Distractions like dog’s attacking next doors prize Persian cat, and foibles like inappropriate social media memes aren’t always solvable. If this happens don’t worry! Move on. Nothing to see here. But do block your work colleague responsible for memes from social media accounts, and put the dog on a leash eh.

10. Logging off

Don’t forget to keep to your normal working hours. So if the working day clock stops at 5pm you log off, if it starts at 9am you start or log in too. Try Clearing your desk afterward so your house gets back to a home!

Companies that allow remote work have 25% lower employee turnover than those that don’t. (Owl Labs)

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Whether it’s your website, app or software – great usability and UX design is an essential part of the package.

It doesn’t matter how amazing the ideas, features or designs are, if your customers can’t use it, don’t enjoy using it, or don’t understand it!

In this post, we explore the top 7 things customers hate about UX (and how to create digital experiences customers will engage with).

1. The system doesn’t work as it should

People hate it when things don’t work!

If customers can’t use their preferred browser or device to access your website, web apps, mobile apps or software – they won’t use it!

Users dislike being limited to using a specific browser or device and in 2019, they shouldn’t have to. It’s up to businesses to create ‘device agnostic’ experiences. This means that whatever you make, you need to ensure it offers full functionality, and looks the same on every platform.

2. The product isn’t made for them

If your experience doesn’t connect with your customers’ values, expectations and limitations, they won’t like it. You need to make users feel as though your digital experience has been made for them, with their needs in mind.

Before designing anything, it’s essential that you get to know your users. You need to understand exactly what they want from your product or service. It’s important that you understand their expectations, behaviour, motivation and goals. Investing in user research and creating clear customer personas is the best way to ensure your experience is right for your audience.

3. The website or app asks for too much information (the customer journey disrupted)

Customers are using your product or service for a reason. Let them use it!

Too many websites and apps bombard new users with unnecessary barriers. These include unexplained permission requests, forced account creation, newsletter signup prompts, excessive terms and conditions and suggested setting changes.

These are likely to frustrate users and make them suspicious of your intent. This is especially true if they’re encountering your business for the first time online and don’t know whether they want to use your product or service.

Remove barriers wherever possible and make it easy for your users to get straight to the value.

4. The navigation is confusing or unclear

If your users can’t find what they are looking for, they are going to go elsewhere.

Dead ends, poor organisation, broken functionality or ‘creative’ navigation) won’t do you any favours.

Clarity, ease and simplicity matter and the best digital experiences provide an easy to follow journey for users. Your users should be able to find the information or functionality they want in as few steps as possible. Applying the right information architecture principles to the design is the best way to achieve this.

As a general rule, navigation should have a specific number of categories. These should be listed in a logical manner, such as alphabetical order. The navigation should work for everyone, whether they are using touchscreens or traditional laptops and desktops.

5. There’s too much information (information overload)

The average human attention span is around 8 seconds.

If you fill a screen with too much information, you risk confusing or overwhelming users. The risk is that they lose interest and go elsewhere.

The solution is to keep things short, simple and clear. Your users need to be able to find what they are looking for – whether it’s specific information, instructions, calls to action, or buttons.

6. There’s too many features

Less can be more!

When it comes to apps and software, the temptation is to try and fill screens with as many features as possible. This can overwhelm and confuse users (especially new ones).

User experience testing often reveals that people prefer products that focus on a limited selection of features. Take time to prioritise and research what matters most to your users. This will ensure you’re focusing on the features they want.

7. It’s full of jargon!

Did you know that the average reading age in the UK is about 9 years old?

Language matters – and industry jargon and complex terms can be a real turn off for your users. When creating experiences, it’s easy to use insider industry terms and complicated tech speak.

Always communicate in language that your users understand and are comfortable with. Creating personas and investing in user experience testing will help you to get this right.

Improving User Experience with IXDLAB

At IXDLAB, we help the world’s top brands to create digital experiences that work for their users. From user research and design, to evaluation – our UX experts will ensure that your digital products are right for your audience.

For more about UX, or a no obligation consultation, please get in touch with us today on 07858110704, or email info@ixdlab.co.uk.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Facebook’s Libra is a ‘Permissioned blockchain digital currency’. A higher degree of security is built into this peer to peer network so new computers being added into the network have to be pre-authorsied to join. The present Blockchain of Bitcoin, uses a permisionless Blockchain which some argue is still as secure as pre-authorisation that Libra intends to transact using. Libra is trying to be seen as more security conscious. Libra also hides transactions, or obsfucates these similar to Cryptocurrency ‘Monero‘. The idea being that only members of the Libra network can analyse, and extract info from the distributed ledger so the network is closed and transactions unlike Bitcoin cannot be viewed. Libra however is not ‘decentralised’ and is ‘permission based’, and offers the ability to generate ‘Smart Contracts’.

Libra unlike Bitcoin does not rely on mining to generate coins. Libra has a permissioned proof of stake system which allows a network to receive distributed consensus on a transaction, via random selection on the stake, which could be wealth, or age, as opposed to ‘Mining’. So the more ‘Coins’ you own, the more power you have with the proof of stake system. Even as a Bitcoin miner you need to stake at least an amount to mine a block.

Libra has an impressive list of name companies, and backers on board known as the Libra Association. Visa, Uber, Paypal, and Andressen Horowitz are all involved in developing this new payment technology.

It is expected that libra will be policed by facebook to remove fake libra related sites. Regulatory issues, have placed Libra under the spotlight as cryptocurrency, and digital currencies generally seen as a ‘huge risk’ to financial stability. All agree these type of developments are ‘inevitable’, particularly the US. Facebook has at present over 1 billion users on its platform. Stats for end of 2018, fourth quarter, showed facebook, without its cryptocurrency in use had 2.32 billion monthly active users worldwide. One admittance about the technology is it cannot right now deliver necessary scalability to support billions of people using a Cryptocurrency.

Libra is expected to be incorporated into Facebook within the next 18 months causing concern with legislators. Reportedly an ‘anti-trust’ probe is now being launched by EU regulators, concerned that libra shuts out competitors. Facebook Libra’s, main rivalry is Binance ‘Venus’.

Despite these teething problem the launch date for Facebook’s libra is set for 2020.

What will be able to buy with facebook libra?

• Pay for goods and services on facebook
• Use payments for car rides with Uber
• Pay for Spotify online subscriptions
• Proposals for more diverse financial based products are also in the pipeline for development

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions on using electronic cashless payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, XRM in your business. Look out for more on #Cryptocurrencies later on.

Liked this article on Cryptocurrencies? Please feel free to donate

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

An ‘Altcoin’ is an ‘implied’ cryptocurrency coin, meaning it often shares Bitcoins characteristics, hence the name ‘Alt Coin’. Currently its claimed there are over 1500 of these ‘Alt Coins’ available to invest in.

Notable Alt coins:

• Litecoin – Seen as an alternative Silver to Bitcoin’s gold and thoroughly decentralised! Uses a ‘Proof of work’ scheme to validate blocks.

• Etherum – Steered by major players such as the eponymous Microsoft, Accenture. Since the recent smart contract exploitation resulting in Etherum being split into two seperate networks there has been much debate if Etherum can still be classed as an ‘Altcoin’. A recent study citing correlation to Bitcoin, placed Etherum ‘into the playing field’, as the ‘most decentralised blockchain platform in existence’ and more importantly ‘publicly recognised as an asset’.

Most Altcoins are peer to peer, some even follow the Bitcoin mining process where miners solve difficult mathematical problems (proof of work) to unlock blocks, and are based on Bitcoin. Some just don’t do much, or are very basic.

What makes Altcoins interesting is the risk to owning, and volatility. Many ‘Altcoins’ can offer more privacy/ anonymity with obfuscated transactions such as ‘Monero’. Some Altcoins mined blocks are solved faster than Bitcoins, yet require far more proof of authority.

Altcoins may use differing proof of work algorithm’s, or could be designed to support technical uses as a way to build more applications on top of existing Cryptocurrency structures, such as the Cryptocurrency ‘EOS’.

Importantly some ‘Altcoins’, and you should watch out for, these don’t do very much.

Why use Altcoins?

• Online payments in other currency’s
• Trading
• Privacy in ledger transactions
• Decentralisation
• Building payment based applications
  

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions on using electronic cashless payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, XRM in your business. Look out for more on #Cryptocurrencies later on.

Liked this article on Cryptocurrencies? Please feel free to donate

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Stablecoins are ‘coin’ based token’s that retain, or are close to a value. A stablecoins value may go slightly up, or under the $1 dollar remit or equivalent value and is not prone to risky volatility, hence the term Stablecoin. The Stable coin may track the dollar, but negative, or positive increase / decrease with certain Stablecoin’s is likely to be discounted on buying, or selling other Cryptocurrency (please check with the provider).

So what are Bitcoin and Ethereum if they are not Stablecoins?

Neither Bitcoin, or Etherum, are Stablecoins. The idea of a Stablecoin is to create ‘Actual monetary value’ for people who want stability, audit trails, and reliability, So the coin, or token is ‘as’ feasibly close,or equivalent to $1 dollar, or similar. Bitcoin is prone to volatility and the value is not limited.

Stablecoins are a useful resource for secure money transfer between countries. Stablecoins can be Fiat backed from a regulated third party. Some are Commodity, or Cryptocurrency based.

You still need a digital wallet, and may need to use bitcoin or other Cryptocurrencies, to transfer an amount to your chosen Stablecoin.

Couple of Stablecoins worth mentioning:

DAI – Aim to get as close to the $1 dollar trading mark as possible and currently have a Market Cap of 77.08M

PAX – Backed 1:1 for the dollar and regulated by the US NY State Department as an ‘alternative’ to the US dollar with a current Market Cap of $ 185.03M

Gemini Dollar (GUSD) – Regulated creditworthiness built on Etherum Blockchain technology. Market Cap $6,906,576M

Useful for:

• Times when you want to make a quick money transfer
• Temporary placement of funds in a stable Cryptocurrency with minimised volatility at a specific value.

All Cryptocurrency have risks. Seek financial advice if you are not sure what to invest in.

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions on using electronic cashless payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, XRM in your business. Look out for more on #Cryptocurrencies later on.

Liked this article on Cryptocurrencies? Please feel free to donate

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

So what the hell is bitcoin then?

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that was launched officially in January 2009. Bitcoin relies on a distributed database / peer 2 peer networking structure that’s decentralised, offering ways to secure, or encrypt each created or managed transaction with no central authority. A sort of ‘posh’, accountancy distributed ledger of transactions known as ‘Blockchain’.

Transactions are stored in a ‘block’, each block contains at least a thousand transactions as digital information. This is stored in a database, ‘chain’ in many places (p2p distributed), and is not regulated by an administrator, bank, person, or government (no trusted third party). Every transaction is unique to the Bitcoin holder and cannot be reproduced. This makes Bitcoins difficult to hack, but not impossible.

Who created Bitcoin?

Satoshi Nakamoto is said to of been a brilliant programmer, who cut his technology credentials at Netscape.

In the early 2000s Satoshi experimented with a way to create a reliable digital currency for a university project, and boom yes Bitcoin was born. Originally Bitcoin was referred to as Satoshi’s. ✌(‘ω’)

Why is Cryptocurrency essential?

The state of economies in certain countries makes banking a hazardous business.

This could be due to a number of factors: Economic Uncertainty, Volatility, Financial collapse, and Hyperinflation. Cryptocurrency for many of the worlds citizens is a welcome safer accessible alternative,although not without risks due to the currencies volatility due to price fluctuations.

Cryptocurrency holders greatly benefit from needing ‘no upgrade’, with each technological shift. The need for third party verification of transactions is eliminated, reducing transaction costs.

The enigma of Bitcoin’s disappearing founder Satoshi

Satoshi’s Bitcoin account is said to exist to test the early technology of the currency, and is currently untouched. The first ‘Official’ 50 bitcoins issued by Satoshi were sent on 3rd January 2009 from what is referred to as the ‘Genesis Block’. Satoshi Nakamoto last posted to Bitcoin forum’s around 2013. Then, without any word Satoshi just simply disappeared.

No one knows what happened to Satoshi, or who Satoshi really is! Wherever Satoshi may be we hope he’s found happiness. ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ

Some of the issues:

• Cryptocurrencies volatile risky nature with high gains of course to be made!
• Reliance on understanding the complex buy / sell processes to obtain these currencies through multiple vendors.
• Reliance on often complex technology software, and hardware.
• Variety ranging from Cryptocurrency’s such as Bitcoin cash, Altcoins, to complex ‘Smart Contracts’, and ‘Fiat’ are daunting to the uninitiated.
• Decentralisation is a wonderful concept but if you have no access to your Cryptocurrency, its difficult to get the Crypto back by proving your the owner even with ID!

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions on using electronic cashless payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, XRM in your business. Look out for more on #Cryptocurrencies later on.

Liked this article on Cryptocurrencies? Please feel free to donate

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

Captcha’s. Known to many across the world as “Completely Automated Public Turing Tests”. Represented as ‘funny picture based things’, or an absolute jumble of letters, often shown to the user (customer) in a grid. In this article i will be concentrating on one feature of a picture based Captcha, the pictures certain types of Captcha’s display.

Captcha’s can be used during logging in to a website, or after sending an important contact message to provide proof of human, versus automated access. Artificial intelligence however can break certain types of Captcha as proved recently by team Vicarious a Californian based startup using a recursive cortical network (RCN) that recognise’s text Captcha’s with a high degree of accuracy, demonstrated in 2017.

There are many types of Captcha available baffle text, pessimal point, question based Captchas, and picCaptchas, audio Captcha, and novel methods images but we will be looking at visual comparison Captchas, or the No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA, a google creation where the users prompted to identify maybe a human, or an avatar of some sort inside a grid.

Captcha’s protect from bots, spammers, and automated processes accessing many potential website features such as logins, or sending emails.

What I started to notice with Captcha was how often the pictures used in the Captcha for identification were not necessarily representative of a typical web users own cultural experience.

You must be saying how could that be? The pictures in the Captcha grid are representative of what a user is being asked to identify and validate the featured image is the correct answer. In the following examples the Captcha requests the User to identify a bus.

Above a series of Captcha sequences featuring a bus images from different parts of the world.

Okay so the world has quite a few different buses. Designs of these buses can vary from country to country, colour changes abound, shape, size, different window shapes even. So how does the typical user fare when an unfamiliar style of bus is represented to them?

Above a series of buses from different parts of the world.

Immediately you can see the variations in the pictures of different styles of buses. Users must make a decision based on existing mental models of a bus.

This type of Captcha image should therefore stay firmly within the culture of the country perhaps?

So is it possible that a user can tell what a bus if they are shown a non standard bus image?

The following image above did validate with the Captcha system as a bus!

Is this a bus, or isn’t it? Well the Captcha says it’s a bus, it’s the only large vehicle looking thing in the picture perhaps. If your from Europe, or the UK perhaps the following bus is what you expected?

So is this an issue with the design of the Captcha , or more of a cultural phenomenon in the design of software for many different applications not just websites?

Here at ixdlab_ we can help you to understand and formulate opinions through research of how solutions to problems such as this can be approached. It’s no good asking a user to verify a picture of a bus they’re unfamiliar with because it’s outside the Users own experience of what a bus should look like.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

We have listed some of our favorite northern, local, and national based twitter hours to share with you good business folks on the twinternet.

Did you know that Twitter hours are useful for digital brand promotion, Advertising, and networking to and with other businesses and organisations.

Don’t see a twitter hour listed. Just drop us a quick email and we will add to the list!

Northern UK – Monday

8-9pm #BrandYorkshire

8-9pm #BrighouseHour

8-9pm #CheshireHour

8-9pm #HarrogateHour

8-9pm #LincsHour

8-9pm #NorthEastHour

8-9pm #YorkHour

Northern UK – Tuesday

12- 1pm #YorkshireJobsHour

3-4pm #HartlepoolHour

7-8pm #WhitbyHour

8-9pm #BeverleyHour

8-9pm #CalderdaleHour

8-9pm #DiscoverRipon

8-9pm #DoncasterHour

8-9pm #NidderdaleHour

8-9pm #WetherbyHour

9-10pm #SkiptonHour

Northern UK – Wednesday

2-3pm #NewcastleHour

2-3pm #TeesTime

7-8pm #HambletonHour

7-8pm #RyedaleHour

8-9pm #BramhamHour

8-9pm #NorthWestHour

Northern UK – Thursday

7-8pm #OtleyHour

8-9pm #BarnsleyHour

8-9pm #BlackpoolHour

8-9pm #BradfordHour

8-9pm #ChesterfieldHour

8-9pm #HalifaxHour

8-9pm #HuddersfieldHour

8-9pm #HullHour

8-9pm #LancashireHour

8-9pm #LeedsHour

8-9pm #LiverpoolHour

8-9pm #SheffieldHour

8-9pm #SunderlandHour

8-9pm #WakefieldHour

8-9pm #WarringtonHour

9-10pm #ThirskHour

Northern UK – Friday

10-11am #ClevelandHour

11am-12pm #NewcastleHour

11am-12pm #YorkBizHour

9-10pm #NorthWestHour

Useful Everyday UK Twitter Hours

12-1pm #UKBizLunch – every day

2-3pm #BizHour – every day

3-4pm #B2BHour – every day

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

A quick guide to the User Researcher.

What does the customer want from your online digital services, and products? How do we find out what the user actually needs our digital products and services to do?

Cue the User Researcher who researchers the User, also known as the customer. A User could interact with different technologies, websites, software, or mobile applications.

User Behaviour, context, and characteristics, are then captured into findings by User Researchers. Data gathered from User research contributes to the design process.

Using data gathering techniques, the User Researcher provides insightful, and often contrasting patterns. User Research techniques used in a project may be:

• Observation of the User using a digital product or service
• Focus groups used to determine the Users reaction to your digital product and service
• Questionnaires – Assessing User satisfaction in using a digital product, or online service.

So what is the difference between a User research and that of a Market Researcher ?

Techniques are similar in the data gathering process. Application of the collated data differs between User Research, and Market Researcher.

Market Researchers watch what people need from a product, service, or what and why they buy, or preferences. Exploring opportunities to define, or identify markets, or competition.

User Researcher’s identify, a design’s impact, through user behaviors, needs, and motivations.

Interested in finding out how you can carry out User Research that will make an impact on your digital products, or services? Talk to ixdlab_

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

What is the UX Business Canvas?

Welcome to the UX Business Canvas. A one page project plan, structured for User Experience, and Interaction design no matter what phase you join a project. The UX Business Canvas is designed to allow for quick, efficient improvisation, or revision of UX related project details. Ideal for Agile.

Aspects

• Brand – Who are we designing the interactive product for?

• Main Goal / Objective – So what will this interactive product, or service need to do? What we are trying to achieve.

• Devices – What technology is the design aimed for? Is it for Smart phone, Wearable, ipad?

• Tools – So what do we need to use to build or create our designs, software tools or sticky notes.

• Sprint cycles – When each sprint cycle starts and ends, with a date for a UX design to be delivered.

What the canvas is designed to do:

• Quickly view UX decisions

• Change or alter details, and try out different things

• One page preparation of project phases

• Designed to assist with project buy – ins from your team 
  
  

How do you use the UX Business Canvas?  

Simply download and print out the UX Business Canvas onto A4 from PDF and your away!

Want to learn more about the UX Business Canvas?

Please get in touch with us at IXDLAB_ either by email info@ixdlab.co.uk or phone us on 447858110704 .

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.

What an interaction designer actually does.

The interaction designer is not to be confused with a User Experience designer, although UX is a field in the discipline of interaction design. The interaction designer is interested in the customer or user’s, behaviour, or actions when trying to achieve goals in interactive products such as websites, software applications, mobile apps, and robotics. The interaction designer use’s many disciplines and fields, such as usability, accessibility, user research, and different design approaches, to design interactive products.

“Design is not philosophy, design is for life” Issey Miyake

The Interaction designers main focus is the customer, or user. That is the person who uses your interactive product, to reach a goal such as a purchase through an e-commerce shopping based website. The Interaction designer, then creates a design taking into account the behaviour’s of the customer as the customer, or user, reaches a desired goal lets say the purchase of a rugby ball.  Another goal for the customer during a purchase on the e-commerce based shopping site could be the customer downloading an application they have purchased onto a tablet device.

So why is this useful to my company?

If your a business, or organisation that has an interactive product I want you to think back to times when you have found what you thought was a straightforward process has proven difficult for customers to understand. It happens often in business that we think we know our customers, but do we without proper user research? For interactive products, interaction designs focus on user behaviour and can help you reduce problems, or refocus design’s, and interactive products which are not meeting your customers needs, or could be further improved. 

“We must design for the way people behave,
not for how we would wish them to behave.”

Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity

Use interaction design for times when you need to understand how different targeted customer segments (the users from your business, organisation, or target market),  will use your interactive product, before investing heavily in further development costs, pr, or market research.

“A beautiful product that doesn’t work very well is ugly.”
Jony Ive

Where does interaction design differ from HCI?

Interaction design has a wider perspective for design of any technology, systems or products compared to Human Computer Interaction (HCI)

Ixdlab have been using interaction design for a while on many different projects for household names with much aplumb. Call us to find out more.

We are verified content creators with Brave Rewards using the Brave Browser. Brave Rewards allows you to choose, browse and reward content creators like ixdlab using BAT or other Cryptocurrency’s. If you find our content useful and like what you read please donate via downloading the Brave browser. The Brave Browser allows you to earn free BAT. We are currently trialling this type of crowdfunding for our Cryptocurrency research projects.