Part of the Process

It's a well known phrase with software developers that "naming things is hard", but what about hardware products? What are the worst offenders and how should it be done?  This post was prompted by a couple of social media posts, taking a look at two culprits. The first was camera model names Whoever designed the Canon's camera naming schema deserves a good talking to. Impossible to know what's newer/better, and all the models have multiple names across the world, making searching for info really hard. — Ben Sauer (@bensauer) August 5, 2020 and this one humorously takes a peek at how monitors get their names View this post on Instagram How companies name their Monitors 😂 Via @system32comics Follow @techgang_ for more . . #programmerhumor #gamersofinstagram #gamersunite #gamerslife #programmerlife #codinglife #programming #programmingmemes #codingmemes #computerscience #programmingjokes #computerengineering #workfromhomelife #gamerlife #ga...

This week I've been having a bit of think about products for an older audience, prompted by this tweet by Tom Peters ("The red bull of management thinking") Old people get short shrift in the marketplace. STUPID. Old people have the money—effectively ALL the money. AND, these days, years and years left to spend it. Virtually none of marketing budgets are aimed at the oldies. REALLY REALLY STUPID. #ExcellenceDividend — Tom Peters (@tom_peters) June 12, 2018 which prompted questions about how appropriate it was to target digital products and services to older people. I then contributed my (non-scientific) observation Well, just 1 data point but my grandad was in first wave of computer usage in UK accountancy and my grandmother LOVES Skype for talking to her grandchildren, has a better tablet than mine, and is always on the lookout it upgraded her phone, plus I have loads of 70+ FB friends — Neil Chalk (@_neilch) June 12, 2018 The response to that was about ho...

Slightly delayed post due to going on holiday! My week's reading started with Hofstadter’s Law and Realistic Planning By Jane Collingwood where she outlines how "pessimistic-scenario generation is not an effective de-biasing technique for personal predictions .”  this got me thinking about how much of what we do in our lives is shaped by the people who provide us with the services and products that we use. This article by Monzo is a perfect example of ethical product design should be done. They have thought about what their mission is, who their users are and what issues they might face. Compare and contrast with stories of how Uber use psychology to exploit drivers to see the negative face of "disrupting industries" when that is the sole aim.  Again working conditions can have an impact even in subtle ways. There is a case here for Product Design and OS professionals to   provide more support on reporting usage to users . Computers are much better at this...

In this post, I'd like to make a short plea for better product documentation. One of the entry points to the Cronofy API documentation has an explicit link "for Product Managers". This link takes you to their use cases page. Over the past few years, I have looked at plenty of API documentation. From PDFs to the current trend of a GitHub repository and wiki. This was striking in how unusual it was. But if your product is an API then why should it be? In the technology service industry should we go further? Should there also be a "for testers" link? This could be like the Cronofy Product Managers link. It could reuse existing information but highlight and target them for a specific audience. For example, take the developer sections about rate limits and validation. Then add testing tips about your API for integration testing. Stripe has good developer documentation . Yet you have to scroll down a couple of pages of information before reaching the words "...

In the run up to a 15below customer conference I always seem to attend another event with some similarities elsewhere. This year was no different with the Travel Technology Initiative Spring Conference in London around the topic of the "UX revolution" that has been occurring in travel over the past couple of years. The first of the stand-out talks for me were Anna Chomse, Industry Head - Travel at Google who showed the process going from exploring holiday options to booking, with the different needs at each stage. She then showed a few examples of good design reflecting those needs, and how sea r ch terms used or platform (such as mobile) can make a difference to the experience of using the site. Thomson holidays was one example of how to do it right. (The Hoover website with its search terms not in the user's language and confusing mobile experience was an example of how not to do it) Next Sam Crowther, Head of Creative at Bauer Radio then took us on journey throug...

The Rosetta Stone, British Museum by Gary Denham I've dealt with work flows that result in communications for many years and one trend that I've noticed over the past 5 or so years is that unlike previous communications channels, wh ich might have remain relatively small and fragmented before they become widespread, there are now various avenues for communication and people will be comf ortable using more than one ; even fr om the same device . For example, I have friends that will use email, F acebook messaging, WhatsApp, Snapchat and SMS (or iMessage) between the same set of people depending on both the context and content of the messages. Some background I was recently at a conference where Patrice About from AirFrance made the point about various customer service aspects for airlines now don't have a single way of achieving that service and passengers expect to use the most convenient method available to them, for...

As my running season finishes again, I've been looking at buying the photos of my personal highlights. :ast year I wrote about my experiences in on buying behaviours and usability and this year I have spotted other annoyances and lessons to learn. Untagged photo search options This year I started the Brighton Marathon 10km with two other people, so after looking at my photos I went and had a look at theirs. When I did this I noticed that there were some of my that weren't tagged with my bib number. No problem! I thought, there is a handy search option here. So I entered the both the colour and type of my top and shorts and hit go ... and none of the results that came back contained me (or runners matching the description I had given!). Luckily I have worked in IT, creating various document and workflow systems, for a number of years; so my eyes spotted a reference number on each indivdual photo - in the example to the right BTK00124. So my next step was to...