Night Apes Dream

I’m still not entirely sure how this happened. One minute I was giving a monthly metrics presentation to a client, the next minute the entire conversation had been derailed by LOL cats, with even the eBusiness Manager showing me how she could get LOL cats on her iPhone. Yeah, that was strange.

An hour later, this turned up in my inbox from the same client.

I’m not sure, but it must be some net nerd right of passage to receive your first personalised LOL cat. The beginning of a slippery slop towards true geekdom perhaps?

Google Analytics has recently had a bit of a facelift, and when the dust settled a number of new features had been added. Advanced Segments allows a GA user to segment visitor metrics by a number of specific, definable segments. This means it is now possible to slice user data by those visitors who complete a transcation, spend a specific period of time on the site, or visit the site a specific number of times.

What excites me most about this is how it can be used to refine a business’ KPIs. Often a client comes to us saying "We want to reduce the number of short visits to the site" or "we want to increase repeat visitation to the site". Sometimes I find myself wondering whether these are desirable goals, do we know that longer visits result in more conversions? Probably not. Using Advanced Segments, we may find out that all of those short visits actually represent users who have been to the site and are  returning to very quickly complete a task (sign up, download a brochure etc). Having this knowledge empowers us to set metrics KPIs that are much more focused on an outcome than those based on assumptions.

Now all I have to do is convince more clients to move to Google Analytics, and ditch their overpriced, under performing corporate metrics packages.

Recently, I have seen a number of sites go live that I have conducted usability testing on at various stages of their design process. What has surprised me about these sites is that many of them are completely unchanged from when they first came through the door. A number of sites had usability issues ranging from mild to absolute show stoppers, issues that were clearly seen when actual users were sat in front of the site, yet none of our recommendations had been acted upon in the (sometimes lengthy) time between testing and launch.

What is occuring here is, I think, different to Stupid User Syndrome and instead a sort of lip service to usability. Now that usability, and with it the required research and testing, has begun to become a standard part of more and more development cycles, it has essentially become a box to check for some project managers.

I can (but won’t) name a few companies I know of for whom undertaking user testing is a required KPI for their project managers.What is wrong with this? There are no requirements for them to actually implemement the recommendations that come out of the research. They are essentially undertaking the testing to say that they have done so in their performance review, not to improve their product. Doing this is like having an engineer check your building foundations and ignoring his findings; "Hey, our building’s been assessed, so we’re good", never mind that he says your building will collapse in a few years (I begun to use a car designer for this analogy, but I think we’ve all seen Fight Club).

User testing does not instantly earn you a usable product. To achieve that you need to actually invest the time and money to act on the findings of your user testing. Plan and budget from the beginnning of your project for the necessary changes to be made. Do not enter testing expecting no changes to need to be made, because then when those changes are required you will find youself without the time and budget to implement them.

Users know best how to improve your product, they are the ones who use it, that is why we undertake user testing. Users are also your most important asset, they are your customers and also, in today’s world of social networking, a part of your marketing team. So show these users the respect they deserve, build them the product that they want to use, do not pay lip service by saying you have tested the product with real users, because until you have made the final step towards acting on that testing your users will find another product somewhere else.

(Image from Uselog. Thanks to @swingdag for the link)

For the past week I have been using an Evoluent VerticalMouse (Apparantly in the world of computer periphals, spaces between words are superfluous).

I ordered the mouse after my near debilitating wrist and shoulder pain returned after nearly twelve months absence. Whilst studying at uni, I experimented with a countless number of desk, monitor and chair height combinations to ease the acute back pain that I experienced after the first hour at the computer, but was never really able to resolve the problem. When I first began my current job, I decided on my first day to switch form right handed mousing to left handed (I am left handed naturally, and also like to add complications to the already stressful first day in a new job), miraculously, this relieved a large portion of my problems.

For a while.

In the past month, the familiar pains and accompanying headaches (and, as my better half will tell you, grumpiness) began to return.

After a little research, I decided the the Evoluent looked like the best model for me. It was a true vertical mouse (others were only slightly angled) without looking like I would need a sharp learning curve to use it.

After a week of use, I can say that it has definately helped with my back and wrist pain. Having your hand rest in a more natural position is one of those "why did I do it any other way" sort of things. After the first few hours it feels incredibly relexed and normal. At first I did experience a little difficulty shifting from typing to mousing, as you have to actually lift you hand up and over the mouse and grip it a little more than a traditional mouse, but this I soon got used to.

Overall:

Pros:

• Very natural position for your wrist means virtually no strain on wrist/arm/shoulder/back (so long as you are seated properly, but you already knew that)
• Passers by mistake me for a designer or some other creative type
• Co workers are too freaked out by it to want to use your computer (especially as I bought the left handed version)
• See the first point, it’s a pretty big deal

Cons:

• The mouse is very light. To control it fully you are required to grip is slightly, which feels sort of counter productive as your trying to relax your wrist, and takes some time to get used to
• Because the scroll wheel is on its side, you have to give up multi directional use (i.e. you cannot "push" it to the left and right. A sorely missed feature when handling very large spreadsheets, but one that can be resolved making the thumb button a scroll
• Your little finger drags on the mouse pad. Admittedly, I do have large hands, but a slightly raised lip on the outer side of the mouse would have resolved this problem for everybody
• Passers by mistake me for a designer or some other creative type

Several of the reviews I read for the VerticalMouse also listed the fact that it is not wireless as a detractor. Personally, I haven’t really noticed, but if that sort of thing is important to you than there is also that to consider.

Despite a few shortcomings, the Evoluent VerticalMouse is an excellent product. For me it has already become one of those quality of life products that I know struggle to think of working without, and anybody else who suffers from pain or discomfort from long hours at a desk (and I don’t just mean because of where you work) should definately consider one.

Bonus irony point: I finished writing this at home, where I still have not managed to get my desk set up properly. Consequently, my wrist is now starting to throb and I feel a headach coming on. Joy

As part of getting out and meeting people other than my usual crowd of hospitality workers, I attended an event called Tequp last night. Tequp is a regular meeting of "artists, musicians and tech heads to talk about anything at all". I think the tech heads certaintly outweighed everybody else, but I still managed to look like I knew what I was talking about most of the time.

It was a truly fascinating bunch of people who turned up. A rough roll call from memory yields

• Console game coders
• Flash game developers
• The CEO of Plasq
• A recent graduate from the Google Summer of Code
• Someone working on secret stuff for a telecommunications company (nuff said)
• A stack of other web dev people

This was my second Tequp, and they are a really enjoyable evenings. Everybody is very excited to chat about other peoples projects and to hear what others are working on. They are hosted by the very friendly Jonathan and Betti Wrigley, and currently held in their shop, Xero.

Attending things like this really reminds me of how cool a city Melbourne is. More than anywhere else I have lived, it seems that in Melbourne everybody is doing. Every person you meet seems to have some other project or secret life you don’t know about. It can be very daunting at times, but is also very exciting.

Melbourne Tequp has a Facebook page if you’re interested in attending.