ExperienceLab

First impressions of Google Plus: a return to private sharing

Facebook was about telling everyone what you're up to, Twitter was about information sharing, Google Plus is about sharing stuff in the way you want to.

I signed up to Google Plus a couple of days ago and my first thought was 'what's this circle business all about then?'

And then I found a use for it. 

Web for all?

Here at ExperienceLab we consider accessible websites to be be extremely important, and are frequently asked by our clients to conduct research to ensure their websites are accessible to all.  So I was pleasantly surprised to see a new website, Fix the Web, which allows web surfers to report problems they find when viewing websites. 

There is a huge population of web users who have disabilities, but there are still many websites that alienate these users. According to the World Wide Web Consortium, only 19% of websites meet the minimum standards for web access.

Fix the Web has been launched by the charity Citizens Online, and will see volunteers report complaints back to site owners. It will be interesting to see if this new initiative helps to make a difference.

Image ref: http://webaccess.tamu.edu/ 

Could property websites do more to improve the house hunting experience?

So, I’ve been house hunting recently and have to say that property websites have progressed a lot since the last time I was looking, but I am surprised at how limited they still are. 

It’s great that several of them now summarise the available properties in a map – a quick way to rule out those ones that look surprisingly good value until you realise they are positioned actually on the M25! Also, several of the sites now let you save properties you are interested in too and send you alerts, but a few extra personalisation features would be a huge help.

Ryder Cup misses the mark

My family recently acquired 6 tickets for the Ryder Cup in October – this is great news! However, Ryder Cup organisers require all people attending the event to upload a passport photo to their website. Obviously this is for security reasons, but it seems they haven’t taken into account the age range of people that will be attending the event.

Using games to make up for bad UI?

 

Microsoft have introduced a game called Ribbon Hero that helps teach people to use their new interface for Office effectively. An attempt at fixing a bad UI or an innovative way of teaching how to use new software...? Let us know what you think!

Could Pivot be a new cure for information overload?

After watching a TED talk by Gary Flake about Microsoft Live Labs’ Pivot I felt compelled to download it and test it out.

 

Pivot is a new tool (currently only available to PC users) which aims to make it easier to deal with information overload by doing something that, according to Gary Flake, is “not quite browsing and not quite searching”. Pivot puts information into collections combining images and text. These collections can be arranged, sorted and filtered in many different ways, allowing users to see how information is linked. Users can also zoom in and out, choosing to see all the information at once, or only a portion of it.

 

   

From many images to just a few, Pivot can help you sort through huge amounts of information.
 

Cinema anyone?

Last Sunday, after having lunch with some friends in Soho we decided we wanted to go to the cinema. There were various films we wanted to watch and so we got out an iPhone to see what was showing at the cinemas nearby.

There are five Odeon cinemas less than 10 minutes walking distance from the restaurant we were at. So, the obvious choice was to go onto the Odeon Cinema website. However, this obvious choice was definitely not the most efficient choice.

Microsoft offers a choice to Windows users

After being fined billions, Microsoft has announced that it is to offer Windows users in Europe a browser choice screen. This choice screen which the Guardian has named the “browser ballot”, will make it easier for users to choose an alternative browser. This is required as a settlement agreed with European Commission’s competition department in December 2009. 

  Picture credit: Mashable

Mobile phone comparison site is launched

Mobile Phone Expert, www.mobilephone-expert.co.uk is a mobile phone comparison site that prides itself on offering users a simple process to find a new mobile phone and tariff. The site aims to do this by providing users with fewer results based on their preferences so they don’t have to scroll through pages and pages of phones.

Facebook shedding pounds

Facebook has released a test version of the new stripped-down Facebook site. Facebook Lite (http://lite.facebook.com) was initially focused on providing a faster and more accessible version for users in countries with low bandwidth and slower internet connections. Now it seems existing users will be given the chance to switch to this ‘diet’ version, allowing users to write on friend’s walls, look at photos and share content without all the additional applications.