News

I’ve just come back from my presentation which was part the South African contribution to World Usability Day.

What a interesting spread of speakers:

• Kristiina Lahde, besides being the kind host of the event,  made me aware of the ICT knowledge exchange initiative between the Finland and South African Governments (SAFIPA). You can find out more here.
• Darelle van Greunen (the South African World Usability Day co-ordinator) gave a great overview of what usability was and its value
• Marde Greeff and Dr Louis Coetzee (CSIR Meraka) opened my eyes to the difficulties their organisation is facing in getting the voice of disabled people being heard by the ICT industry.
• Adele Botha’s  (CSIR Meraka) presentation on the reality and context within mobile development needs to happen in South Africa (and the rest of Africa) was both highly entertaining and informative.
• Jama Ndwe (CSIR Meraka) opened my mind to the attention that we need to pay to voice interfaces and their value in the South African context.
• Marco Pretorius (Usability Manager UNISA) gave us some interesting insights into eye-tracking studies

My contribution was  a presentation of the the role of information architecture in design. If you are interested in getting a copy of the presentation, drop me an email and I will get it through to you.

Probably the most impressive insight from today was the clear breaking down of the borders between the various disciplines needed to create digital interfaces. User Experience was clearly the order of the day, and that can only be good news for users of digital interfaces.

We’re constantly on the internet – well, that is our job, after all. And everyone here at Umlungu had a good giggle about the following post (the original can be found here). Clearly, whoever wrote it (wisely not mentioning their name, since they’re probably afraid of offending clients), is a frustrated web designer. Hey, it happens. But we thought we’d place it as a little fun on a Friday.

If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers

By: Unknown

January 10, 2002

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don’t have nearly enough insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminium, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminium, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.

Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.

Please don’t bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: Get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the colour of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers.

Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run up and look at my neighbour’s house that he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can’t happen very often.

Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I’ve given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can’t handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.

John Rheinfrank, Shelley Evenson, and others developed a model of the ideal “experience cycle” as they worked on a usability design strategy for Xerox in the 1980s. This experience cycle has revolutionised thinking about the processes customers go through when they interact with suppliers or producers (in other words whoever sells to them). Instead of having a funnel-like structure which focuses on making the quick sale (as the traditional sales cycle has), the experience cycle aims at building long term relationships with customers and servicing them every step of the way.

Umlungu’s latest newsletter is about how the experience cycle can be applied to your online offering. (If you missed it, you can read it here.)

To learn more about the differences between the traditional sales cycle and the customer experience cycle, read this article by Evenson and Hugh Dubberly. Look out for a very interesting example of the cycle in relation to Apple.

Umlungu recently designed and built a new website for the renowned sculptor Carl Roberts. This is one of the projects of which our creative team is particularly proud, since it posed several design and content challenges. But ultimately, we like what we did with it. And thankfully, so does Carl. Check out the website here.

Umlungu is proud to have developed and built the back-end of the system on which the 2009 Loerie Awards has been running. The judging process - for which we built the engine – has been running smoothly. The finalists have now been announced, and the winners will be announced at the festival in Cape Town, which runs from 24 to 27 September.

Umlungu’s role in projects like these can be likened to an essential, but unseen part of your car’s engine. Nobody notices us until something goes wrong. So, in this case, not being noticed means we did a good job.

We recently finished a project for the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) to help them understand the use of their websites (gov.za, info.gov.za and services.gov.za). We pointed out and interpreted the successes and failures of the websites and provided concrete, practical recommendations on how to move the websites forward.

The process on our part included expert analysis, competitor analysis, user testing, and the design of three functional prototypes as a suggestion for the way forward. We worked with Frances Gordon from Simplified, who evaluated the communication on the three sites.

We’re happy to say that the GCIS has given us immensely positive feedback. We wish them all the best in implementing the suggested changes to their sites. 

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

We at Umlungu were reeling with the recent news that the city of Durban spent R6.5 million on a new web portal related to the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

No matter how we approach that figure, it simply doesn’t make sense. We completely agree with other industry professionals who have said that the site could have been developed for 20% of the current cost – that would put it at around R1.3 million. (Even then, it had better be able to do the dishes.)

On top of that, the city, as well as the company who did the development (AdaptIT), are keeping mum on the tender process – or whether there even was one!

Why not judge for yourself? The site can be found here. Related articles on the subject can be found here.