Blog Posts By Denise

Happy Holidays from Outsight Interactive

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Outsight is currently seeking a short-term contractor (3 months) or potentially a summer intern to work with our Senior QA Analyst. Potential for full-time employment for the right individual. See our Jobs posting for more information

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I received a funny email today from Amazon. The subject of the email was "Amazon.com: Work Gloves" and the body stated that "Customers who showed an interest in work gloves mike like to know about our bestsellers". Ok, I'll bite... (click open the email).

Wow, the products offered were definitely "interesting" -- highlights included "Mechanix Wear" gloves pictured with screwdriver in hand, "US Forge" welding gloves, and perhaps my favorite, "BladeX5" Classic Cut & Slash Resistant Gloves (with a Cut Resistant level of '5' no less). Impressive.

BladeX5 : Classic Cut & Slash Resistant Gloves

I have to confess, I had never before realized that there was such a thing as a "Cut Resistance Level". I will never look at work glove "candidates" quite the same again.

Now, with many things -- that might work very well. I know, from experience as a bookseller, that people who buy a book from the New York Times bestseller list are VERY likely to come in and buy more books from the New York Times bestseller list. I also suspect strongly that people shopping for baby gear are very interested in learning what the best sellers are.

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In the industry, with all the excitement surrounding smart phones, I think we lose sight on just how many "dumb" phones there are out there. Yesterday, comScore released the results of a survey that is a stark reminder of the mobile landscape as a whole where nary an iPhone, iPad or Android is mentioned.

I came across an article today in the NY Times, titled -- We have met the enemy and he is powerpoint.

In it, they present this image:

Plan for Afghanistan: A failure in data visualization
which was meant to convey the complexity of the military strategy in Afghanistan. Complexity was conveyed, but to what end? The key to effective data visualization is not to "convey complexity" but is instead to wrest clarity, order, or at the very least, some insight.

The General's reaction to this slide? “When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.”

Highlights from the NY Times article:

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control. Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.” General McMaster read more...

Today, I have a greater appreciation for what Victor Frankenstein felt as he fled from his creation in Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Victor Frankenstein had taken the act of creation too far and thus created a monster.

Today, our creation, the MyJoys Customizer, resulted in this:

Frankenstein's Monster: Green Base, Red Hibiscus Saddle, Yellow Toe and heel shoe Noonan, out in Truckee, California. All of us here at Outsight are deeply sorry. read more...

Lots of interesting links today:

Nice, simple presentation about experience design
The UX Driven Startup: Crafting an Experience

Google creates an application to teach developers how to prevent hacking
Google: Please Hack this Buggy Microblogging App

Wondering where Gowalla, Brightkite and Foursquare are leading?
Geomarketing: Ten Foursquare marketing campaigns

Ever wonder what the touch target size should be on a mobile? LukeW summarizes the current "standards"
LukeW on Touch Target Sizes read more...

Peering into the future

Last week at a status meeting, I took a few moment of frivolity to joke about an issue we were having on a widget we had built -- instead of showing "what people are buying right now!", it appeared to be showing "what people are going to buy in roughly ten minutes". Yes, we had achieved the impossible, we could now predict a person's future behavior with 100% accuracy -- how cool is that?! Netflix, Amazon eat your heart out! (Ok, so, yes, the server on which orders are being processed had a date/time that was off by ten minutes.) BUT think about it, a prominent homepage widget quietly predicting future events...

So, this morning, I had another opportunity to peer into the future. This time the portent showed up in my inbox. Jakob Nielsen's alertbox gave his early iPad thoughts. The iPad was released on Saturday the 3rd.

Now, for anyone outside our industry, new device launches -- well, they are like new toys. They get dropped in our laps and we start trying to play with them. Every now and then, we get a toy that is a true "game changer" -- one that has the power to *change the way that we play*, work, live. The iPhone was one such "game changing" toy -- and although Apple is hopeful, the jury is still out on the iPad.

So, when Jakob Nielsen, one of the great usability pundits, releases his "early thoughts" on the usability of the iPad *before* conducting his user testing -- well, it is his prediction of the future.

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