Which do you remember? Computers of the past

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Attending the Manchester Science Festival was incredible. Not only were there computers, mobiles and televisions from decades gone by, but they were all in full working condition, which meant I could re-live some of the highs (space invaders) and lows (error messages and recovery) of my first experiences with computers.

Did you have any of these computers? Did you play any of these games? Which was your favourite? Tweet me

BBC Micro: Chuckie Egg (1983)

I don’t remember this computer or Chuckie at all, but looking at the launch date of chuckie (1983) I was only a toddler so I’m pleased to say I’m too young to remember this one! Following Ricardo’s enthusiasm, I had a go at Chuckie and it was really difficult at first! Having to remember which letter or symbol did what took a bit of time to get the knack of, which is of course why UX is so important. But this game was great fun once I’d remembered the keys. I’d definitely play this. On another note, the tactile feedback from the keyboard felt hugely satisfying. You just don’t get deep key presses from modern day keyboards, and although it makes them slimmer and faster, you don’t get the cushiony, bouncy, weighty feel, which is really satisfying.

BBC Micro

Amiga – Lemmings (1985)

This is what I remember as our family computer. This and the ZX Spectrum. And I remember playing Lemmings all the time – I still think it’s one of the best games ever! But the game I used to play all the time was called Dungeon Master. Did anyone else play this? (please tweet me if you did!) The game started out in a chamber with portraits on the wall and you chose who you wanted in your team. Then you entered a maze and had to fight monsters, find food, complete tasks, find potions to make your way through the levels. I still remember my favourite character – he had a black cloak, red eyes and his name was Gothmog.

Commodore AMIGA

IBM

Ah these are the computers that we used at school. They never did what you told them to do and there were no end of hands going up in class for help with lost work, floppy disks that wouldn’t save, etc. And they took up the whole desk so you had to balance your school book on the edge of the table or on your lap. I don’t have particularly fond memories of this one!

IBM

Toshiba laptop

Toshiba Laptop

Oh no! It’s growing up with UI like this that drove me to get into usability. I remember constantly thinking, I know really clever people design and build technology, so why do they make them so difficult to use? Of course I know why now – if you’re too much an expert in something it’s difficult to look at things from a new users perspective. This error dialogue is a classic. Just look at the choice of colours used too – really poor readability on the command text at the bottom.

Toshiba Laptop Error

Floppy disks

There were lots of kids at the science festival and I wonder if any of them thought these were printed versions of the Save icon. I find it interesting that we’re still using this as a Save metaphor despite the fact that the true meaning is lost on many young people. However, they have learnt that it’s the Save icon, which begs the question should it really be updated or should it stay as a floppy disk, bearing in mind that although youngsters don’t understand what a floppy disk is, they do associate that icon with Save functionality. It’s a tough one.

Removable media

Other computers – do you know any of these?

Commodore 64

Dragon 32

Commodore PET

Macintosh

Google: Over 50% xmas enquiries will be mobile

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Yesterday at the London e-commerce expo, Google’s Martijn Bertisen, spoke about e-commerce trends for 2015. Mobile is set to be BIG business and this christmas, over 50% of christmas retail enquiries are likely to come from smartphones. 2015 will be: The year that mobile takes over. The year of wearables – watch out for Google Glass. We’ll see this coming into the retail experience. Martijn said:

If there’s one message I wanted everybody to take away, it’s that what is increasingly enabling e-commerce is mobile devices. We’ve shifted from the desktop era into the mobile era and it’s still being underestimated… it’s where consumer behaviour is.

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Never use the word ‘Test’

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When I first started life as a user researcher, it was commonplace (and it it still is) to refer to research as user testing or usability testing. I soon observed that when you use the word ‘test’ it:

a) Implies that you’re testing the end user (which is wrong, you’re testing the interface, you’re understanding of the customer, your user journeys, etc).

b) As soon as you mention the word ‘test’ to a participant they instantly tense up and worry. I used to say something along the lines of ‘please don’t be concerned, we’re not testing you, we’re testing the software’ and even this was too much. It’s a bit like if I say to you, don’t think of a pink elephant, the first thing you think of is a pink elephant – you just can’t help it, it’s how the human brain works.

I also noticed that when I used the word ‘test’ sometimes participants would ask me during the research session how they were doing or ask whether they’d got something right. In effect, they were treating it like a test. I haven’t experienced this since I stopped all use of the word ‘test’.

Now, when speaking with participants I always use the word ‘research’ which has a much more positive connotation. Of course, clients still use terms like user testing, and that’s absolutely fine, let’s not undo all the hard work ux professionals have done over the years to gain awareness of what we do, but let’s keep in mind that we’re always researching and aiming to understand things from the perspective of your target audience.

Have fun researching! 🙂

Why people hate online passwords

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Over christmas, I was sat with my stepdad as he opened up his new Kindle and attempted to set it up (a whole other usability story!). As it asked for his Amazon password he exclaimed how he didn’t have a clue what it was but he’d find out. The next thing I know, he’s opening up a spreadsheet on his laptop full of all his passwords! There must have been 20-30 of them. He said it’s the only way he can keep track of them all.

I was at a focus group recently where discussion naturally lead onto the topic of passwords. Every single person described how frustrated they are with the increasing pressure to create ever complex passwords that they then don’t remember.

It’s clearly a heated topic amongst users but with security being a top concern for companies (and rightly so), it puts ux designers in an awkward catch 22 situation. Make the password too complex and you risk people making the very un-secure decision of writing the thing down. Perhaps even putting it on a post-it by their computer – yes this happens! 

Anyway, as it’s Friday, let’s take a funny look at how this feels from the user’s perspective. I suspect most of you have also experienced this, haven’t you? 

Why people hate passwords