UPA changes to UXPA. What do you think?

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Have you heard the latest? The Usability Professionals Association (UPA) is rebranding to User Experience Professionals Association (UXPA). How do you feel about that? Do you think it’s a good move or one that’s more motivated by profit than member value?

When I first heard the news my instant thought was that they’re jumping on the bandwagon of the term UX to increase their membership numbers. Cynical me hey! After reading the official Press Release though I’m still not totally clear of the benefits this will bring to me as a member, in fact I’m concerned the content may be more diluted and I’ll have to do more digging to find the stuff I’m interested in. The UPA say ‘many of our members are increasingly involved in User Experience Strategy. Our new organizational model allows us to deliver content on all four of these pillars: Research, Design, Evaluation, and Strategy’ but to be honest they do this anyway so I still believe the change is to appeal to more potential members, which I can understand from their perspective.

As terminology, User Experience is much more attractive to people than Usability. Usability is often seen as more rigid, boring and formal (thanks in part to people’s first impression of useit.com – ‘oh is this what good usability does to a site? bleurgh! no thanks!). So, I think it’s reasonable to assume that the UXPA will gain a lot more members and these will come from a wider variety of backgrounds.

I’d like to see the site cater for both the different specialisms and the different levels of experience between members.

Different specialisms

By this I mean I’d like to see areas within the site and forum where I can geek out about UX with people who see it from many different viewpoints. People come into UX from a wide variety of backgrounds, more varied than usability, so the UPA will need to think about the structure of the site and forums to cater for everyone.

Different member levels

I’d like to see different membership levels for those who are UX professionals and those who may just be joining as they have an interest in the subject.

My own view is that I’m not really too concerned. I’ll be happy so long as the IA of the site is really well thought through with lots of different areas to discuss UX from many different viewpoints and of course we’ll still need an area for Usability! I just hope the new UXPA can actually cope with a higher number of members because in my experience it’s an organisation that, well, isn’t actually very well organised. The first time I applied to join the UPA was many years ago… They lost my first application, they received my second application then lost it and I have no idea what happened on my third attempt as I heard nothing from them and that time I gave up. I recently tried to join again, this time my application was processed (hooray!) but I did have to ask them to resend my welcome pack as I didn’t receive the first one. So yeah, let’s hope they get the IA spot on and can cope with the increased demand.

What are your thoughts? Are you a current member of the UPA? Will you be joining the UXPA? What impact do you think the name change will have (if any)?

Finally, below is a sketch by @jasonmesut that I think highlights the potential impact of the name change rather well. I also recommend reading Louis Rosenfeld’s response which is both amusing and highlights the lack of vision for the name change.

UPA name change impact

Free ‘Getting Real’ book by 37signals

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Getting Real 37 Signals37signals are most well known as the creators of Basecamp. I love their approach to business and highly recommend you buy their book Rework. It’s packed full of really useful business advice that’s incredibly down to earth and makes much more practical sense than any other business book I’ve read.

They’re now giving away free copies of their book, Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application.

On Amazon this book currently retails at £15.89 for the paperback and £6.99 for the Kindle version, so I recommend you download your copy whilst it’s free!

BBC Home page research and redesign

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I conducted a quick piece of research on the BBC Home page as part of an event called BBC Connected. Did you know it’s the third most visited home page? Yet only a very small percent of visitors actually use it? As our research discovered, most people bypass the page completely, preferring to use the navigation bar or a direct url (usually saved as a bookmark). Here, we share our findings and a few of our design proposals to improve the user experience of the BBC Home page, in particular under-served audience(s).

How do you use the BBC website? Do you ever look at or click on items on the home page? Have you used it more or less since the last redesign? I’d love to hear about your experience. Share your story using the comment box below.

Research by Keepitusable.com

Keepitusable Shortlisted for 2 Business Awards

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2012 salford business awards
You may or may not be aware that I run a Manchester UX and Usability Agency called Keepitusable (keepitusable.com). We started the business in late 2010 after lots of people told us we should! So, the business was built very much on our existing reputations as great designers and user researchers. I’m predominantly the lead on anything to do with users, research, psychology, ergonomics. Ricardo has more UX and UI design experience than anyone I know so he leads all our design and prototyping work.

Our magic is the unique mix of our skills and experience plus our equal male/female balance that gives us the ability to see things more completely from the audience’s perspective.

We’re really pleased to have made the final four for 2 Salford business awards; Rising Star and Entrepreneur. It was very competitive and we had to really prove the value of user experience during the interviews. This can be quite tough as any UXer will know! At first it was clear they thought we were developers or graphic designers which is understandable as people always try to make sense of something new by comparing it to what they already know – mental models anyone?

Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for us and hopefully we will win at least one of the awards. The finalists are incredibly diverse so it will be interesting to see who wins! 

Nice Predictive Text Entry Method by Blackberry

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I started my UX career as a Smartphone Researcher. I remember when we took the plunge to remove the hardware keypad and go full touch. Users complained that they wanted and needed a hard keypad to enter text. They saw T9 as vital to quick text entry – it could be done one handed and even blindly by many users. I admit myself to being able to text without even looking at my phone, it was great for multi-tasking, like shopping whilst texting 😉

But users can adapt to change very quickly despite their initial reservations and look at everyone now using full touch devices to enter text. How far we’ve come! But, there is still the problem of longer text entry times, needing to use two hands and being more prone to errors. So I’m rather impressed by Blackberry’s approach to improving the touchscreen text entry user experience to be faster and more intuitive. Check it out and see what you think…

5 Reasons Why Tablet Growth Will Soar This Year

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mobile and tablet growth

 

The above chart clearly shows both mobile and tablet growing over the coming years. However, the growth shown for Tablets is fairly steady. I am largely in disagreement with this. I think the growth of Tablets will be phenomenal over the next 2 years for these reasons:

Reason 1: They’re the lazy man’s computer.

People talk of mobiles as being the lazy man’s computer because you always have your phone on you 24 hours a day and it’s much quicker to quickly search for something than to power up a computer. However, with their small screens, mobiles aren’t the most pleasant way to experience websites, to look at something with friends/colleagues, to view larger amounts of information, to read an e-book, etc.

Reason 2: They’re the portable computer

Yes I know mobiles are portable computers too but once again they lack that larger screen which is necessary for so many things. I was in a coffee shop yesterday and a group of students were sat at the table next to me. One of them had an iPad and was using it to show his friends various things. It became a social experience which would be much more difficult on a small screen. Within the business world, tablets provide a more portable, more impactful means to showcase work to clients.

Reason 3: Statistics are already starting to show phenomenal growth

Tablet sales rose an incredible 60% in the first quarter this year for Verizon Wireless.

Reason 4: They’re the ideal device for children

Children love touching and interacting with things directly so tablets are ideal for engaging them and helping them to learn whilst also having fun. Research by Nielsen found nearly 70 percent of children in households with tablets use them and they are often used outside of the home to keep children entertained on journeys.

Reason 5: They’re cheap!

The price is incredible. Cheaper than the average smartphone and computer. With offers like the one below surely Tablet growth is set to soar!

really cheap tablet

Google concept augmented reality glasses “Project Glass’

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Augmented reality is already making waves in the mobile app arena but it seems Google are the ones determined to take the eyewear market by storm. It’s something I first looked at years ago whilst at university. Back then it was very much thought of as a useful tool rather than a fun tool (isn’t that always the way with universities?). Information would be overlaid onto real life objects to make them more useful and interactive. For example, when walking down the street, the road you need to take to get to your destination may appear to be a shade of green.

Another project involved being able to see what an item of clothing would look like on you by simply holding up a card to a mirror. An image of the item was then superimposed onto the body via the mirror. It looked pretty rubbish at the time to be honest but that was many years ago now and I know this technology is still being tested. I’m betting this would appeal to males in particular – anything to avoid the changing room hey guys!

The concept glasses video by Google is quite different to this. The information appears to be much more distracting, requiring attention and user focus. I can’t imagine being able to walk down the street and successfully read a text message without tripping over something. My point is that although this is very much a concept, there is a great deal of user interaction, human factors and ergonomics issues that will need to play a major role within the design to ensure the glasses are not just fun and useful but also safe. Google have announced public tests of the glasses are commencing.

The big question is what are Apple going to do? 

I hope we don’t have to wait too long as this is technology I need want right now!