On MessagesDimiter Simov – Jimmy

@dsimov | https://about.me/dsimov

Here is a story

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At SAP, we have this nice “social” tool - Jam

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I participate in a few groups

I wanted to start a new group on UX topics

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Here is the new-group form

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1. Filled out the details

2. Chose to activate the group

3. Clicked Create

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Error

The description you entered is too large. Please limit yourself to 255 characters.

OK

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Gone: the message, the dialog, and all my input

Talk about messages

Claim that we are responsible: designers/architects

No recipe – be practical

My goal today

I do not like to write messages

What’s in a message?

Sign

source of icons: http://www.iconarchive.com/show/soft-scraps-icons-by-hopstarter.html

0. Who shows the message

1. What happened (or will/didn’t happen)

2. Why it happened

3. What users can do about it

Text

traditionally a button

Closing:

Interaction

User goal and expectations

User actions before and after the message

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Messages by type

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when: Every time I start Windows

Warning

fix: Do not showor: Show more info so users know why it is important and what to do

When: Every time I start Windows

Critical

fix: Show option to remove from start-up listor: Allow re-installing

Validation

fix: Parse the input and ignore spaces, dashes, dots…

Translation:

Your electronic signatureis valid and you can makemoney transfers online

Confirmation

fix: Hide the gibberish. Show a normal message.

Informative

fix: State that the downtime will be at night and last only 1 hour. Please use my timezone.

As you type

fix: Accept Cyrillicor: Add to the message that only Latin characters are OK

On Yes, the program starts On No, the program does not start

Guess what

fix: Do not show, just use the default locationor: Ask users to select a library location

Glad I did not encounter the previous three

Numbered

fix: Say what happened, why, and what users need/can do

Another time

fix: Fix the site to work 24/7or: Tell users to log in only during business hours

English: Access is blocked! Reason: #34!Please call the Eurobank officer who serves you.

Human: you are trying access outside business hours

Another place

fix: ?!?!or: Link to a travel site so users can book a ticket to USA

what!?

Make me think a lot

fix: Simplify and state the acceptable range

Now I’m lost

Make me stop thinking

fix: No idea

Series of increasing severity

Unusual error… not enough storageUnusual error… no scroll barsUnusual error… catastrophic failure

fix: Fix the code

Not available… Not accessible… or Access denied?

Schizophrenic

fix: Explain in plain words; see the next slide for an example

Why not this instead of the previous message

You may have no permissions to view the content of the folder, or it may be located on a computer with which you do not have a connection. Check your connection and try again or contact your administrator for permissions.

Useless

fix: Show the list of external references or link to it

Unnecessary

fix: Do not show (no need to tell users in a browser that a page will be reloaded; unless the reloading will take 3 minutes)

In progress

fix: No fix needed

In progress

fix: Use a normal progress indicator - see how the others do it

Predictive

fix: No fix needed

Preventive

fix: Maybe change the text of the buttonsor: Avoid the popup – see the next slide

2014: jetBlue “eliminated” the popup

…the message now obscures the input

fix: Make the message non-modalor: Make the user input visible – get back the popup

2015, September

They no longer populate the date fields automatically with today’s date

The OK and Cancel buttons reduced to OK

They still don’t match text and closing

CAPS LOCK IS ON

We sometimes need to type in all caps

Caps Lock is a mode, we often do not notice it is ON

The Caps Lock key is too easy to hit, next to Shift

When typing passwords, we don’t see what we type

CAPS LOCK

fix: I challenge you to design one or two fixes!

Do and don’t

Reconsider the limitations:

why limit the password length?!

Try to avoid messages

Parse the user input: both 12/05/14 and 2014-05-12 mean 12 May 2014

Change the UI: a calendar picker might work well for entering dates

Try to avoid messages: 2

Spare the technical details and build the program around user tasks. Most users don’t care how the program works.

example: “We found search results but will not show them in this mode. Search again on another screen.”

Try to avoid messages: 3

Show a modal message only if you: have no idea what else to do have no time to do a better thing feel, it makes business sense know, it will never show up to users

Use modal messages as a last resort

Any internal message

that is not supposed to be seen by users

finds a way to float to the surface and

shows up to users

Jimmy’s axiom on messages

Coordinate text and closing

We want to do work (have fun, find information) not read messages

Yet we do not want to guess what is going on

Keep messages short, yet complete

+“You have only view permissions”

versus

- “You do not have edit permissions”

Frame messages positively

and before you write “oops“

Think twice before you try fun

Have a reviewerI would rather have one colleague find my splling mistakes than 6 000 000 users

Ask for help

Yes, you can user-test even messages and it pays off

Test with users

1. Avoid messages, especially modal onesDON’T WRITE MESSAGES, DESIGN INTERACTIONS

2. If you have to give a message, make sure it is obvious who shows it what happened why what users can do about it

3. Be practical

Take home

Remember

It is your job to take care of interactions… and messages!

Developers will write the code

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Bonus

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cAPS lOCK pROBLEM sOLVED

My message collection

https://onmessages.wordpress.com/

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This talk is over. I ran out of slides and time. You can comment and ask questions or wait for the next session.

Dimiter Simov @dsimov | EuroIA 2015 Madrid