To message or Not to message

4-6 June 2014http://www.uxsofia.com/en

@dsimov

Talk about messages

Good, bad, or necessary evil

No recipe – be practical

Our goal today

I do not like to write messages

WHAT’S IN A MESSAGE?

warning

prohibitory

mandatory

priority

indication

Sign

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

0. Who shows the message

1. What happened (or did not happen)

2. Why it happened

3. What users can do about it

Text

often

usually

sometimes

rarely

Traditionally a button

Closing

WHAT ARE MESSAGES?

I do not want them to upload the contacts from the address book on my phone, so I cleared the checkbox

Then on Sign In…

Install Twitter app on my mobile

… I get this

Now they speak of friends no idea what they mean!?!

And I do not know any of the 48 people they want me to follow

…from Twitter

I get this every time I start Windows

Warning

fix: Do not show

OR: Show more info so users know why this is important and what to do

I get this every time I start Windows as well

Critical

fix: Show option to remove from start-up list

OR: Allow re-installing

Is it that hard to ignore the spaces?

Validation

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

Translation:Your electronic signature is 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 and use my timezone

As you type

fix: Accept Cyrillic

OR: Add to the message that only Latin characters are OK

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

Guess what

fix: Do not show

OR: 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

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

Another time

fix: Fix the site to work 24/7

OR: Tell users to log in only in 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 failurefix: Fix the code

Not available… Not accessible… or Access denied?

Schizophrenic

fix: See the next slide

Why not this instead

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

Unnecessary

fix: Do not show

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: No fix needed

OR: Avoid the popup – see the next slide

2014: jetBlue eliminated the popup

…the message now obscures the input

fix: Make the message non-modal

OR: Make the user input visible

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

CAPS LOCK

fix: I leave it to you to design one or two

DO AND DON’T

especially modal ones

Reconsider the limitations: why limit the password to 12 characters

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

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

Try to avoid messages

Save the technical details:most users do not care how the program works

example: Search results found but will not be shown in the current mode. Users are to do the search again on another screen.

Try to avoid messages - 2

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

is better than

You do not have edit permissions

Frame messages positively

and before you write “oops“

Think twice before you try fun

Have a reviewerBetter a colleague to find your splling mistakes

Work with a writerThese people are trained to write words and sentences

Test with users

Ask for help

1. Try to avoid messages don’t write messages, design interactions

2. If you have to give a message, make sure it says: what happened why what users can do about it

3. Be practical

Take home

BONUS

The best message

source: http://tangra.si.umich.edu/~radev/public/onlybg2/Only_In_Bulgaria_08.jpg

FISHING PERMITTED

CARP1 KG – 3 LV

Non-ambiguousLanguage familiar to target usersNo excessive info; just the necessarySubstantial information - priceGives directionLarge font – can be read from a moving carUnobtrusive

The best message - ever

YOU ARE WELCOME