Stock photography vs. reverse image searches

For companies with respected online brands using stock photography can be a terrible disservice to all Web site visitors and your online reputation. In user tests at Interface Guru, we have found the more tech-savvy users (like engineers and programmers) are particularly intolerant of stock photography and will think less of a brand if they see it used on a Web site.

Stock photography recognition is no longer a skill limited only to the more fluent Web users. There are now tools called reverse image search engines available to all users. With these specific search engines, users can instantly discover the source of an image on a Web site as well as find other Web sites using a particular image.

Caption: A sample Tin Eye search found 77 uses of this image

Here is a quick breakdown of the more popular reverse image search engines:
1) TinEye (http://www.tineye.com/) - Exact match of an image uploaded or image URL linked by the user. Arguably the most popular of the reverse image searches, it even provides plugins for Firefox and Chrome browsers. With a simple right-click on an image, users can check to see if your graphics are used elsewhere on the Web.
2) Byo (http://labs.ideeinc.com/) - Searches for images based on similar colors.
3) Gazopa (http://www.gazopa.com/) - This engine will search based on color and shape similarity.
4) RevIMG (http://www.revimg.net/) - This reverse image search is focused more on art and architecture. It looks for the exact image (just like TinEye), but users must specify the artistic category that applies to the image before they can conduct the search.
5) Google's Similar Image Search (http://similar-images.googlelabs.com/) - While less robust than specific reverse image search images, this functionality is now built right into Google Image search returns.

Caption: Another sample search from Tin Eye

Chris Barton, photography blogger, has an entry where he uses a reverse image search to find all instances of sites using a particular employee stock photograph: http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2010/03/microstock-why-would-reputable-company.html

In a follow-up entry Chris provides a risk assessment breakdown of all your available options for providing images on your Web site:
http://fairtradephotographer.blogspot.com/2010/04/microstock-how-to-avoid-poisonous.html
He rates stock photography as the highest risk to your organization and creating your own images as the lowest risk.

At Interface Guru, we agree that using stock photography is a risk - you do not know what other Web sites have purchased the image and are using it on their site. Your images on your Web site should be as unique as your company; create your own graphics and images on your Web site and tailor them to match your content.

- by Kyle Kulakowski

Good food, great Web experience

Recently I ordered Domino's Pizza for the first time in years and discovered that the new sauce isn't their only innovation. Their new Web site includes the Domino's Tracker, an application that gives you the real-time status of your order (the Tracker activates after an order is placed, so I'm including a screencap from a recent order). A glowing status bar tells you exactly where your pizza is from the moment you place the order, to when Terrence puts it in the oven, to when Dmitri the delivery driver is en route to your house. It's a great example of online customer service.
One of the drawbacks to delivery service is the open-ended nature of the delivery time. A quoted delivery time of 45 minutes could mean anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes before that pie hits my counter. As the timer ticks down I often end up perched on the edge of my couch, eagerly jumping up each time the outside gate creaks only to be disappointed by my neighbor's face. As a customer, I love the transparency offered by this app. No more guessing about if I have time to take a shower or run to the bank.

That simple addition to their Web site made for such a great brand experience that, a week later, I ordered another pie just so I could get screen caps of the Tracker in action. Now my only question is how long will it take other brands to do something similar?

Babysitting the interface: The myth of self-service

As we prepared for another road trip and the attendant joy of air travel in America in 2010, I was musing about the common sight of a human being helping passengers use the so-called "self-service" kiosk. It was in that frame of mind that I went to Facebook; I had to laugh when I saw this screen with the instruction: DO NOT CLICK THE "Go to Application" BUTTON ON LEFT!

Human intervention with software, Web pages, and kiosks is a regular occurrence across corporate America. You see it first-hand at airport counters, supermarkets, a co-worker's desk. We see it inside call centers and controlled environments. How much does this cost business, education, and nonprofits every day?

Well into the year 2010, we are still seeing an utter failure to budget - or even account for - the design of information structure, meaning: Where will this digital media experience begin and end? How does the user know where he is in the morass of content? How do you know whether you've seen and experienced all the content? How does he get to related content? Did anyone design or plan this experience? What are the opportunity costs related to this basic failure of planning?

In 2000, seven years into the commercial Web, a failure to plan and structure digital media interaction was understandable. Skeptics were still expecting (or hoping) that the Web would die. In 2010, the failure to plan and structure digital media is unforgivable.

If your digital media project lacks a budget item for information design (information architecture, task sequence design, user interface design), it is destined to under-perform and disappoint. Web sites and applications, software applications, kiosks, intranets, instrumentation interfaces - any digital implementation must include planning and architecture beyond simple functionality and appearance.

The Self-Service and Kiosk Association begins to address the usability issue in a blog post by Stephen Kendig, but the industry is just beginning to scratch the surface. If we use the Web as an object lesson, bad information design proliferates more quickly than good design. We will be living in a dystopian reality if the same problem propagates across self-service in a world that seems determined to eliminate human-powered customer service. The current economic woes will only exacerbate the problem.

If we're going to eliminate the human from the equation at all the transaction points of daily life, the digital interface must be bulletproof. Else we are destined for the worst of both worlds - unhappy customers, unhappy workers. Babysitting an interface is no one's career goal.

Verizon: I love the Droid. I hate the Web site. How do I register for My Verizon?

On hold with Verizon for the second time after a dropped call... the problem is not my new phone or your great employees. It's - guess what - the My Verizon Web site! This is a great example of how brand experience must remain consistent from the Web (great promo site), to the physical store (great customer service), to the product (the rockin' Droid), and then back to the Web (broken Web site for account self-service). After much research on the Android phones, I finally settled on the Droid. I've had it for 24 hours and I love it. I got great service from Steve Liermann at Verizon's Park Place Tucson store (where I set a record for number of contacts transferred). And then... I tried to register for My Verizon Business version. Big mistake.

I've completed the registration form six times (twice in Safari, four times in Firefox). The Verizon rep is experiencing the same errors. Either the form asks me to input the business contact number (already there) or the wireless number (already there). There is clearly a bug in the form since the error toggles. Plus common interface problems (fields for phone number entry) that sure do look like sheer laziness.

After an override by the rep we finally got the My Verizon account set up. Time lost: Nearly one hour.

Verizon: Your network rocks. The Droid rocks. Your employees rock. Your My Verizon registration experience does NOT rock. The little laminated card you gave me with registration instructions says, "we've got your back." Not so much! It says all I need is my phone number. Not true.

This problem could easily be solved. We at Interface Guru would be happy to help.

If this is what buying the Droid via ecommerce would have looked like, I probably would have given up. Verizon! Wake up! Love ya mean it but fix this Web site!

Do you play the game or does the game play you?

Over the past weekend, I had the opportunity to use my Nintendo Wii and explore a game called Silent Hill: Shattered memories. I found the game's use of the the interaction capabilities of the console noteworthy. I won't give a review of this game here; however there are many user experience and interaction concepts that are set forth in this game.

WARNING - major spoilers ahead for anyone looking to play the game.

1.) Adaptive psychological personalization. Before you get to the main menu, the game will give you the following warning:
The game tracks how you respond to certain criteria (as well as the in-game psychology tests) and alters major elements based on that data. The game’s monsters, major locations, even how secondary characters look and act will vary for each person that plays it.

2.) Wii Remote interaction. The biggest problem I have had with the majority of Wii games is that few titles fully integrate the Wii Remote capabilities into gameplay. This is not so in SH:SM. The main use for the Wii Remote is as the game’s flashlight (if the player waves the Wii Remote around, the main character will mimic the action in the game)…but that is not all. The Wii Remote also functions as a cell phone (the player will have to hold the speaker in the Wii Remote to their ear in real life to hear phone calls in the game – just like they would a real cell phone).

3.) Attention to realistic detail. You can also place calls in the game – if you see a phone number anywhere in the game the character can dial out to it. Very few of these phone numbers are directly related to the game’s main plot. They are simply there to increase the realism of the game environment. BELOW: The player can call something as unnecessary as a toy recall hot line.


4.) Natural actions. In SH:SM, a majority of the Wii Remote actions are natural actions. If a monster latches on to you from the side, you will have to make a sideways push motion with the Wii Remote to get it off of you.

5.) Cueing user interactions. The player is given control cues at the appropriate time in which they are relevant. The player is not overburdened with memorizing all possible Wii Remote uses at once. BELOW: The player is cued how to answer a call only when the phone rings.


6.) Real-world benefit. At the game’s end, the game’s psychologist will transcribe a detailed profile of the player’s personality. If you play through the game honestly, it is a fairly accurate representation of your psychological profile. BELOW: The start of a multi-page analysis of the player that runs over the game’s credits.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories was released on December 8th, 2009 and bears a Mature ERSB rating (with good reason).

View a full walk-through of the game at this user's YouTube account.

- by Kyle Kulakowski

Privacy policies: Impacting conversion and online sales?

The last few years have yielded discussions of the role of text in interface, or text as interface. Stepping away from conventional interface design for a moment, we applied the principle of text as interface to an evaluation of the privacy policies on Amazon.com and Yahoo.com.

What did we find?
We learned that Amazon's privacy policy is highly specific about the type of information it harvests about its users, whereas Yahoo glosses over much of the same information. The end result is the appearance of a lack of transparency on the part of Yahoo, compared to Amazon's extremely specific and open policy statement.

Why does this matter?
Our usability studies have shown that privacy policies and clarity of how well they're stated directly impacts a user's likelihood to complete an interaction. Amazon and Yahoo both admit to collecting the following information:

• Email address
• Login, name and password
• Cookie information
• Address
• Occupation
• Social Security number
• Personal descriptions/interests
• Software and hardware attributes
• IP address

What else is collected?
Yahoo remains vague, whereas Amazon specifies that the following information is collected and why:

• Computer and connection information such as browser type, version, and time zone setting
• Browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform
• The full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) clickstream to, through, and from our Web site, including date and time
• Content of reviews and e-mails to us
• The phone number you used to call our 800 number

Who else gets my information?
While both companies state that your information is shared with third parties and trusted partners, only Amazon lists names, which include:

• Target
• CD Now
• Verizon Wireless
• Sprint
• AT&T

Google Dashboard - a move in the right direction

Google's announcement today of Google Dashboard is a start in creating greater transparency. It allows you to view and manage information that Google is currently capturing. For example, you can view privacy policies and manage setting for all your Google accounts such as Blogger, GMail and Chat, view which of your data is private and which is visible to others, and remove items from your Web history.

We at Interface Guru encourage you to make use of tools and services that openly declare their usage of your personal data. Facebook's lack of transparency has been a recent hot topic - and rightfully so. Stand up for your digital rights!

Do bad things happen when developers design user interface?

We work with some incredibly talented development teams around Web sites, Web applications, and software projects. Unfortunately, teams missing a user experience specialist often find that they cannot come to consensus on what the user interface should look like, or what it should do. This leads to a sub-optimal user experience, with the common result being that powerful software functions are invisible to the user. That wastes money - and obscures the excellent work of your team.

The cost to business of skipping the critical planning stages - which include user profiles, usability testing, information architecture, user interface design and task sequence design - is incalculable. Skipping these steps means endless hours of expensive meetings where everyone has an opinion, but few have real data.

Stop for a moment and consider the areas of expertise your employees own today. Is there someone on staff with formal training in user interface design? Information architecture? Task sequence design? If the answer is "no" or "sort of," it's time to start adding up the cost of all the hours spent in meetings with no consensus, so you can reallocate those funds to usability training or professional services that will bridge the gap.

Ads that interfere with navigation are bad for everybody

Can we all agree that ads should not display in front of dropdown navigation? Check out this Suave (not) leaderboard covering up top-level dropdown navigation. By the way, the nav on the left of the page does not correspond in any sane way to the dropdown nav, so God help you of you actually want an alternative way to find that item you now can't reach in top nav. Who wins here?

Bamboozled by Wacom's set-up UI

I finally got round to setting up my Bamboo graphics tablet from Wacom... probably the sixth Wacom I've owned. Love the product, package design, functionality. Here's the glitch: You have to run the visual tutorial to set up the tablet and pen (okay), but what happens when the UI locks up? I got a Director error twice, restarted the tutorial, and was finally stymied by a "press space bar to continue" dialog. This is a great tool, but the tutorial for install of the product suffers from overdesign. I understand that someone designing a tutorial for this very slick product would be tempted to make it as cool as the tablet. But you know what's *really* cool? When you can actually complete the tutorial without aggravation.

When FREE is a lie - personal info and privacy, astrology.com

Back to my favorite (of late) whipping boy, astrology.com: This iVillage site should not assume its loyal readership will stick around. The outdated visual design now suffers even more from intrusive advertising that I close immediately (if a popup). The term FREE on "today's three special offers!" is deceptive, because as soon as you click through, you will see it -is- FREE - but you must submit personal information, which these days is worse than asking for money. How many people exit the transaction at this point? iVillage, are you looking at your stats?

Word on the street is that astrology.com is about to face some stiff (and contemporary-looking) competition. Time to review metrics, conduct usability testing, and redesign this very outdated interface. I visit regularly and it seems someone has decided to experiment with varying placement of elements on the home page.

Other problems on astrology.com: No dates on items like Tarot readings. If today's cards are the same as yesterday's, why should I trust the site?

In closing: Clicking through to the Numerology offer, which requests full name at birth and full name used today, as well as email, does not offer a visible privacy policy. Oh, and the browser window titles don't match the pages.

iVillage's success with this site is at risk.