Identify or Die: Do You Know What This Symbol Means?

Take a close look at the icon above. If you saw it on your car's dashboard, would you know what it means?

You better: Your life may depend on it.

According to cars.com, one out of three drivers surveyed did not understand this difficult-to-decipher warning light. Which means that more than a third of drivers on the road today are in danger of creating a major accident if this symbol suddenly lights up.

The article says the icon is supposed to be "idiot proof," but as we've learned in thousands of usability tests, there is no such thing when it comes to symbols. The real "idiots" here (Hey, if they are going to call us idiots, then I'll throw it right back at them) are the designers and developers who don't label their icons. Everyone who sees a symbol for the first time has their own image of what it represents.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a word will prevent a thousand pictures - and in this case, save your life.

No, I won't tell you what the symbol means (Take a guess below first), but you can read the original article and explanation here.

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

Out-of-the-grid design - when is it a good idea?

My longtime partner in Internet adventure, @jackpowers, posted this today:

@Jack Powers Eff usability, I love great design. RT @onextrapixel Characteristics of Less Conventional Websites w/Examples http://bit.ly/19iDHq

So I checked it out. Jack's got excellent taste, and the examples provided by Charlotte at onextrapixel.com are gorgeous, modern, compelling.

My take: I adore great design. As a fine arts major, I remember grumbling about why we had to master still life before creating abstract works, about the excruciating color-chart exercises. Eventually I understood that I needed those fundamentals before I could truly abstract.

We'd love to see a Web full of sites like those at oneextrapixel. But as a working (not theoretical) information architect, I must say that the best candidates for this sort of visual design are professional visual designers and hip development shops (there are quite a few portfolios there) and, of course, entertainment, where the non-conventional approach has always been appropriate.

Information-rich Web sites need to have gotten Web 1.0 right before moving to the unconventional Web site. This means branding, strategy, user priorities, information architecturem user interface design. All the boring stuff that creates a truly usable Web site. Then we can (if justified by mission) move on to abstraction.

Jazz musicians must master the piece before they can improvise. We look forward to working with clients that have already mastered the Web fundamentals so we can take them to the next level. Until then, our job is to get them to master the fundamentals. And to keep an eye on beautiful design, so we can lead the there when the time is right.