Media: UIE analyses the Process of Recommending

"The Road to Recommendation" by Jared Spool looks at the jump from observation in usability findings to recommendation. He starts his latest article with an example: 'I didn't feel we had enough information to go from "the user didn't see a link because they didn't scroll" to "our users don't like to scroll." That's a huge jump and I wasn't ready to make it.

'When working with teams, we see this same problem all the time. They are so anxious to fix things - fix anything - they rush the process of analyzing what they saw.'

He outlines the four steps of analysis: Observation, Inference, Opinion, and Recommendation.

'The first question we should always ask, when drawing inferences from our observations, is, "What are all the different causes for these behaviors?" We should state all the alternative inferences we can for each set of significant observations we come across.

'Once we've compiled our list of alternative inferences, we now need to deduce which one is most likely. This is not just about having a statistically significant data sample. This is about collecting enough data to prove or disprove a given inference.'

Associated Link: UIE: The Road to Recommendation

Online poker company uses Science to assess Player Preferences
Source: Recentpoker.com, 8 January 2009
 
Working with customer experience consultancy Foviance, PKR is exploiting the benefits of electroencephalography (EEG) technology to gather information on poker players' emotional relationship with a brand or service.

Do Users really love Laptops?
Source: channelinsider, 7 January 2009
 
More than one-fifth of all laptop computers will break down over the course of their life, and other limitations frustrate their users. From this list of user complaints come laptop opportunities.

User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
Source: Webcredible, 6 January 2009
 
You’ve conducted your user interviews, but now you need to make sense of all that information you’ve gathered.

Why Products Fail
Source: ComputerWorld, 5 January 2009
 
Most gadget and software makers don't understand what users want most: control.

How to Design Websites for Mobile Phones
Source: stemkoski.com, 3 January 2009
 
Tips from Ryan Stemkoski's web design blog.

Pioneer of Cyberspace honoured
Source: BBC, 2 January 2009
 
A professor who invented a forerunner of the world wide web has been made a dame in the New Year Honours.

2008 in Review: Developments that rocked the world of User Experience
Source: Catalyst Resources, 1 January 2009
 
A look back at 2008 highlights some of the key developments that rocked the world of user experience.

2008: The Year Online
Source: MIT Technology Review, 31 December 2008
 
The business of social networking, cloud computing, and a flaw in the fabric of the Internet top the most notable stories of 2008.

Shoveling through the Spamalanche
Source: UN, 30 December 2008
 
A ‘Spamalanche’ of 3,000 emails will be waiting in your inbox by the time you get back to work. What can you do besides 'delete all'?

New guidelines boost Web Access
Source: BBC, 29 December 2008
 
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a new standard to make sites more accessible to older and disabled people.