So for some of you out there, you are probably wondering why the Twitter update box is the last thing you see on the right. Twitter has been having scalability issues lately, so thousands of blogs (like my own) have been showing a big blank space.
I’m not particularly upset about it, because it’s a free service, but reading some of the updates from friends, they are.
Well, what do you expect? You aren’t paying for it.
We should never complain about a free service. We should complain about stuff that we pay for (i.e. software). It’s like talking about how much MySpace’s or Facebook’s user interface doesn’t support the user. Of course it doesn’t support the user, the site is for the advertisers.
That begs the question — would you pay for Twitter? Those servers and text messages cost money, so someone’s paying for it. And that’s the big question most of the “free” services have: how do you make enough money to keep the doors open without pissing off your constituency or driving traffic to competitors, some of which have figured out a way to be smaller but more profitable.
Read: Google Maps vs. MapQuest.
Google Maps is sort of free to a certain level, because advertisements display and they don’t charge to use the API unless you generate a ton of traffic like Yelp (note to developers, add that to your business plan).
MapQuest isn’t free, and they make more money even though there isn’t nearly the traffic as Google.
Free to the user isn’t a business model in all cases, and in some cases, a more usable product is actually a less profitable product.
Honestly, I’d pay a couple of bucks a month to keep twitter going because I like the idea of it being a web service. There really is no advertising model there, because the messages are so short, and since it’s mainly a web service, it shouldn’t have too much advertising.
Nick Dynice has a great rant about design and usability, and some of the points — like we should expect more — are rightfully so. Read on…
Edit:
A quote from a comment to the post: “The price customers pay for software and the level of usability they get with that software is inversely proportional.”
So true…
Flash is overused, but this is a good article on the best uses of Flash. Some of the points are pretty much, “duh.”
Look at the Caller ID on your phone, and don’t recognize the number? Caller Complaints is a community policed database of phone numbers that are basically telemarketers. The Digg style complaint rating is very, very cool.
I’m going to start reviewing the applications of MySpace I come across that I think have some value. Most of them have a serious fun factor — did you really think any of them were going to be actually useful — but there are a few of them that truly extend the profile.
Not all applications are about usefulness: Pokey is this great little animation of your own little pet on your home page. The dog fetches frisbies, digs up bones, needs to eat. There’s a definate fun factor here, and the animation is one of the best I have seen for a while.
Don’t pay enough attention, the dog barks. Go away for a long time, the dog sleeps. Feed the dog, and a bag of dog food appears (I hope they are charging Science Diet for showing the bag and logo). It’s cute, but I don’t think it has a ton of lasting power.
It’s easy and fun to use, but there are no viral functions to the application — it just seems people just add the application through the application gallery, and you would think they could use the dog to send messages.
There are no monetization applications for this now. We’ll see where it goes.
Application rating (1 to 5, 5 being highest):
One of the forgotten facets of User Experience is that User Experience is everything on the website — the writing, the usability. It’s also if the site works from a functionality standpoint, and if there are system issues that don’t allow the user to complete a task, that’s a poor User Experience.
I ran into an issue at the Virgin America site — I tried to upgrade a seat from a premium to first class at check-in (which, by the way, is only a $50 upgrade on the day of the flight). My friends have been recommending the airline, so I decided to give it a try, because the price wasn’t much different than Alaska.
The issues were:
System issues like this are just as frustrating to the user as poor usability; users don’t know why things are going wrong, and sometimes assume that it’s something they did. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen during usability testing where a user would hit reset when hitting a javascript popup dialog.
Testing of a site is especially important if the site is an e-commerce site, like Virgin America, because it directly hits the bottom line. It’s all about ROI, baby.
The one usability issue I saw with the site was the color of the buttons (actually, the lack of color):
That continue button is really hard to spot. I would have made it dark gray (all the positives that color), to move the user along). The placement of the buttons was correct (positive to the right).
I do know that this site was designed by an agency (they were probably built the site also, and most agencies don’t have a lot of technical talent). Sometimes the look of a site should not take precidence over the usability of the site, especially when it comes to buttons.
On a good note, Virgin America honored the upgrade and did a wonderful job with their customer service, and the website had one important link — a mail to — so I could email the issue to their web team. I commend them for doing things the right way!
I wasn’t paying attention (big surprise), but this came across my RSS feed: SharePoint + SilverLight. Looks like a good read. The original post is over at the SharePoint Product Blog.
Well, not really. But this white paper covers a lot of the technology and it’s a bit techy for my taste, but you get a pretty good idea how to create a Social Networking feel to MOSS pages.
Stolen from a work blog. Go here.
Patrick Neeman is Director of User Experience at Jobvite, a social recruiting platform and runs both the UX Drinking Game and Startup Drinking Game | More | Contact
