Blogs

We all have some vague notion that we can’t visually focus on everything in our field of vision at once, but just how little can we really see at once? This is a very important question for web designers and information architects. James and I are working with Andy Edmonds of StomperNet to build a browser type application “that simulates the limited high resolution vision available to humans as they use the computer”, called or
Foveal Gaze Simulation Software Scrutinizer.

Basically the app applies a filter over the web page your viewing that allows the region around your mouse to be in focus, while the rest of the screen is blurred out. This is to illustrate the difference between what your fovea and periphery of your eye see. This way you can see what your users see more or less and apply some usability best practices to improve conversion or generally make your site easier to use. Specifically you can make adjustments like button positions, whitespace, navigation bar headings and typography. The idea is to use the science behind vision to improve your site without really needing to understand it all;-)

James built this app with AIR. Using the HTML functionality to implement a simple browser and Flash to create the filter over the web page. We had a few interesting challenges getting the page interactions and events to work through the Flash filter, but it’s working pretty well now and will only get better:) On interesting feature you might miss is that you can adjust the size of the focused region with the mouse wheel. This simulates the narrow detailed foveal view when zoomed vs the larger less focused foveal view for rapid scanning when zoomed out.

The masses really are starting to think that usability is cool, even Scoble plugged Srcutinizer! Quick buy some shares in user experience!

Scrutinizer is free, so go download it.

[Update] There’s a super handy Top 10 uses for Scrutinizer posted on the site that includes suggestions simulating eye tracking in a usability study, testing findability, assessing the ease of a multi step process and more.

Web designers can watch how visitors behave on sites

What are you looking at?

Sometimes, website designers don’t see the flaw of their own creation that deters a site’s visitors. They are so familiar with the site they built that they think everyone will be able to use it as easily as they do. If you want to see how people are really using your web pages, use Robot Replay to watch them interact with your site.

It’s neat to see RobotReplay picked up by some mainstream media…I wonder is that means it has a much broader appeal than we first thought. I do feel like usability and user experience are hitting main stream vogue, but I may be stuck in an echo chamber. Help;-)

Dave Johnson just put up a post titled “Ajax Alive and Kicking” that looks at where Ajax is today and what some of the new innovations in the space are. He identifies the key factors in why Ajax is still continuing to the be successful versus other RIA technologies and in particular Flex.

An additional benefit to Ajax (HTML + JS) is that its interactions are somewhat measurable, which is much more difficult in the Flash world. If you put Google Analytics on your Flash site and you don’t get much, a little bit more now with “Events” in Google Analytics but not much. How meaning is a page in the historical sense in an RIA? Of course this falls down in Ajax sites too, but tools like our RobotReplay are springing up to fill that void already, but I don’t see the same happening for Flash/Flex. Of course we’re looking at it, but it’s definitely a chicken and egg thing. One might choose Ajax over Flex because they can measure interactions and effectiveness of their public facing Ajax more easily, and we chose to build RobotReplay for Ajax first because more people use it. This is a very important decision if ad revenues and/or conversion rates mean anything to your business.