We just completed another release for www.intuitlabs.com based on the findings from the Sep 15-17, 2008 usability test.

Some of the tweaks we made include:
- More “buttony” buttons in a more consistent treatment
- Better descriptions for the apps in the app listing areas per category and in all apps listings
- Descriptions for apps now include: Free or Paid, Requirements (web browser, mobile, etc.)
- new “get app” button for all app detail pages

Stay tuned for future enhancements in obtaining your feedback for all the apps!

Here are some visual comparisons of “before + after” for this release.

On September 15-17, 2008, we tested this web site with 10 users who came to the San Diego Intuit usability lab. We wanted to test the site for basic usability on finding an application and leaving feedback for it with a side focus of re-thinking the homepage. We showed users 2 new homepage designs as well as the NokiaLabs current homepage. We then asked each participant to sketch out a new homepage design for Intuit Labs.

Please let us know what YOU think of the sketches that our testers came up with for the new homepage. We are planning a new release soon, so here is your chance to comment on what you want! You can comment below or just email us at intuitlabs@intuit.com. Stay tuned for a revised design for the new homepage that we will need feedback on!

Here are some user sketches of a possible new homepage for Intuit Labs

We look forward to your thoughts.

By the way, here is the unofficial wrap-up of the usability test (the official report from the lab comes out on Tues).

Strengths
- small mission statement is digestible
- navigation bar works great
- categories work well
- sorting buttons make sense
- count me in page was cool
- who we are page was a big hit (just keep it small)
- (concept) letting users vote for ideas was cool
- (concept) submitting ideas was cool
- almost everyone’s favorite piece of technology/gadget is their mobile phone

Areas for Improvement
- spotlight on homepage takes up too much room + people prefer having the most active / popular in that area instead
- ability to comment on a comment is missing (ala facebook style)
- talk to us link should be a web form
- users wanted comments moved up higher on the app page
- most of the testers were not bloggers and did not understand RSS feeds
- some users did not know that the apps are created by Intuit (is this good or bad?)
- “see all apps” button on homepage is not obvious
- app listings and app details pages need improving (mention free or paid, text links should be clearer call to action, what it works with should be clearer, what it is should be clearer too)

I first learned about Schmap when my friend Holly was invited to post one of her New Mexico pics on a Schmap travel guide. Not long thereafter, I got an email from Emma Williams (managing editor, Schmap guides) asking for permission to use one of my Barcelona shots (xocoa chocolate shop in the Barri Gòtic) for Schmap for the iPhone. Today my friend Denise was asked by Emma to use one of her Paris pictures for the iPhone. Wow, is that not the coolest Web 2.0 thing?

xocoa image by Anna

I love to travel and take pictures and post them on flickr, that is a fact. My dream job would be working as a photographer for National Geographic.

What I am so completely enamored by is the way that Schmap makes you want to do work for them. They satisfy a small part of your ego that wants to have:
- your pictures become famous on an iPhone travel guide tool
- recognition and linky love to get more eyeballs on your travel pics

The big surprise? I don’t want money for any of this. Just the knowledge that my name and my pics are posted for others to enjoy and use as they traverse the narrow streets of the Barri Gòtic in the gothic district of Barcelona, is good enough for me, and brings a smile to my ego.

Here is what I am thinking of for my next social contribution. Schmap ALLOWS and WANTS users to create their own travel guides to places that are not up on the site yet.

In my opinion, they have completely harnessed that “ego driven” desire for people to show off their stuff and are having people MAKE things for THEM for NO MONEY. That’s amazing and such a great example of the power of ego and social.

This may be old news for all die-hard delicious lovers, but my favorite online bookmarking site has done an incredible job redesigning their site.

This redesign includes a tiny amount of visual touches but just enough to make a difference. From the looks of it the main focus of the redesign was on information architecture updates and adding lots of yummy functionality additions (that were really lacking in the old version).

I honestly didn’t know I was missing all these wonderful additions, until I started using the new site.

Here are some wonderful additions:
- 3 levels of info to view your bookmarks on main body zone
- the main body area is so clean and easy to read, love the date stamp too
- tags are better organized on the right column zone
- my tag bundles look nice
- they added a “top 10 tags” area, i love that including the # of tags for that word
- overall the information about your tags is more transparent and not buried
- they make better use of the tag info in a way that helps you and makes you stay on the site longer

I think I am jaded and bitter as far as online experiences. I am not normally “delighted” that much anymore. This morning I was looking for someone on twitter so I copy/pasted their name but something is up with their account. Instead of seeing a “person not found” or fatal error message that makes me feel stupid I got this.

“Something is technically wrong.
Thanks for noticing - we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.”

The interesting thing here is that it didn’t make me feel stupid. Instead, I felt ok with the situation, I will let it go and go back later on in the day to see if this gets fixed. I also really loved the illustrations on the page - they diffuse a potentially maddening experience with some good solid humor and cheekiness. This is always effective when dealing with jaded users, also known as me.

It is common knowledge that an application’s intelligent, responsible and/or humorous response to a user’s bad situation will create a good emotional response from that user.

In an increasing competitive market with a multitude of similar type of applications, having this kind of focus on emotional design will really make a difference when the dust settles.

What have you seen lately that has surprised you as far as “wow - this was unexpected and it made me feel good, not stupid”?

I wonder, how long have I been using tags? Jenny reminded me that we officially started the internal iLab blog with tags in December of 2005. I would guess my use started sometime between Aug 29, 2005 (when Jenny started) and Dec 2005.

TAGS. I cannot imagine my life without them. It is like fast forwarding commercials on my DVR, listening to my SIRIUS satellite radio on my commute, driving my Prius, breathing air, and going on a long run. I simply would not function happily without them.

A tag is only as valuable as the word that was chosen. You need to name it something that you will remember in the future or else you will not find what you are looking for. This is an interesting challenge and makes all us our own information architects for ourselves. Tagging is only as good as what you will recognize and remember! - quote by me!

I did not immediately understand tags when I started bookmarking my web sites on del.icio.us. I finally went “wow” after a week or two of using them. You need to use it to get it. In the meantime, I will do my best to describe them here and hopefully convince those of you who aren’t using them to at least give them a shot.

Do you see all those words on the right column area of this page? Some are small fonts, some are bold, some are extra bold and big and some are tiny. Depending on the number of times that something was categorized as that tag, the more instances of the bolder and bigger font style.

A great example of tags is on flickr’s most popular tags page.

Currently, wedding, travel, family and vacation take up the space as the most popular tags on flickr. If we click on “wedding” we can see all the photos on flickr that were tagged as “wedding” and that happens by the person who uploaded the image to begin with. Fortunately, flickr’s organizer for pro members makes it easy to batch edit photos and add tags easily so you don’t have to tediously add a tag manually for each picture. I have more important things to do with my time, like play with my baby!

Think of tags as future time savers. - quote by me!

Pick a memorable tag name so that you will find whatever it is when you are looking for it in future.

Some examples of sites that use tags for navigation:
- Blogs (see the categories on the right? Those are the tags. You can quickly see what the blog posts are about and it might help you decide if you want to read this regularly)
- Photo sharing sites (flickr lets me find or explore anything by browsing or looking for specific tags (or terms like “rome” or “siena“)
- Bookmarking sites (del.icio.us lets me bookmark sites i like so I don’t lose them, and I quickly search for sites in the future by scanning my tag cloud and clicking on the tag that matches my search)

My current issue with tags is controlling the increasing volume but still keeping the transparency so our users get what they need quickly. What do you think? Do you use tags? If so, how can they be better and more useful? I only provided a tiny set of examples here, please comment with links to different, better, new use of tags here.

Also note what I tagged this blog post as: “delicious, flickr, tag, tagging, tags”

I finally watched the 2006 documentary “who killed the electric car” and I am stunned, STUNNED, that the media is not talking about this renewable wind-powered clean energy source for cars. Wind powered energy sources can charge my electric plug-in car? Are you kidding me? Why isn’t this happening now? No gas, no oil, no dirty emissions!

side note from the movie: It is quite humorous that in 2006 they talked about $3/gallon gas prices as shocking - whereas the US is now reaching $4/gallon.

I have owned my Toyota Prius since April 2004 and I love the money it saves me, the quiet shut-down of the engine at red lights, the nice PZEV low emissions, and the cool comfy inside! What I don’t like is paying $17.50 for 5 gallons of regular unleaded, having to get oil changes every 4,500 miles, and worrying about being dependent on gas to get anywhere!

I did some research after watching this movie and there is a lot going on right now for plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEV). If you are interested in looking further I have a list of links below.

• EVER Monaco 2008 official site
• Pics from EVER Monaco Car Show in March 2008
• flickr pics on EVER Monaco show
• IMDB user comment on the movie
• Hymotion - supposedly coming soon to a dealer near you (how about tomorrow please?)
• Hybrid Consortium
• CalCars - The California Cars Initiative
• squidoo article on plug-in hybrids
• Rechargeit blog

PHEV seems to remain a controversial subject in the USA - is it the car companies, the consumers, the government lobby groups, our slower-than-molasses-change mentality that is delaying this LOGICAL innovation for us?

You be the judge - what do you think about all this? Have you seen the movie?

My family and I spent 7 years in Greece (we were there from 1978 to 1985). My parents went back there for 10 years when they retired but decided to come back to the States now that they have a grandchild.

A couple weeks ago, my dad was showing me some of my childhood “stuff” from my old school days at American Community School (ACS) of Athens, Greece. I found some cool art projects, spelling tests, math notebooks, a report on Ancient Egyptian mummification, and a painted tee shirt I had made in Fifth grade (1981 when I was ten years old). The tee shirt was painted with bright orange + purple colors and a caricature of a kid with sneakers on the back and the words “Happy Runner” on the front.

I had to laugh when I saw this; its been 27 years since I made that tee shirt and I still feel the same way.

Here is why I am a happy runner:

• I can stomp out any stress, one step at a time
• I unravel problems and come up with solutions in the calm relaxing stomp, stomp of my run
• Its making time for me and being outside with nature
• Healthy Mind + Healthy Body = Balance
• Competing with myself for faster miles is fun
• My innate laziness gets defeated with a good long run
• The more miles I run, the more problems fade away
• Inner calm and peace is mine
• I love stretching before and after each run, it is the reward part of the run!
• Running 10+ miles puts everything else in perspective quite quickly
• I need to push myself with extremely difficult goals and meet them well
• Running is in my DNA - my Greek grandfather (my Papou) was a marathoner most of his adult life and started training me in 5th grade running up steep hills in Voula
• I placed 1st in a boys+girls running race in 1981 and have been hooked ever since
• I have a deep need to spend time by myself and running alone meets that need perfectly
• I am a competitive person by nature and love running races
• New mom of a 9 month old running her 3rd half-marathon is great for bragging rights
• Music, Music, Music…. my iPod is my best training buddy along with my QuickBase Running Journal, I love jamming to Jamiroquai, OutKast, Kaskade, Junior Jack, and Daft Punk of course, they just keep me moving!
• Last but not least, I can now fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans, yay!

So for everyone who thinks I am crazy for running, maybe you should try it, it could change your life.

Holly and I really enjoyed this session from 37 signals founder Jason Fried, I will give you the highlights here.

1. Optimize for now + don’t get paralyzed by fears and the great unknown

2. Who knows and who cares about “what if” questions

3. The decisions you make today do not have to last forever

4. Change if you need to

5. Be successful and make money by helping other people be successful and make money

6. Spot chain reactions and be the catalyst

7. Target non-consumers + non-consumption so you can be a disruptor

8. To compete with the biggies, just fly under the radar and grab customers that they don’t have

9. Question your work regularly
- why are we doing this?
- what problem are we solving?
- is this actually useful?
- will this change behavior?
- is there and easier way to do this?
- what can’t we do?
- is it really worth it?

10. Read your product (bad copywriting is big problem now)

11. Focus more on words and less on pixels (words are cheapest and easiest to fix)

12. Err on the side of simple

13. Go easy way first (try to complete 3 things in 1 week, not 1 thing in 3 weeks; morale is important for team)

14. Resist the urge to try to do more the next time around

15. Invest in what doesn’t change (ten years from now people will still want speed + accuracy from Google and fast shipping from Amazon)

16. Follow the chefs (they build by sharing and give recipes away to promote themselves)

17. Interruption is the enemy of productivity (Passive communication reduces interruption, have a “no talking Wed”)

18. Business Planning/RoadMaps send you in the WRONG direction (its all made up and meaningless)
- They lock you in the past
- its ok to think about the future, just don’t write it down
- do the right thing at the right time

19. Be Clear in Crisis (be open, honest, public and responsive)

20. Make TINY decisions = No big mistakes
- break it down to atomic level
- keep knocking one little thing at a time
- celebrate little launches - morale feeds off of progress

21. Everything you do should matter! Make it matter or don’t do it!
- every pixel, every blog post, every design, every word

and finally..

Watch out for these Red flag words: beware when some says “i need x and it can’t be too difficult, its only this one time, its easy, and I need it fast”
- need
- can’t
- easy
- only
- fast

One of the biggest surprises for me from SXSW was the fact that I didn’t walk away with earth shatteringly new solutions for our problems. Instead, I had a clearer outline of everyone’s common problems.

Some problems looking for solutions include:
- How do we better utilize crowdsourcing?

Jeff Howe
“Using crowdsourcing as a cost-saving measure doesn’t work, community must be cultivated, respected and managed if they are to create economic value.”

- How do we build active communities online?

Derek Powazek CEO, Pixish
“Communities are Grown, not Built. People aren’t bricks. We need to create an environment where people want to be. Give people the tools they want. Trust them to do good. Reward good contributions with ego stroking, not money! Publish the bad. Expect the unexpected.”

- How do we incorporate the use of tactile in our applications?

Eris Stassi, Interaction Designer, Apple
“Twittering is an example of a tactile experience translated to digital environment. How do we introduce tactility to the digital environment?”

- How do we get more emotional in our applications?
- How do you monetize social media?
- How do you monetize mobile?