Video: Change Blindness

UX Magazine just posted an interesting article about an occurrence called "change blindness." The article includes videos of the experiments carried out that support the phenomenon.

The experiments are enlightening, mainly because it's amusing to see the scenarios unfolding. As a spectator seeing how evident the differences are, it's surprising how the subjects in the videos are oblivious to the changes. It would be interesting to see the full quantitative data from the experiments to see the percentages and variation by variable. The videos clearly reinforce that user behavior needs to be tested to validate expectation and minimize the difference between actual behavior and desired behavior. I would have expected more participants to notice. Then again the video is probably not be representative of the participant sample.

The end of the article states:

"What are we failing to capture when observing people using the products we design? We [as UX professionals] need to reserve space in our work for uncovering those things that we don't know we don't know, and make it an official part of the process."

This is quite obvious and a good reminder especially when rolling out new features that seem evident to those working closely on the project.

Color Scheme Tool - Review

As a designer, I'm always looking for color scheme tools and wheels that are efficient and fun to use. Color Scheme Designer is the most interactive and fun one to use I have found thus far. It also has numerous features for a free color scheme tool as well.

Dislikes:

• Absence of Reset Button: the only way to reset the colors and start fresh is to refresh the page from the browser refresh button
• Overlay Interaction: certain examples pop-up as an overlay (notably the light color & dark color page examples). These pop-ups lack a 'close' button. The only way to close out is by clicking beside the overlay so by clicking on the backdrop or by pressing on the 'ESC' key which wouldn't be evident for the average user.

Likes:

• Interactive, clean interface design, detailed features.
  
• Several Color Models: choose whether you want a monochromatic, complimentary, tetrad, or analogic color scheme. Do you want to use one or several colors and how they should contrast each other.
  
• Color Vision Simulation: shows you how people with color deficiencies will see the chosen palette and what percentages of people have the deficiency. (A dislike is that the percentages lack information on whether the percentage relates to the world population, a specific country, or a continent.)
  
• Export: you can export the color palette (hue blocks, color list and hexidecimal values) as: html and css, xml, text, Photoshop Palette and finally GIMP Palette
• Undo - Redo buttons: enables you to easily undo or redo a color change you've made while tweaking your color scheme
• Random Option: random option gives you ideas of palettes to use if you're lacking inspiration
  
• Adjust the Theme: You can adjust specific hues in the theme
• Light Page & Dark Page examples of the scheme once chosen
• Show or Hide Tool Tips: in case you need a refresher or what a 'tetrad color model' is.

Another color scheme tool I've used in the past is ColorBlender.

Google's new fade-in experience

Google recently rolled out a fade-in effect to their homepage.

After playing with the fade-in experience for a few minutes, I really didn’t see the advantage of the new fade in experience. The article does mention that after months of testing they’ve rolled it out. So my first question is what exactly were they testing? The page seemed minimalistic enough that new and existing users wouldn't find too many hindrances to their tasks since the search engine page had limited tasks to begin with. The official Google blog mentions they tested several variants of the fade-in experience. But why change the homepage experience to begin with and why was it a priority? I haven't found any answers yet.

I'm the first to agree that less in more but in this case it seems like it was a either a waste of time and resources on Google's part or simply a clever way to generate buzz about themselves because of the imminent release of their Chrome browser...Looking forward to the next version of the Google homepage.

When Was a Web Page Last Updated?

Are you eager to know when a web page was last updated and don't see a last modified date anywhere on the page?

Here's an easy tip that will give you that much needed information. Type the following code into your browser's address bar: javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

After clicking on the "Enter" key, an alert box will appear telling you the exact date and time the page was last modified. Voila!

CAPTCHA : double-edged sword

A CAPTCHA is, in technical terms, a challenge-response authentication process. In plain english, it's simply a question on a webform that requires a correct response from the user who is filling out the form to make sure the user is human and is not a computer. The process consists of a computer generated image displaying text, usually a combination of numbers, upper case letter and lower case letters, and a text field below it. The feedback was developed by humans in order to reduce spam created by robots filling out web forms.

Upon filling out a form, the user reads the CAPTCHA (they started out as a simple words such as 'boat', 'goat' and so forth), types in the exact word or sequence of letters/numbers in the CAPTCHA field and finally submits the form.

The thought behind it was fairly simple: humans can read text in an image format whereas robots (non-humans) wouldn't have the ability to do so. However, technology has been catching up and can now easily read certain CAPTCHA images and therefore different methods now need to be used to prevent technology from reading the CAPTCHA. The only way to prevent them from reading it is by rendering the text less legible which of course make it less legible for humans as well. Methods such as striking out the text, crowding the text together and distorting the text are all currently being used and in certain instances all being used at once. which makes the CAPTCHA unreadable.

See below the latest CAPTCHA image I encountered. Can you unambiguously say what the sequence is?







Now what was once a solution to avoid spamming is creating a huge usability an user experience problem. My average number of attempts to validate, or get the right answer, when filling out a CAPTCHA is three attempts. Frustrating to say the least.
What have your experiences been or what solutions have you found to solve the problem?