Enter at Your Own Risk

In a similar vein to a post from 2012.... we have this one taken at the Griffith Observatory.

Filter Failure

I've been noticing the same filters found on Crate & Barrel pop up on a few sites. For the most part, I think they are helpful in helping users find precisely what they are looking for. However, as you hover over a filter that has been used, an "X" displays EXACTLY where the dropdown affordance is usually located, making it very easy to accidentally remove filters that have already been applied.

Once we're on the topic of filters, here's an article on best practices and one that's specifically about horizontal filters (my preferred implementation).

Haptonn Inn Headboards

My husband and I recently had a quick stay at the Hampton Inn in Bakersfield en route to Yosemite. I was rather surprised, perplexed, and frankly disgusted at the "sticky notes" found on each of the headboards. I honestly thought they were left there accidentally by housekeeping. It creeped me out that the message on both beds were different. I felt like I had to choose between the bed with clean pillows or a clean duvet!

My husband thought it was a marketing program (he works in marketing). I googled it - he was right. I was still uneasy with the different verbiage on both notes. Seems REALLY odd to have to point out cleanliness. Seems even odder for beds to have different messaging.

Alert: Get Out of the Way

Another #Fail from LinkedIn...

The most natural task upon accepting an invite to connect is surely to visit the connection's profile page, which is what makes the notification badge quite unfortunately placed.

Perfectly Perched

Was this an accident or were these birds payed to perch on the tree branch in the upper right corner?!

T is for...

My husband I were in the supermarket looking for some decaf tea for him. The Tetley box seemed oddly familiar... 😳

Dictionary, please

I've been getting my hair highlighted for years, but never have I seen a price list this confusing!

Bed Bath + Box = Bad

Shame on you Bed Bath.... I ordered several items for a baby shower and it arrived in 3 orders. This one little bottle brush came package in a ridiculously oversized box. Terrible.

   

Caffeine with a Side of Butter

I can't take credit for this genius move... My husband found a brilliant way to warm the butter for our toast.

Sometimes I Curse the Cursor on LinkedIn

Hover-based CTAs are a great way to keep the page clean while ensuring that actions are contextually placed. However, LinkedIn's hover CTAs are unfortunately placed - the "delete" button is placed vertically below the mail icon, exactly where your cursor naturally slides over the message previews. I can't be the only to accidentally delete messages this way, am I?!

UPDATE: LinkedIn has since fixed this:-)

Multi-Player for One

While searching Apple's App store for "multi-player games", I came upon this... Oh the irony!

Reading This Sign Breaks a Sweat

The Best Western in Big Bear has the oddest air conditioning/heating sign I've ever seen. And why is it placed next to a lightswitch?

UPS? You be screwed.

UPS has got the have the poorest user experience and the worst error messaging. I've been trying for months to figure out the registration process.

Poor attempt at error recovery.

No attempt at error recovery.

Whoop Whopp

Always good to know what sound to listen for in case the alarm goes off...

OmniGraffle 6 Shortcuts

Some OmniGraffle 6 tips I recently shared with my UX team...

Shortcuts I Use the Most (aside from the usual save, copy, paste, etc):

Duplicate:

⌘D (TIMESAVER)

Easy Copy/Paste:

Option and click/drag item (Very useful)

Select All:

⌘A

Inspector sidebar (show/hide):

⇧⌘I

Fonts (show/hide):

⌘T

Color Palette (show/hide):

⇧⌘C

Paste without format:

⌥⇧⌘V (LIFE CHANGING. Works in most apps)

Make into a Table:

⇧⌘T (GREAT FOR MENUS)

Move to Front:

⇧⌘F

Move to Back:

⇧⌘B

Group:

⇧⌘G

Ungroup:

⇧⌘U

Next/Previous Canvas: 

⌘ [ and ] OR Function up/down arrow 

⇧ = shift

⌘ = command

⌥ = option

Shortcuts I’m Currently Learning (I try to learn a few new ones a month)

• special characters: cntrl + command + space
• show stencil:  command 6
• start preso: option + control + p
• show/hide left panel: option + command + 1
• show/hide grid line: command + \
• next/previou scan vas: option [ and } 

Other Tips:

• Hold shift when you drag an object to maintain the position
• Use the Combine Shapes tool
• OG 6 now has double stroke with full. Fun.
• "Scale text and shapes" is really helpful for converting full size wireframes into mini versions to show user flows 
• Format objects with the chicklets

chicklets

ALL TIPS:

In OG > Help > Keyboard Shortcuts (attached)

Reservations about Reservations

A well-designed website can reduce call volume to customer service, or at least direct users to the appropriate department.

I bet the "cute" 800-number for reservations on River Terrace Inn's website encourages travel planners to call the hotel directly and ask to be transferred. I know I was too lazy to decipher the code!

Cancellation Fail

iPsy is a $10/month subscription-based site that mails out deluxe size beauty products on a monthly basis. While I enjoyed my short membership, I was leaving town for a few months and wanted to cancel my subscription.

Easier said than done. Below are a few usability pain-points I encountered on the long journey of cancellation.

1. Users can't cancel when a monthly order is processing. I hope implementing a cancellation queue is on the product roadmap. Pretty poor UX requiring users to come back another day.
2. Users must click through several modals before being able to cancel (see visuals below).
3. While the main task is to cancel the membership, it's treated as the secondary CTA.
4. The primary CTA cancels the cancellation process.
5. Since using the word "cancel" to cancel the cancellation process would be confusing, they used "nevermind" - which isn't even a word.
6. Once finally making it through all the modals, you have to click on a link in an email to actually confirm the cancellation.
7. The email link takes the user to a landing page to sign up, rather than a page that displays a confirmation message.

Modal 1

Modal 2

Modal 3

Modal 4

Email 

Landing Page Clicking Through on the Email

http://xkcd.com/773/

Sign In

I'm perplexed that Twitter doesn't have a link to "sign in" when you try to Follow someone and you aren't logged into the site. When this happens, you have to close the lightbox and click the sign in link in the upper right corner (which is easy to miss).

Clean but Confusing

I'm noticing a trend that places the search "submit" button/icon within the field itself. While I like the clean visual effect, I wonder if this confuses user. I know it confuses me when there's another, unrelated button next to the search field, per the examples below.

It took me a while to understand why the upload dialogue box displayed when I tried to search something on slideshare.com. NOTE: It seems that slideshare.com has increased the space between the search field and upload button since this screenshot was captured.

A colleague of mine kept hitting "new project" when trying to search for a project on InVision.

invisionapp.com