Evan Carroll, User Experience Designer
Bio
Evan puts his analytical and diagnostic skills to work developing Web site architectures, performing user research and usability testing, and creating wireframes and specifications. Clients including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, Scandinavian Child and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have benefited from his insight into Web user behaviors.
Evan started at Capstrat as a UXD intern, but prior to coming here, he honed his technical talents with an internship at IBM. As a part of a student team, he performed analyses and made recommendations for increased findability and helped establish a methodology for content analysis and guidelines for content classification.
Taking every opportunity to develop his expertise, Evan worked for local businesses including The Coastal Companies, Cox Investments, Inc. and Blueocean Multimedia. His responsibilities ran the gamut from maintaining Web sites, to developing a database system for sales tracking and inventory from providing customer technical support, to configuring a point-of-sale system.
Evan graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in information science and a minor in music. While there, he served as both the pep band conductor for the Marching Tar Heels and the president of the Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity.
Articles
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World Usability Day
Today is about making our world work better. It's the fourth year that the Usability Professionals Association has celebrated the second Thursday of November as World Usability Day. The event was created to bring attention to usability and its importance in a technology-driven society. Many local events are scheduled around the world today, including one here in RTP. This year the focus of the event is transportation and the UPA is sponsoring the Global Transport Challenge. The goal is to encourage individuals to measure, monitor and minimize the carbon footprint of their travel. While it might be a stretch, it's a great idea to talk about usability and sustainability in the same conversation.
To learn more about World Usability Day, visit the primary site at www.worldusabilityday.org or check out our local event at www.triupa.org.
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Dead Man's Switch
When the gang here at Capstrat set out to brainstorm some ideas for SXSW 2009, we talked about what "digital will" service might look like. We decided that the basic model would allow a user to write e-mail messages and they would be sent on their behalf posthumously. The user would be prompted to check in from time to time to keep the messages from being sent. It's like having a jet ski engine stop when you fall off or stopping a train if the operator isn't touching the controls. It's called a dead man's switch.www.deadmansswitch.net went into beta in late July with a service that does just this. From their site:
This is how this works. You write a few e-mails, and choose the recipients. These emails are encrypted with military-grade algorithms, so you can be sure that no-one except the intended recipient will ever read them. Your switch will email you every so often, asking you to show that you are fine by clicking a link. If something were to... happen... to you, your switch would then send the emails you wrote to the recipients you specified. Sort of an "electronic will," one could say.
The concept here isn't new. People have been writing wills and leaving behind letters for centuries, but now we have an online equivalent. I'm not sure how I feel about having a web server send an e-mail asking if I am alive, but the service is designed to give you several chances to verify your continued existence. I also think these guys deserve the award for the most morbid user welcome message on the Internet:
The last time you showed signs of life before today was on Friday, September 19, 2008. Now you can write a new email, or see the ones you have already written:
Of course, the terms of service state that "it comes without any warranty, neither express nor implied (even the actual sending of the messages is not guaranteed, but we'll do our best)."
What do you think about this? Is it something worth using or too morbid to think about?
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Sustainable Publishing
I recently picked up a copy of Designing the Moment a new book on Web interface design by Robert Hoekman. When I flipped through the book for the first time, I found this listed in the acknowledgments:A portion of my royalties from Designing the Moment will go towards offsetting the carbon footprint of the book's printing process, so you can enjoy the comforts of the printed word without worrying about damage to the environment.
Before even reading the first page of the book's content, I am impressed by the author's attention to detail as evidenced by this message. I think that Robert Hoekman deserves significant credit for understanding the environmental impact of his book. Moreover, I think he should be praised for cutting into his own profits to do something about it.
This is is a significant accomplishment for the publishing industry and it sets the bar for other authors and publishers. Does anybody know of any others who have taken similar steps?
I look forward to reading the book and I'll report back about his thoughts on interface design. -
Personas or Personae... The Age-Old Question
Personas are one of the most understandable deliverables in the user experience tool bag. When used well design teams and clients empathize with the persona and develop an understanding of the user that is essential to great design. I've often heard the word "persona" pluralized as both "personas" and "personae" and as a student of Latin, I tended to prefer the latter. For those who don't know Latin: "ae" is the ending for plural nouns in the first declension (group of nouns that take the same endings) where "a" is the singular ending. One of my colleagues pointed out that it really bothered him when people used "personae" in lieu of "personas" so I set out to figure out why "personas" is or is not correct. Here's what I found.
First Stop: Merriam-Webster (online, of course)
Main Entry: per·so·na
Pronunciation: \pər-ˈsō-nə, -ˌnä\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural per·so·nae \-(ˌ)nē, -ˌnī\ or personas
Etymology: Latin
Date: 1909
1: a character assumed by an author in a written work
2a plural personas [New Latin, from Latin] : an individual's social facade or front that especially in the analytic psychology of C. G. Jung reflects the role in life the individual is playing
b: the personality that a person (as an actor or politician) projects in public : image
3 plural personae : a character in a fictional presentation (as a novel or play) —usually used in plural <comic personae>Clearly us UXDs like the thought of having our work compared to the analytical work of Carl Jung, so the correct form must be "personas." However, the definitions leave room for debate, because the personas that we use are fictional, but they're not literary characters. They reflect the role an individual is playing, but not in real life, as the psychological approach suggests. What a quandry.
Second Stop: Boxes and Arrows (online peer-written UXD journal)
Search Term: persona (75 results)
Search Term: personas (155 results)
Search Term: personae (4 results)It seems that the user experience community has an overwhelming preference for "personas" and that there's a few Latinists out there who just won't give up on the "ae."
I prefer "personas" because it's definition is, in my opinion, more in line with the work we do as UXDs and it is supported by the greater UX community, but I would like to hear your thoughts on the issue. Any takers?
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Social Networking Post Mortem
Last week Capstrat's John Romano asked a few questions about the digital afterlife . I set out to investigate what might happen to my online identity if I were to pass away.Here's what a few online services say about the deceased in their terms of service.
Facebook
"When we are notified that a user has died, we will generally, but are not obligated to, keep the user's account active under a special memorialized status for a period of time determined by us to allow other users to post and view comments."
Yahoo (Flickr)
"No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted."
MySpace
MySpace does not have an official policy in their terms of service, but I found the following in a CBS News article. "MySpace said in a statement it handles deceased members' pages on a "case-by-case basis" and does not "allow anyone to assume control of a deceased user's profile." Profiles can be deleted if that's requested by family members."
Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Brightkite, ClaimID, del.icio.us and Pownce don't seem to have anything formal in their terms. So, in short, they aren't obligated to do anything. My digital identity might live on, or it might not. What is it going to take to bring this issue to the forefront and force the proprietors of the social web to address it? I suppose only time will tell.
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Experience Design: It’s Not Just For Web Sites
Experience design is a primary component in creating successful, high-performance Web sites. We've come to learn this over the last few years mainly because of the plethora of Web sites available that are not optimized for the user. But is this a new problem? I don't believe so. Since the beginning of design, there's been bad design and in many ways we need bad design to appreciate good design. The lack of well-crafted experiences on the Web seems like a new problem because bad designs of the past didn't make it to the consumer. Organizations were motivated by the high cost of producing stores, workspaces, brochures, reports and advertisements to make sure that they produced something of value to their audience.I recently took a trip to IKEA, a worldwide home furnishings store, and instead of carrying a shopping bag I put on my UXD binoculars and made a few observations.
Consistency
The first thing I noticed was a line of shopping carts and bags at the entrance. The sign read something like "borrow one now if you like, but we'll have them right where you need them when you do." This reminded me of providing a consistent set of controls on each page allowing users to search or contact a real person whenever they need to.
Call to action
In the showroom the aisles were marked with large blue arrows to remind you of which way you were heading. This funnels shoppers through a guided tour of different household rooms showcasing IKEA products. This is like having a clear call to action on each page. It lets the user know exactly what to do next.
A clearly labeled alternative
This semi-guided tour was long and prohibitive to running in and looking at only one part of the show room. The folks at IKEA addressed this problem by providing shortcuts to other sections of the store, but not without proper warning. Signs stated exactly what parts of the showroom you would miss seeing if you took the shortcut. This is much like providing users with more than one choice on a page enabling them to explore and experience information instead of pushing it upon them.
On the other hand, IKEA wants you to experience the entire showroom, so these shortcuts were a bit difficult to find. Nevertheless it illustrates the need for good labeling and sufficient explanations to help users realize the results of selecting an option before they decide to click.
Contextual grouping
Pricing in the showroom was also clear; anything which was displayed in a group had an accompanying sign that told the total price of all items in the display. This keeps users from having to figure things out on their own, because the information is readily available and contextually placed.
The right tool, right when you need it
There wasn't a lack of tools to help you make decisions. Several racks were placed throughout the store with measuring tapes, pencils and notepads. This touch resonated with me quite well. It reminded me of configuration tools and wish lists in an online shopping site. They're readily available and easy to use should you need them.
Navigation just the way I like it
I must admit that this was my first IKEA trip, and I was feeling a little disappointed that the store was set up as a showroom. I prefer to look at products by type instead of context. I was hoping to see racks full of categorized products that I could choose from. This was when they surprised me. At the end of the showroom tour the helpful blue arrows pointed me to the "self-service area" full of categorized products, but not without a prominent warning on the floor that I might need a cart going forward. This is not to say that everyone prefers items a type-based organization, but that it's helpful to see the products both contextually and categorically, and allow the visitor to choose one or both.
The dedication to a shopping experience is one of the things that makes an IKEA store unique and I think they have the right to call it "a major retail experience" as stated on their Web site. So the next time you have a shopping experience, put on your UX binoculars and take note of the carefully crafted design, or lack thereof.
Thanks to Geoff our UXD Intern for making the trip with me on foot after a long day of traveling. Expect to hear more of out insights this week as we attend Adaptive Path's UXIntensive in Minneapolis.
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Triangle Tweetup at Capstrat
Capstrat recently hosted Triangle Tweetup 2.0, a gathering of Triangle residents who use the popular social networking service, Twitter. Twitter is a service that allows users to stay in contact with one another by sending short answers to the question, "What are you doing?"
Nearly seventy people attended the event and highlights included a demo of the video conversation network, Seesmic (http://www.seesmic.com ), a demo of Twitter Movie Reviews (http://jazzychad.com/twitter/movies ), and a happy hour at Capstrat's media bar.
Here's a photo of the assembly, but there's many more available on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/triangletweetup).
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