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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Touché
Just when I thought that the Aten Design Group took home the prize for social media tactics, new information has caused me to reconsider the verdict. Yesterday I wrote about the funeral service for Internet Explorer 6 . I praised the Aten Design Group for playing off of Google's actions to create some buzz about their company. Of course, all of this was at Microsoft's expense and they responded in classy form. (Did I just say that Microsoft did something classy? Yes, I believe I did.)
The Microsoft Blog from the Seattle P-I has reported that Microsoft sent flowers to the IE 6 funeral. The card read:
Thanks for the good times IE6, see you all @ MIX when we show a little piece of IE Heaven.
The Internet Explorer Team @ Microsoft
This is such a great response on the part of Microsoft and proof that it's better to play along with social media, than it is to fight it. In the words of Nick Eaton from Seattle P-I, "Touché, Microsoft. Touché."
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RIP Internet Explorer 6
Often a pain for many Web developers, the Aten Design Group from Denver is holding a funeral today for Internet Explorer 6. The funeral announcement, online at ie6funeral.com, reads:Internet Explorer Six, resident of the interwebs for over 8 years, died the morning of March 1, 2010 in Mountain View, California, as a result of a workplace injury sustained at the headquarters of Google, Inc. Internet Explorer Six, known to friends and family as "IE6," is survived by son Internet Explorer Seven, and grand-daughter Internet Explorer Eight.
While IE 6 isn't going away any time soon, this is a great example of how a small company can make waves by playing off the actions of a larger one. The funeral was inspired by Google ending IE 6 support in Google Docs. That plus a general disdain for IE 6 amongst the Web community led to what is sure to be a successful event in Denver and already some great media coverage at CNN and other outlets.
I look forward to seeing the reaction later today, but until then you can enjoy this photo of IE 6 in the urn. All of you who attended Ignite Raleigh last night know exactly what I'm talking about.
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UNC Asheville Web site launches
UNC Asheville and Capstrat launched a redesigned www.unca.edu last week after nearly ten months of planning, design and development. This is a major accomplishment for both the University and Capstrat. Here are a few items of note:
- • The new unca.edu embraces open-source technology. By using the Drupal platform and community-contributed modules the university can easily maintain and enhance the site.
- • The process to design the site was truly democratized. We used their baseline research as a foundation for focus groups and surveys that helped shape the design. The final design was selected via a community-wide survey with unprecedented response rate and decisiveness. Of the 1,200 respondents, nearly 75% selected the now-implemented design option.
- • The Drupal content management system allowed the UNC Asheville team to migrate most of the site's content. It's helping them do more in-house without sacrificing quality. It is now a foundation they can use to migrate the remainder of their Web sites.
- • The site uses user-generated content wherever possible. Community members are encouraged to submit Flickr photos that will appear on the site. They are also using services like YouTube and Vimeo for video content.
- • Finally, and probably most importantly, it embodies personality of the university. We set out to create a design that showed the unique nature of UNC Asheville supported by content that demonstrated that uniqueness through evidence. Large feature stories on the homepage and a profile section, called Faces of UNC Asheville, does this quite well.
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It's time to change
Friday Google announced that it is phasing out support for Internet Explorer version 6, in a blog post titled, Modern browsers for modern applications. W3Schools.com reports that market saturation for IE6 was down to 10.9% in December 2009.
Ten percent is still a significant portion of Web users. And of that group most are likely from corporations who have applications dependent upon IE6 plugins. With these numbers, we at Capstrat cannot make the same decision as Google, but it is the right decision.
If the Web development community continues to support IE6, those users will continue to expereince the Web mostly intact. There's no real incentive for individuals and IT departments to upgrade. Until we break their experience through non-support, they will have little reason to upgrade.
Kudos to Google. Hopefully we'll be along soon.
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Is Aristotle on Twitter?
One of the most perplexing panel discussions I attended at SXSW was “Is Aristotle on Twitter.” And the answer is most certainly yes. Here’s one of the many affirmative arguments that the panelists presented.
Aristotle felt that a good rhetorician held an understanding of current and past events along with a strong theoretical knowledge. They held practical wisdom and could take knowledge of the past and apply it to the current. In order to judge someone’s ability or character, individuals would look to their intuition and decide if they would pay attention to them.
Consider the influential Twitters today. They give good URL references and insight about them. They are good filters of information and aid in community deliberation. In the end, they're simply rhetoricians using a different medium and their status is confirmed by their large audience of followers.
So, Aristotle would probably find qualified rhetoricians on Twitter.
As one questioner asked, if Aristotle is on Twitter, then where is Socrates? A panelist responded, “He’s on Usenet.” I suppose that’s a panel discussion for another SXSW festival.
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Natural User Interactions
I’m sure you’ve all seen the hype about the Microsoft Surface. While at SXSW I had the opportunity to play around with the Surface and attend a panel about natural user interfaces (NUI). The most well known example today is Apple’s iPhone with interactions like flick to scroll and pinch for zooming. When using the demo, I asked about what new interactions we might see moving beyond those on the iPhone. Unfortunately the demonstrator could only pick on the iPhone and didn’t really provide a direct answer to my question. But, he did show us some possible uses and a few utilities that shed some light on its capabilities.
The Surface uses a set of cameras to detect thousands of touch points simultaneously. It has the capability to discern between fingers, whole hands and specially coded objects placed on the Surface. Not only does it allow for multiple touch points, it can serve several users simultaneously. Virtual objects on the Surface can be moved, sized, rotated and spun while expanding. All of these interactions are performed directly with the human hand and feel almost as natural as interacting with tangible objects.
Here’s a video that shows the possibilities of the Microsoft Surface. I’m looking forward to seeing more and more natural interactions come about as this technology grows.
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Augmented Reality
Augmented reality, or the combination of virtual reality and live footage, is on the cutting edge of interactive experiences today. At SXSW John and I attended a panel that discussed the emerging trends in mobile technology. While AR was once confined to the desktop computer with a connected camera, today's mobile phone technology has placed the capability right in our pockets.
Here is an example of an augmented reality pet on an iPhone. Notice how the user is able to interact with the pet by touching the iPhone screen.
You might be thinking that this technology is only for play, but check out this example of using the iPhone's built-in GPS receiver for navigation. While the video is a bit unclear, notice the navigation path overlaid on the current image of the road ahead.
Other applications of this technology include everything from tactical military devices to advertising. Have any ideas for how this might be used for clients? Add a comment and let’s talk.
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Photos from SXSW
Here are a few photos for you from SXSW. Right now Todd Moy and Margot Lester are leading the session called Love in the Cloud: Online-Only Marriages.
The Capstrat darts have been a crowd favorite so far.
Stay tuned for more photos (and insights) from Austin.
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SXSW Guide
As a SXSW newcomer, I wanted to take a minute and share with you the basics of having a great SXSW experience. SXSW is a big event with more stuff to do than you can imagine. If you have a bad experience, it's probably your fault.
Here are my thoughts:
1. Plan ahead. It's easy to miss events because you spend too much time trying to figure out where to go and what to do. Make a schedule and stick to it (unless something awesome compels you to change it).
2. Wear comfortable shoes. The Austin Convention Center is a big place and you'll be doing a lot of walking.
3. Bring a backpack. You'll want to carry around your laptop, a jacket and various other things you pick up along the way.
4. Bring a Mac. I'd estimate an 8-2 Mac to PC ratio. If you want to fit in, visit Steve Jobs first.
5. Speaking of Steve, I'd estimate that 90% of US iPhone owners are here. Okay, maybe that's a bit inflated, but there are a lot of them. So many that the 3G network is simply clogged. Mine's been pretty useless at times.
6. Tweet. Twitter is the official language of SXSW. If you're not tweeting, you're missing out.
7. Bring your battery chargers. With all of this Tweeting and blogging, you’ll need to recharge.
I'm sure there's more, but that's all I have for now. Feel free to comment with others.
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User Centered Design is Dead
Midday on Sunday I stopped in to listen as Jared Spool led us on a Journey to the Center of Design. Okay, I admit it--I didn't plan on going. Truth is I was too lazy to walk a mile across the convention center to another panel. Well, not only did I save my soles, I got the better end of the bargain. I'll go ahead and say that this was the best presentation I've attended thus far. I Twittered my way through the panel, but I'll provide you a summary here.
1. There's no evidence that UCD has ever worked. We've seen marginal success, but nothing overwhelming.
2. Apple has all but closed their user experience division. Microsoft runs over 15,000 usability tests per year. Who has the better experience? Yeah, interpret this one for yourself.
3. Process is how we do things. Methodology is a repeatable process. Dogma is something we believe without any logical reason.
4. Every successful organization that Spool has studied doesn't have an official corporate methodology for UCD. Except One. That one has a VP whose job it is to release people from the official methodology.
5. Process includes techniques and tricks. Tricks are things we do when the preferred technique is too lengthy or expensive.
6. UCD is a dogma and it's time we change it.
7. The placebo effect works 60% of the time. UCD work is placebic.
8. It goes without saying that the point of user research is to inform design.
9. Most usability tests end the same way. Developer says "If we'd known that two years ago, we would have done this differently."
10. Analytics can be interpreted in conflicting ways. Eye tracking is voodoo.
There are three core user experience attributes that make a difference: Vision, Feedback and Culture.
Vision.
Can everyone on the team articulate the experience of using your design in five years?
Feedback.
In the last six weeks have you spent more than two hours watching someone use your design or your competitors designs?
Culture.
In the last six weeks have you rewarded a team member for creating a major design failure? This indicates a culture that learns from failure.
The UCD dogma is dead. Informed design is here. Let's go.
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