Audience Experience

If you are trying to explain the concept of "Affordances", you can do no better than to encourage people to play the game "The Room" on the iPad. As this article in UX Magazine reveals, the game is all about providing visual cue to the player as to how certain elements work. To take it a step further, the article explores how the game was created iteratively.  Even if every knob, texture and irregularity were perfectly designed, the user must also engage with the interface (separate thing!) successfully. What the article does not cover is the larger benefits of doing anything repeatedly, with different users/audience members, etc.  Personally, I saw this process in theater as a Production Stage Manager. You can talk about an idea as much as you want.  The WORK doesn't happen until you DO IT!  Figure out what is wrong and what is right.  Get it "up on its feet", and especially in front of an audience.  Check in with the audience and see what the...

I just got an email request to do a survey from a FAVORITE museum.  They sent me an email, addressed me as "Dear Friend". What could go wrong? They said it would take 15 minutes.  (Which is a LOT.  A lot for anyone.  Anything more than 5 minutes is a lot.)  It took longer than 15 minutes.  I lost track when the Progress Bar hadn't moved beyond the half way point after I answered a lot of questions. I left the tab open all day.  Checked in, did a few more answers every now and then.  Not even sure if it mattered after 5 hours.  When I got to the "Just a few quick demographic questions"  (again, not past the halfway mark on the Progress Bar). What got to me was the BAD design of the survey.  In terms of actions and GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods and Selections) which is essentially a way to measure how long it takes to go from a mouse to a keyboard.  If you add it up, it matters.  Especially if you have a survey wit...