We’re accepting daily entries until 5:59am PST of the Facebook IPO opening day.  See below for details:

What are the prizes?

Grand prize – One year “Enterprise Unlimited” subscription with unlimited web & mobile user tests for your entire team* $100,000 value.

Second place – 50 free usability tests ($1,950 value)
Third place – 10 free usability tests ($390 value)
Everyone wins! – 1 free usability test ($39 value)

How to play 

Entering takes only minute – follow the 3 steps on the entry page:

Read about our usability study on Facebook.

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We’ve completely redesigned your account page. It’s now a “Dashboard” that’s going to make your life a lot easier.

1. Search — Anything and Everything

Instantly search comments, user names, annotations, question text, and URLs to find the exact video you’re looking for. You can easily sort and filter the results by status, rating, date and more.

2. Share With Your Team

Once you’ve found the perfect video (or collection of videos), simply click the action bar and instantly share the joy of fresh user testing videos with your team via

•  Email
•  Publish to Web URL
•  MP4 Download
•  Embed Code
•  Excel Export

3. Play Tasks

It’s like a DVR for usability tests. Go right to the task you want to watch.

You no longer have to scroll back and forth searching for where a tester started Task 4, just choose the desired task from the new Tasks Pane and be teleported right to that section.

4. Create a Video Clip from an Annotation

This feature has existed for a while, but we’ve added a friendly reminder. When you notice something noteworthy in a video, click in the annotation text box (the video will pause and the timestamp will be recorded). Save the comment and then click the “Create Clip from Annotation” icon. Individual clips can be emailed and downloaded in a variety of formats.

5. Categorize Results with Labels

Gmail style labels allow you to effortlessly organize your videos by type, project, department, client or any other schema you can dream up… Good, Bad, Ugly, etc.

Five free user tests go to the person who emails us the most inventive label set at support@usertesting.com!

5.5 Social Envy

If you aren’t following us yet on Twitter, don’t delay, follow today. You’ll find epic usability fails, links to the latest research from usability experts and new product announcements. Plus, we always like to hear from you, so send us your ideas and comments @usertesting.

P.S. We’re hiring! Do you know someone in Silicon Valley who’d like to work for UserTesting.com? We have lots of new job openings in development, marketing, sales, UX, customer service, and more.

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Usability improvements don’t necessarily need to be time or labor intensive. Companies have been shown to save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year annually from such low-effort changes as removing a button. We also know these potentially high effect improvements can result from the feedback of only five study participants.

This is Part II of of Adam Kochanowicz’s guest post on usability heuristics. See Part I here.

6. Fitts’ Law

Fitts’ law is an equation as a function of size and distance from targets.  Important targets such as “Join Now!” buttons should be larger and closer to other objects of proximate importance.

For web applications, you can use a trick of putting objects of the highest importance at the computer screen’s edge. Because mouse cursors stop at the edge, these elements basically have infinite width in terms of Fitts’ calculations.

To make a general assessment of Fitts’ law in your application, ask yourself:
• Do the size of my objects make sense in terms of their importance?
• Are navigation and action objects far enough apart to prevent errors?
• Are commonly used items grouped or closer together than less used, less relevant items?

It’s important, however, to not take Fitts’ law too far. Just because you want an item to be important doesn’t mean it should be big. Remember there are several fundamental design principles which catch our eyes, high contrast, rarified colors, focused objects, motion, and discontinuity, just to name a few.

Fact: If everything is important to you, nothing will be to your users

Don’t be afraid to let go.  I can’t tell you how many times this has happened: I start a project where an application has pages with several elements all at the top of the page competing for attention. While I try to prioritize the visibility of certain parts as a function of their importance at a certain stage of the user’s flow, each element is preserved by the company because “it’s important!”

The result is a cluttered homepage where users’ attentions are divided among too many too important things. With Fitts’ law in mind, focus on your top business goals and make it clear for users to take the desired action.

7. Users Should be More Efficient than your Application

Bruce Tognazzini has an excellent example to explain the paradox of user vs. system efficiency:‘…which of the following takes less time? Heating water in a microwave for one minute and ten seconds or heating it for one minute and eleven seconds?

From the standpoint of the microwave, 1:10 is the obviously correct answer. From the standpoint of the user, 1:11, as the user must only press the same key.

A separate but related component to this concept is the reduction of latency for the user. Reducing latency, also known as “multithreading,” is all about your application’s ability to perform tasks in the background or shift the user to other parts of the application while other tasks are being performed.

Tip: Perform tasks in the background so users don’t have to wait

For example, Google does not interrupt me from writing a document while it performs saving operations. Instead, a small banner of text tells me the state of the application. Facebook is able to convert the picture I’m about to post to a thumbnail while I’m still writing the message about said picture.

To empower your user to be efficient, ask yourself the following questions:
• When do my users have to wait?
• Can my application take on some of the user’s work?
• Can some tasks be performed simultaneous to the user’s interaction?

8. Help and Documentation

Of course, the ideal application needs no help or documentation. But we should never assume we are building such an application.

Documentation need not be a dominant element in an application, but it should be findable and associative. That is, users should be able to get to help quickly if needed and understand where to get help on specific parts of the application without a ton of searching.

At the same time, we are bound to ask ourselves if help elements are a feature or a burden. Help should always associate itself to the parts to which it provides assistance.

Tip: Help should be small enough to ignore but large enough to find when searching for it

Ask yourself these questions for a quick assessment of the availability of help in your application:
• Can the user get help at any point?
• Are my help elements a feature to those needing help but not a burden to those needing not?
• Does my documentation clearly refer to the elements it documents?

9. Balance Adequacy and Minimalism

Simplicity is a tremendously misunderstood concept and is often confused with “minimalism.” This was true after the initial Google explosion, the success of Twitter, and the prolonged comeback from Steve Jobs reclamation of Apple and its line of consumer products.

Simplicity = a balance of being minimal and adequate

Minimalism is about giving users what they want and need without dividing their focus amongst less relevant features. Adequacy is about having important and sought after features accessible, even if wrapped up neatly into an application which is minimalist in appearance.

Before you take away items from a page for that trendy ‘minimalist’ look, ask yourself if that really provides a benefit to the user. In addition, consider the following:
• Is information digestible or focus-dividing?
• Can the application provide abundant information and action without a cumbersome interface?
• Can large areas be broken up into parts (when beneficial to the user)?

10. Anticipation

I believe this is where UX talent and user relationship intimacy shines. Your application should have solid information architecture. This means items are findable and are the result of accurate anticipation of what the user wants or needs.

Good anticipation is reflected by the application’s employment of Fitts’ law, layout of items in the view, and complementary navigation, just to name a few. When I’m buying an iPhone on Amazon, I’m also shown links to get a case and accessories. While this is more likely motivated by cross-selling, the system has anticipated logical next steps to my purchasing of the device.

Ask yourself these questions:
• What actions logically follow common routes in my application?
• Are items where users would expect them to be?
• What auxiliary components can I sensibly offer to users in accordance to their desires/needs?

Conclusion

Take some time as early on in your application project as possible, even if only the first ten minutes of your morning coffee, to answer these questions.

If you already do user testing, avoid quantitative measurements (measuring users against target goals) until you have done enough qualitative measurements to generate the kind of questions from your users these heuristics can summarize.

Author’s Bio Adam Kochanowicz is a UX Specialist for Debtdomain.com in New York City. He writes regularly on User Experience and UI design at adamkochanowicz.com. Follow him on Twitter at @yourwebsitesUX.

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I’ve successfully employed these ten illustrated usability heuristics, based on the work of Jakob Neilson and Bruce Tognazzini, to countless situations where deadlines were strict and budgets limited.

These heuristics do not stand to replace the work of a usability professional. Nevertheless, the simple things that pop out from a brief heuristic analysis can be tremendously useful.

1. Statefulness

A common issue I’ve found in applications is the lack of some message telling me that my action is still in the process of executing. Without this, it is difficult to know if the system is actually doing anything after I press a button or if there was an error.

Let users know where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going. Breadcrumbs, titles of pages, and meaningful link titles (in that order) are a great way to do this.

Ask yourself these questions when assessing the statefulness of your application:
• What does my application look like when a process is loading?
• Can users easily see interruptions or updates to the application while they use it?
• How do users know their requests were successful?

2. Error Catching

I’ve seen a lot of startups ignore good error catching and it’s understandable why. When you’re building an application, it’s natural to be very focused on it working as perfectly as possible. Yet, we need to humbly anticipate that both our applications and our users will fail to interface with one another properly.

Ask yourself the following questions to insure you’re catching errors appropriately:
• What does an error (user or system) in your application look like?
• If the error was caused by the user, does the message give the user an easy way to correct it?
• If the error is caused by the system, is this clearly conveyed to the user?
• Does the application avoid losing the user’s state (e.g. entered data) after an error?

I should also mention one of the most infuriating examples of failure in this error: Make sure the application preserves the user’s state if it can.

If I incorrectly enter information into one field of a form, I should not have to redo the entire form.

3. Error Prevention

Even better than catching user error is preventing it in the first place with a smart system. Phone numbers can be entered in a number of ways. (e.g. 5555555555, 555-555-5555, (555) 555-5555, 555.555.5555 in the U.S.)

“Garbage-In-Garbage-Out” describes a method of making a good point of entry for information. In other words, if a username shouldn’t be more than 10 characters, don’t let me enter more than 10 characters in the first place. Doing so completely eliminates the need to take me back to the form and inform me to shorten the username myself.

Ask yourself these questions to determine how well your application prevents errors :
• Can users generate errors in ways my application can prevent from the start?
• Does my application provide inputs which could substitute a user’s own error-prone input?
• Can a set of options be limited in a way which does not take away from the UX?

In this UserTesting video, the Home Depot user is not informed item is flagged for store pick-up until the end of checkout process in an error message.

4. Time Machining

Give users the ability to move through time. Let users return exactly to where they were before or skip ahead if needed. This is also a way to give users an emergency exit if they end up in the wrong place or take an action they later regret.

Giving users the ability to control the timeline of your application need not be an overhaul of its logic. Provide some simple undo actions in certain areas. Forms should have a “cancel” button. Dialogues should have close buttons. Allow users to change their passwords, undo actions, and revisit areas they’ve been already.

In this Walmart.com video, the user does not have the ability to ‘X’ out of a dialogue box to search stores by area code, and instead must press the browser back button to get back to regular search.

Ask yourself the following to maintain a user’s ability to move in both directions :
• Can operations be undone?
• Can users find where they’ve been before?
• How far back are users able/need to be able to go?

5. Offer an Express Route

Be careful with this one. Some users don’t need all the help you can throw at them while others will need a surprising amount of assistance.

Offer a way for users to ignore assistance while still keeping help text and functions present and findable. Define common defaults for your applications so (most) users won’t need to manipulate the application in those areas.

For example, a “Choose your country” drop down should hold the country most represented by your user base by default. Not everyone will be from the United States, but most of your users will be able to skip over this input while others will easily be able to change it.

To offer your fast-paced users a way to use your application, consider the following questions:
• Are all demands for information absolutely necessary?
• Do my inputs have defaults?
• Can some settings sensibly be reserved to “opt-in” or “opt-out” in other areas of the application?

In Part II of this guest post, Adam will discuss Fitts’ law and other usability guidelines to optimize your site.

Author’s Bio Adam Kochanowicz is a UX Specialist for Debtdomain.com in New York City. He writes regularly on User Experience and UI design at adamkochanowicz.com. Follow him on Twitter at @yourwebsitesUX.

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Organizations like the Google-funded CodeForAmerica and the Kauffman foundation are trying to change that. Investor Ron Conway and Mayor Ed Lee are leading the charge to keep San Francisco at the forefront of tech, with the newly announced sfCITI (San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology & Innovation).

As part of the plan, Mayor Lee announced goals for San Francisco’s online job portal, at the 5th annual TechCrunch Crunchies Awards on January 31st. His intention is to connect local talent with the city’s fastest growing companies.

The Test – SFgov.org and HireSF.org

With over 35,000 San Francisco residents looking for work, UserTesting.com conducted an independent study to test how easy it was to perform the following tasks on the city government domains:

• Find a job
• Find career resources (i.e., resume help)
• Find information on education and training programs

We had 5 U.S. testers randomly selected from our pool, ranging from age 27-62 test out the city website. We hope the findings of our study help the local government pinpoint usability problem areas to fix:

1.  Navigation needs improvement

We asked users to find career resources on the city website. There are 4 categories, Connect, Live, Visit, and Work on the main menu. A user cannot find job resources under any of these categories. The Work category appears only to provide links for businesses — not for workers.

Homepage navigation menu titles unclear.   Job seekers cannot find helpful links under ‘Work’ category

The only way to get from the SFgov.org homepage to HireSF.org, which provides resources to both job seekers and employers, is by clicking ‘Hiring in SF.’ None of the users on our panel initially associated this link with job search or career resources.

2. Forms should function in expected manner

Jakob’s Law of the Web User Experience states that “users spend most of their time on other websites.”

If it looks like search, users think it acts like search

The How Do I…? feature of the website failed users on multiple occasions. Only pre-set links were accessible via autocomplete, which users had to mouse down to select from a dropdown menu. If  a user simply entered text and pressed Go, they were taken to an empty search results page with a ‘Sorry’ message.

Blooper: The user in the video below selects the “Library Classes” category in the dropdown menu, but got the same ‘Sorry’ message for no results.

Moreover, users found it unnatural that the pre-set choices in the dropdown list did not ‘complete the sentence’ — ie How do I? [pay a parking ticket] or [find a job].

3.  Eliminate overlap between agencies

We revealed there is no obvious link for jobseekers to HireSF.org, the comprehensive site for resident job seekers, on the SFgov.org homepage. The closest thing which users found, is a link for City Jobs under “Most Requested.”

The ‘City Jobs’ link takes jobseekers to the Department of Human Resources’ general homepage, SFdhr.org. A job seeker has many options, but can click Employment Opportunities under Job Seekers on the Department of HR main menu. This link redirects users to jobaps.com/sf. This domain only lists city government jobs.

Below, screenshot of San Francisco’s government-only job portal, jobaps.com, with a pop-up message that some browsers blocked

The search jobs field is all the way at the bottom of this page — which a user in our study who arrived at this page initially missed.

Department of Human Resources sites (SFdhr.org and jobaps.com/sf) & HireSF.org could be streamlined

HireSF.org includes both public and private sector jobs, and we suggest there should be one main destination for jobseekers, accessible from multiple access points (including and especially the SFgov.org home page).

4.  Get rid of roadblocks

For the users in our study who were able to get to HireSF.org from the city homepage, accessing career resources on it was challenging.   One of the UserTesting tasks was to “find tips to improve your resume.”  When users click the link to ‘create a resume,’ they are taken to a text-heavy prompt.  There is a notice in red font, a log-in form for registered users, and multiple paragraphs containing information.

Took user over 2 minutes to find buried registration link required to access resume tips

It took the user in the video above over two minutes to realize she a) MUST register with the site to access resume help and b) click the link “Individual” under Option 2  in order to do so.

AND THEN user must fill out a long form which asks for Social Security Number

In past user studies, we’ve consistently observed that users are turned off by long registration forms. If San Francisco’s goal is to empower the workforce, this mandatory registration serves more as a deterrent.

5. Let users explore options and provide enough details to make an informed decision

Mobilizing the workforce translates into skill training. Our study revealed that users had difficulty finding relevant courses or training programs on the city website to set them on track for a career at a local tech company.

Help put users in the shoes of an enrolled student

If a user successfully reaches the HireSF.org site, and clicks the correct link for ‘Education and Training’ programs, they do not “see the possibilities.”  This user expresses frustration at not being able to determine what types of courses that were offered.

Users, like the one above, clearly seemed to miss the second tab ‘Program Listing’ which lets you browse an alphabetical course list – up to 100 at once. Rather, users just kept trying to use the default search page, and were not happy with the results. Search produced either minimal results (1 or 2 programs) or overwhelming lists (hundreds). Furthermore, users could not narrow results by city.

Our panelists thought the website did not provide them with enough relevant details to select a program. Cost, ranking, and closest location are key conversion drivers in the continued education market — yet users cannot scan this information in search results.

Users should be able to easily peruse information that helps them decide

This section is in need of an overhaul. In the coming weeks, Zynga and other local tech companies will be helping Lee’s administration pinpoint skill gaps in the workforce to help identify what training programs to promote.

Conclusion

For the mayor’s mission to be achieved, the city could consider streamlining navigation of SF government sites and optimizing pages for accessibility and functionality.

Does your state or local government need usability testing?  The U.S. General Service Administration (GSA) currently offers free usability testing to contestants who submit a video clip exposing issues of their website, in their First Fridays Product Testing Program.   This month’s deadline is March 9th.

Run a usability test on your website, and get video feedback within the hour to improve conversion.

Featured image courtesy of New America Media.

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Register by Friday, February 10, 2012, and they’ll give you a free UserTesting.com study.

Free mini-usability study details:

• Watch users search Google for what you offer
• Watch users perform common tasks-such as placing an order-on your website
• Watch users naturally search the Internet to research your company’s credibility

What UserTesting.com will provide you:

• We’ll set up and run a 3-user test of your site.
• We’ll give you the complete videos of these three sessions.
• We’ll annotate the videos, make clips of the highlights, and write a summary of the key findings.
• And it’s free

To take advantage, simply register for the workshop by February 10th.  After you register we’ll ask you for the URL you want tested.  Then we’ll get to work.

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Home screen gets cluttered quickly 
The Kindle Fire shows users all the apps, web pages, and books they’ve recently accessed on the home screen on a sliding icon carousal a la iPod album covers.

This can quickly become messy with various media, as items are not organized by type.

Be careful not to leave your Kindle Fire lying around the house if you want privacy, as anything you’ve downloaded recently will automatically appear first in the slide.

Navigation challenges amplified by screen sensitivity issues 
There is no home button on the Kindle Fire found on all Apple mobile products, making the Fire require a bit of adjusting for those accustom to iOS devices.

The user in the video above wants to find the page she bookmarked. To do this, she tries to activate the menu by tapping on the screen. Unfortunately the finger tapping motion also can trigger a page turn. She finally succeeds, but is frustrated stating, “I don’t feel like I did anything different” from her first attempt to her last. She suggests there should be a hot spot on the screen to activate the menu, since there is no external command button, to avoid unintentionally highlighting text or turning the page.

Browsing the web takes 2 fingers and a handful of patience
Simply put, it’s harder to navigate full websites on a 7″ screen. Browsing the web on the Kindle Fire requires heavy use of the two-finger activated zoom function. Reading navigation menu links without zooming in can be straining, and users face the fat finger problem of clicking on the wrong link.  In the user video below, it took some maneuvering around the page to identify the “find a store” button on Target.com’s menu.  (Note: Target.com did not redirect to a mobile site.  Read our usability study on Target’s redesign.)

Text field unresponsive on regular retail web site
Moreover, the user experienced difficulty activating text forms on the Fire. When the user tried to enter a location to find a Target store, she has to tap multiple times in the text box before the cursor activated.

Mom still shops on the big screen
While mobile html sites are on the rise, the majority of the web is not optimized for the smaller screen. The Kindle is sufficient if you are shopping on Amazon or downloaded an Android app.  Zappos pads its menu items with extra space for better mobile usability.

Many retailers still lag behind the mobile trend.  Yet even with the best mobile optimized site, my mom insists she must see the item (clothes, furniture) on her 18 inch computer screen before she buys.  

The Kindle Fire makes it simple to purchase digital content from Amazon, but for stores without a mobile optimized site or Android app — it’s easier to go back to your computer to shop.

Dad doesn’t need the Cloud to read a book
Amazon Cloud Drive is great for computer owners to store documents, pictures, and mP3s as a back-up (the files are hosted on servers at various datacenters – not in the sky). My dad brushed off the “Cloud” vs “Device” option on the Kindle Fire.

Here’s why:
- His old e-book purchases from his lost Kindle had transfered as Amazon had a record of them
- The device had plenty of storage
- He wasn’t going to read or purchase an e-book on another device

If users wanted to clear Amazon e-books on their Kindle Fire to make more room on their device, a “purchase history” feature could enable them to be downloaded again for free.  It feels like Amazon is trying to push the term “Cloud” to be more ubiquitous for all our storage needs, even when we don’t need it.

Get what you pay for
The Kindle Fire is a great deal. It makes an excellent e-reader and its tablet functionality (the ability to browse the web, stream videos, and use rich mobile apps that require internet connection) — while no iPad 2 — is probably worth the $100 more than the regular Kindle and its basic text based browser.

If you have a computer and an iPhone/Android phone already, its harder to make the case for the Fire.

Fact: My dad so far has only used his Kindle Fire as an e-reader.

It is difficult to identify the marginal benefit of getting a Kindle Fire over a regular Kindle (which lets you read, check your email, and play Scrabble to your hearts desire) for multi-device owners other than how it made my sisters and I appear less stingy than if we had gotten our dad the cheaper plain version.

Verdict: Save more money, and consider getting the regular Kindle
Unlike the Fire, the regular Kindle famously does not reflect light for those holidays in the sun.

But if you’re able to afford the pricier iPad 2, go for it — or you can win one from us by submitting your best UserTesting.com clip to krugclipcontest@usertesting.com.

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UserTesting.com sat down with Murat Konar, user interface designer for Marionette, Pixar’s in-house animation software. He started out as a software developer working on pioneering multimedia software including Flash and SoundEdit and earned a Masters in Interaction Design from the Royal College of London.

UT: What’s it like designing tools for internal users? How is it different from the consumer products you’d worked on before?

MK: Our user base is small, so we have really spiky user requirements. Sometimes you need to accommodate the peccadilloes of a single person because he can’t or won’t change the way he works. The challenges of designing for a small user base were a big surprise to me.

You’d think that being in the same organization–really close to your users–would be a dream situation, but it’s a double-edged sword. Users who only see their own small part of the puzzle will request that you design a feature the way they want. It’s a challenge to maintain design integrity that might not matter to particular users but is critical to the long term viability of our system.

Since we’re replacing a system that already exists, people already have ways of doing things. We often want to improve the way they do things, but sometimes people don’t like change.

Another thing that’s not obvious: organizations who make software for the general public have self-selecting users. When you make a design change, users who are unhappy with the change drop off and new users replace them. (Hopefully you have more new users than lost users.)

But our user base is captive. They don’t have the option of using anything else. We have to satisfy everybody.

UT: You’ve been at Pixar 6 years. Does the fact that employees stay a long time affect your work?

MK: Yes. There’s a culture that has grown up around the use of our old tools. some in use for nearly 20 years. It’s natural for people to resent having their old culture usurped, even if the replacement is better.

On the other hand, we’re constantly challenged to do new things that haven’t been done before. There’s not a sense of settling down. It keeps things from getting stale.

Every new film has its challenges. Features are driven by content, so you can’t anticipate how folks are going to use your tools.

Case study on creating realistic food for “Ratatouille.” 

Another consequence of long-time users is that training isn’t a big issue. Software that is instantly approachable is not as big a win in the long run as software that has user efficiency and productivity as a goal.

UT: How do you prototype your designs?

MK: Pixar is an intensely collaborative place; we run designs by a lot of people. Being able to communicate a design effectively is really, really important. Something I can actually demo is great way to communicate a design.

Early on, we focused on super-detailed design documents, but these wound up becoming negotiating instruments between production and engineering, and work wouldn’t start until everybody was happy with the document. Over time we realized that it wasn’t worth the effort to work out every last detail once implementation started. Unanticipated problems would pop up, and the final result was often quite different than what the design document called for.

So these days we’re working faster and looser, embedding designers in teams, doing some design up front to set the direction, but more importantly staying looped in during implementation to deal with the inevitable curves that come your way. It’s been working quite well.

UT: How do you validate your designs?

MK: We’ve identified people who are good at giving feedback. And of course we’re right down the hall. So if a design isn’t working, we hear about it. It does mean that the initial implementation of a feature is really a prototype, but the close proximity between our users and ourselves makes this not as expensive as it would be in more conventional settings.

I think an unmet need is how to identify tasks that are candidates for streamlining. User testing as usually formulated tries to identify aspects of the design that prevent a user from understanding how to use a site (app, whatever). That approach isn’t as good at surfacing tasks that are done 100 times a day versus tasks that are done once a week.

We also have a bug and suggestion reporting system integrated in the apps, so we get a lot of “sugs.”

UT: How has the world changed since you started designing software 20 years ago?

MK: In the old days (before the web) we used to use the same five or so apps over and over. Maybe just two. We used to live in those apps. Now we use lots of apps for short periods of time. On the web, every site is a different “app”, unique in some way from every other site.

There’s also a higher baseline of computer savvy-ness these days. Hardly anyone has never used a computer before.

UT: What has the Apple/Pixar way taught you about quality and user satisfaction?

MK: It’s not enough to value “good design.” You have to privilege it. It’s an organizational orientation.

That’s why Apple consistently puts out things people love, but other companies can only do it in spurts (or not at all). It’s not complicated. Focus on user satisfaction, and you will get satisfied users.

Lego Buzz and Woody welcome you to Pixar Headquarters in Emeryville

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1.  Headphones by Dr. Dre that give back (~$195)
The usability geek has quality taste and an empathetic heart. Monster Cable’s sharp new (Product) Red Beats by Dre Solo HD headphones can get you in the zone, blocking out distraction.  And it’s all for a good cause.

A portion of the profits goes to the Global Fund to fight AIDS.  The product includes a built-in mic, playback controls of your iPod or iPhone, and folds nicely for efficient packing. Regular Apple earbuds easily fall out of your ear, but these babies snug comfortably around your ears while you’re perfecting those mock-ups in the office — or watching UserTesting.com video results late at night.

2.  Coffee heater that plugs into your computer (~$8)
The Mr. Coffee mug warmer conveniently plugs into your laptop’s USB port.  Verdict: The perfect gift for the caffeinated user researcher who must stay focused and alert.

3. Special gloves for mobile device owners (~$45)
These wool gloves have slits at the thumbs and forefingers — ideal for using mobile devices on the go. This gift combines style with functionality every San Franciscan or British UX designer would appreciate on cold mornings.

4. Classic sketch book (~$25)
While there is the Evernote app for notes & reminders and services like Axure to build wireframes — creativity often starts with a pencil and paper. There is something about the old world charm of a Moleskine notebook that makes this item a must have for every hip designer.

 5.  Tricks of the trade from UX forefather (~$21)
We recommend putting Rocket Surgery Made Easy by world-renowned usability expert, Steve Krug, on your list. Available on the Kindle, Nook, and paperback this do-it-yourself guide to finding and fixing usability problems is the gift that keeps on giving.

Steve Krug will be judging our limited time iPad giveaway challenge for those who submit their best UserTesting.com video clip. Only 2 more weeks to enter, and you could earn the iPad 2 for yourself. Second and third prize winners also receive free user test bundles.

We thank Steve for his participation and are very honored he supports our remote usability testing service. His groundbreaking first book Don’t Make Me Think is an inspirational, informative read.

6. Sharpen your craft (starting at $25)
Don’t need any more socks? Ask for the gift of knowledge by requesting a kick-start monthly gift subscription to Lynda.com.  Their plethora of educational videos help you hone your tech and design skills at your own pace.  Master Photoshop, learn HTML5, or take a class on prototyping — improving your skills will make you more adept at solving usability issues.

The passionate people who work at Lynda.com couldn’t be any nicer, which is another reason to love them!

7.  Useless twofer makes for great stocking stuffer (~$17)
A beer hammer bottle opener: it sounds quite genius.  A usability professional, however, understands that humans who are drinking beer are unlikely to be also installing shelves. This crafty, yet impractical tool will give usability geeks a good laugh.

Verdict: Fun knick-knack to bring to a holiday party for a Secret Santa gift exchange or White Elephant game.

8. Personal is powerful (rings ~$250 and up)
Usability pros know that personalization increases conversion.  Personalized gifts likewise elicit a more positive response than commodity items. Gemvara takes the headache out of building customized jewelry.

We interviewed the amazing folks at Gemvara in a recent post about their service and experience with UserTesting.com.  While the website is extremely fun for women shopping for themselves, they make it simple for men to chose something special.

9.  Power cord harmony (~$25)
Hairdryer plugs and iPhone adapters no longer have to compete for socket space. The Pivot Power strip by Quirky has 6 adjustable outlets which can snake around furniture. This sleek gadget adds functionality to your home office.

10.  Clip-on camera is handy and fun ($79)
The Kogeto Dot snap-on camera, which comes with the free Looker app, lets your iPhone 4 or 4s capture panoramic video and share it friends on Facebook and Twitter. At $79, it is cheaper than most cameras, and easily fits in your purse or pocket.

The project raised over $120,000 to date on KickStarter by 1,023 fans, surpassing its goal of $20,000 on June 3. Verdict: Great gift for arty, adventurous tech geeks.

***

We would love to hear your input on our list as well as any other gift suggestions.

Do not forget:

• Enter our iPad Giveway challenge (most insightful UserTesting.com video clip wins!)
• Get free bonus usability tests from buying *anything* from Sitepoint’s Christmas Countdown sale.
• “Mock it up before you fock it up” – Daniel Stillman,  and test before you release to save time and money.

From all of us at UserTesting.com, have a safe and happy holidays!

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How does Etsy approach this in their user interface? Through a variety of browsing and search methods, some traditional, others innovative and experimental.

The test
We asked users on our panel to think of someone they needed to buy a gift for and a budget. All testers were new to Etsy.com.

We then directed them to try several approaches to finding gifts. These included browsing the home page, using search, using category filters, shop local, and shopping for Facebook friends. We asked users to find reviews and drill down to the details page and then comment on overall impressions.

All users were experienced online shoppers and computer users. The tasks didn’t have any dependencies, so there were not many obvious roadblocks.

Still, the panel and our staff found opportunities for better showcasing Etsy products, and selling more products. We also invited Etsy to respond to the feedback and recommendations.

The positives
High quality one-of-a-kind products.  All the users in our panel found interesting gifts without much trouble. Products are front and center, and users were engaged by the uniqueness and the quality. Their products are the message.

“I would definitely buy from etsy.com. There is so much cool art on this site.”

Variety. Since our test users weren’t shopping for anything specific, if they didn’t find one item (for example, a bowling-ball themed gift), they quickly found something else. Most praised the variety of products offered.

Transparency. Users liked the detailed product descriptions. They appreciated that Etsy stores included shipping costs upfront in the product descriptions without requiring an additional click, and that shipping was typically reasonably priced.

Usability takeaways from a one-of-a-kind shopping site
Direct feedback from users and our analysis.

1. Users praised Etsy’s Shop Local feature, but the link was not easy to find
Test users loved Shop Local and the idea of patronizing small businesses close to home with reduced shipping costs. But the promotional link for this feature is hidden in the lower left of the navigation in small type, where users have to scroll to access it.

One user was hesitant about purchasing a vintage map after noticing the shipper was in Eastern Europe.

“I might be a little nervous about ordering something from overseas, so I’m going to choose something else.”

Recommendation: Move Shop Local higher on the home page and promote it actively.

2. Seller feedback feature was hard to locate on page
A lot of text on the page meant users sometimes had trouble spotting information and features that could assist them. One user stated:

“Only suggestion I have is to make the reviews more readily visible. That was my only frustration through the process.”

Recommendation: Higher variation in font sizes to promote features like feedback on Etsy shop owners. Users suggested a feedback format similar to eBay: big font, prominent, right up top, stars.

3. Users did not use search filters on the left side bar to their advantage 
Thus, they experienced an overwhelming amount of results.

Default search did not meet users’ needs.   Users bypassed the search filters, and initially typed something into the search bar to find their gift.  For an unfiltered search, Etsy states that it sorts by “Relevancy” in standard text size on the top right corner. Users felt overwhelmed by the amount of results and uncertainty as to whether they were seeing the best items or just “random things.”

“Just a bunch of random pictures of items here.”

“So many [results]…I need to narrow it down a little bit.”

Users never went beyond the first page in any of the tests that we ran. Users sought a “see all” button, but there is none. Two users wanted a way to display more thumbnails per page.

Users did not discover sub-category filters or use filters in combination with one another.  Etsy offers detailed hierarchical filters, as in this screenshot. But only one user navigated more than a layer deep in the categories.

On a regular catalog site with 25 results, this wouldn’t matter, but Etsy searches routinely returns 10,000+ results for a query. We observed there is no down arrow next to main categories to inform users there are sub-category filters.

Users did not filter by price.   (We sked them to shop on a budget.) This feature is somewhat buried at the bottom. We note that users are required to type in a minimum and maximum price range rather than select from a drop down menu.

Recommendations: More clearly state how items are automatically filtered in search (i.e., “Handmade items by closest keyword match”) in larger font. If there are thousands of results fitting the keyword, display grouped results by Local, Price, or Seller Rating.

Consider adding the ability to randomize results (which could be fun!). Enable users to view more results per page. And consider putting some key filters in the top navigation bar, as users missed them on the left side column.  

4. Unclear whether users fully understood the Etsy brand and the unique nature of products sold on the site
Users in our panel had heard of Etsy, but this was their first time shopping on the site. The top of the home page does have a filter that says Handmade and the word “unique” appears in a banner, but otherwise the site could be selling anything (like factory made items).

Did users realize items were one of a kind? No. Users were surprised they could not find product reviews. One user suggested they should put next to items:

“Only one available. Better get it now!”

Update 12/19: Etsy’s home page now displays a clearer message about their one-of-a-kind value.

5. Users would prefer Etsy’s clean site design to be more visually inspired
While Etsy’s simple layout and white background lets the products shine, shoppers felt the design was too bland. One user described the site as “plain” while another felt it was professional but generic.

“The site is very functional and user-friendly, but the overall look and feel of the site is somewhat boring. It isn’t distasteful, but it isn’t striking or aesthetically pleasing either.”

For this user, the site only filled half of her 17″ LCD.

Recommendation:  Consider bringing more of Etsy’s essense to the site theme and optimize layout for different screen sizes.

6. Home page could display more selection
Etsy didn’t refresh thumbnails on the home page even when users left and returned multiple times. The home page was the same for all of our users on Black Friday.

This is a missed opportunity, considering the hundreds of thousands of items that don’t end up among the 20 or so promoted or handpicked. Users also looked for a show all option within categories; they don’t really want to see 90,000 items, but they did want to see more of what Etsy has to offer than those that made it on the first page.

Recommendation: Mix it up. Auto-refresh thumbnails periodically and have an obvious way for users to do so. Detect more information about first-time shoppers to show them personalized products.

Sean Flannagan, Etsy Product Manager: Great feedback — we agree. A new set of handpicked items is featured on the homepage every 30 minutes, but we know there’s a lot more we can do to surface interesting items for new visitors. Working on it!

7. Site performance issues caused impatient users to press the back button
Shoppers on our panel clicked around rapidly and were generally not very patient. When a specialized page like Shop by Colors or Facebook friend recommendations loaded slowly, users quickly clicked the Back button.

An animated multicolor-dot progress indicator, as pictured below, was too subtle for these shoppers; one thought the page had crashed after less than 5 seconds because she didn’t see any text on screen.

Recommendation: Display text that says “loading.”

Sean Flannagan, Etsy: Improving site performance and speed is one of our Engineering Team’s top priorities and the focus of a special initiative. Substantial progress has been made in the last few months — you can read more about it in our November Site Performance Report.

8. Facebook-powered Gift Finder is a work in progress
Few users in the test expressed privacy concerns about the Facebook feature, which lets shoppers authorize a connection between the apps. Etsy then makes recommendations based on the friend’s Facebook likes and interests.

Gift Finder feature could be more explicit.  The link is somewhat buried underneath the categories. Moreover, there is no indication that the feature leverages your social network. One user weighed in:

“I’d consider renaming it [from Gift Finder to] something like, ‘Facebook Gift Finder.’”

Recommendation:  Use a Facebook logo to indicate this feature and promote it actively with a clearer name.

Results not always perfect.  One user thought the functionality of the Facebook gift finder was interesting and potentially helpful, but needed to be “used with caution because it frequently won’t be accurate.” One was amused at the literal matches between Facebook likes and Etsy gifts:

“Of course it found the Black Keys, which is a band, but it matched it to black keys.”

Privacy concerns?  Overall, users from our small testing panel were fine about giving Etsy access to their Facebook data.

“First reaction: Creepy, like I feel whenever I learn how our data is used. On trying, I really liked it. Tested it on several friends … they wish. A very useful way to find unusual gifts for someone. Various assurances help dial down the creepy factor.”

But our past tests have shown that users aren’t always clear and are sometimes insecure about what information Facebook shares and to whom.  I personally wondered what specific information of mine on Facebook could be unlocked and shared by my friends who used this feature on Etsy.  Any privacy concerns could be assuaged by being able to see how I appear in this tool to my Facebook friends.

Recommendation: Etsy should add the ability to see what’s recommended for you so that users understand what information their friends can see. This could potentially lead to purchases for oneself and provide Etsy additional customer insight.

Etsy product manager weighed in:  UserTesting.com invited Etsy Product Manager Jay Bergesen to clarify how this integration works. Etsy is a UserTesting.com customer but was not involved in the design or administration of this test. Jay pointed us toward this help page. He also showed us the types of gift ideas Etsy presents for Facebook users who haven’t indicated likes and interests:

If you’re a Facebook user, try this feature out, and let us know what you think. You don’t need to create an Etsy account and you can de-authorize the Etsy app in your Facebook Settings after you’re finished.

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Finally: The testers on our panel who responded were female except one man. One user wanted more ideas suggested for men so she could shop for her husband.

When it comes to shopping: men are hunters, women are explorers.  Our male tester spent considerably less time exploring the site and shopping for gifts for his parents. He seemed just as satisfied with the site and his experience. He appeared to be shopping to fulfill a goal (as directed) rather than exploring for the fun of it.

A trusted place to discover unique local crafts.  Etsy provides an innovative way to shop from small businesses and individual crafts makers, providing many interesting approaches to browsing and finding unique gifts. The testers in our study, all first-time users, were animated and engaged throughout.

“I love supporting local business owners. I think this site is a great idea to help those people get their names out and a place for them to sell their goods.”

All users in this test said they would return to Etsy and consider buying a gift, using words like “reputable” and “awesome.”

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Sean and Jay at Etsy: Thanks for the great feedback and ideas!

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