Some of us are off to Internet World, 2008 to strut our stuff and have a blast.

There’s some amazing Seminars going on there, and Giles will be speaking on Why mobile is different and how to take advantage - planning and designing user experiences. He’ll be sharing a little bit about how to design experiences for the mobile platforms, and how online communities work into the mix.

Come visit us at the show and get some free mints (logo on mint tin only, not on actual mints ;-). We’ll post some photos when we get back incase you weren’t able to make it. Until then, adieu adieu!

Updated: (added photo)

Basically the laptop inserts into the monitor housing which looks similar to the current iMac.

A fuller description is available at http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/03/apple-creating-imac-like-docking-station/.

Ideally you’ll have a couple of years experience in putting together sitemaps and wireframes for a range of clients and have experience of involving users throughout the design process.

Our ambition is to create excellent experiences based on user research and change how businesses communicate with their customers.

We’re based in Bristol and work takes us throughout the UK and overseas.

Here are some links so you can find out more about working with us, our approach to usability or some of the clients we work with.

Please send your cv’s to richard dot caddick at cxpartners dot co dot uk

James and Jesmond have been user testing on Nokia.
Giles has been across the country and back with Tesco working on communities.
Fiz and Bonny have been presenting to Nokia and paving the way ahead on a project for lastminute.com. They’ve also been kicking off a new project for the Watershed.
Joe and Steve have been testing on theTrainline.com.
Walt’s been doing some amazing mapping work with the Planning Portal.
Dave’s been busy with Futurelab and Budget Car Rentals.
Anna’s been working on our training and looking after us all.
Verity’s been analysing areas of the business.

Our Bristol user testing facilities have been busy for all five days this week and we’ve been testing in London as well preparing some international testing in France.

And our clients are an amazing bunch. They’re getting involved with the testing learning loads of stuff and engaging with their users.

So thank you!

Why people come…
Networking and meeting people with similar interests; get a job; discuss different usability methods and approaches; gossip; keep abreast of what is going on in the field; see what projects others work on and what practices they use; learn and share experiences…

Homepage:
http://b-u-g.wikispaces.com/

Upcoming:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/313456

Since moving into the new office we’ve slowly been making it our own and creating the physical environment that suits us as a company.

This has included covering any walls that don’t move in whiteboards and finding a home for the coffee machine.

That left us with a couple of spare rooms. So naturally we’ve set up our own testing facility. Rather than going for the glass wall approach that can make users feel more nervous than we’d like, we’re transfering all the action from the user testing room to the viewing room onto a series of monitors.

In the last few weeks they’ve become the busiest rooms in the office. We’ve been conducting depth interviews, concept validation, think aloud, mobile research and application usability. In fact next week the lab is booked every day. We’ll be working with users on areas as diverse as car rental, booking train tickets and wireframe testing.

And of course most of the equiptment is fully portable so we can continue to test throughout the UK and overseas.

Update: I’ve just add some more information on our facilities in Bristol, UK user testing and international user testing.

I’m getting the bus home a fair amount at the moment (not every day every week) and it makes more financial sense for me to buy a 10 journey ticket. You buy the ticket on the bus and need cash to do so.

What I’ve found is that you need to become an expert in bus tickets to work out how many journeys you have left (knowing how to read the digital print additions or punch holes).

I’m not an expert so as soon as I’ve used a few journeys I start to wonder how many more journeys I can take before I need to make sure I have cash in my pocket to either pay the fair or buy a new 10 journey ticket.

It’s only when your ticket is complete that it tells you that all journeys are taken (something you don’t know the first time you buy a ticket) and the design of the ticket makes sense (see below).

Wouldn’t it be better for the ticket to work more like a coffee shop loyalty card which always shows you how many cups you have to go before your free one?

Just a little bit of user testing or contextual studies would have solved this problem very easily and quickly making the user experience so much better. Carrying out wireframing and prototyping can help avoid unnecessary and potentially expensive mistakes that leave customers confused.

Colour coding looks great. It’s a flashy way of saying ‘I’m usable’.

It reminds us of design classics, like the London Underground map. It makes us think of the kind of organised offices that we’d like to have one day.

The trouble is, that to outsiders, colour coding has no meaning.

Members of your inner circle understand it. Your enemies and casual passers by are left bewildered and dismayed.

That’s why I generally don’t recommend colour coding. It’s usually unfriendly and inefficient.

Setting up the code takes a lot of effort. Maintaining the code takes more effort. The code often clashes with branding and visual styling. And pretty soon people run out of colours.

There are exceptions

But Yo Sushi’s colour coded bowls are a great idea - because the code is rather simple, and everyone is motivated to learn.

Different colours correspond to different prices - a very simple idea. Since prices are either high, low or somewhere in the middle there’s not much to remember.

Customers are motivated to learn because they’re going to have to pay for all this lovely food. And they’ve lots of practice at leaning the code as food trundles past on a conveyor belt.

It didn’t take me long to learn that orange was going to be more expensive than light blue - just look at the portions. And the rare glimpse of a silver bowl in the distance was enough to tell me that something pretty special was on its way.

Staff are even more motivated to learn because it’s their job to get the bills right. And six colour codes are easier to learn than thirty items from a menu.

So what about user interfaces?

Most user interfaces don’t rely much on colour codes - they use text labels instead. The only times colour coding makes sense is when people’s motivation is high (their money, jobs or health is at stake) and they are repeatedly exposed to the code.

Of course, I’m not arguing for a monochrome world or saying that colour plays no role. But for most people, most of the time, learning a code isn’t worth the effort. Especially when they can just read what’s written on the button.

What next?

Check out our seminars
Find out what we do think improves usability by contacting us

Opera Mini 4 (beta) is the latest and greatest version of the web browser for your mobile phone. What you get is web pages as they were meant to be seen. They look just like they do on your computer screen and you easily read them by zooming in and out and scrolling around.

It works like a treat on my Sony Ericsson k800i and on my friends’ Nokia cell phones, too.

Opera seem to be doing a great job in producing web browsers for consumer devices. They also make the excellent browser that comes bundled with Nintendo’s Wii console.

You can download Opera Mini 4 (beta) for free from Opera’s website. The installation process is quick and clearly explained.

Your service provider will probably charge you for bandwidth used, but many tariffs include a free allowance. A megabyte should be enough to let you try out your favourite sites.

A full-on web browser in your pocket is great for getting the news, travel, weather and sport, as well as catching up on your favourite blogs.

The Japanese have been big users of mobile web for several years now. We think the rest of the world is about to catch up.

What next

What do you think of Opera Mini 4 (beta)? Let us know in the box below.

We’re talking about mobile user interfaces at our upcoming seminars. Contact us to find out more.

Read our paper on minimal user interfaces