In the last few months I witness an impressive advancement in the auto-complete function of browsers, web sites and application. So I decided to summarize the evolution of it, in terms of User Experience.

In the beginning there was (and still) Internet explorer

In Internet explorer 7, the auto-complete only complete if the browsing history string starts with the exact string the user wrote. for example, if you write the string "A", only web sites that start with "A" will appear.

And Google said, let there be Google Suggest

Google suggest, is literally suggesting the users search terms according to the the strings the users entered into the search box. and in the same principal of the Internet explorer, it mostly suggest the matches from the beginning of the search terms.

There is only one small user experience problem as I see it, sometimes the string I enter will be more relevant in the middle of the sentence, but due to the fact that Google has so many suggestion to give that match the beginning of the phrase, you almost never see suggestion that include your string in the middle of the suggested search term. (I had to write "hesaurus" to receive the suggestion that doesn't start with "H" and got "Thesaurus"...). I wonder if the Google algorithm take it into consideration.

And Mozilla saw the light, and created FireFox 3

The big improvement in FF, is that the auto complete searches the string you enter in the address box, not just in the beginning of the phrase but in the middle of it and/or in the site description, all according to how relevant it is according to the user browsing history.

Today a short and easy domain name is not something so common, and many domains today are created from half words or a couple of words, and this is not so easy remember. The FF auto complete was a huge improvement in terms of user experience, as users no longer need to be so accurate, and remember exactly the domain name, they only needed to remember part of it or how it is described.

And Google said, let there be Google Chrome

In Google Chrome the address box and the search box are combined to one. If the phrase you enter exists in your browsing history it will suggest a web site, if it doesn't it will suggest that you will search for this phrase.

So simple and so smart, why hassle the user to click between two boxes that are so relevant to each other, when he can do it in one.

And when something makes your life so much easier, people find out many ways use it.

Good friends of mine, created the startup Predictad, They give advertisers a new place to advertise in - in the suggest box. The ads that appear. are relevant to the user search phrase. This gives the publishers and the advertisers a new way to earn money or exposure.

I wrote this post because I saw today a nice post in the weblog of 37signals - Signal vs. Noise, a nice enhancement Highrise made to their auto complete tool.

Something in particular caught my eye, Their auto complete tool, also know how to complete strings that not exactly match (For example if the user wrote "danrimon" (my name), the auto complete will also know to search for "dan rimon"). This is pretty cool, although exists in other places, including Google Chrome, but for some reason I only noticed it when i saw Highrise video.

This made me think, What's next?

The purpose of the auto complete is to help users, then why not take it to the next level:

• One obvious improvement - correct spelling mistakes.
• The other thing is more interesting in user experience terms, and this is Auto-Complete with filtering. what do I mean? If I want to search the word "Water" for example, I can write instead "trewa" (Why is that?), because this string includes all the letters of the word "water", but mixed. What the auto complete algorithm should do in my mind is suggest all the strings that include these latter in the relevant possible combination (and filter the words that do not include these letters or part of them). This simple change will solve a lot of most common mistakes we do when we write in the Internet. mix the letters because we write to fast and do not pay attention very closely.

If you have any more interesting auto complete tools or just more insights - feel free to share.

As a cognitive psychologist I found this video very funny and interesting. Dan Dennett, a philosopher and a cognitive scientist, puts our Mind & Conscious on the spot light, and by experimenting with some clever "mind tricks", he shows us that what we see, is just what our mind wants to see.

Some questions arise from the lecture:

• Does the mind have a will of its own?
• Why do we see things in a certain way and not the other?

The lecture doesn't fully answer all of that, but it gives you a lot to think when you observe the world, and all the information out there that our mind "decide to see" and more interesting what it ignores.

My 2 cents:

The world we see out there, is the world "we" decided we want to see, but we decide to see only part of it, not for no reason.

The world is too complex for our brain to understand, too much information to process at once, this is why our mind filter things and interfere with the way we "see". I guess that in time, we will be able to process more and more information, to really experience the world and its wonders.

But for now, lets just keep an open mind.

Saw today the Amazon Window Shop, looks cool, and more importantly simple to use.

The browsing can be done in 2 modes:

Zoom-in view (at the moment the default mode):

 

Regular view:

You can navigate by using the arrows - and zoom in and out by using the "spacebar" and the "enter" (they don't mention it for some reason). you can also navigate by using the mouse, using a dragging method (They also don't mention it, is it too obvious?).

Some anecdotes:

• The top navigation bar that allows you to navigation left to right between different content and dates is yet to be perfect
• Different content is presented in a different color - this is a good cognitive indication, my only concern is that there just too many colors to grasp the difference or even notice it (for example between movies and TV shows).
• There is lack of consistency - some categories are monthly and some weekly. This situation create a bit of confusing, as the order of categories is not consistent, and a bit confusing.
• I would add some sort of borders between update dates, for example an intuitive way to understand that now i switched between October updates to August updates and so on... this will ad another level of structure.
• This experience of easy browsing without using the mouse is good, but there is one little annoying bug here... if you give me the chance not to use the mouse why do you make me press on the "I" (help) icon to read the help? pressing the letter "I" should do the trick.
• The default way of navigation (zoomed in) in my mind is not the right way, because for someone who didn't see the feature before, found it difficult to get a good orientation, and it might create a negative first impression for the users.
• I think another level of information is missing - short reviews, rating or a reference to information on the site. In my mind i see an option to flip the item picture to see its back side, and in it will appear some additional information on the item.

I find the window shop pretty good compared to many semi-virtual environments I saw in the past. But keep in mind, this can not replace the rest of the shop/site (in this case amazon shop). It is not for no reason that the feature name is "Window shop", as this can be used effectively almost only to present new items in a sort of a "show case".

I just watched interview with Yossi Vardi on Web2Expo in Europe. Interesting and funny as usual.

Yossi Vardi has a long success investments record that made a lot of entrepreneurs request his business and finance assistance. He is an angel, that as far as i know, as of today he mainly invest small amounts of money in early stage Israeli startups.

I heard his investments criterion "Mantra" a couple of times before, and I'm always happy to hear it again. He always says that he invest in the people and not the product, feeling that if the investment will not succeed at least he gave a "scholarship" to yet another entrepreneur. This sounds too naive and imaginary to be true, but I have seen it happen. If Vardi thinks the people in front of him are "good" people he will invest in them.

So I just want to say to Yossi, I'm glad that there are still people out there that are not so cold and calculated, and that good people deserve the chance to follow out their dreams, but what does it say about me if you didn't want to invest in me... :)

Keep it up, you give hope to many young dreamers.

Yossi Vardi on Business Week, and in TC50

Most of the day I sketch and design the future web sites of my company and sketch the improvements of the current ones. An important aspect of my work is to plan the correct flow of things. This is why Product Planner caught my eye.

The company describe this product - "Product Planner was born out of the need to help people understand and create user flows for their web products. The idea is that by looking at examples of other successful web products, you can get a better idea of how to create your own".

The site is in its early stage and doesn't really have yet enough examples, but I really love their vision, and I can see how much it can do to the User Experience of web sites who will follow it.

In general Product Planner is a simple tool to create and share flows, but the great thing about it is that the flows are not created just from headlines but they are created from functional designs screens or from the actual site screen shots.  The full detailed design in the flow makes all the difference in understanding and building good user experience.

For example - an "Invitation to Twitter" flow:

Each box in the flow represent and actual page as a part of the flow, and by pressing on a box you can see it magnified:

Few pointers:

• Not enough flexibility in flow types - It decreases the chance that experts will use this tool BUT this limitation can also do good, by keeping the small and generic flows, the site becomes more useful, and it is better than having very long unique flows that won't serve many.
• As a site builder how will I know which flow to use, which is the better? I can see which ones are the favorite ones, but which ones are truly good for my goals? As a User Experience expert, when I plan a flow I have in my mind the objective of the flow. For example if I want to create a signup flow - the objective of it can be:
  • Joining as fast as possible (Low barrier of registration)
  • Gaining as much information as possible (When I want to profile my users before they get access)
  • Complex registration (High barrier registration - when I don't want each users to become a member of my site without some sort of a commitment by him
  • Users can add comments to a flow, but it won't do the trick, maybe add the option to tag a flow by a set of characteristics: "for professional users", "for novice users", and etc...
• What I miss the most if to be able to explain the interaction between each segments of the flow, and to be able to add to the flow exceptional cases - for example error message in case the user does something wrong in the flow (Enter the wrong password, Email already exists).

To conclude:

I hope this site will fulfill its vision and be a tool for product managers, usability experts, developers and etc... and make our web a friendlier place. I'm sure I'll be happy if people will share with me interesting flows from the site.

Occasionally I'm practicing being my very own StumbleUpon engine, when i start typing weird site names and hope for smooth landing.

Today i did just that thing and i was redirected to Johnny Walker site. Personally I'm a White Russian fan (and thanks to The  Dude and the Cohen  Brothers for making me a little more cooler, at least in my mind), but I can handle a few drops of good whisky.

Landing on that site triggered this blog post, as I once again wondered if covering our ass is better than doing the right thing, in terms of marketing of course.

When I landed on the home page of the site, I got a "Warning page" asking me two questions "where do you live" and "when were you born", the purpose of these questions are to verify that I'm in legal age to drink, according to my country minimum drinking age law. and yes it actually works, for "Israel" i said i was 19 and it was ok, and for the US the same age did not let me go through to the main site.

Anyway...

This "Warning page" exists also in other similar companies, such as Absolut Vodka. Yes the regulations require you the warn your visitors before you let them enter a site that will encourage them to drink alcohol, but is the super smart mechanism of age verification will actually stop a minor from entering the site? and what is the purpose of the law?

I understood the purpose of the law when I took my magnifying glass and   examined the "warning page" more closely... to give the "Drinkers" important information before to consume alcohol and to prevent minors from doing so.

The Absolut Vodka version (left) and the Johnny Walker version (right):

In a very small font size...:

• Here is what Absolut say: "ABSOLUT endorses responsible and moderate drinking. For this reason, we would like to recommend the following reading: Century Council, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), and The European Forum for Responsible Drinking (EFRD)"
• Here is what Johnny Walker say (you need to click on the link to see the explanation page): "As we support responsible drinking, we need to ask you these questions to ensure that you're over the legal purchase age and that you're legally allowed to view this site in your country of access. We also need to be aware if anyone else using this computer could be under the legal purchase age. Rest assured that none of the information you provide here will be used to contact you in any way."

Both examples show us that these regulations gave the users the "opportunity" to gain information about alcohol consumption...

Once you finish getting educated by the companies and crack the age verification mechanism, you get to enter the site, But unfortunately you see no mention what so ever on the important alcohol education...

Johnny Walker HP:

Absolut HP:

Nice design, but where did company responsibility toward alcohol drinking went?

What is my point?

• Do you really think that by using such a warning page you prevent minors from entering the site? No!
• Do you really think you got to the attention of anyone, some knowledge about alcohol hazards? No!
• Minors can still access the site, and they nobody will ever see (except me) the alcohol public information.

So what good is this regulation for?

Well i have a suggestion, change the current regulation - Instead of that stupid age verification that also contains important information in a font size of 8 (or lower)... Request the companies to dedicate a part of the home page for alcohol education, and loose that "warning page".

By doing so you will improve the user MX (Marketing Experience(c)) of the actual customers (users who are of legal age), and you will also gain the attention of users to information regarding alcohol drinking - information that is important at all ages.

A win win situation.

On a personal note -

a marketing experience expert - a user experience expertise in marketing

why didn't i think about it before, Its a cool title to use.

In terms of user experience, i think that Google is doing a lot of good, with some truly innovative user interfaces. It is good that this Internet giant uses some of its resources to explore new functionality.

Our huge benefit is that even if some of the ideas are not so good, we all learn from these experiments and we sometimes even get enlightened by them.

I don't know how long the "Keyboard shortcuts" experiments is running or how many people are exposed to it, but it certainly an interesting one.

In the basis of this experiment there a few keyboard shortcuts that allow you to navigate between the results and the search box in a different way.

On the snapshot to the right (marked by the red arrow and   circle) you can see the user marker.

By using the keys "J" & "K" the user can move between   results, and even jump to the next results page (or the   previous).

When you reach a result that you want to click on it, simply press the key "O" or "Enter" and you will be sent to that      page.

Easy and somewhat intuitive.

In addition to these keys, there are 2 more important key to make the experience full: "/" - put the cursor in the search box, and "Esc" remove the cursor from the search box and sends you back to the results themselves. with these additional 2 keys, the experiment almost eliminate the need for the mouse cursor during a search.

Pros -

• Important tool for handicap people, who can not use the mouse.
• very intuitive, easy to learn, and easy to use.
• Improves the experience of Laptop users, in terms of reducing the need for the mouse (as some of us hate the built in laptop touch pad).
• Makes it easier to focus on a results and navigate between them, as the sensitivity of the mouse wheel is sometimes not easy to control and you scroll too fast or too slow between results. here you control the navigation between results, and cognitively i assume its easier and more efficient.

Cons -

• It is hard to see it catching up, when we are so used to the mouse and the scroll wheel.
• The specific key choices are rather weird - "J" goes downs and "K" goes up!   shouldn't it be the other way around?
• Why these keys anyway, these keys are not easy to locate as there is no anchor  next to them (for example its not near the "Enter" key, or on a corner of the keyboard), and this makes you need to look for the key whenever you want to use them.
• The sponsored links (as you can see on the right) are still positioned on the right    top corner of the screen now, but now positioned under the keyboard shortcuts legend. this can reduce the advertisement effect. I guess that only for the  experiment, this location is suitable. probably a better solution will be evolved if this ever goes public.
• A result is only highlighted by the small marker, and sometimes it is not noticeable enough, i think an addition highlight will assist in navigation (for example highlight   the background of the results the marker is on at the moment)

In conclusion -

I like this experiment a lot. It is very intuitive and it opened my mind to the fact that sometimes I can live without the mouse wheel. I do not think it will be implemented by many, but having another solution except the "Tab" button to use the keyboard to navigate in a site, is a real pleasure as it bring to mind the option for sites to give the users a choice if to use the mouse or the keyboard.

Beware - Part of this post is way too optimistic

My economic analysis suggests that the economic crises might even help web2.0 startups.

how come? In general investors have many investment opportunities in different risk levels - stocks, bonds, real estate, startups, art and etc...  

The investor invests his money according to a risk analysis, % goes here, % goes there and etc... so that he wont risk too much and will still have the opportunity to earn money without risking it too much.

Now that the crises made the stocks, bonds and real estate and riskier investment, the investors can spread their money differently in order to keep the same risk value. so in simple words, startups are now relatively less riskier and more bearable as a long term investment.

And in a more realistic view - The crises probably reduced the pie size, so even if the risk is more bearable, there might not be all that money to invest or to purchase companies...

But all this doesn't matter... as web2.0 sites are not something the economy crises can stop altogether. web2.0 sites were not created because somebody invested money in them, these sites were created because there was a true evolutionary need for them.

Human beings are social and can not survive in a non social environment, the web as we knew it in the era of web1.0 was a non social environment. people used to spend a lot of time with their computer (same as today) but there was no social element to satisfy their primal social needs. this is the reason why web2.0 sites started to evolve, to satisfy these needs.

Web2.0 is "The People", and this is why that even without money web2.0 sites will still exist, there might not be as many sites created every day as today, but they will be created. If the crises will be as horrible as  some predict, this  will be the opportunity for the students to once again set the tone in the world of web2.0 sites, bringing back the work to the garage, and creating the new big things, just because they  had a dream. 

This is why web2.0 will never die, well only maybe if we will go back outside socializing like the good old days...

Not sure I'm a blogger yet, but starting today i do have a blog. I wonder if this is the only criteria to become a blogger?

Who am I?
I'm Dan, 31 years old, Lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Husband to Ramit, and a father to Eyal, Inca (AKA the Dog) and Lola (AKA the Cat).

I have a BA in Economics and Behavioral Science and a MA in Cognitive Psychology (Pending the completion of the thesis (5 years ago...)).

I think of myself as a creative thinker and a problem solver, and between these two i'm an entrepreneur and a user experience expert.

The aim of this blog is to share with you my subjective views and reviews about technology, user experience, psychology, and stuff...

You can contact me at dan.rimon@gmail.com