[IxDA Discuss] Meaningful labels

[Jim Drew / CFM Designs]

Not sure it's really of any use, having trimmed or cut every 
identifying bit of text and graphics from the image, but here you go.

This pane would be about 2/3 of the app window-- the right 3/4 and 
the bottom 3/4.  As you can see, pretty empty of any content when the 
"no results" message shows.  While there are any number of ways 
things could be made more visible on our end -- bigger text, more 
text, images, color, highlight the in-use search field, animation, 
and of course just clear the search field after leaving the pane -- 
we just sat there a bit stunned as she repeatedly tried to add 
content, viewed the pane, didn't read the text, and tried again.

Conclusion: she didn't read the messaging, and by extension, she 
didn't expect there to be any messaging to read that wasn't in a 
modal "do something with me NOW" alert box.


"jackbellis.com" <jackbellis at hotmail.com>  writes:

>Any chance you could post a screen capture or low-fidelity likeness? I'd
>like to discuss this more but don't want to  make entirely mistaken
>presumptions. (I prefer to stop at "very mistaken.")
>
>From: "Jim Drew" <cfmdesigns at earthlink.net>
>
>>  We did a usability test of our in-process product a couple weeks ago and
>saw examples of this.  In one case, a user had done a search in her library
>for a particular item, which returned no results (correctly), and a message
>was put up in the library view saying that no results were found.  All well
>and good.
>>
>>  She then tried to add more content to her library, but when she checked
>the library, she found that the content was not there.  (We had retained the
>search key in use, so until she added that item of content, she was SOL.)
>Repeatedly, she added content, checked the view, saw nothing, figured
>something was wrong, added more content, and so on.

-- 

-----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
Jim Drew		   Seattle, WA		   cfmdesigns at earthlink.net
    http://home.earthlink.net/~rubberize/Weblog/index.html (Update: 6/27)
		(Subject: Riding the Vertical Broomstick)
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Search.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 17979 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.interactiondesigners.com/pipermail/discuss-interactiondesigners.com/attachments/20060713/e6aaec2c/attachment.jpg