Content is the King, Context is the Queen

Been using the iPad for the past 3 years, when I got this Nexus 7 six months ago and saw the form factor, it was a customer delight – sleek and lightweight. Ladies can put it in their purse easily and for guys according to my co-workers, it can fit their pants pockets.

At home on the couch I used to have a hard time choosing between using my MacBook Air or iPad but now in this context, Nexus 7 is clearly a winner. It’s light enough that i can switch to different lazy postures and still am able to hold it easily.

Traffic to home or work in the “Google” app was designed very well for the context as well. Used to commute between Santa Barbara and Ventura where there is barely traffic, now the traffic in the bay area is a challenge for me. If you go to work half an hour early, you may end up arriving at work the same time if you choose go to work half an hour late because of rush/off hours. The time to work/home display comes very handy before I go to work or take off.

This is not to deny that this new device 1.0 still has some user experience glitches but those well design details make me appreciate the thoughts the design and engineering team put into context design and innovation.

(This article was written pre iPad mini and I’m glad to see the mini coming out as it’s as light as Nexus 7:)

Tis the Season

Time flies, days pass, and another new year approaches, with the very late holiday greetings.

Every year flies by fast. I remember typing last year’s holiday email on New Year’s day 2012 and now it’s already 2013. And it’s been 6 months that I hadn’t updated my blog.

My parents came to visit in the summer and that meant quite a lot of travel. We went back to UW where I did my partial PhD. The campus is as gorgeous as before and surprisingly, Seattle didn’t rain a drop; even Mount Rainier and Golden Gate Bridge were cleared up to greet international travelers.

Every two or three years I retrospect on my path leading to the next stage. So here I am, now moved away from Santa Barbara, the place (and the workplace) I truly loved and thought I was going to stay for a long, long time, to Silicon Valley, where people talk about data mining at farmers’ market, and where I got to work on cool stuff and meet new friends, and of course, it comes with the more than authentic dim sum and Indian food.

Another wholeheartedly thankful year. Thank you, and have a happy and healthy new year!

Mobile site user feedback made my tenure at lynda.com

You stick to the standard and it pays off. As the mobile site UX designer/PO for almost two years and building the site from scratch, those overwhelmingly positive feedback we got today after our newsletter announcement made my 2.5 years of tenure at lynda.com. Though I’m moving on to a different team, I feel now I can finally turn in the finals paper.

“I only thought I loved Lynda before, now I’m sure I do.  Keep up the good work.”

“Top quality mobile site.. Have had no problems whatsoever. This mobile site has totally sold me onto lynda.com. well done developers and designers.”

“well done. crisp. clean. wonderful.”

“This site is just like using the main site. Very easy to use and nice buttons, no fat finger mistakes!”

“I love that you now have a mobile site for all us Android users.  The video seams smooth and clear. I have yet to try it on the kindle fire yet but I will later. Thanks again.”

“As an amateur web designer myself, I appreciate all the little details that went into making this mobile friendly. The navigation is smooth, the transitions and resizing of the window take milliseconds, plus the videos load fast! Great job!!”

“Very nice and easy to navigate with. Just wish other web sites would follow lynda.com.”

“Very Good… Very easy To Watch the video. Everything work perfectly… Good job”

“This is great to have on my Android phone.  A little hard to see, though, due to limitation of screen size. Still, I love it!”

“Mobile site is great at first glance!”

Curious about the team’s awesome work? Use your smartphone and point to lynda.com!

Sadly, waterfall.

The California Department of Transportation is investing over $102 million on the Carpinteria to Ventura section of the 101 road construction for the next 4 years. Being a commuter of this stretch of 101 among many co-workers, I rarely experienced traffic in this route, unless there was a road construction; neither do my colleagues.

So I emailed them, out of curiosity, why. Curiosity kills the cat, I know, I know.

I did get a prompt reply, stating:

“Our studies of traffic volumes and patterns conducted in 2005 and 2008 indicated that this stretch of Route 101 is congested for several hours in each directions – predominantly northbound during morning peak hours and southbound during evening peak hours.”

Even back in the academia world, we didn’t cite literature that’s around 8 years old, unless, it’s very very compelling.

I pulled the Google traffic on Mondays, 8am, 9am, 5pm, 6pm – both directions are green at those rush hours.

What can I say? It was a 8-year waterfall process: before you ship it, customers no longer need it! And what’s worse, it’s making the customers life harder – the commute is going to be miserable.

More sadly, it’s a $102 M undertaking – the tax payers’ money could have been spent at somewhere else that’s more meaningful.

Google Traffic at 8am on Mondays, and stays the same:

UX Night with Eric Reiss

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

I have this honor to invite Eric Reiss, Content Strategist and CEO of FatDUX Copenhagen, to come to Santa Barbara and have a UX night with us.

Eric served as the President of the IA Institute for two terms and is a renowned speaker in the IA and UX community. I went to his talk at the IA Summit two years ago and was impressed by the fascinating content and his public speaking charisma.

Topic TBD but I guarantee you it will be wonderful.

Date: Thursday March 29, 2012
Time: 6:00-8:30 pm (note that we moved the time to half an hour early)
Venue: 6410 Via Real, Carpinteria, CA 93013

Please RSVP at meetup.com/sb-ux-meetup. And to keep an eye for any group updates or upcoming meetups, you may:

Sign up the SB UXMeetup Group at meetup.com/sb-ux-meetup
Follow us at twitter @sb_ux
Join our Linkedin Group
Like us on our community Facebook page and you can check out the previous meetup photos.

See you soon!

Feburary UX Meetup: Persona Design

Howdy!

Hope you all had a fantastic holiday season. Now we are all back to work and the fun stuff. Can you find yourself in the collage above? If not, you should join us more often in 2012:)

First SB UX Meetup in 2012 is back to lynda.com. We got two awesome speakers and a great topic:

Kristen Johansen, Senior Director of Web Product
Jill Christ, Senior User Experience Researcher

Building effective personas is an important part of Product Development. It is essential for companies to understand the types of customers that use their product, or could use their product. However, the personas we produce are often full of extraneous, irrelevant, and fake information, and cannot be used to create Product Development Roadmaps.

Based on their experience developing personas for lynda.com, Kristen Johansen and Jill Christ will share how developing authentic personas, that expose users real behaviors, motivations, and deep desires had a powerful affect on the lynda.com Product Roadmaps. They will not only share a case study of how lynda.com discovered and created authentic personas, but they will also cover:

• what personas are, and how they can be more authentic
• strategies and tactics to interview customers and identify customer archytypes
• tips on how to analyze users words and behavior, and create mental models
• how to distill your personas down, make them succinct, and easy to remember

Date: Thursday Feburary 16, 2012
Time: 6:30-8:30 pm
Venue: 6410 Via Real, Carpinteria, CA 93013 (food will be provided courtesy of lynda.com.)

Please RSVP at meetup.com/sb-ux-meetup, or by replying this blog. We need a headcount to know the portion of food to order. And to keep an eye for any group updates or upcoming meetups, you may:

Sign up the SB UXMeetup Group at meetup.com/sb-ux-meetup
Follow us at twitter @sb_ux
Join our Linkedin Group
Like us on our community Facebook page and you can check out the previous meetup photos.

Doesn’t matter if you are in UX: come join us for the conversation, food, and opportunities.

See you soon!

Happy 2012

Time flies, days pass, and another new year approaches, with the very late holiday greetings!

It has been a crazy year that flew by fast. It’s also an extraordinary hard year. But all’s well that ends well.

My mom is doing great after her gallstone laser operation. My dad still plays ping pong in his spare time, and won several province-wide matches. Many of my good friends have had their new-borns in this year of the Rabbit. So happy for them; and I’ve been upgraded to an auntie too!

I’ve been traveling a lot, as usual. With three international trips in a year, United decided to upgrade me on every flight I flew with them, so I quite enjoy being a loyal customer.

Work has been treating me well; cannot complain about free buffet lunches, and working with a bunch of fun and creative latte makers and yeti (our new stuffed animal toy at work) lovers.

I’m wholeheartedly thankful and appreciative and thank you all… for your love, care, support and understanding; and I would also like to extend very warm wishes to you and your families for a happy and healthy new year!