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About TemplateMonster

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They’re the creators of the Cherry Framework, an open source responsive WordPress theme framework built on top of Bootstrap that leverages modern HTML5/CSS3 web development best practices and provides end-users with an improved WordPress Dashboard.

About the Author

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The post 50% Discount Sale on All Products at TemplateMonster (+ Giveaway) appeared first on Six Revisions.

Web sites are built to perform a function, and communicate to their users. But beyond this, web sites can also be engaging, exciting, even fun to use.

Adding visual interest to a site helps sustain our engagement with it, whether that is by typography, graphics or photography. But I believe there is also the potential for elements of interaction to provide visual stimulation and feedback, even delight the user. In this article I will argue that adding some effects to amuse, surprise and excite your users can make your websites and apps better, and keep users coming back.

Delight

Website design is often a dry topic, laden with UX jargon and Information Architecture user journeys. But why shouldn’t there be some fun along the way? Adding delight to a site is a great way to make a site not only more human but also make your site unique. 

I am going to narrow down my definition of delight here by saying that it is the addition of unrequired functionality.

By this I mean that it is not an essential part of the site’s function. However, it can have a powerful effect on the way the site is perceived and experienced. In fact I would go as far as to say that how you handle the strictly unnecessary elements of UI are as important as the typography and other visual elements, in setting the tone of a website.

One free interaction

In an article for Cooper Journal, Chris Noessel calls ‘One free interaction’ a design pattern “that gives software a more humane feel.”

Part of it is recognition that humans are fidgety creatures often prone to repeating little actions. Traditionally with pen and paper we’d doodle or continually retract the pens. I’m an inveterate pen-spinner for instance. 

People often carry this fidgety-ness into web browsing, often scrolling up and down, selecting bits of text, or repeating actions.  

The One Free Interaction pattern embraces this innate human need to fiddle, by creating interactive elements that give unexpected or pleasant results. Need an example? Try hovering your cursor over the Web Designer Depot ‘W’ logo at the top of this page.

 As Noessel says, free interactions sit outside of task performance, and instead sit in the in-between spaces. But they are powerful in shaping our emotional response to the sites we use.

Scroll effects

As previously stated, one of the most common ‘fidgets’ is scrolling up and down, so sites that add visual interest when scrolling are often delightful.

The one-page site for the Nizo photography app from Image Mechanics features ‘Knolled’ camera components that move in as you scroll down and out as you scroll down. If you’re like me you’ll spend quite a lot of time just scrolling up and down, playing with the gorgeous interface. (Don’t hold your breath waiting for the app to be released though.)

Using parallax effects on scrolling also add delight, creating the illusion of depth. I love the boy-coy website, where the scrolling effects match the tone and visual style of the site perfectly.

I’m surprised there aren’t more web sites with horizontal scrolling effects, given that side scrolling is such a common theme in game design.  But a nice example is the Nintendo Mario Kart site which looks at the history of the game across 20 years of Nintendo consoles.

The Polish site Mashup adds layers of graphic elements which transition in as you scroll across, a high-tech way of achieving a low-fi sketchbook feel.

The king of the scroll effects sites is probably Acko. Here, the site header element is an animated 3D graffiti object. It is the animated logo taken to the next level — immersive, interactive, playful. There are even achievements to ‘unlock’ on the UI — though gamification is another subject altogether.

Design for emotion

Adding delight to your site helps create an emotional connection with a user. The power of emotion in design is something we are only starting to understand, but it helps explain why we enjoy using certain objects and have such a powerful connection with them. It applies to physical product design as well as interactive design.

I think a strong reason that Apple products are so highly regarded is that users become emotionally attached to them, and there are lot of examples of delight in both Apple hardware and software. I know many people love the ‘rubber-band’ scrolling on iOS mobile Safari so much that they will absent mindedly ping it up and down. 

OK by ‘many people’ I mean me, but Steve Jobs loved it enough to patent it, and it has formed part of Apple’s litigation against Samsung. 

Aaron Walter, in his book Designing for Emotion, looks at the way that successful web sites engage users’ emotions by imbuing them with personality. Adding elements that delight a user is a very powerful way to do this. Simply put, we prefer tools that delight us, so it’s good for business too.

Delight is not a gimmick

Adding delight does not mean adding willful effects as a gimmick. The effects are there to help shape the personality of the site. They don’t have to be playful or quirky (though they can be if that is the personality you want to convey), they can be subtle and restrained if it suits the character better. Take a look at pictet.com. I love the way the search bar fades in when you click the search link — it stops the search text field being a dominant element, until you ask it to be. It is subtle and classy, and suits the tone of the site — a Swiss financial services company — perfectly.

Sometimes the effects are so subtle you might not even notice them. Did you know for example, that the volume control on the BBC iPlayer goes up to 11? It’s a nice little nod to Spinal Tap.

Don’t overdo it

Adding too many unexpected interactions can be counterproductive, creating a visual overkill. Unless you are trying to create a hyperkinetic game-like environment, too many visual effects, with flip-overs, pop-ups, whizzbangs and quirk bombs all over the place will seriously detract from any meaningful engagement with the content. Take a look at the LEDbow site for example. Technically it is brilliant but I do not think it communicates effectively. There’s just too much going on. 

Dial up the delight

I love sites that treat the screen as a viewfinder or a surface rather than a page viewer. Layers moving at different speeds create depth and interest. Elements moving into position draw attention to them. 

Motion makes experience more immersive, but be aware that this sort of interactivity for its own sake does not equal greater engagement.

Adding delight makes sites more human and also more tactile, engaging our monkey-brain need to mess and play while we think and learn. Next time you create a site think about how you can create something unique to delight your users.

Do you design for emotion? How do you add delight to a site? Let us know in the comments.

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Guesstimates by analysts put the number of mobile app downloads this year at somewhere between 56 and 82 billion, with the average user downloading somewhere between 26 and 41 apps, with a smaller subset of those apps being used on a regular basis. Other numbers indicate that 95% of downloaded apps are abandoned within a month and 26% of apps are only used once.

Depending on the user, these abandoned apps are deleted or ignored, never to be opened again. I choose to leave these ignored apps on my phone and tablet, and at last count, I had over 375 apps on my iPhone. I turned off badges for my App Store app because it was a constant reminder that over 250 apps are waiting to be updated, which is intentional. A majority of those outdated apps lie in what I refer to as my app graveyard — buried beyond the first two screens of apps.

Illustration by Nancy C Xu.

My app graveyard is the final resting place for apps that I have downloaded, tried or used briefly but have since left neglected. I leave them on my phone and tablet as a constant reminder of what killed these apps. The following are lessons from my app graveyard that I keep in mind when designing apps, and they might help you, too.

Lesson 1: Validate The Need For An App

Don’t stretch Apple’s catchphrase “There’s an app for that” too far — not everything has to exist as an app. A recent study (PDF, 2 MB) by Compuware found that smartphone users prefer mobile apps to mobile websites, but other research shows organizational strategy shifting away from native mobile apps towards Web experiences. If your content and functionality can be better served to users through a responsive website or Web app, then you have no real need for a native app. While native apps can easily use a device’s capabilities, a few features, such as GPS, can be used by websites, too.

Couple that with offline storage and many websites can do whatever their native equivalents currently do. Visitors to Kansas City can easily do everything they need to from the VisitKC mobile website, instead of downloading and installing the dedicated app, which is now in my app graveyard.

VisitKC.com (left) can do everything the VisitKC app (right) has to offer. (Large views: left, right)

How do you decide whether you need an app? The decision should be driven by business goals, user needs and the user experience. The short version is, if you plan to primarily offer content and basic functionality that users will access infrequently from different platforms and devices, then those users might be best served with a responsive website. Also, consider the time, effort and cost involved in creating a platform-specific native app, as well as the ongoing maintenance.

Additional Reading

• “Mobile: Native Apps, Web Apps and Hybrid Apps,” Raluca Budiu, Nielsen Norman Group
  Budiu discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the three approaches.
• “Mobile App vs. Responsive Design: Ask These 10 Questions First,” Mark Rickmeier, Table XI
  And note the accompanying infographic.
• “The Future of Mobile Development: HTML5 vs. Native Apps,” BI Intelligence, Business Insider

Lesson 2: Make Sure The App Works As Expected

This one might sound like common sense, but you would be surprised by how many apps do not work as expected or end up crashing (see the image below), often after an update — and that’s not just from personal experience. One- and two-star reviews in the App Store often complain about just that. Look at reviews of Apple’s own Find My Friends or the beautifully designed alarm app Rise — when apps do not do the one thing they are supposed to do, users will stop using it or will use a competing app instead.

Staples’ app had problems authenticating users and would repeatedly lock users out of their accounts, even though the same credentials worked on the website. And the flight-tracking functionality in United’s app frequently does not work, although it works just fine on United’s mobile website, as shown below.

(Large views: left, right)

One way to avoid this is by thoroughly testing your app when releasing a new version or after an OS release. Test on actual devices, with bonus points for testing in mobile contexts (for example, testing an alarm app during deep sleep). Another ongoing proactive method is to use analytics tools to monitor where your app fails users or even crashes.

Source: “Mobile Apps: What Consumers Really Need and Want,” Compuware (PDF, 2 MB)

Lesson 3: Don’t Drain The User’s Device

Apps should judiciously use a device’s resources, including memory, bandwidth and power. Apps that do not minimize their use of a device’s location capabilities or that do not disable location updates as soon as possible are common offenders. Earlier this year, the Taxi Magic app alone drained about 20% of my battery during a 40-minute ride to the airport, leaving me hunting for juice on my way home. Staples’ location-based alerts appear to be active and display the location-indicator arrow even after the app is closed, and even after the app says it will affect battery life (below).

Before and after a Staples app update with location-based alerts. (Large views: left, right)

Apple’s “iOS App Programming Guide” offers some factors to consider when tuning an app’s performance. Android has corresponding best practices.

Lesson 4: Follow Design Standards And Guidelines

The mobile experience is built from individual elements that require careful consideration. For instance, apps with a unique interaction design should onboard new users with a quick introduction or a short tutorial on using the app upon first launching, with options for the user to skip and view it later. Yet many unintuitive apps do not do this or do not even offer help, forcing users to give up.

Spellcheck is not an option either, as Mitt Romney’s mobile developers quickly discovered last year when they misspelled “America” in one of their photo-sharing banners as “Amercia”. Though the app was updated within a day, I did not update, but rather buried it in my app graveyard as a reminder that the little details matter.

“Bart Simpson is with Mitt.” (Image: Joao Correia)

When designing for different platforms, follow the design elements and conventions of the respective platforms, be it iOS, Android or Windows.

Lesson 5: Earn Your Users’ Trust By Addressing Privacy And Security Concerns

Ask only for what you need — don’t collect or access information that is not required for the app to function. Many apps need access to such device information as contacts, calendar and photos to be useful, but an app should be transparent about why it needs that data and how it will be used. Apps that consume or store sensitive information (such as financial data) should demonstrate their trustworthiness up front or risk being abandoned.

One app in my graveyard is Card Mate Pro, which stores credit-card information but does not impart a feeling of security or confidence. Another common reason that apps are abandoned is that they ask users to register (or use social sign-in) in order to gain functionality that does not depend on having a profile. The app for Moe’s Southwest Grill (a fast-food chain) required registration before users could use any functionality in the app, including locating restaurants and browsing the menu.

Previous versions of Moe’s app required users to register or log in to use it.

Additional Reading

• “Best Practices for Mobile App Developers,” Future of Privacy Forum

Lesson 6: Give Users Control And Ownership Of Their Data

Apps that create, capture or store user data should offer a way for users to save, back up or archive that information. A couple of apps that capture and organize my kids’ artwork now lie in my app graveyard because there’s no way for me to save or back up those pictures to iCloud or Dropbox. Every app, free or paid, is at the mercy of its developer and can be discontinued at any time or removed from the App Store, as recently happened with the to-do app Orchestra and Apple’s own Cards. Enabling users to easily save their own data gives them confidence that they won’t lose it forever if the app were to be discontinued or automatically upgraded.

A part of StarDust’s mobile reputation infographic shows just how many apps are dead. (Large view)

Lesson 7: Don’t Bait And Switch

Descriptions in the App Store (even for free apps) should clearly indicate what is included in the purchase price and what is available via in-app purchases, which will help users decide whether to buy and download that app. Not making this clear up front is wrong, as is forcing users to rate or share an app in order to enable features that they’ve already paid for.

Step Out Alarm Clock is one such app in my graveyard. While it forces you to wake up, it also forces you to rate the app to unlock features that are listed as part of the paid app. While we’re on the topic of ratings and reviews, when prompting users to rate an app, wait until they’ve had an opportunity to use it, and give them the option to rate it later or never rate it, and honor their selection.

Step Out Alarm Clock forces users to rate the app to unlock features listed as part of the paid app.

Lesson 8: Load The App Quickly, Without Fanfare Or Annoyance

The “iOS Human Interface Guidelines.” recommend enabling your users to begin using your app immediately:

“It’s often said that people spend no more than a minute or two evaluating a new app. When you make the most of this brief period by presenting useful content immediately, you pique the interest of new users and give all users a superior experience.”

Apple goes on to recommend avoiding a splash screen or other “launch” experience, and instead using a simple launch image. While resource-intensive apps such as games need a few seconds to load, games are among the biggest offenders of the recommendation against splash screens. Moe’s Southwest Grill launches with its loud signature “Welcome to Moe’s” yell, without any option to mute it — which I discovered in a client’s quiet office. The developers have since listened to feedback, and an update last December allows users to mute the greeting.

Lesson 9: Marketing And Incentives Only Go So Far

Apps need marketing — and sometimes incentives — to get noticed and downloaded. However, that alone does not guarantee continued usage. The reservation system that the developers of Mailbox followed when they launched earlier this year, to stagger the app’s rollout, added to the hype for the app. Like many others, I haven’t used Mailbox since I downloaded it to try it out.

An incentive will get users to download and try an app, but engagement will not last long. The preceding lessons should help you create a good first impression, but users will often need to be nudged to continue using the app. This could take the form of reminders to use the app, as 1 Second Everyday does, or subtle email messages, if users have given you their email address and permission to contact them.

Lesson 10: What The App Store Gives, Apple Can Take Away

With each iOS release, third-party apps become redundant as their primary functionality in integrated into the new OS. iOS 7 suddenly made flashlight apps and bubble-level apps redundant. Still, some third-party apps have survived and thrived by offering additional unique functionality or a better experience. Examples include Instapaper and Pocket (formerly Read It Later), both of which were supposed to be killed by Safari’s Reading List in iOS 5 but are still alive and actively used today, two iOS releases later.

What’s A Developer To Do?

The lessons above are just a few of the reasons why an app may be downloaded by many but actively used by few. The Compuware study mentioned earlier found that 79% of consumers would retry a mobile app only once or twice if it failed to work the first time, and only 16% would give it more than two attempts. This gives app developers a small window of opportunity to make a good impression. So, put your best foot forward, and make sure your app is ready for prime time before launching. As shown below, abandonment is perhaps the least damaging response to a poor app experience.

Mobile Apps: What Consumers Really Need and Want,” Compuware (PDF, 2 MB). (Large view)

If you already have an app struggling in the App Store, make sure to monitor social-media feedback, support emails, reviews on third-party websites, and App Store reviews and ratings to glean the reasons for the abandonment of your app. Services such as App Annie and App Figures will consolidate your reviews, which are a great source to learn about problems as well as suggestions for features. Prioritize and address these problems in your next release, and improve the app’s quality after launch to reduce the chance of your app joining users’ graveyard.

What other lessons have you learned from your own app graveyard? We would love for you to share them in the comments below.

(al, ea)

© Lyndon Cerejo for Smashing Magazine, 2013.

The website for the Affordable Care Act was doomed by an inordinately complex setup that tried to link disparate databases in real time.

The fiasco with the $600 million federal health insurance website wasn’t all bureaucratic. Forcing slow and disparate databases run by government and insurance companies to work together in real time—and then launching the service all at once—would have challenged even technology wunderkinds.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Quantum Computing Seminar

Shor’s Algorithm Part 2

Samuel Lomonaco, CSEE, UMBC

2:30-3:00 Tuesday, 3 December 2013, ITE 325b

As requested in the last seminar, we will devote this seminar to stepping through the complete Shor algorithm (from beginning to end) to factor the “enormous” integer 21. This talk will based on the example found at the beginning of the following paper.

Quantum hidden subgroup algorithms: A mathematical perspective, AMS CONM, vol. 305, (2002), 139 – 202.

Samuel J. Lomonaco is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is internationally known for his many contributions in mathematics and in computer science. His research interests span a wide range of subjects from knot theory, algebraic and differential topology to algebraic coding theory, quantum computation, and symbolic computation. In quantum cryptography, he has shown how quantum information theory can be used to gain a better understanding of eavesdropping with quantum entanglement. In quantum computation, he has shown how Lie groups can be used to solve problems arising in the study of quantum entanglement. In 2000 Professor Lomonoco organized the first American Mathematical Society short course on quantum computation.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Quantum Computing Seminar

Shor’s Algorithm Part 2

Samuel Lomonaco, CSEE, UMBC

2:30-3:00 Tuesday, 3 December 2013, ITE 325b

As requested in the last seminar, we will devote this seminar to stepping through the complete Shor algorithm (from beginning to end) to factor the “enormous” integer 21. This talk will based on the example found at the beginning of the following paper.

Quantum hidden subgroup algorithms: A mathematical perspective, AMS CONM, vol. 305, (2002), 139 – 202.

Samuel J. Lomonaco is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is internationally known for his many contributions in mathematics and in computer science. His research interests span a wide range of subjects from knot theory, algebraic and differential topology to algebraic coding theory, quantum computation, and symbolic computation. In quantum cryptography, he has shown how quantum information theory can be used to gain a better understanding of eavesdropping with quantum entanglement. In quantum computation, he has shown how Lie groups can be used to solve problems arising in the study of quantum entanglement. In 2000 Professor Lomonoco organized the first American Mathematical Society short course on quantum computation.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
Quantum Computing Seminar

Shor’s Algorithm Part 2

Samuel Lomonaco, CSEE, UMBC

2:30-3:00 Tuesday, 3 December 2013, ITE 325b

As requested in the last seminar, we will devote this seminar to stepping through the complete Shor algorithm (from beginning to end) to factor the “enormous” integer 21. This talk will based on the example found at the beginning of the following paper.

Quantum hidden subgroup algorithms: A mathematical perspective, AMS CONM, vol. 305, (2002), 139 – 202.

Samuel J. Lomonaco is a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering of the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He is internationally known for his many contributions in mathematics and in computer science. His research interests span a wide range of subjects from knot theory, algebraic and differential topology to algebraic coding theory, quantum computation, and symbolic computation. In quantum cryptography, he has shown how quantum information theory can be used to gain a better understanding of eavesdropping with quantum entanglement. In quantum computation, he has shown how Lie groups can be used to solve problems arising in the study of quantum entanglement. In 2000 Professor Lomonoco organized the first American Mathematical Society short course on quantum computation.

Organizer: Prof. Samuel Lomonaco, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.

Center for Information Security and Assurance
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Finding privacy leaks and stolen data with
bulk data analysis and optimistic decoding

Dr. Simson Garfinkel
Naval Postgraduate School

12:00-1:00 Friday, 6 December 2013, ITE 229

Modern digital forensics tools are largely based on the recovery and analysis of files. This talk explores how identity information such as email addresses, credit card numbers, and other of information can be more efficiently found using bulk data analysis, and how results are significantly improved through the use of optimistic decompression. Together, these techniques can find important information on computer media that are ignored by the majority of today’s digital forensics tools.

This talk presents the results of a study of roughly 5000 hard drives purchased on the secondary market and shows how different kinds of data formats can be traced to different kinds of privacy leaks and coding errors. It shows how the results were generated using bulk_extractor, an easy-to-use open source digital forensics tool. Finally, it shows how bulk_extractor was extended to detect data obscured with a simple steganographic technique (XOR 255), and how a subsequence re-analysis of the research corpus found significant use of the technique in commercial software, malware, and by at least one computer criminal.

Dr. Simson L. Garfinkel is an Associate Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. Based in Arlington VA, Garfinkel’s research interests include digital forensics, usable security, data fusion, information policy and terrorism. He holds six US patents for his computer-related research and has published dozens of research articles on security and digital forensics.

Garfinkel is the author or co-author of fourteen books on computing. He is perhaps best known for his book Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century. Garfinkel’s most successful book, Practical UNIX and Internet Security (co-authored with Gene Spafford), has sold more than 250,000 copies and been translated into more than a dozen languages since the first edition was published in 1991.

Garfinkel received three Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT in 1987, a Master’s of Science in Journalism from Columbia University in 1988, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT in 2005.

Host: Dr. Alan T. Sherman, Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.