April 23

Netflix thinks I’ll love stuff white people love

I don’t actually rate things on Netflix much, so it’s building an algo of “things they have, that I watch, that I don’t already own on another platform”. I’m holey on purpose.

Today’s suggestion (and the first I’ve seen like this):

Not getting the white people hands … they think I’m white, and/or white people like this movie? Maybe I should start streaming a lot of Bollywood and see if they bothered to consider other profiles than default white tech bro.

Category: fix it already, Free Beta Testers, Netflix, User eXperience | Comments Off on Netflix thinks I’ll love stuff white people love
September 16

Filter me this, Netflix

Let us teach your algos more about what we really want, Netflix.

I’ve a friend who posts “the date” every day to help us keep track. Today is Wednesday, March the 199th, 2020.

Social media has become more widely used in the last decade, and the tools to manage them have matured as well. You can hide specific dates or people from popping up as “memories” on Facebook. You can mute or enhance keywords, hashtags, and channels on Twitter, Slack, Discord, and more.

But what about our TV streams? I’m sure I’m not the only bingewatcher out here. Help a binger out, Netflix.

Continue reading
Category: Netflix, User eXperience | Comments Off on Filter me this, Netflix
December 19

PokémonGO Buddy Gameplay Upgrade: Broken Buddies?

I got into tech writing (and righting) because I wanted to understand and improve technology more. But my approach to efficient (lazy path, minimal clicks) gameplay made me think the old buddy stats were broken or gone due to this week’s PokémonGO client update.

I’d walked nearly 20km to evolve a Feebas last week, but the update insisted he had 0km on his counter … or maybe 3.1km.

After a ridiculous amount chasing through menus, I found the right count. But did it really need to be gone? Maybe so. Because the cost to ‘right’ it might be too high.

How I think the feature replacement went down

Continue reading
Category: Data Architecture, Free Beta Testers, games, Niantic, PokemonGO, User eXperience | Comments Off on PokémonGO Buddy Gameplay Upgrade: Broken Buddies?
December 3

Don’t Format Me, Bro: Turning off Slack’s WYSIWYG

My best guess is that @slackHQ got a lot of flack for their good idea: adding WYSIWYG.

But one thing that makes a good idea a great idea is making sure that your broad user base really wants it, or can easily turn it off.

Earlier today they finally rolled out what would have made it great at release … a way to disable this feature that some hard-core keyboardists abhor.

@Netflix … are you listening?

:hamborger:

If you want to copy+paste the instructions to share, here it is in Markdown: (you may need to add your own :hamborger: to your workspace)

 By the way, if the auto format function on Slack is slowing 
you down by breaking your typing stride, close and reopen
(or force refresh) the Slack client, then:

Click the oddly placed :hamborger: (:hamburger:) overflow menu,
then pick *File* > *Preferences…* > *Advanced* > *Format 
messages with markup*

@LorenaB 
Category: Data Architecture, DO NOT STARTLE USER, User eXperience | Comments Off on Don’t Format Me, Bro: Turning off Slack’s WYSIWYG
November 23

It’s just a click to the left, then a swipe to the right

Put your thoughts on the disk, then post next night … But it’s the future posts … that really drive me insane … let’s fix the WordPress again!

If anything takes longer than 90 seconds, automate it. While that’s an exaggeration for the rest of the world, I try to adhere to it as best I can. It comes from years of writing technical documentation and automating as much as possible. I want to focus on content, not fiddling with fonts or meddling with layouts.

I want to do this with WordPress, too. Automate the crap out of things, including future links. But I can’t. Despite its size, it’s not really built for people who know what they’re doing … but my research shows no one else knows how to future link, either. And maybe it’s another job for EdgeCase Industries. But … maybe not.

The future may be written, but it doesn’t exist.

Let’s talk about what I mean by “future link”. I write in fits and spurts. Thanks to scheduling, I can write lots of posts in a night and have three weeks worth of posts done and posting without me. Except when it comes to linking my posts together.

Continue reading

Category: Data Architecture, site stuff, User eXperience, Wordpress | Comments Off on It’s just a click to the left, then a swipe to the right
June 28

How many clicks does it take to get to the reset of a GE lightbulb?

The world may never know.

It’s been making the rounds, the handy GE “UPDATED: How to: Reset C by GE Light Bulbs (864,376 views 6/28/19 7:37pm ET)” video. I heard about it in one of my tech writer Slack channels, and just had to see it for myself.

The spectacle of specificity that guides users down the Happy Path of resetting the bulb is something, indeed, to behold.

Once I saw the problem, and GE’s solution, my brain immediately traveled back in time to the early 1990s and a gadget that was as important to my life then as my smart phone is to me now. An omni-gadget that with a few adjustments could solve this bulb’s and other smart device reset issues … just like my little gadget saved my bacon back in the days of plaid flannel and military surplus boots.

Continue reading
Category: fix it already, hardware, security, User eXperience | Comments Off on How many clicks does it take to get to the reset of a GE lightbulb?
August 14

You do the hokey pokey and you find a work around

My teenagers are going to be driving soon, so I’ll need to equip the car with my parents’ “driving school” hack: an aluminum can with a few pebbles inside. We don’t remember exactly who thought it up, but we all remember using it well.

Deployment was simple,  “rulings” not subject to appeal. Just throw it in the back seat or pickup bed. If it rattles when you maneuver, you were going too fast. Simple. Objective. Argument-proof.

At home with our own brood these days, we employ similar absurd measures to prevent unwanted actions.

  • iPad too feeble to entertain OS updates? Put a passcode on it. Then you can never accidentally deploy an update.
  • Keep pocket launching an otherwise mostly useless garage door app and popping the door open? Bury the app under three layers of folders.

Defeating the Pocket Launches

Sure, I could, you know, LOCK my phone, but then life would be boring. How else would I scare the crap out of myself investigating middle-of-the-night noises if I didn’t pocket launch Audible at full sound? THIS IS AUDIBLE! (It was only the wind, skritching a tree branch on a window screen.)

But the mostly useless garage door app recently became more Lorena-and-pockets-and-toddlers-proof. You can now require a Touch ID fingerprint to open the garage door. Yay!

Of course, there many many other things they can change about the app to make me happy (I’ve been ruminating about it a while), but I’m delighted they’ve added this feature. Stay tuned for the pull apart on garage door apps.

Touch ID prompt

Category: DO NOT STARTLE USER, Free Beta Testers, security, User eXperience | Comments Off on You do the hokey pokey and you find a work around
August 2

I cut the cable, and I may be cutting Netflix free

netflix is cancelled screen

Back in the day, when Netflix had their blue logo and distribution houses only in California, we gave it a try. Too long a turnaround and many broken discs later, we took a break.

The new and improved red-logoed Netflix had a significant impact on our decision to “cut the cord” … as a result we’ve been cable and/or satellite free for well over a decade. We’ll stay at a hotel with cable once in a while, and use the time to remind ourselves why we have stayed severed from real-time television. Noise, commercials, lack of selection and control. Our cord-cutting apps do just fine.

Enter Autoplay Previews …

But a few days ago, the Netflix app on our Apple TV (current generation) started behaving just as badly as cable/satellite TV. It started autoplaying previews. Very annoying. Very loud. So we scrolled through the app options, scrolled through the online options, but found no way to turn it off. Continue reading

Category: DO NOT STARTLE USER, fix it already, Free Beta Testers, Netflix, User eXperience | Comments Off on I cut the cable, and I may be cutting Netflix free
July 10

A survivor has emerged in Jawbone V Fitbit … consumer edition.

According to the Consumerist blog, Jawbone is folding under its consumer wearables division. But Jawbone isn’t going away … they’re moving into more accurate medical-grade devices, possibly to improve data accuracy.

My guess is that these first and second generation trackers are equivalent to the small consumer cell phones and feature phones of the late 90s and early 00s. The medical-grade devices are set to burst onto the scene like the smartphones we all now carry around. Health plans will start paying for devices, and giving discounts for use (there are some pilot programs out there that pay into limited-use accounts) as an everyday thing everyone who can afford health insurance will use.

One to sleep, one to compete.
One to sleep, one to compete.

In the meantime, I’m still wearing two wearables. Partially to participate in challenges against my friends, partially as a check against each other, and partially because I really hate the alarm on the Fitbit more than the alarm on the Jawbone UP (which does wake me up now).

Fitbit, the market is yours to take back from the Apple Watch

(If you design for Apple, stop reading. I don’t want an Apple Watch!) I will ditch the Jawbone forever if you’d just fix your alarm settings from “static” to “smart”. Jawbone UP can be set to wake you at a “good time” in your sleep cycle, rather than at a specific time. Now that they’ve exited the market, find a comparable way to replicate it … without risking a lawsuit, please ….

Continue reading

Category: fix it already, hardware, User eXperience | Comments Off on A survivor has emerged in Jawbone V Fitbit … consumer edition.
June 1

Designing your mobile game to flail: A look at the UX in PokémonGO

Birthday Pikachu imagined with a dedicated healing menu

Years and years ago, there was a really great Super Bowl ad for a job site called monster.com. The premise was kids dreaming aloud of grown up jobs, but speaking of their dreams in ridiculous terms. The one that resonated most with me at the time was a dead serious tween: “I want to file all day.” Nobody wants to file all day.

And this goes for gamers, too. The equivalent of filing in video games is organizing and maintaining your inventory. Chasing through ridiculous amounts of menus just sucks the enjoyment right out of the game. No gamer is thinking to themselves: “I want to click through menus all day.”

But that is exactly what you do in PokémonGO. Click through unnecessary menus all darn day. It hurts gameplay, and I bet it’s even suppressing recurring player counts.

I’ve been playing PokémonGO on and off since it’s public release. There have been some changes to the “capture” side of the gameplay that are fantastic. Improvements to the “battle” side of the gameplay experience are still lacking, however.

Capture Gameplay Improvements:

  • Sliding Capture Menus
  • Appraisal function on the secondary character screen
  • Buddy System  

Continue reading

Category: Data Architecture, fix it already, games, Niantic, PokemonGO, User eXperience | Comments Off on Designing your mobile game to flail: A look at the UX in PokémonGO