Archive for February, 2002

Posted on February 19, 2002 - by deCadmus

NYT on Ethnography

UBWA
The New York Times recently offered an amusing glimpse of commercial ethnography — Consuming Rituals of the Suburban Tribe. Its author aimed a soft-focus lens on field studies of typical American consumers… and even found a wizened ethnographer to quote, ”What consumers say and remember and what they actually do are often two totally different things.” The article — and its subject — proved offbeat, and quirky, and probably made the radar of New York television executives as fodder for a mid-season sitcom replacement. Interestingly, the article also pinged the the web’s favorite usability curmudgeon, Jakob Nielsen, who offered his critique in a recent Alertbox column. Don’t ask leading questions, says Jakob. And don’t draw attention to specific issues. Well… yes. And no.

There’s a tremendous amount that can be learned by simple observation. There is, however, far more that can be learned by engaging your test subject, or your customer, in frank and open conversation. A specific technique comes into play here — active listening — with which you may encourage your customer, restate facts, reflect feelings, and offer summary views to achieve clarity. None of these methods, skillfully executed, should be construed as leading, though any of these methods can be easily botched, particularly in a formal test environment. Which is why I’m particularly fond of informal testing… which I refer to as Usability by Walking Around… UBWA.

Long before I’d read anything by Tom Peters, I learned the principles of Management by Walking Around from managers who actively practiced it… walking the hallways, talking to employees, listening, and offering perspective. I made the same techniques my own when I became responsible for projects and products, and carried over a number of the same guiding principles when my interests turned to the field of usability. Just as it’s impossible to manage people and projects from some removed office, it’s impossible to practice usability from a far-off place — you must engage the people who use your products, as well as those who create them.

In a typical UBWA tour, I’ll start with the Help Desk team. These are folks on the front lines of customer issues… they know precisely who is having difficulty using your products, and they’re probably the very first to spot trends among user groups, or particular points of pain in new releases. Listen to them. Pay particular attention to those aspects that are less than tangible… these are issues that will probably never be reported up the food chain because they are difficult to measure and substantiate — and they often convey real insight into how your products are actually being used, as opposed to how they might have been designed to be used.

Continuing the tour, I’ll try to meet those same customers I’ve just learned of from the Help Desk team. If they are internal customers, this is easy. If they are external customers I may have to settle for a phone conversation… though if the issue is particularly thorny I’ll try to arrange an on-site visit — an informal visit — usually structured as “I’d just like to look over your shoulder as you step through X, Y and Z with our product.” Listen carefully. Listen actively. Reflect. Summarize. Ask, very casually, if you might take some notes. Be very careful, though, to not convey that this is in any way “on the record” — your customers’ tone, voice and manner will suddenly seize up — they are now filtering their own point of view.

Next on the tour… the development team. Just in time to referee a debate between the visual designers and the information architects. To be honest, there’s always a debate between the visual designers and the information architects… which is very likely a good thing. There’s nothing like a spirited exchange of ideas — even the bad ones [or, especially the bad ones] — to keep the overall customer experience meaningful. If it’s relevant to the conversation, this would be a good time to relate the conversations you’ve just had with your customer, to see if it sparks something. If it’s not relevant, save it for a better opportunity.

On to the marketing and sales groups… they’ll certainly want to know about the customer conversations, and they may have a point of view for the development team. Moreover, they’ve probably spoken to yet more customers and solicited additional feedback — feedback that probably needs to be squared against other sources. While sales and marketing teams have a valuable point of view, it’s a view that is very often one-dimensional. Listen. Trust. Verify.

Finally, a UBWA tour is rarely complete without a stop by the offices of my own management to offer a distilled version of today’s events and a general progress update. With luck I won’t find them in… they’ll be out walking around, too.

This is discount usability of the highest order. Simple. Cheap. Relevant. And unvarnished.

Posted on February 18, 2002 - by deCadmus

No taxation without…

I find myself paying taxes to a state in which I do not live, apparently because I also did not live there last year. My not living there last year resulted in a refund of taxes that had been already taken from my paycheck. The refund of those taxes came in the form of a check from that state that I do not live in… and though it was my money to begin with, the fact that the state issued the check is apparently an iron-clad gotcha in terms of taxation. Thus, I owe the state that I do not live in a percentage of the money they refunded me… only because they refunded the money.

What, you ask, has this to do with coffee?

Why, the Boston Tea Party, of course. A circular system of taxation imposed by Britain — a place in which the American colonists did not live — fomented aggravation enough to cause those colonists to dump 342 chests of British tea into Boston harbor. Enough tea, I am told, to brew 24 million cups. In the wake of the Boston Tea Party, these newly sprung patriots swore off the brew, turning instead… to coffee.

Tomorrow I will return to that state in which I do not live. And while I’m there, I’m gonna flush a tea bag.

Posted on February 14, 2002 - by deCadmus

More Mystery Cup..

More Mystery Cup…
Jim Schulman is a fellow altie and something of a professional data grubber. He sent me some very interesting charts based on data he’d glommed from the Mystery Cup charts I’d published here. I was intrigued by his findings — enough so that I forwarded him a copy of the original data set to see what else he might come up with. The result? The Mystery Cup Family Tree.

Posted on February 12, 2002 - by deCadmus

Coy? Moi?

A reader suggests I’m being coy by not suggesting what origin, or what blend of coffee to use in cafe au lait. Coy? Moi? No… it’s just an oversight.

You’ll want to brew a coffee that can cut through all that hot milk — and if you’re following the just say no to chicory path, you’ll want a coffee that’s got a bit of a bite to it — an acidic snap. Given that you’re looking for a deep roast, there are very few origins that will retain their zippy aspects well. I’d say it calls for a Kenya — though I wouldn’t use up my precious small-farm lots for this — their nuances would be lost. A solid Kenya AA would fit the bill nicely.

As for me, I’ve roasted up some of Barry’s Decatur Street Blend… an espresso blend, but it drinks well as a brewed coffee, and plays nice with lots of milk. Besides, the very name evokes the French Quarter.

Posted on February 12, 2002 - by deCadmus

It’s Fat Tuesday…

It’s Fat Tuesday… and while thousands throng Bourbon Street in New Orleans — parlaying their, er… assets for beads — I’m more inclined to think of the Big Easy’s less trafficked locales. The wizened mansions of the Garden District. The tucked-away little family taverns, deep in the French Quarter. The hidden courtyards and walled gardens. And the grand old coffee houses.

Yes, there’s more to New Orleans than Mardi Gras, and more to New Orleans coffee than Cafe du Monde. Sadly, the venerable Kaldi’s Coffeehouse and Museum is no more… its museum aspect was no affectation — it’d just been in business that long, and it’s worn wood-plank floors and battle-scarred counters told a story, as did its selection of just-roasted, brewed coffees. I never had chicory-laced coffee at Kaldi’s. You know what? I never missed it.

To get an update on New Orleans’ French Quarter coffee scene, I contacted Mr. Nolajava himself, Bill Siemers of Orleans Coffee Exchange. Bill had just returned from a visit to Costa Rica’s Tarrazu county, but he took a few moments to point me in the direction of some coffee houses served by his roasting company. Among them, Royal Blend Coffee & Tea House [on Royal Street, of course] looks to offer traditional French Quarter courtyard surroundings, while Cafe Beignet at Royal and Decatur is reputed to one-up Cafe Du Monde in the square donut department. For a touch of class, try the sophisticated surroundings of the elegant Windsor Court Hotel — Bill roasts their signature house blend.

Of course, if Fat Tuesday finds you far away from New Orleans, there’s no reason not to enjoy cafe au lait at home. Start with strong, dark-roasted coffee… think Viennese or French roast, deep into second crack. French-drip brewing is, of course, preferred, but nearly any brew method will do. Slowly heat a similar amount of fresh, whole milk in a saucepan — don’t let it boil — but heat it just shy [about 170 F.] until it forms a milky skin on top. Skim the milk, then combine the two to taste — one or two parts coffee to two parts milk — and enjoy.

Oh… and the chicory? Save it for the dog.

Posted on February 11, 2002 - by deCadmus

Spilling the beans…

In a marathon series of weekend updates the Mystery Cup Challenge results are revealed! Complete cupping reports — origin details, maps, and highlights of scoring — are now online. Still cupping? Not to worry, there’s still time to post your results. Wondering what this whole Mystery Cup thing is about? Read the Mystery Cup announcement.

Posted on February 7, 2002 - by deCadmus

On the horns of a dilemma…

Like a great many web sites, I’ve got some difficult decisions ahead. New HTML specifications offer promising glimpses of compatibility and extensibility — XHTML, in particular — while at the same time widening the gap between current standards, and the hordes of folks still using 3.x and 4.x browsers. I have always maintained a rule of strict backward-compatibility, but for the first time I find that rule is getting in the way of progress… it’s unusually difficult to build pages — much less entire sites — that are congruent with, say, Netscape 4.07 and a 3G handheld device.

To gather some data for the decisions ahead I’ve embedded a script further down the page that reports Bloggle’s site statistics to WebTrends. After examining the mechanisms and privacy characteristics of a number of on-line statistics tools, I’m most comfortable with WebTrends’ method of aggregation — I think it has very little impact on user privacy. Moreover, I like it’s performance and its reliability. I *do* wish they offered a machine-readable privacy policy.

So, in the coming weeks I’ll be able to determine what the Bloggle aggregate looks like… in terms of browser versions, support for JavaScript, color depth and screen resolution. It’ll also be nifty to compare off-site statistics with those generated from my own web logs to get an idea how much caching is going on these days. I expect I’ll see a 20 to 30% difference in the page-view counts between the two mechanisms.

Meanwhile, Bloggle will be offering you a cookie or two… which you may accept or refuse as you like. Again… I have no desire to interfere with your privacy — or even your perception of privacy — I hope only to make Bloggle a very useful resource, and one that’s in-tune with its audience.

Posted on February 7, 2002 - by deCadmus

Currently tasting…

I’ve finally got a delivery of the lovely new Kimel Estate from Papua New Guinea. First impressions… a well-rounded cup with notes of tobacco and tea, with a velvet-like body I’ve come to associate with better PNGs. And, spurred no doubt by the specter of Juan Valdez, I’m once again searching for a Colombian coffee worthy of acclaim. I’ll be roasting Colombian Organic Mesa de Los Santos today, and will offer complete reviews of both coffees this week.

Posted on February 7, 2002 - by deCadmus

From Tasting, to Taste

From tasting, to taste…
In a recent article on tasting coffee I suggested a ritual that’s both more appealing and less compulsory than the traditional “cupping” form. It’s sparked a number of conversations on the sense of taste — ranging from what flavors we might discern, how we describe them, and, in particular, how we compare them to other flavors — flavors have nothing to do with coffee, or with what we’d generally consider edible things.

You’re no doubt aware that taste and smell are inexorably twined — to taste fully you must be able to smell what you’re tasting. Want to test the idea? Pinch your nose while you’re eating your next meal… you’ll not only experience how tasteless the food becomes, you will also become very aware of the texture of the food. [Interesting how the mind works, isn't it?] Not only is smell bound up in the tasting experience, it contributes to our taste memory. Let’s try another exercise…

Take a deep breath. Release it. Now recall the smell of Scotch tape… it might be jumbled up with other smells of birthdays and Christmas and other gift-giving events. Maybe the memory of the smell is lurking near other school supplies…. Got it? Good. Now… how does it taste? Even if you’ve never had it in your mouth, your sense of smell is talking to your tongue and describing it quite well.

Let’s try some more… Freshly sharpened pencils. Magic markers. Elmer’s glue. Fresh-mowed grass. These are all things that you might have never tasted — never licked, chewed or swallowed — yet still you know their tastes intimately. and consequently, you’re familiar with the tastes of wood and gum rubber, graphite, isopropyl alcohol, and grass. [Green grass, just-mowed on a Summer's day.... I imagine you can even smell the gasoline from the lawnmower.]

So what about things other than food that you have tasted? Dirt? Pebbles? A copper penny? A paper clip? A rubber eraser? Even if you weren’t one of those kids that smelled and often tasted everything he touched [like me] — you probably got a mouthful of flavors from unexpected places.

Posted on February 5, 2002 - by deCadmus

Everyday Design

Last Friday, Talk of the Nation Science Friday’s Ira Flatow spoke at some length with Don Norman, the user friendly half of the Nielsen-Norman group. I’ve been tremendously influenced by Don over the years. My copy of Don’s Psychology of Everyday Things is hopelessly dog-eared, and I’ve very much enjoyed The Invisible Computer, and Things That Make Us Smart. All good reading… and Ira, as always, leads a lively discussion.

A highlight: Michael Graves [architect, and designer of odds and ends and kitchen widgets sold at Target stores] is describing how he’d designed a new water faucet for the bathroom tub and shower. Ira asks how one goes about testing such a device. Michael lets slip that he uses focus groups. “No, no, no…!” interjects Don, “how would a focus group take a shower?”

;)