User Experience and Cognitive Engineering

I am currently reading the latest biography of Albert Einstein by Walter Isaacson. I then decided to download the original 1905 paper of Einstein on the special theory of relativity. I was very impressed to see how beautifully Einstein exposed his theory but at the same time, very shocked to realize how poor the teaching I received about this was.

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Last year, the government of Quebec asked Cognitive Group to do a heuristic evaluation (expert evaluating usability with a list of usability heuristics) and usability testing of their web portal. First, heuristic evaluation is not reliable because:

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I was recently hired by an important financial institution from Canada to help them assess their strategy for a transition to a new a version of their content management software. Content management software is a portion of an imaging system that allows users to scan documents, index an image, retrieve and view image documents. (more…)

A few years ago, I was in a group that got lost during a hiking trip. One member of the group said “I know the way out. We just have to turn right and walk in that direction for 10 minutes; we will see a little farmhouse and the road to civilization”. He was sure of himself. We followed his lead but after 15 minutes of walking, no sign of the little farmhouse. The group began questioning the direction. After a while, it became obvious that we were led in the wrong direction. This leader failed and the magnitude of his failure was greater because of the high degree of confidence he expressed.

This graph shows the evolution of George W. Bush’s approval rating over time. His approval rating rose to 68% in March 2003, at (more…)

In the: 10 things to do for the success of your web site - the practitioner view, I wrote in 8. Don’t reinvent the wheel: A simple menu and the browser’s back and forward button are Ok for most of the cases. Here is a sublime example of Web site simplicity. Jawbone, designed by FuseProject, one of the most innovative design firm based in SanFrancisco. Users can grab all elements in less than two seconds.

Say a lot with less!

1. Know what is important. 1. Bring users to your site, 2. Ensure usefulness and usability, 3. Maximize trust. You will make much more money trying to bring users to your site and ensuring good usability than trying to have beautiful flash and look. Most users care only about finding rapidly what they are looking for and achieving their goals. They don’t care (more…)

Just back from SanFrancisco, I was trying to find an address in Montreal.
I had to slow down in order to read the street name. While slowing down, a car almost hit my back bumper! Hope it doesn’t sound familiar but I am sure it happens frequently. (more…)

This letter was published in Business Week

“Whitman says: “Despite its controversial reputation, nuclear is efficient and reliable.” Yet since 1950 there have been 20 nuclear accidents. One was major (on Mar. 28, 1979, at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor) and one catastrophic (on Apr. 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant). How can we say a major nuclear accident will not happen again?

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The catch-22

The levels at which impacts of change are major are not understood while the levels at which impacts are minor are easily understood.

Why?

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