Screencast videos have become a popular means for delivering “how-to” information. One of the questions developers must address is, how long should you make your screencasts? At last weeks’s tekom conference, I saw an interesting presentation by Melanie Huxhold and Dr Axel Luther of SAP on how they develop screencasts for SAP’s products (Produkt- und Lernvideos als ideale… Read more »
Category: usability
The over optimistic user
On Dara O’Brien’s Science Club (BBC 2) this week, neuroscientist Dr Tali Sharot explained “Optimism Bias”, suggesting that our brains may be hard-wired to look on the bright side. Here is her TED presentation on the Optimism Bias: Nearly everyone is optimistic they will never get divorced, and they are an above average driver, when… Read more »
Reducing app abandonment
At the UAEurope 12 conference, SAP’s Keren Okman quoted a shocking statistic: that the average mobile or tablet app* is used an average of just 3-4 times by a user. The issue of “app abandonment” is one that is likely to be of greater concern for software developers in the future, as they invest ever… Read more »
Does looking at online Help make users forget?
Over the weekend, Dr Chris Atherton suggested I look at “the doorway effect”. You may well have experienced walking through a doorway and then finding you’d forgotten why you’d stood up in the first place. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have discovered your brain is not to blame for your confusion about what you’re doing in… Read more »
Measuring the value of Help in desktop applications
One of the challenges for Technical Authors is quantifying the value of what they produce. For example, how can you tell how many people are reading online Help when the software is installed on someone’s desktop computer? One application mentioned in passing as last week’s UAEurope conference, ApplicationMetrics, might be able to provide the answer. ApplicationMetrics… Read more »