Archives / December 2004

I've posted some tsunami-relief resources on This Is Broken.

My awful customer experience with AirTran Airways motivated me to post it on This Is Broken. In the comments, readers are now discussing the air travel experience.

* * * * * * * * * * The Fun Stuff 2004 Issue * * * * * * * * * * * *

Here's a review of every Fun Stuff entry this year. Note that these come every week in e-mail only, not on the website - so if you don't already subscribe to this e-mail, sign up here.

I'd like to congratulate the makers of I Love Egg for winning the prestigious Good Experience Fun Stuff 2004 Award: in my opinion, the best entry all year.

* * FUN STUFF 2004 WINNER * *
"Cutesy" doesn't even begin to describe this Flash movie. But it's a *must-see*. I love egg!

- - -

All Fun Stuff entries, from Jan. 7, 2004 through today:

Weird, weird, weird music... "outsider music," you might call it. Check track 7: a tuba playing Lonely Bull.
http://www.comfortstand.com/catalog/001/

Very well implemented: virtual whiteboard and chalkboard.
http://www.pvsusa.com/pvsdrawingboard/pvsdrawingboard.php

(Two drawbacks: (1) there's no eraser - only a "clear all" button, so you erase everything or nothing; (2) the "tell a friend" feature sends the e-mail in HTML only.)

Fun game for kids: switching the heads and tails of different animals. The interface is cute and fun, though not totally intuitive.
http://www.switchzoo.com/

Several stories from the Old and New Testaments... in Legos.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/garden_of_eden/gn02_04-06.html

Who needs to pay big bucks for a "branding firm" to create a new company name? Just click Name Generator in the left column of this page (thanks to Seth Godin for the pointer):
http://www.wordlab.com/

While you're at it, take a look at recent trends in logo design (please, no more swoosh logos!):
http://www.gdusa.com/feature/4_03/trends.php

If you're really into this topic, I found this in the archives of Good Experience...
http://www.goodexperience.com/images/ntfirms041300.gif

Picture of lightning hitting a tree - I think it's legit:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/lwx/lightning/lgtng-hits-tree.jpg

Fun DJ simulation:
http://www.marleentimmer.com/worteldrie/djtrainer/djtrainer.html

Surreal stuff. Don't miss the meat gallery:
http://www.surrealcoconut.com/home.html

If you didn't see its commercial during the Super Bowl, here is one of the best websites I've seen in recent memory... brilliant satire:
http://www.shardsoglass.com

Old government and school films! Dating, hygiene, etc. (See "Most Viewed Films" on the right side.)
http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php

A fan created his own movie trailer for "The Hobbit":
http://www.lathamfilms.com/hobbit.html

Old Disney animated shorts:
http://disneyshorts.toonzone.net/index.html

Cool short movies of events being slowed down (i.e. cat lapping milk):
http://tinyurl.com/2fcy4

Subway maps from different cities, compared at the same scale:
http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/index.html

Lots of maps from the Library of Congress:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

For example, here is Portland, Oregon in 1890 - even with a little piece of the map ripped out:
http://tinyurl.com/2h7g8

Pay $150 for a hammer that doesn't work! This is for real: an online store that sells "useless tools."
http://tinyurl.com/263bg

A photo for every minute of the day:
http://www.humanclock.com

It wasn't just Bill Murray in the movie. Again, for real: American celebs in Japanese TV commercials.
http://www.japander.com/japander/

Fold a Jules Verne-style submarine:
http://www.tin-soldier.com/paper/downld/narwaldownld.htm

Free paper toys to fold:
http://papertoys.com/

Japanese robots to fold, if you can read Japanese instructions:
http://www.robo-t.com/r-kata-s.html

And finally... 1924 mechanical typewriter turns into a windows PC:
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/underwood/

Here's the "Click & Build" donation page on the website of Habitat for Humanity. Here you can specify what elements of a house to donate, by clicking on different parts of a cartoon house. Perfect use of the Web for a nonprofit donation page.
http://www.habitat.org/donation/clickandbuild

Reminiscent of the Human Clock from last week's newsletter, here's the clock that shows pencil and paper and... ahh, just watch it.
http://www.lares.dti.ne.jp/~yugo/storage/monocrafts_ver3/03/

Random art:
http://gs2.sp.cs.cmu.edu/art/random/

(Better is to look at the Archive of *Best* Random Art)
http://gs2.sp.cs.cmu.edu/art/random/archive/index.html

List of online museums
http://www.coudal.com/moom.php

Googlephrases: Search Google for a long, slightly obscure sentence fragment, enclosed in quotes, and then revel in the Web-zeitgeist.
http://www.goodexperience.com/columns/04/0331.phrase.html

Sarah Yake points us to this Johnny Walker commercial:
http://tinyurl.com/22592

Gertie's beverages:
http://www.patheticgeekstories.com/gertiebeverages.html

By the way, if you haven't explored that site, you should. Gel speaker Maria Schneider draws readers' embarrassing stories from adolescence.
http://www.patheticgeekstories.com

Dictionary of nonverbal communication cues:
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/entries.htm#Entries

(Don't miss the deconstruction of the Big Mac:)
http://members.aol.com/nonverbal2/bigmac.htm

Calculate the speed of light with some marshmallows and a microwave.
http://www.physics.umd.edu/ripe/icpe/newsletters/n34/marshmal.htm

Funny costumes:
http://www.stagecraftinc.com/htmlFile/TPWI.html

Geek humor: Rebecca St. Martin points us to a parody of tinyurl...
http://hugeURL.com

And, a great one this week... random comic strip paired with a random punchline. Zen-funny. (Reload the page to see a new pairing.)
http://www.monochrom.at/erheiterer/process.shtml

Nice screensaver-type animation:
http://ugokie.diginauts.com/flash/hotaru/hphotal.html

Fun online exhibit on biodiversity (especially fun for kids):
http://tinyurl.com/2fund

Several illusions and puzzles in one Flash animation:
http://www.sagadvd.com/Extra/visual%20hallucination.swf

Crazy about (or driven crazy by) cicadas?
http://www.cicadamania.net/

Some witty people with way too much free time label hundreds of CDs with a single Sharpie marker, just to see how much ink it contains:
http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/sharpie/sharpie1.html

Internet fads you may have missed:
http://www.thewavemag.com/pagegen.php?pagename=article&articleid=24853

Songs about cicadas.. featuring Gel 2004 performer Lee Feldman:
http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/openmic/index.php?episode=current

A well-designed site about the nine planets of our solar system.
http://www.nineplanets.org

The Infinite Cat Project. Rather than explain it, I'll just suggest that you start with any cat, and click "Next Cat" again and again and again.
http://www.infinitecat.com/

Bad 70s interior design:
http://www.omodern.com/Eurobad/euro.html

"Kitchen clones of America's favorite brand-name foods" (thanks to Mike Krypel for the pointer):
http://www.topsecretrecipies.com/

Fake roadsigns (neat signs, but horrible navigation on the site - click "Artists", click through their designs at page bottom):
http://www.bopano.net/

Lots of links to paper-folding fun...
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/06/18/web_zen_paper_model_.html

Finally, software that admits to doing nothing for everybody! (Thanks to Gel speaker David Greenberger.)
http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.html

One-page cartoons for 5- to 15-year-olds, showing them how to build all kinds of stuff:
http://www.howtoons.net

Optical illusion: undulating almonds.
http://tinyurl.com/5kwta

Fun music video (in Flash), featuring They Might Be Giants:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/expfilm.html

Google way back in 1960. (Thanks, Kevin Fox!)
http://fury.com/images/weblog/google_circa_1960.jpg

QuickTime VR (panoramic) shot from the moon landing, put together from Neil Armstrong's photos. Don't miss the zoom-in feature (hold down Shift).
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f29.html

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2004 Results - bad opening lines of fictional novels.
http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/english/2004.htm

Cute, low-tech animation
http://j-walkblog.com/blog/docs/platform.htm

Common English mispronunciations. (My pet peeve: "nucular". Now, if we could get a page on the constant misuse of the word "literally"...)
http://yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html

A must-see: cassette vs iPod (thanks to David Pogue):
http://homepage.mac.com/danielturek/PhotoAlbum50.html

Whoa... duuuude.
http://zongrila.net/swirl.htm

You know blogs are overripe when the INCREDIBLE HULK gets one.
http://incrediblehulk.blogspot.com

Long list of fun or good sites, picked by the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/12/technology/circuits/12diar.html

Strange and cool design stuff:
http://www.bodytag.org

Reader Kim Antonson sends us to the Museum of Hoaxes:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoaxsites.html

The ugliest Powerpoint file ever created:
http://www.clicktoaddtitle.com/slides/roundtwo_harpold.ppt

Funny because it's the dumbest thing ever - the "hyperlink policy" on the Olympics website. They want you to send them a printed letter asking for permission to link to their site:
http://tinyurl.com/3refd

Geek-only humor: Essay on designing videogames for grown-up guys:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/wageslave/

"Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines":
http://spamusement.com

Transformers break-dancing (thanks to memepool.com for the pointer):
http://www.wilenkin.com/transformers/Video_player_06_content.html

Not updated recently, but the archives are interesting/weird/gross - not for the faint of stomach (or eye). "The most bizarre items found for sale on internet auction sites":
http://disturbingauctions.com

RealAudio of many of the late Mister Rogers' songs.
http://pbskids.org/rogers/songlist/

Ben Fry points us to his newly improved Zip code finder:
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/

Dave Lougheed points us to this funny Pepsi commercial
http://www.joeytomatoes.com/pepsicanfu.htm

Footy footy footy footy... (yes, it's strange)
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/35/

Animated bunnies act out "Jaws" in 30 seconds. Outstanding.
http://www.angryalien.com/0804/jawsbunnies.asp

Strange Japanese/African/mod-60s music.
http://www.bellybongo.com/

A New York City baby photographed with many celebrities. Click links on left.
http://www.whoisthatwithjeremy.com/index.html

"You call that mowin' the grass?"
http://www.valtio.org/tex/index.php?p=66

Mary Pat LaBoda points us to this RIT thesis project - an interactive presentation on color. Very well done.
http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com

Plush doll of the Ebola virus (for the person who has everything...)
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/calamities/ebola.html

Dark, but funny, animations:
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/

Abandoned bikes in NYC:
http://jschumacher.typepad.com/photos/abandoned_bikes/index.html

How to create a flapping paper airplane:
http://homepage.mac.com/keithgreenstein/Flapper/PhotoAlbum41.html

Neat science site:
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins

27 photos that changed the world (most depicting not-fun situations):
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm_index.html

A SP-Mologue by the one and only Ze Frank, Gel 2003 speaker:
http://www.zefrank.com/request/index_better.html Many more fun things on Ze's site: http://www.zefrank.com/

Sort of interesting - Google images quiz. See the images, guess the search query.
http://blog.outer-court.com/quiz/

Speaking of search fun, Steve Nelson reminded me about his site:
http://www.bananaslug.com

For geeks only: In honor of the new Star Wars box set, and the release of the outstanding making-of documentary "Empire of Dreams" (now playing on A&E), here's a "scientific" comparison of the weapon systems in "Star Wars" and "Star Trek." No offense to the Kirk-or-Picard set, but I think we all know who wins THIS battle:
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/FiveMinutes.html

David Teten points us to this very cool map hack, which overlays a street map (as you move your cursor) over an aerial photo of the Tower of London. It would be more useful if the background was the street map, and the overlay was the photo, but it's still cool:
http://tinyurl.com/3pvs5

Fly these colors all over the screen (use your arrow keys):
http://www.ertdfgcvb.ch/p1/fly_2.html

Free virtual-bridge-building contest:
http://www.bridgebuilder-game.com/c22.php

Jodi Moore points us to someone who writes back to spammers:
http://www.reversescam.com/ (Choose any of the letters under "The Victims" dropdown menu.)

The late, and beloved, Richard Avedon's photos in the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/slideshows/pop/?041004onslpo_avedon

Grated Fanny. Click on links to left to see more "rude food" (heads-up, much of the humor is spicy)..
http://dazbert.co.uk/sites/rudefood/index.php?page=food/gratedfanny.htm

Funny/bizarre Japanese commercial:
http://www.toto.co.jp/tips/cmlibr/CM/maho30l.mpg

More of the same here:
http://www.toto.co.jp/tips/cmlibr/index.htm

Self-explanatory domain:
http://www.badarchitecture.org/

Finally, Ian Stokes suggests the following "call center therapy": "If annoyed with a call centre, go to this web site -
http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/ - and input text such as this: 'Your customer service is not helpful. I want to speak to a real person. I don't want to listen to a robot.'" Also fun to select non-English languages and hear the various accents.

Do you have your Halloween costume for 2005 yet? No? Well, have you considered dressing up as Beaker the Muppet?
http://toughpigs.com/journalhalloween2004a.htm

Ron Lichty points us to this demonstration of how to fold a shirt:
http://telivyel.ferrona.to/maglietta.mpg

Someone collects flight attendant uniforms. Ahh, the Web.
http://www.uniformfreak.com/indexnav/indexnav1a.html

For productivity fans, I wrote a different kind of column here:
http://www.goodexperience.com/blog/archives/000065.php

Surprising it took this long: colored table salt.
http://www.margaritasalt.com/colored_table_salt.htm

* * FUN STUFF 2004 WINNER * * "Cutesy" doesn't even begin to describe this Flash movie. But it's a *must-see*. I love egg:
http://www.iloveegg.com/winopen_ani/eggsong.htm

Speaking of egg, not so much fun as useful - shelf lives of various foods:
http://www.msnbc.com/OnAir/nbc/Dateline/Food/shelf.asp

Intro to cluster ballooning. Scroll for pics.
http://www.clusterballoon.org/intro/intro.html

Name that 80s video game (thanks to screenhead.com):
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/arcade/name/index.html I scored 18 out of 20.

One final link to keep you busy for the next couple of weeks: a devilishly simple yet addictive game. I got to level 15 of Nucleus in 64 clicks.
http://www.scenta.co.uk/nucleus/

Tom Kenny, the man who does the voice for Sponge Bob Square Pants, interviewed by Terry Gross:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4172667 And yes, I plan to see the Sponge Bob movie soon! (Thanks to Phil Terry for the pointer.)

Cool game: guess the number of stars - I got 167 on my first try.
http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/12many.html

Strange "I like you" animation:
http://www.scrolllock.nl/

Interesting video on an optical illusion...
http://www.grand-illusions.com/videos/dragon%20illusion.wmv

...with corresponding description:
http://www.grand-illusions.com/dragon.htm

And finally, a robot that completes the first level of Mario Bros:
http://community.middlebury.edu/~tdooley/

The 25 weirdest things you can buy on amazon.com: (like 9,000 ladybugs)
http://tinyurl.com/4fr7y

Bubble wrap, for wrapping those weird gifts. Try manic mode!
http://uk.download.yahoo.com/ne/fu/attachments/bubblewrap.swf

Awesome prank at the recent Harvard-Yale game:
http://www.harvardsucks.org/about.php

Finally, I have to thank Lisa Napoli who pointed this out in her NYT column... this is the coolest thing I've seen on the Web in awhile: a time-lapse video of a four-day drive from Los Angeles to NYC.
http://www.lacquersound.com/english/opener1.html

Panoramic photos from France:
http://www.ecliptique.com/fullscreen2/menu.html

Fish highway. Fish highway! (Click on photos.)
http://www.fishighway.com

Alice in Wonderland, told in Flash:
http://www.feelgoodanyway.com/interactive/Alice.swf

SpiderMan 2, told in Legos: (thanks to Mark Chackerian)
http://movies.yahoo.com/movies/feature/spiderman2.html

Noether's second theorem for graded Lagrangian systems of even and odd variables... the funniest treatment yet!
http://arxiv.org/pdf/math-ph/0412034

A bizarre, bizarre fitness video with... I can't even describe it.
http://www.panasonic.co.jp/olympic/movies/download_movies09.html

And finally, holiday-related entries:

Scared of Santa photo gallery: (NEW Fun Stuff entry for this week)
http://tinyurl.com/7yuuq

Make your own snow people: (NEW Fun Stuff entry for this week)
http://www.bigmikestudios.com/clients/xmasCard04/

A smorgasbord of funny web things with an Xmas theme:
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/17/web_zen_holiday_zen.html

I made an e-card for you - and for all Good Experience subscribers:
http://www.zefrank.com/xmas/pickup.html?ref=57675

If you want to make your own elf-choir carol, try the tool here:
http://www.zefrank.com/xmas

If you're still buying gifts, you might like to read my holiday suggestions, in the Uncle Mark 2005 Gift Guide and Almanac. It has tips on buying technology (and other stuff), for non-techies:
http://www.goodexperience.com/unclemark/unclemark2005.pdf and http://www.unclemark.org

What's the holiday season without watching "It's A Wonderful Life?" Watch it here in 30 seconds, acted out by bunnies.
http://www.angryalien.com/1204/wonderful_lifebuns.asp

- - -

I hope you enjoyed the Fun Stuff 2004 reiew.

Happy Holidays from Good Experience!

And remember.. if you want these Fun Stuff entries in your e-mail every week, they're not here on the blog: you have to subscribe to the Good Experience newsletter.

-mh

Two things now available...

- Gel 2004 DVD, available here for purchase (alone or with a ticket).

- Uncle Mark 2005, available for free download here.

Enjoy :)

Since this is the last Good Experience before the planned end-of-year Fun Stuff issue*, now is my chance to send some holiday greetings.

First off, I made an e-card for you - and for all Good Experience subscribers: get it here.

With some assistance with online genius Ze Frank, I composed a brand new carol, to be sung by Ze's elf-choir. If you're a fan of the "Lord of the Rings" movies, you'll hear an echo of a familiar tune.

If you want to make your own elf-choir carol, try the tool.

If you're still buying gifts, you might like to read my holiday suggestions, in the Uncle Mark 2005 Gift Guide and Almanac. It has tips on buying technology (and other stuff), for non-techies:

Next up, what's the holiday season without watching "It's A Wonderful Life?" Watch it here in 30 seconds, acted out by bunnies.

Speaking of "Wonderful Life", one of Seth Godin's recent columns struck a chord with me:

We still live in a world that's filled with opportunity. In fact, we have more than an opportunity -- we have an obligation. An obligation to spend our time doing great things. To find ideas that matter and to share them. To push ourselves and the people around us to demonstrate gratitude, insight, and inspiration. To take risks and to make the world better by being amazing.

And that's as good a description of the Good Experience philosophy as I can think of.

Thanks to everyone who made this a great year for Good Experience: contributing to This Is Broken, attending Gel 2004, sending in feedback to the newsletters, posting (and responding to) job openings, and generally being a fun group to write for. I hope to deliver at least as good a "Good Experience experience" in 2005! (Did I really write that?)

- - -

* Sometime before Dec 31, I plan to send out a Good Experience newsletter filled with links to most or all the Fun Stuff entries during this past year.

Liz Bennett's latest restaurant review, on El Malecon, is on the columns section of addyourown.

At the heart of good customer research is a non-directed conversation which puts the customer in charge; so I wrote in October 2003 in Four Words to Improve User Research. At the end of the column I promised to write more about our research method, "listening labs" - but with the exception of some sidelong glances (Sep 22, 2004 and Aug 24, 2004) I haven't really dug in until now.

Today I cover one major part of running a listening lab: moderating. There are other important activities - working "behind the glass," where the observers sit, for example - but moderating the customer interaction is crucial.

The best way to learn moderating skills is to practice, in person, with real live customers. Still, I've put together some tips I've accumulated over the years in the hopes that they help, too. (Another opportunity for learning is our new LabFest event, which we'll run in three U.S. cities in 2005. Let me know if you want hear more - mark at goodexperience.)

Moderation is a lot harder than it looks. The moderator's job in listening labs is to facilitate the interaction, but not to lead it. A good moderator will appear, to most observers, to be doing almost nothing, while the customer clicks around and talks. The key to good listening lab moderation is to stay quiet, except in those moments where intervention is necessary. Such passivity can be especially hard for experienced moderators of traditional focus groups or usability tests, which require the moderator to take charge of the test and shepherd customers through their tasks and questions.

In listening labs, the moderator must accomplish all the goals of the lab - getting all the data and showing the customer experience to the client - without explicitly leading the process. Instead, the moderator must allow the customer to lead (within some boundaries) and still accomplish those goals.

Here are some tips to keep in mind about listening lab moderation:

- Don't start task definition until you build rapport with the customer.

As I wrote in "Four Words to Improve User Research" [1], moderators should not write out specific tasks before going into the labs. How can a moderator presume to know where, how, and why customers will use the site, without asking them in person first?

But don't misunderstand: listening lab sessions do require for users to complete tasks. It's just that the task definition takes place in the initial interview at the beginning of the lab session. This interview must proceed at a relaxed pace, allowing the customer's context to emerge.

This is one of the toughest things for a new moderator to master: not ending the interview too soon. The initial interview is intended to give the customer some time to get used to the moderator, to understand that the interaction isn't a "test," and to relax and get into a mindset of using the site in a natural manner (i.e. in the same way they would use the site from work or from home). If the moderator starts task definition too soon, the customer might be nervous, stiff, or otherwise unprepared for the open-ended interaction that follows.

- As the customer uses the site or product, don't ask leading questions or lead the customer in any way.

This is perhaps the most important rule of lab moderation, and the most difficult for new moderators to adhere to. It's simply too easy for the moderator to insert himself or herself into the lab with a comment or question ("It's not very good, is it?") or an instruction when the customer gets uncomfortable ("Just click there and you'll move to the next page"). Unfortunately, task-based usability tests can often include such leading questions, ignoring any context the customer may bring to the table, and so tainting the customer's feedback.

- Act only on the lead of the customer.

Unless the customer gives something for the moderator to respond to, the moderator must not insert any instruction into the session - except to move to a totally different step in the session. Acting only on the customer's lead is especially important because it shows the client observing the sessions that the data is coming straight from the customer, unmodified by the moderator. There is thus no possible reason, political or otherwise, for the client to doubt the honesty and accuracy of what the customer states.

- Ask the customer to repeat.

It's always OK for the moderator to ask the customer to repeat what they said. Often customers will say what they really think by muttering something under their breath - often a negative comment that they're sensitive about voicing too loudly, or not realizing the importance of what they're saying. The moderator can then, without showing too much interest, ask the customer to repeat what they said. This is partly for the moderator's benefit in taking accurate notes; it's at least as much for the benefit of the observers, who must not be deprived of the opportunity to hear a customer's honest feedback.

- Ask the customer to clarify.

Sometimes the customer will give feedback that makes sense at that moment, but won't translate well to the observation room or the discussion after the session (let alone back at the company headquarters after lab day). It's always OK to ask the customer to clarify what they meant - since this is not leading the customer to say or do anything that they didn't originate himself or herself.

- Avoid opinion-based questions.

Remember that listening labs are based on what customers do, not on what they say they feel (or what they say they do, for that matter). Therefore it's important to avoid focus group-style questions that ask customers to describe their emotional reactions to some graphical element, a "brand", or some intangible aspect of the experience. Labs must show the customer using the site in as natural a manner as possible, consistent with how they use the site outside the lab setting. Don't get us wrong; emotions are important - but generally they can be obtained by observation during the lab session, without asking the customer to break out of the natural scenario and describe their emotional state.

- Avoid conditional or theoretical questions.

Sometimes it's tempting to ask the customer what they would do if this function were available, or if that section looked different, or if if if... These tend not to be very helpful, since (once again) the lab is intended to spotlight customers' real-world actions, not their theoretical actions or reactions. The exception here is if the question clarifies something the customer has already said - i.e. if it follows the customer's lead.

- Keep the customer comfortable, but don't always avoid the uncomfortable moment.

This is a balancing act that takes moderators some time to learn well. On the one hand, customers must be at ease during the lab, in order to use the site in the way that they normally use it outside the listening lab. However, moderators are often tempted to help customers when they struggle. The moderator must do nothing and allow the customer to struggle; this is for the benefit of the client observing behind the glass. The client must be allowed to see the customer struggling. If the customer says that they give up, has tried all other options, and would normally leave the site, then the moderator should honor the customer's statement and move on to another task or site (or, if there is nothing else to accomplish in the session, end the session).

Of course, if the customer is showing visible anxiety or embarrassment, the moderator shouldn't prolong the frustration. Just allow the honest moment to occur, and then move on.

- Keep the customer in "use mode", and avoid "critique mode."

While the customer is naturally progressing through their task, it's tempting for the moderator to ask the customer to step outside the task and critique the site. "If you could redesign it, where would you put this button?" Don't do this. Customers should remain in "use mode," using the site as they would outside the lab session. Asking customers to critique the site and offer solutions breaks their natural use of the site and puts the lab session at risk.

- Feel free to ask the clients' pre-written questions at the end of the session.

Occasionally a stakeholder within the client organization will insist that each customer get asked a few survey questions. The time to defer to the client's request is at the end of the session, when the customer has finished giving their more useful feedback. After asking the final questions, the moderator can dismiss the user and walk back to the observation room for the discussion that follows each session.

---

Company: The MITRE Corporation
Title: Human Factors Engineer
Location: Bedford MA

Seeking a Human Factors Engineer to join our UI Desgin Team.Position will design the user interface and specifications for web-based products by delivering analysis,HI design & mock ups,UI Coding & testing.Will work with user communitiy for defining requirements & technical teams for developing solutions.BS +2 yrs exp

Please forward resumes to skearns@mitre.org, state 3295BR jobposting

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Company: Refinery, Inc
Title: User Experience Architect
Location: Hatboro, PA

Refinery Inc, is looking for exeprienced User Experience Architects. You will recomend best approaches to our clients and translate these approaches into conductible activities via direct user research competitive analysis, user and functional requirements doc, user testing, heuristics, wire frames, prototypes, mockups as recomended

E-mail your resume and work samples to: stephanie.tucker@refinery.com

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Company: Figleaves.com
Title: Online Marketing Manager
Location: New York City

Responsible for account management of key marketing partnerships (MSN, Amazon, etc.) & overall co-ordination of online marketing and promotional initiatives. The ideal candidate enjoys working in fast paced, challenging start-up environments and has an interest in women's apparel.

Email resume, cover letter and current salary to U33@figleaves.com

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Company: Figleaves.com
Title: Marketing Assistant
Location: New York City

Responsible for various marketing and merchandising administrative functions in support of a dynamic new online marketing team. The ideal candidate is self-motivated, organized, has attention to detail, strong computer skills, a thorough understanding of the internet and an interest in online retailing.

Email resume, cover letter and current salary to V81@figleaves.com

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Company: Figleaves.com
Title: Administrative Assistant to Senior VP
Location: New York City

Responsible for supporting our SVP with his marketing activities, personnel recruitment and administration. The ideal candidate is highly organized, enjoys working in challenging, hard-working environments with minimal supervision, has attention to detail, good people skills, Word & Excel skills, and enjoys office and HR admin.

Email resume, cover letter and current salary to X44@figleaves.com

Gel 2005 speakers in the news this week:

- Seth Godin and Barry Schwartz are both quoted in the New York Times Magazine's cover story this week.

- Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, is mentioned again today in this Times column.

- Charlie Todd's latest urban prank is in Rolling Stone (search the page for "Ghosts of Pasha").

(Remember that the Gel ticket price goes up after December 15 - buy your ticket soon...)

Gel 2005 initial speaker list

Schedule for Gel 2005

- - -

You're invited to the Gel (Good Experience Live) conference on Thursday-Friday, April 28-29, 2005, in New York.

Gel is a two-day event that focuses on good experience in all its forms: how it's created and what it means in art, business, media, community, society, and technology. A few speakers are Internet-related, but most are outside the Net sphere.

Gel is a thought-starter; a meeting place for the community of people who are interested in good experience in their work and life; Gel is an experience in itself.

Attendees last year had this to say about Gel: "Excellent"... "amazing"... "can't wait to go again." Others have said that Gel is the best event they have ever attended. See more comments here.

And Gel 2005 will be even better. We have a bigger and better theater, a "Day One" of activities outside the theater, and more.

Keep in mind that the early bird price lasts for two more weeks - you might like to buy your ticket now.

Gel 2005 initial speaker list