There has been a lot of talk at the conferences and panels I have been attending lately about the convergence of PR, marketing, branding, communications and, well, you name it, online. While presenting her case study on peoplepets.com at the recent Business Development Institute Social Media Communications Leadership Forum, Kimberly Miller, VP of Consumer Marketing at People.com, talked about how social media could become a vehicle for gathering usability feedback for one of their new social networks. That was something I had not heard lately. 

Before Kimberly presented, JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston, a regular BDI presenter and all around good guy, highlighted JetBlue's policy change to not charge the same 50 bucks for fold up bikes that fit into a carry on bag. This policy change was made based on  feedback from JetBlue's twitter followers.  Seems pretty obvious, but why not listen to the people using your social media to help guide your design?  Next thing you know someone is going to actually ask the good folks in the corporate call centers what people are complaining about regarding the websites when they call in!

As my regular readers know I love to talk about the ultimate value of usability (Momma Said Knock U(sability) Out, and Can't afford usability testing? Think again) I applaud Time Inc’s recognition that listening to the users is what matters most and then combine this social media driven feedback with a traditional battery of usability testing to make the appropriate adjustments after six months of operation. 

Way to go Kimberly! And you too Morgan… I need to get myself one of those fold up bikes. Then I guess I can finally take those ugly bike racks off the top of my Jetta and put the bike in the trunk.

A number of us at Flightpath recently attended the conference, The Future of Web Design. 

While there were many informative presentations, I was reminded of just how young “the Web” is as a field.  

In his lecture on “The Future of Web App Interface Design,” Ryan Singer of 37 signals made numerous points as to how to use text sizing and interface around the screen to enhance a user’s understanding of their applications. 

I appreciated that he is bringing such knowledge to light, but I couldn’t help but shake my head, “We knew this stuff decades ago for server-side application design!” 

The web is very young, indeed.  On the one hand, it is an exciting, unbounded space where we can explore movement and art and interface; but at the same time, this idea of “novelty and freshness” often blinds designers and developers to what we have learned from years of software development and interface design.  The computer and IT industry has been available for the masses since the 1970s--we’ve certainly learned a lot in that time. 

I have to wonder, are we designers so arrogant because of our relatively new sandbox (i.e.,“the web”) that we cannot look to the lengthy history of Human Factors (or Ergonomics) and Software Design and use it to our advantage?  Does our pride condemn us to reinventing the wheel? 

Do we really think that text sizing and placement as usability enhancements is a new revelation?

OK, I’m mounting my high horse a little bit and need to take a step down.  Yes,  the web is a new, wonderful playground that offers many options that your regular old server-side apps do not.  

The possibilities of social interaction + application are so exciting.  They’re something we’ve never seen or done before (in the long history of development I mean).

Let’s be clear--I love designing for this playground; that’s why I do it.  I do think it would behoove us, though, to give some props to the history of development and our design forefathers, a nod to the psychologists who originally opened our eyes to Learning Theory, Cognition and Perception. 

So, thank you, B.F. Skinner, for teaching us how to learn and about human behavior. 

Thank you, World War II fighter plane designers, for keeping your pilots in mind and for teaching us the psychology and production of the man-machine organism.  Your work led us to the Ergonomics and Human-Computer Interaction field. 

Thank you, Douglas Engelbart, for imagining how information can be displayed on all kinds of screens and contexts. 

Thank you, researchers at MIT and Xerox.  Thank you, IBM, Apple, and Microsoft for pushing technology to what we know it to be today. ...and a multitude of others not contained in this blog post.

The web has reached its adolescence because of your efforts. 

We are still child-like with wonderment, but we are also growing up and becoming self-aware.  

We can do so much, and the possibilities are limited only to what we can imagine.  We should be looking ahead, using what we know from our history, cognition, perception and design to make the web come alive.  

We now realize that people actually have to use this stuff. 

P.S  -- If you want some serious schooling, check out some eye-movement heat maps -- but that's a whole other post.