Worst examples of interactivity

For a class assignment, I've posted earlier about the CATS site in Charlotte demonstrating poor interactivity, because of an intimidating, not-useful form. Here's one more nomination, My AJC, the user-defined "home page" for people through The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When I first discovered this interactivity through a work research proje ct, I loved the concept and hated its glitches. I assumed it was just in the building stage and would get better over time. Why give me a widget to point to YouTube, and then have it either not work or not give me enough information to tell me how it works? Where's my emotional reward for spending lots of time personalizing this site? Why is there so much wasted space? Why are you subjecting me to a bright purple Haverty's ad after I've spent time picking colors for my customization?

Since I've personalized Google as a home page, I see how inadequate and poorly designed AJC is by comparison, and I'm highly questioning the value of news sites trying to offer such personalization to users when it's obvious they can't do as good of a job as the experts. Leave search to Google; enable good search on Google, McClatchy seems to be working on that with Yahoo; let's hope we're not betting on the wrong horse.

Google love

I've finally tried personalizing my Google search. I've even picked a theme, and I love how colors change depending on the time of day it is. I get local news feeds from The News and Observer and Charlotte.com ... The Charlotte part seems broken right now, with old headlines displayed. I'm trying to figure out whether that's an error on Google's part or Charlotte's, and get it fixed. My only complaint, Google: Please give me an email address or form to talk to a real person about issues like that, instead of just referring me to the web expert site. But thanks so much for recognizing where I was logging in from and essentially setting up an RSS feed for me from Raleigh. Beautiful interactivity. Others pale in comparison. Why should newssites even try to compete? Maybe USAToday can, but I'd rather see partnerships than direct competition. Media should focus on what they do best.

Holocaust Museum, best interactivity site Part II

A specific, hopefully focused posting for the class assignment:
You, your mother (75 years old; with bad knees; sweet old lady, with a great sense of humor and interest in anything that he grandson is interested in) and your 15 year old (energetic and mercurial) son, Josh, are planning to visit XXXX city and go to XXXX museum for a 4 hour visit. You need to make sure that the trip to the museum will go well, so try to plan for any and all disasters before hand.

1. Mom stresses about traffic and parking. She will nag you increasingly every minute that you circle a block looking for a space. What is the parking situation?
This is downtown D.C. Fuhgget about parking. Less stressful is planning the trip through the Metro system, where I can plug in times and even walking distances to a form and get results. Aging mom can walk a block, and it's probably good for her. By the time we get to the museum, she'll be glad to have a wheelchair. There's an easy, quickly findable map and link to the metro system from the "Planning a trip" part of the website.
2. Mom's knees tend to ache after standing for awhile. She will want a wheelchair or to go back to the hotel. Can you get her a wheelchair?
In a repeat visit to the site, and with clues from classmates, I find a small link that is less obvious than the large Museum Accessibility Guide that tells me wheelchairs are free in the Check Room. It even tells me that audio-only presentations have text accompaniments, something that will be useful for other relatives later who don't hear well.
3. Josh is bored by 'old-fogey stuff'. Is there a contemporary or bleeding edge exhibit that will win cool points in Josh' eyes - and how would you know if it is cool enough?
Under Frequently Asked Questions, one question asks "What should my children see?" Young Josh is going to feel grown up that some exhibitions are not recommended for those under 11; the appeal of "Daniel's Story," mentioned in the FAQ answer as well, will give him a specific person that he can identify with. I'm so grateful for sites that deal directly with parents' concerns. And in my particular pretend case, I'm more concerned about the emotional reaction of Mom; her dad was career Army, and at one point was near Hitler's headquarters. She doesn't like to think about unpleasant times; luckily, there's lots at the museum besides the stories of human loss, so she can continue to keep her emotions turned off if she wishes.
4. Josh always loves to eat and mom is happy to pay. Is there a restaurant/food option that might be attractive to both of them? Is it a cafeteria or a restaurant? Price?
Oh how I love this FAQ sheet. It answers all my questions, including the food question, with clear words in bold and links in the answers. Not all answers have links; some have email addresses or phone numbers if I need to go more in depth. So the answer is yes, there's food, and even a menu, though I have to click away from the FAQ to get the menu. A menu link from the FAQ question would be an enhancement. Horrors, I had to do one click to find it. I love this site. I can even order online for the day I'm visiting.
5. Tour guides / audio tours... maybe you should get one of these and just not worry about keeping everyone happy. What's available? How much? Do you need to reserve in advance?
Plenty of options for the visually impaired exist. I have to make reservations two weeks in advance. That's not a problem for my group, and I don't find information quickly about whether I can check out a personal audio tour (like I used for the "Dead Sea Scrolls" when they came to Charlotte), but I'm reassured that my needs, even unforeseen ones, will be met by the many references to the information desk at the museum. Besides, the site has some podcats; downloading one or two of these might be easier and more fulfilling than trying to use some proprietary and foreign audio tool like the "Dead See Scrolls" clicker thingie. I can put the museum's media on Josh's Ipod, and he can plug in any time he wants. I wish Elie Wiesel would do a podcast; his focus on Darfur is hot right now, and that would really appeal to Josh since Wiesel is reaching out to young folks so much with his Darfur focus.
6. Is there really enough to see here for a 4 hour visit? Or should you plan for other events in the area - what else is close by?
Because of the richness of the site, I'm reassured there's more than enough to see in four hours. I appreciate the question in the FAQ; can we do the museum in an hour and have time to go to other places on the mall? I have numerous options, including "Daniel's Story," which can be done in half an hour. So I can even recommend a quick visit to the museum to friends with smaller children.
7. Are there special events or performances that you should plan your visit around?
Plenty of special events are listed. Because of the short attention spans of my group, and the emotional touchiness of some of this for Mom, I can plan around the special events to avoid lines and too much emotional grief for Mom.

Lest ye forget

I railed against the phrase "Lest Ye Forget" when it was used by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in Athens when I was an undergrad.
Yesterday, I spent Holocaust Memorial Day by chance at Kings Mountain National Park, where hundreds of people died in a turning-point battle of the Revolutionary War. I returned home to hear about 33 dead people on a college campus.
So I don't fume about "Lest Ye Forget" any more.
We should remember the dead as people, not victims. The Holocaust Museum does that. Kings Mountain Park does that. Facebook groups using the overused ribbon symbol with VT do that.
We should also remember the world is a dangerous place. I'm angry I have to warn my kid about copycat school violence, since this week is the anniversary of Columbine.
It's also my daughter's birthday week. And many people every day are working to make this world a better place.
Lest I forget.

A good place: light, darkness and passageways

More later I hope on my favorite museum site, the U.S. Holocaust Museum. Just feast your eyes for now.
This image is from the "Plan a visit" page, and the main photo takes you there, to the gathering spot before you start your tours. It's a beginning, a planning place, before an experience. Designers rightly chose an image that doesn't plop you right into the middle of the experience, but rather gets you started. All of the information for a visit is presented quickly and well -- there's so much, though, that it can be overwhelming. I've posted in class discussions about the large accessibility guide in a pdf format, more information than I needed. Sometimes less is more.
One other small point: I tend to look at things on the web very horizontally, and I'm guessing that tendency is part of a larger trend. Designers are moving to pages optimized for about 1000-something pixels. These pages appear to be designed to be viewed about 810 to 850 pixels wide, and the design is somewhat "stretchy." So at larger widths, odd trapped "white space" appears. Perhaps a design touch-up of the site to make it as beautiful at a wider width as it is in the narrow width would be in order.
Navigation is so seemless that it took me awhile to figure out why: the navigation bar at the top, on almost all pages, built in as part of the branding page title, gets me wherever I go quickly. There's always a link to return to the home page. Drop-down menus have different colors behind them, all in a pleasing color palette. The colors sometimes match the background colors of the pages they lead to, a navigation device so visceral and intuitive that one doesn't even know it's happening as one clicks around. Not all pages match, though. It's worth further study to figure out why, or perhaps it's unintended. The palette holds everything together. Black is used on photo-intensive pages, such as the page that focuses on the art and architecture of the museum.
A beautiful, horrible place, accessible and with appeal to all kinds of people. It takes full advantage of the contrasts of lightness and darkness, transparent glass and solid brick, and passageways from one place to another.

Images that stick with me from a real-world visit:
The shoes. I couldn't find a photo of them on a quick search. Perhaps that's intentional: no photo on a website could convey the emotional effect of that exhibit.
The faces. People like me, or like people I know. I saw faces that could've been the cousins of my friends.
The passage: Our visit was late in the day, and at closing time we were ushered out slightly before we'd seen the full museum. A long, clean, uncluttered stair passage led out to the main hall. It was a place with a lack of visual input, a place for thinking and reflection on what we'd seen. It was the equivalent of "white space" on a newsprint page or website.

Subtle Flash

The Holocaust Museum site is a wonder of sophistication, with many elements cited on David Armano's blog.
It's uncluttered, understated, subdued, intuitive. It also conveys emotion, using the "people like me" principle so important in storytelling. "Daniel's Story," just a two-word title on one part of the site, reminds me that I know a young Daniel, and makes me want to click further to be told a story.
The site also uses subtle Flash. We have a visceral response to motion, no matter how small, and the moving Flash element for feedback, visible in a Firefox browser at the bottom right, catches my eye. Brackets move back and forth, and a plus sign changes to a minus sign, back and forth. It's a small movement in my web peripheral vision, and while there's other motion on the page, it's enough to grab me and send me to that part of the site even though it's in the "ghetto" part of the page according to Eyetrack research.
A fine use of Flash. Not flashy at all.
It's not visible in my ancient Explorer 5.2 for Mac, but the site then detects my use of outdated software and provides a link on "How to use this site" with more details underneath. Smart.

A bad place

My trip is invalid.
What a nasty word.
I wanted to find out whether and how I could take a bus to the airport to begin my trip to the Holocaust Museum with my aged mother and teenage son, as part of a class assignment. I know I'm a mile away from the nearest bus stop, and I'd save on parking fees at the airport. A neighbor would likely be able to give us a ride with our luggage to the nearest stop.
I have no idea what the address of the airport is. Who does?
I have no time to click on extra links. Who does?
So I try a quick Internet search, but I'm told I'm invalid.
People designing interactive forms long for the ability to force Internet users to input all the correct information. I recently sat in on a meeting where we envisioned collecting news data from the public. One person suggested that it would be very cool and efficient to use the required fields function to force users to give us all the information we need. Media folks spend hours tracking down a missing fact or two (or three), and the forms would help us force others to gather all necessary information.
Cool idea. Just don't call me invalid.
Site Lacks Heroin Content, Vince Flanders would say. While I care about cutting down on carbon emissions and the money I spend on gas and parking, I don't care enough to get through being called invalid. Call me names, and I won't trust your site.
In our meeting, one smart person said folks go to the Internet to be validated. That's why they seek out opinions and thoughts similar to their own. They don't want to be invalidated.
And I don't need all the clutter of a big giant help file, as my next click.
So instead, I'm giving up on a bus. We'll just pay the parking fees for our trip.