"Attack of the Pointless Modal Confirmations"Tim critiques almost two years of experience with the TomTomXL335TM portable GPS in a longitudinal review plagued by a ragged voice from a nasty January filled with mishaps, and a mental wooziness that we hope isn't too obvious. But food poisonings, auto wrecks, and seasonal colds cannot prevent the fact that the XL335 is a GPS that has terrific voices which sound wonderful, but unreliable software and horrid modal confirmation abuses throughout.Just reflect on this one example of interaction design gone wrong; sadly, it is typical of the TomTom Way:
It takes eleven, that's 11, taps to change voices on the XL335TM. I am not making this up.And here are TomTom's excellent marketing of its Star Wars celebrity voices:Darth Vader in the recording studio: http://youtu.be/2ljFfL-mL70Yoda in the recording studio: http://youtu.be/FdcJVuylmsM
Two feedback emails round out this 46-minute episode.


DC86 Longitudinal Review: TomTom XL335TM Portable GPS

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This is our last episode for a while, but is well worth the wait! We have an interview with Viktor Rydal, industrial designer from Nomono, who talks with Tim about the Nomono Sound Capsule. Visit the Nomono website about the SoundCapsule to see and hear their demonstrations. This truly innovative solution records conversations with its custom lapel mics into its Sound Capsule hub, and their cloud application removes bad room acoustics to create astoundingly good audio from rooms that did NOT sound good to begin with. It's an interviewer's dream come true. Whether used by user researchers, journalists, or conference organizers, the Nomono Sound Capsule achieves good clean audio recordings in everyday noisy environments. The Sound Capsule allows the interviewer to focus on the interview, not worry about the audio engineering and room acoustics. For over an hour, Viktor and Tim talk about the story of the Sound Capsule's design and development. Tim is enjoying his new job teaching at Michigan Technological University but needs to focus on the relocation and new job in its first year--so no more episodes for a while. Expect us...when you hear us. Thanks for listening since 2005 and we promise some more episodes in the future. Check www.designcritique.net for the occasional blog post in the mean time.

DC168 Interview: Viktor Rydal on the Nomono Sound Capsule

Dushyant Kunungo joins Timothy Keirnan for a discussion about enterprise UX.  * Duhsyant's professional background * The importance of user experience to employees working in an enterprise--both to their morale and their productivity. * Dushyant and Tim share eyebrow-raising anecdotes from enterprise user experience projects they have been on. Employees need effective, efficient, and enjoyable products/tools as much as external customers do. * Dushyant talks about his book, UX Decoded: Think and Implement User-Centered Research Methodologies, and Expert-Led UX Best Practices. You can reach Dushyant at his LinkedIn page. His book's publisher is at this link: https://bpbonline.com/products/ux-decoded?variant=41816075043016 Tim recommends everyone listen to this episode of Dushyant's excellent podcast, UX Banter, with Neal Ford discussing authenticity in branding:  https://www.uxbanter.com/e/importance-of-authenticity-in-branding-neal-foard-s1-episode-7/  

DC167 Interview: Dushyant Kanungo on Enterprise UX

Barry McBride joins Timothy Keirnan to discuss the history and content strategy of The Orange and Brown Report, an independent news and analysis business catering to Cleveland Browns football fans. The Orange and Brown Report offers both free and paid subscription tiers of news and interaction with its beat writers and analysts. Across 80 minutes, Barry talks about: * The origin of his Cleveland Browns fan advocacy and community-building in 1995, when Browns ownership and the NFL betrayed Browns fans by moving the team to Baltimore and the legacy media refused to cover all aspects of the story. * HIs first website, Greedwatch.com * His second website, BrownsTNG (The Next Generation) * How legendary Browns former QB Bernie Kosar and his family helped Barry create Bernie's Insiders, a startup that professionalized Barry's concept with credentialed news reporters. * The transition to The Orange and Brown Report and further maturation of the concept. * Plans for the future of the OBR. You can find the Orange and Brown Report at www.theobr.com Tim's book recommendations: Managing by Values by Blanchard (https://bkconnection.com/books/title/managing-by-values)  Learning to Scramble by Kosar (https://clevelandlandmarkspress.com/book_details.php?bid=27#&panel1-1;)  Almost Too Good: The Undefeated 1948 Cleveland Browns (https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/just-too-good/)

DC166 Interview: Publisher Barry McBride on Content Strategy at The Orange and Brown Report

Matt Ranta, head of practice at Nimble Gravity, joins Tim for a discussion on how companies can and should improve their digital interactions with customers, whether they are B2B or B2C. Whether it's in email messages or web pages, details matter. 03:47 The importance of proofreading marketing email messages. 08:03 Use new image formats like webp and AVIF to increase speed of a website and its SEO. 17:06 Test a website with browsers besides Chrome, which not everyone will use. 22:00 Competitive intelligence tools and keywords 25:30 The useful website evaluation optimization tool https://pagespeed.web.dev/ 28:20 In 2023 people are still not labeling images with alt tags 30:20 Allowing content to be buried deep because of not using pagination properly on web pages 35:34 Disavowing bad back links from undesirable sites you may not want to be associated with, and/or a website that is a link farm 40:22 Do not hide the search bar on the home page or other pages.  Make sure to read Matt's excellent article 10 Opportunities for Improving Your Digital Performance.

DC165 Interview: Matt Ranta on Improving UX for E-Commerce

Eric Penn joins Tim Keirnan and Ken Mayer to discuss the first customer experience phases of his new 2023 Subaru BRZ after a month of ownership. The "Toyobaru Twins" (Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ) are the same car with some slight differences. This vehicle is one of the best examples of "user-centered design" we have ever encountered in a product, and Tim owned the first generation for four blissful years. Eric has purchased the long-awaited and much celebrated second generation, and we go into intense detail on our first four defined phases of the customer experience: Encounter (02:44) Decision    (07:21) Purchase   (21:00) Initial Use  (43:00) We will record an episode about Eric's longitudinal use in February of 2024 so that Eric has a full 12 months of ownership under his belt for that. On this podcast we are nothing if not thorough. In summary, the 2023 BRZ (the second model year of the 2nd generation of the car) meets or exceeds almost every criterion for delighting Eric as customer/user. The car's designers and engineers improved on the few weaknesses from the first generation without compromising what made the first generation so terrific. From the seating position, to the razor sharp handling, to the improved human-machine interfaces in the cockpit, to the new, more powerful engine, everything about this car screams or subtly implies "made for driving enthusiasts of light weight, nimble sports cars." Neither Subaru nor Toyota invented us to be so positive about this vehicle. It is incredibly well-focused on delighting a well-defined customer target.

DC86 Longitudinal Review: TomTom XL335TM Portable GPS

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