Larry Rusinsky returns to the show to help Tim critique the Bose QuietComfort 25 acoustic noise cancelling headphones. In an exhaustive (some might say exhausting) discussion, we found these headphones were a great value for how they sound (not bad, not great, but very acceptable in noisy environments) and for their their usability (mostly terrific). Light weight, comfortable, obviously labeled left and right sides, detachable cable, and they degrade gracefully by continuing to supply less good but still listenable sound even when the battery dies. But no problem, it’s an easily found AAA battery. So much is so right about this design.
Chief Dan Phillips of the Plymouth Township Fire Department has the mind of a firefighter and the heart of a User Experience designer. Join him and Tim Keirnan for a sequel to our pumper truck design episode wherein we discuss the design of our township’s new ladder truck.
How does the purpose of a ladder truck differ from a pumper truck? How did the fire department’s design and use of its new pumper truck over the past year improve their design ideas for the new ladder truck? How is the human machine interface (HMI) of the ladder truck made to be as easy as possible for firefighters in a hurry in dangerous circumstances, including controlling the ladder, water pump, hoses, foam generator, and medical equipment?
Our discussion lasts 60 minutes and covers a wide range of anecdotes, from the scenes of emergency incidents, to the design specification reviews with the manufacturer, to the shop floor of the Pierce factory where our truck was built.
Ryan Malcolm and Syed Ibrahim join Tim Keirnan for a thorough critique of their Tesla Model 3 cars while Tim moderates this ad-free, in-depth discussion. We follow the show’s usual Critique by Values model to learn how Ryan and Syed experienced each of the phases of product experience:
Encounter
Decision
Purchase
Initial Use
Longitudinal Use
As usual, we leave no stone unturned in a detailed, people-centered discussion unhindered by commercials. The Tesla website, the HMI of the vehicle, the test drive, and the delivery are among the many topics that we cover.
Who was Paul Fitts and how does this legendary psychologist’s work impact our design professions to this day? Dr. Rebecca Grier joins Tim Keirnan for a wordcast episode about Fitts’ Law and Fitts’ List.
There is a lesson here about keeping one’s WordPress site updated faithfully, but for lack of doing that or perhaps some other reason, I saw this Monday when I tried to publish the November episode:
And with this dreadful sight, all publishing stopped.
It was an awful week of waiting for the powers that be to unflag our domain as a vector for malware, even though my webmaster fixed the crack immediately as a good webmaster would.
I could have published the November episode and known that people who directly subscribe to the podcast feed would still get the show no problem, but I didn’t want listeners to attempt reading Rebecca’s fine show notes and see this scary warning page. And it’s embarrassing.
That being said, I’d like to say that that subscribing to the RSS feed for the show would have ensured you can still listen to it without any need for the designcritique.net domain to be involved. That feed is
In conclusion, I want to communicate two very important things for listeners and for podcasters using WordPress.
A direct connection between audience and content provider is ideal. For a website you enjoy, that means bookmarking that site’s web address in your browser. For a podcast, that means using a podcatcher application to directly subscribe to each show’s RSS feed.
Don’t let your WordPress installation fall behind in versions. My complicated life in September/October made me lazy and if I’d updated to the new version of WordPress sooner, perhaps the site attack would not have been possible
November’s episode will be up shortly. Do you have a site run from WordPress? You might want to harden it with this plugin we found and wished we’d had installed sooner. Time will tell if it does its job for us. But really, I should have been updating the WordPress version more diligently to begin with.
Jared Spool and Dana Chisnell join Tim Keirnan for a conversation about what Tim is calling the “buzzwordification” of UX. Has the increasing notoriety of this profession label helped us? Has it hindered us? Maybe it’s a balance of pro and con. Maybe we just need to meet in a rental car in a parking garage somewhere in Michigan and hash it out.
This is the second in a series of indeterminate length. While not linked in any way except the topic, you may also be interested in listening to the first conversation in the series with Serena Rosenhan and Keith Instone.
Hemmings Motor News has a wonderful section every month called Antique Ads. In their August 2019 issue, this ad appeared from 1957. Out of respect for Hemmings’ copyright to their work, I won’t scan more of the article than this portion of the ad, but take a look.
Looks like what is called an AV (“autonomous vehicle”) right out of today’s headlines, doesn’t it? I sometimes grow weary of automotive companies blathering about autonomous vehicles because I actually like driving small fun cars and having independent control of travel. Freedom of movement is a crucial human political necessity, as well as fun when you have the right vehicle. Will AVs be under strict centralized controls that will make it easy to prevent people, or a certain type of people, from moving, as well as help them move? Food for thought.
In 2019 we still don’t have AVs we can just climb into and be whisked away to the doctor’s office, or to the concert, or to the protests in Hong Kong or France (you think you have problems? Look at what those citizens are facing this year). Whether AVs will arrive sooner, or later, whether they will work in snowy weather in the countryside or just on inner city streets made specific for the purpose, I have no idea. But I like being reminded of how long some ideas take to come to fruition. And how interesting the visions of prior generations may have looked.
Mike Velasco joins Timothy Keirnan to critique the E-SDS HDMI 2 Port KVM Switch. This item enables the use of two computers with one shared keyboard (K), video monitor (V), and mouse (M) at your desk. The holistic excellence of this product is surprising.
When a company designs a mundane office product as well as this item, which most people would never consider special or glamorous, it shows what can be done by caring passionately about all details. From its excellent user interface, to its rugged build quality, to its beautiful packaging, to its well-written and well-illustrated documentation, E-SDS did everything right. This is what a good team can accomplish when value, rather than cost, is the focus for the customer. It also proves that goods made in China can be of terrific quality.
Even its catalog entry on Amazon.com is done extremely well and, while this show does not have nor want affiliate links, we’re going to put the Amazon link here so you can see how well the catalog entry was done. It has all the photos and text one would need to make a well-informed purchase decision.
Paul Axente, host of meetup group UX City and producer of the new Design Conversations podcast, joins Tim Keirnan for a wide-ranging discussion about UX in Romania and other topics, including:
* UX City’s purpose and meetings
* Paul’s unique route to a UX career
* The Design Conversations podcast
* Dark patterns in online retail
* Concerns about Amazon’s long-term effects on customers and communities
* Paul’s reservations about “corporate command” in the design process
* Design ethics in our work
* Customer experience of the console and PC video game industry and the promise of independent gaming companies who design with their goal being great games for customers instead of only making a game to earn money.
* The trap of people confusing tools with design skills. “What is the best tool for design? YOU are the best tool for design.”
Photo of Cluj-Napoca is from TransylvaniaCam.com, which apparently is no longer a functioning URL, but if you search for it there is a Facebook page of similar title that seems to work. Design Critique does not link to FaceBook content on philosophical grounds but it’s out there if you search for it. What a gorgeous city!
Dave Mitropoulos-Rundus returns to talk with Tim Keirnan about labels for our field. This continues our long-running friendly discussion about what should we be called and why, and is there a difference–or should there be–between User Experience and Customer Experience? Dave appreciates the terminology differences whereas Tim wonders why we make such fine distinctions when at the root level we’re all “Designers of Stuff” (trademark pending).
And also Jared Spool’s excellent article, UX and CX: Same Language; Different Dialects, conveniently published the day we recorded this episode. We think Jared’s a mind reader!
NOTE: Tim regrets interrupting Dave in this recording, bad etiquette! This is what happens when your producer is hopped up on cough syrup, which you can hear in his deep head cold voice breaking worse than Peter’s in that famous Brady Bunch episode.
