A lot of the work I’ve been doing lately is under the heading of “Expert in User Experience” or “Information Architect” – which depending on who is in the room, depicts which title I’m being referred to as.
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This is NOT spam. I swear – its me posting this. Its a ha-ha-funny.
The other day, I was walking down the hallway with a few of my coworkers to get a cup of coffee. One of the people I was with said something, and I responded back, but one of the words that I said was a bit off. The beginning of the word was right, but the end… not so much.
I’ve found myself doing this quite often as of late and it seems to be occurring more and more frequently. In my head, I find that I am already thinking of something else by the time I speak and so I am losing track of what I was trying to say. After talking to my sister about this phenomenon, she came up with a pretty solid theory.
She thinks that it’s autocomplete’s fault… and I think she might be right!
Autocomplete – its being used more and more everywhere, from typing on my iPhone, to generating search result terms. Even facebook and twitter use autocomplete.
So where does this lead? I can’t imagine that I’m the only person who has experienced this. What I do wonder is if this is even more of an issue for individuals who are glued to their devices more so than I am. I do search a lot and use my phone, but I am also off the computer often enough to have meaningful conversations with my husband and to play with my kids… daily(I know… I know… I need to cut them off, right? But I can’t! Their faces… they’re just so darn cute. How can a person say no to those faces?!). I even cook and exercise! So what about those other… more normal computer and device users? Did they somehow get an upgrade? Or… oh, I have a better theory. Maybe they just don’t talk any longer. Maybe they mind meld with each other. That’s got to be it.
Either way, it’s an interesting issue to have. Does anyone know when “they’re” going to upgrade the autocomplete scripts in my head? They seem to be pulling up the wrong words lately. I wonder if the project lost its funding…
I have a Facebook advertisement gripe.
I don’t really mind advertisements on the sides. Facebook is an incredible resource which we use daily and its free for us to use, but somebody’s got to pay for the servers and employees who provide updates and security patches along with many other resources. Advertisements are a necessary evil.
Sometimes, there’s something that I really like advertised on the side, so I click. Maybe that’s stupid of me, but I want to see that item, see how much it costs, etc.
The thing that gets me is that I cannot actually FIND the item in the picture. This devalues the… value… of the advertisement. If I click, I expect to find what I’m clicking upon. The image did grab my attention far more than the words (i.e. human nature).
What I’d really like is to have the ability to FIND the object in the image. This object may be far outside the price range that I’m willing to spend. Maybe it will be exactly what I’d expect for the object to cost. Either way, I want to find said object and have the option to buy it, see reviews, read comments about it, etc.
I don’t think I’m asking for much. What it really comes down to is relevancy.
If you are a company who is providing advertisements to bolster the attraction to your business, please do your potential customers a favor and provide relevant imagery to represent your business. This not only will bolster the attractiveness of your products, it will also increase customer loyalty and trust.