Usability

I have a strong interest in usability and user interface design, although I don't have much chance to exercise it these days, so all of this is rather old.

Mozilla Project

I've made the following UI proposals:

• Location Bar Changes (latest version) - a proposal to make the URL bar more useful and easier to understand

Cross Rhythms Direct

Cross Rhythms is a Christian radio station, broadcasting on satellite and as a local radio licensee in Stoke-on-Trent, England. They also publish an eponymous magazine, and have a direct CD sales arm called Cross Rhythms Direct. I was invited to do a usability study on CR Direct a few months after its launch. This is a slightly edited version, as a sample of the sort of work I do in this area.

For those who don't want to read the entire study, you can compare the site as it was then, and the mockups I produced:

Old Front Page	-->	My Front Page	-->	What They Did
Old Search Results	-->	My Search Results	-->	What They Did

British Rail Timetable Search

The British Rail timetable search recently got "upgraded"; unfortunately, the usability, which wasn't great in the original, was downgraded at the same time. Having been frustrated trying to use the new version, I sent them a (perhaps somewhat curt) short usability analysis and alternative design. Independently, a few days later, The Register published a piece, noting a number of additional problems, and it was subsequently picked up by NTK. Since that publicity, a few deckchairs have been rearranged, but sadly the Titanic is still sinking.

My friend Alan independently came to the same conclusion and also wrote Network Rail (or Railtrack, or whatever they are called) a letter of his own. He makes several additional points not covered in my or The Register's analysis.

For those of you who are as sick of the interface as I am, Matthew Somerville has done a much better version.

Update November 2005: The BR site is now much better; but the www.traintimes.org.uk URL is still easier to remember. :-)