I recently read an article about online ad placements and I was disappointed to learn that there are online advertisers that are still blogging and recommending that people place their online ads on the left side of the page (where the left side navigation usually is). The strategy is that by positioning the ads there people are more likely to click them.

I would anticipate the following results from a website that positions their ads where the left navigation usually is:

1. People will feel deceived by that tactic and they will resist clicking on the ads out of spite
2. Sneaky ad placements like these lower the trust value of your webpage
3. By association, ad-spam-layouts lower the trust value of the advertiser's products/services
4. It lowers the usability of the website
   
5. It will keep you out of online search engines that focus on webpage quality for their search results

Dan Montano authors a transdisciplinary blog about ways of thinking for the 21st century.

Designing for persuasion really takes us back to the user. Most if not all the questions about designing persuasive interactive systems have a deep dependency on who the users are and what they value.

We should remember this when faced with the opportunity to attend a workshop (or read a book) on persuasive design. Most of these are usually based on generic ideas of users.Dan Montano authors a transdisciplinary blog about ways of thinking for the 21st century.

User researchers are often faced with the opportunity to play a role similar to that of an ethno-futurist.

Ethno-futurists study people and their social environments to forecast possible patterns of change.

On the other hand, user researchers go out in the field to meet with users and gather information about how they use products and services. They learn about the user's goals, habits and usual tasks usually within the context of use. In short, they are performing ethnographic* research.

But along with the typical ethnographic research there is an opportunity for the analysis to be expanded to recognize current and expected trends of change. This type of analysis may call for the same methodologies used by ethno-futurists.

When this information is passed along to the information architects and interaction designers they can structure systems that are scalable and evolving to fit the expected patterns of user change.

*This is a variation of ethnography, the way in which anthropologists study groups of people to understand their culture. Dan Montano authors a transdisciplinary blog about ways of thinking for the 21st century.

Quoting the latest issue of the Human-Computer Interaction special interest group:

"Some important, recent scholarship on usability studies has called for a
revamping of the methods we use when testing more complex systems....
Still other scholarship has focused on the usability profession. Lund asserts that we are
entering a postmodern usability era that requires a reassessment of our
disciplinary purpose...[1]"

IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
Special Issue Focus: Technical Communication and Usability Studies
Sighci - Vol 33, Issue 4 (Aug 26, 2008).

[1] A. M. Lund, ?Post-modern usability.? Journal of Usability Studies,
vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1?6, 2006. You can read this article online (PDF file)

This posting is related to a blog posting on my old blog:
"Postmodern concepts in contemporary life"

- Daniel-Montano ( a t ) uxdtools com

Usability tests usually focus on how successful an user is in completing a specific task. While this is often enough for us to determine the success of a design it is not enough to determine if this actually helps the user accomplish their real goal.

Arguably, you can design an user interface that helps the user perform the wrong task in an intuitive and easy way.

Who is responsible for the user's domain knowledge?
The users themselves may or may not know that the task they are performing is the wrong one for their real goals. This lack of knowledge is usually related to a lack of domain comprehension.

This is complicated even further when even in user research sessions users state that they want to complete task X when that task is not the one that will get them closer to their goal.

This means that user experience practitioners need to keep a watchful eye to make sure the user has enough domain knowledge to make quality decisions as they interact with the system.

-Daniel Montano

I recently read a blog posting where an user experience company took inventory of the number of language spoken by their employees. The posting went on to connect this asset with an ability for multicultural understanding.

While linguistic literacy may help someone improve their cultural literacy I don't think linguistic literacy and cultural literacy are the same.

In other words, simply because you can speak/write a language it doesn't necessarily mean that you can also understand the cultural dynamics.

Cultures often develop unspoken symbolic interaction and other subtle nuances. These forms of communication are communicated in complex methods that may or may not include spoken/written language.

Glossary from Wikipedia:
- Cultural literacy
- Symbolic interaction

- Daniel Montano

Welcome to my blog.

First, I should introduce myself. I am an user experience professional with over 10 years of work experience designing interfaces and systems.

I have worked in the following industries:
- Medical and Biotech (medical software and medical devices)
- Healthcare (hospital websites and web applications)
- Higher Education (college and university websites, web applications)
- Entertainment (promotional and marketing websites)

I have held the following job titles:
- Information Architect / Web Strategist
- Usability Specialist
- Human Factors Specialist
- Senior Web Designer

One of my passions and interests is the topic of innovation. I have spent my entire career working with innovation challenges and I am continuously learning about innovation strategies.

I hope that you enjoy reading the postings in this blog.

Best regards,

Daniel Montano
My LinkedIn profile - (If I already know you send me an invite - If I don't know you email me a note introducing yourself).
Email: Daniel-Montano { a t } uxdtools  c o m
My personal blog: Framework 21 (a.k.a. Humane Systems Design)