Design Review: Lotus Notes 8 versus Outlook 2007

Recently our office started upgrading some employees to Lotus 8 and I decided to give it a try. Before I get started, let me give you a little information on my email experience. I started using email in the mid 90’s with Hotmail, moving at somepoint after 2000 to Outlook which I have used religously since. Sure, I still have my Hotmail account, as well as Yahoo Mail, and Gmail. But rather than fanagle with multiple interfaces and logins everthing conveniently is pushed to my home computer and appears nicely integrated into a single inbox in my Outlook.

So you can imagine I was less than excited when I found out I was going to be forced to use an email application aside from my beloved Outlook. I admit that at first with Notes 7, I resisted and cheated. I used a connector at work that would allow me to continue receiving my email via the outlook interface eventhough the company used Lotus Notes. (For those interested here is a link to the connector, you must have domino 7 and outlook 2003).

So how is it I’m writing an article about Lotus 8 you may ask? I have to say it is sheer curiousity as a person who designs applications for a living. I attended CHI 2009 and went to a presentation by IBM explaning all of the user experience research methods they employeed when updating there system from version 7 to 8, and the presentation impressed me enough to make me decide it’s worth a test drive.

So here are my initial thoughts when comparing Lotus Notes 8 against my beloved Outlook 2007. (more…)

I search the web a lot. I use Google probably 90% of the time by typing information into the chrome address bar. It’s quick, easy, and provides a wealth of results.

However while Google is a great quick fix for my general searches, I find it falls short when I’m looking for more specific results. For example, I frequently search for images and I find that Google falls short of reaching my expectations. I find their image results page limited and annoying. So I decided to look elsewhere and I found Bing.

Bing from what I can tell is Microsoft’s attempt at reviving their Live Search. And while their main web search seemed pretty standard to me, their image search definitely caught my attention. Here are some of the features of Bing image search that have captured my interest and turned me into a Bing Images user: (more…)

(Download the PDF)

First impressions are worth a lot on the web when competition is only a click away. So what first impression are you giving people when they come to your website? Does your site seem confusing, overwhelming, without focus? One of the most common mistakes people make when creating their homepages is forgetting about their users and first impressions. Many homepages are bogged down with useless text, a mess of links and images and no clear statement of what they do, or what their users can do on their site. It’s important that you’re clear and obvious on what you have to offer and the value you can provide.

The Test

Take the 5 second test to find out how you’re doing:

Take a screen shot of your website and print it in black and white. Show it to family and friends who may not be familiar with the site, but only let them look at it for 5 seconds. Can they tell you the company the website was for? What does the company do? What would they do next on the site? If they can’t figure this out, without your prompting, then your homepage could use some work. Keep in mind, people will give your site a lot less than 5 seconds time on the web.

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It seems Microsoft is finally jumping on the bandwagon of user experience. Know primarily for their operating system Windows, it has long been thought that Microsoft was behind pace when it comes to their user experience. Apple has always been the one leading the pack. However it seems Microsoft is making some major changes in their corporate strategy as they move to put a much higher importance on increasing the usability of their products.

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Jumping on the bandwagon I was one of the many to download Google’s Chrome browser the day it was released. I was immediately impressed, then somewhat disappointed. I gave Chrome 48 hours to impress me, but I wasn’t willing to give up IE… yet. I will blame this on the psychology of change and my resistance to learn a new browser and accept the idea that it could actually be a quality one.

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