Month: May 2015

A Look at Lose It! App While Avoiding all the Tempting Puns

Posted on by Timothy Dempsey

Lose It! App

Lose It! App Review, Now with Fewer Puns!

A recent read on writing better blog post headlines dashed off the advice to use puns sparingly in post titles. That’s really a shame because today’s post is a review of the recent build of the great Lose It! app, and I like to think I’m good at bad puns.

In the free version of the Lose It! app, I have two pressing interactions during my peak (and sometimes sporadic) usage. One is to start the day recording my weight after getting off the bathroom scale first thing in the morning and the next is to log breakfast. As the day progresses I am able to count calories pretty accurately and see how my calorie-based goals measured up to my actual consumption.

These two separate tasks have been flattened into one. In one of life’s happy coincidences I have been asked for recommendations for books in the field of UX (and I am avidly reading a couple to blog about soon) but the bible of all is “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug.

That was the problem with previous versions of Lose It!. I had to think too much. “I want to record my weight. Let me log my weight. No wait, not the “Log” menu. It’s a “Goal”, in the Goal menu. When I eat something, that’s when I log. Ugh. Too much thinking. Don’t make me think so much. I just got out of bed and haven’t even started the coffee yet.

Happily, in one of those downloads of app upgrades that you ignore on your smartphone as they are pushed (well, I ignore them), lo and behold it’s as if the makers of Lose It! performed card sorting on their app (available for years, at this point) and now it’s simply a trip to the Log menu or My Day for both recording today’s weight and counting calories, not to mention exercise.

Sure, it sounds like a first world problem if ever there was one, but in user centered design, a chief tenet is to involve your users. It seems FitBit clearly did. We can go on about our business and lives, because this app is twice as efficient now.Lose It! App

We are still not in Usability Nirvana, though. I don’t know the average age of the users of Lose It! app, but let’s hazard a guess if you are trying to lose weight you are probably not still in your twenties. Certainly this writer when he was in his twenties didn’t care about what he ate. Yet the menu font size indicates a demographic that doesn’t need reading glasses yet.

Bravo to the FitNow, the makers of Lose It!. I have lost weight using the app and its engaging, clean, crisp data visualization and gamification features – not to mention smart diet and exercise. The new feature of using the phone camera to photograph a barcode and get all the calories for 9 out of 10 prepared foods that I tried is a huge timesaver from tedious manual entry.

Losing weight with Lose It! wasn’t the real challenge.

The real challenge was how difficult it was to write this without any puns.

What do you think? Have you tried it or can you recommend other nutrition/exercise apps you love?

 

Why “Make it Pop (More)!” is the Best Creative Direction You’ll Get (or Give)

Posted on by Timothy Dempsey

make-it-pop-finalMake it Pop

If you work in design, chances are that you have either been on the receiving end of this phrase – or maybe you have uttered it yourself.

Initially it can be greeted with skepticism (and either literal or internal eye-rolling, depending on the designer’s acting ability) from any designer in certain career stages. I have certainly scoffed at it myself.

But you know what? It’s the best creative direction you’ll hear because it is actionable. Sorry about the jargon-y word usage there, but stick with me.

What Designers Hear

They hear something akin to static-y white noise. It can often be a telltale sign of a person in a position of authority who lakes the ability to more descriptively “talk the talk”. But you know what? I realize lately that –

I Was Wrong. Or Cocky. Or Both.

Because – really – what the directive of “make it pop more” is trying to tell us can be traced to two prevailing design tenets: color usage and/or visual hierarchy.amazon

Visual design (at least for those paid practitioners in the working world) ought to lead the viewer to an action. Add to Cart. Contact Us. Opt-In with a Fake Email. The call to action is our  bread and butter. It’s success is inextricably  linked to whether or not we have achieved the business requirements of the piece.

Particularly in User Experience, visual hierarchy helps distinguish the desired primary action from the secondary action. Any doubt what these online stores want us to do next?

These  screenshots clearly illustrate the use of color to guide the user’s eye.Screen-Shot-2013-03-29-at-14.48.00

In both cases, the desired intent “pops”. You should be able to squint and still see the intended call to action whether it uses a color not used elsewhere or a button rendered with affordances like a shopping cart icon.

So, the next time someone asks you to “make it pop”, evaluate the color usage and size. And wipe that smirk off your face, unless of course you work off-site.