Luke Wroblewski wrote an article yesterday titled, “Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%. The post was about a team, led by Ron Kurti, redesigning a form for Vast.com. By no means do I intend to knock the success of the redesign, but part of me wonders if the conclusion was rushed. In addition to using a narrative user flow, he’s also:
Lessened form inputs, added placeholder text, and made one optional
Removed distracting links throughout
Highlighting contextual information like the car being negotiated
Made the submit button bigger
Added icons
Said “Thank you”
Luke mentions the possibility of other factors affecting the result in his review, but I think it may be an understatement. Sometimes conversion rates can be massively improved by a minor change to a design or user flow. While A/B testing can be very useful, keep in mind that it is still a science and comprehensively reviewing constants and variables is a big part of that science.
As a concept, multitasking goes beyond just background processes. There’s an aspect of multitasking which is purely visual. For example, when developing a website, I’ll often put the Photoshop file next to my browser, for comparison.
In a roundabout way, this means the iPad already has multitasking. Consider apps like Mail where, on the iPad, the list view and detail view have been combined to one screen. Users can not only read an email, but also instantly see when the previous email in that thread was sent, who sent it, and delete it—all without losing their place. To me, this is a form of multitasking. Extending this split screen idea to the app level presents a difficult UX challenge, but could be a better approach for multitasking than the typical “windowed” metaphor used on desktops.
There has been a lot of discussion over the past few weeks on whether or not the iPad (and iPhone for that matter) should support multitasking. Many people seem to have a different interpretation of what this means, whether it’s just listening to Pandora while browsing the web, having a faster way to switch apps running in the background (akin to WebOS’s concept of “cards”), or just having an app be able to fetch data in the background.
I’ll be posting some more thoughts on multitasking throughout the day, but first a quick poll: Do you want multitasking? Why or why not?
An awesome directory of mobile developers, like Sortfolio for programmers. The site has a beautiful design concept and is very well executed, with lots of great bells and whistles. Kudos to Kettle.
Sebastiaan de With (@cocoia) has posted an iPad UI Roundup, with tons of great details about upcoming visual changes, new conventions, and user experience.
Luke Wroblewski dissects the iPad keynote to find some new interactions being introduced. I have to say, I’m curious how usable the multiple-object selection is—it seems like this would be awkward when you’re on-the-go.
