Gmail Reviews

Gmail Reviews: "Google Gmail Review: Preliminary Impressions - Bob Matsuoka VAR Business - April 22, 2004 www.varbusiness.com/sections/news/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=49596 'In addition to standard features (spell-checking, personalization, attachments), there are some unexpected touches: the ability to 'pop off' composition window, keyboard shortcuts (type a key while browsing mail to trigger features); 'personal level indicators' (indicate messages sent only to you or to you as opposed to a list); and 'snippets' (displaying a section of text from the body of the message, a-la Google searches). ... That's pretty much it, but this simplicity is deceptive. While any one feature may not rise to the level of revolutionary, as a collection they are. ... My experience with Gmail has been in many ways typical of my experience with all of Google's products: efficient, quick, accessible, easy. I suspect that many other people will feel the same way, too.' "

Appeal to brains and hearts

If you can design a product that appeals to people's brains and hearts, you can get them to pay a great premium...

Ultimately, what sells the product is the emotional side of design. We aim to create products that intrigue people, invite a question: There's something different about this thing. What does it do? The critical moment is when they smile and say, "A-ha!" If done right, the process makes people feel clever. They think, "How come nobody ever thought of this before?" They get it, and somehow, the belong to this exclusive club of people who get it.

Alex Lee (President OXO International), "Made to Measure," Fast Company, July 2004, p. 57.

Though the chip maker may be better known for its research and development work in physics and computer science, a small group of approximately 10 anthropologists and psychologists has been steadily accumulating research on how people use computer technology in their work and home lives since 1997.

The purpose of the People and Practices group, which is based in Intel's Hillsboro, Ore., research and development facility, is to help translate this knowledge into better Intel products.

Robert McMillan, "Intel researchers study cultures not circuits," Computerworld, 6 May 2004 via Tomalak's Relm

What makes a good experience varies from person to person, product to product, and task to task, but a good general definition is to define something as "usable" if it's functional, efficient, and desirable to its intended audience.

Mike Kuniavsky, Oberving the User Experience, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, 2003, p. 18.