Wordle is a tool for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently and you can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.

I read an article on Wired about Virgin America, a new U.S airline that aims to provide low-fare, high-quality service for “long-haul point-to-point service between major metropolitan cities on the Eastern and West Coast seaboards”.

From the article, it seems like Virgin Airlines has really taken the time to think about and create the best User Experience possible. A 9-inch display screen on every backseat lets you order fresh food and drinks, watch Hollywood movies on demand, and play games among other things. Seats are also equipped with a 110-volt power supply for Notebook users, USB connectors for charging USB-powered devices like iPods, at least 3000 MP3s onboard every flight, comfortable coach class seats, mood lighting, and plenty of legroom. Did I mention first class seats all have massage chairs?

Does Virgin Airlines website reflect their high quality in person User Experience? As I reviewed earlier this month on JetBlue, one of the primary tasks visitors will perform on the site is booking a flight. Like the majority of airline sites, the homepage has options to search for flights, check a flight’s status, and check in for a flight as well as seeing the latest deals. But there are some notable differences as well.

When selecting a date, a calendar that shows 2 months ahead pops up. Sites like JetBlue and Southwest only show 1 month. Which is better? For someone like me, who likes to plan ahead and book a few months in advance than I would say it is more convenient. For those who typically book a few days before, they still see the current month, so it’s a win-win situation. One other difference that I really like is a prominent link that answers some questions dealing with everything from booking unaccompanied minors, persons with disabilities, big groups, or even pets! These are common situations and questions people may have and it’s nice they don’t have to go looking around the site to get their answers.

When selecting a flight, prices are shown for the selected date as well as other days close by. Scrolling down also moves down the sidebar, which displays the trip summary. The information the potential buyer needs is always available and in plain sight.

You are then able to select a seat with a view of the plane seating arrangement and status of each seat. My only gripe might be that selecting a front row seat pops up a message that it is a premium seat with an additional 13 inches of knee room and costs $15 more. While I understand the reasoning and the prices are entirely justified, it was not something that I was expecting. First class seats on the other hand, which go for around $100 more, are preconceived to be more expensive.

While I have yet to experience a flight with Virgin America, I can’t wait to try it out. Their website exceeded my expectations and I think it does a great job of transferring their brand identiy to the web. I only wish that their cities weren’t so limited but if they have service in a city that I will be flying to, I’ll be using Virgin Airlines, just for the experience.

JetBlue is a low-cost American airline, known for their award winning customer service (not to mention DirecTV programming in every seat). They sell the majority of their airline tickets through their website. Since customer satisfaction is a vital factor in JetBlue’s business, reputation and brand identify, it is imperative that their website reflect this as well.

My main goal when visiting the JetBlue site is to search for and possibly purchase tickets when planning for a trip. Upon first entering the JetBlue website, there are input boxes that allow you to do just that. One doesn’t have to click a link first to bring up the boxes which is nice since this is probably what the majority of Users will want to do when visiting the site. However, if the User went to the site to check in or check a flight’s status, those links appear directly underneath.

Have you ever been to a travel site that required you to enter the departure and arrival cities 3 letter airport code? It can be quite frustrating because unless it’s a big airport (like LAX), I’m usually not one to remember what it is. Sites have gotten better and more flexible allowing one to enter the city name or the code. Others, like Southwest, provide a long drop down list to select from. Unfortunately, you are limited to the number of airports you can see at one time and may force someone to have to scroll down to find their desired airport.

JetBlue’s site has made it more elegant and easier to select by displaying a formatted list of cities and airport codes. Not only that, users also have the option to type in the city/airport code where a simplified look ahead search drop down box appears. Furthermore, since JetBlue flights in one city has certain cities it flies to; JetBlue filters them out for you when selecting the arrival city. Another nice feature to point out - JetBlue remembers a past search so next time you return, you can simply select it and the arrival and departure fields are filled in for you.

JetBlue has done a great job in translating the JetBlue brand experience on the web. The changes are so simple, yet make a world of difference compared to competitor sites. Not only will past customers continue to be loyal to JetBlue but new customers, who are busy trying to compare prices and flights on different sites, will have the impression that JetBlue was thinking about its customers when designing the site.

The official website for the U.S Postal Service (USPS) is the source of information for many businesses and individuals. Whether it is to track a shipment, change an address, or locate the closest post office, the USPS website must have an understandable information architecture and easy to use navigation so users are able to quickly find what they want.

The site does a good job, for the most part - providing the ability to search on each page, having commonly used links at the very top of the page and providing shortcuts with descriptions. Nonetheless, there are plenty of findability improvements that could be made to make the user’s experience better and more enjoyable.

Is that a link?

The content in the middle of the screen provides shortcuts with well labeled titles and descriptions. The problem is the titles are a dark blue color which makes it seem like they are links. Not only are they not clickable but the only link to the shortcut is the small gray arrow button at the very end of the description. The only way to tell that it is a link is to see the mouse cursor change when over the image (this is true with many of the site’s text links as well).

When you consider that people of all ages have to use the post office and might visit the site, the USPS could do a great deal to improve usability by making the title and/or description a link. At the very least, have the arrow button change color or have a pressed down state when the mouse is rolled over.

Inconsistent Navigation

The majority of the site’s navigation menu remains the same – commonly used links at the top of the page (Calculate Postage, Locate a Post Office, Track & Confirm a Shipment, etc) with category buttons (Business, Household, Buy Stamps & Shop, All Products & Services, and About USPS & News) below it. Unfortunately, this is not the case with all pages. On some of the main pages (Buy Stamps, Track & Confirm, Locate a Post Office), the entire top navigation is removed.

Keeping the navigation layout consistent would greatly improve the user experience. Users will not have to shift their attention and “relearn” an interface. Users may also spend time wondering if they are on the correct page. Having consistent navigation makes Users feel comfortable when exploring a website.

Final Words

While I’ve pointed out two of the site’s biggest usability problems in regards to findability, there are still a lot more that can be improved upon, including problems dealing with the page design, user tasks, and information display. Unfortunately, doing an entire web usability case study on the site would take a few weeks. I would be remiss if I did not end this post without mentioning some of the things the site does well in terms of findability - links and label names are clear and specific, search is available on all pages (although not very consistent in placement or wording), the homepage provides direct access to popular pages, and the use of breadcrumbs to give users some sense of where they are within the site.

The main point to take away from all of this - improving the website’s usability may cause one less person to go postal in the future.

Healthopeda.com (fictitious site) considers itself the “best online health resource for people of any age and any health level who want to achieve a state of optimal wellness.” Their primary source of revenue at this point is ads.

This case study focuses on designing Healthopedia for Emotion. A Healthopedia Design for Information case study was done earlier.

Healthopeida.com’s Brand Characteristics
After conducting a brand workshop and interviewing an expert in the organization’s brand, I was able to understand the client’s brand strategy. Healthopeida wants to convey itself as a fun, hip, creative brand that is not like its competitors. At the same time, they want their Users to be able to have a laid back feeling when using the site. They identified with companies like Volkswagon and Ikea.

Requirements
In order to design for emotion, I went through the characteristics and thought about other companies that portrayed similar traits. I visited Volkswagon and Ikea’s sites to see what they had in common and noticed both had very clean designs and organized with a big picture in the middle to draw one’s attention.

I then thought about the different characteristics and how they could be expressed through the web layout, features, typography, color, images, etc.

Fun

• Don’t use the traditional font’s health and other corporate sites use. Bring out interactive features and updated content like Ask the Doctor, daily tips, and interactive polls.

Hip

• Include Web 2.0 look and feel with the logo, tag clouds, podcasts, RSS feed, blogs, vector art and a social community

Creative

• Provide the information of a traditional health site while combining Web 2.0 features, giving an impression that learning about health can be fun

Laid Back

• Have an option to play soothing sounds while browsing the site.

Not Mainstream

• Separate from the competition to not look and act like the traditional corporate/health sites

Finally, I looked at our primary persona, Jenny (see Jenny’s profile in the Design for Information case study) and thought about what might touch, persuade, or inspire her.

Sound

• A soothing sound option that can be played (initially paused)
• Jenna has many health sites she can visit; this is something that separates Healthopedia from them.

Imagery

• Added a big front main picture to capture Jenny’s attention
• Rotates through images every X seconds for new articles/features
• Able to click directly
• Able to pause
• Vivid images can inspire Jenna to want to find out more

Voice/tone

• Fun, creative, hip
• If a site doesn’t show it’s value right away, Jenna usually won’t stick around so need to be able to differentiate from others
• Web 2.0 features – cloud tag, podcasts
• Non-traditional fonts and art but with the same information
• Jenna likes to feel “young” and this site’s voice/tone has a “hip” feeling

Changes or additions made to the information space

• Added more imagery
• Added popular topics tag cloud
• More emphasis on health experts (ask the doctor)
• A little less information directly available on homepage – removed tabs
• Main features and personalization abilities still exist for Jenny’s goals

The Design
Like I did for the information space, I put together all the information and sketched out possible designs for the look and feel of the site. When I came up with something I was happy with, I used Photoshop to put it together.

This design tries to give the brand and User experience a feeling that learning, sharing, and interacting with all things health can be fun and cool. While it does not convey as much information as the Information Design, it still does a pretty good job at displaying information but at the same time projecting brand values onto the Users.