There’s an interesting post at Techcrunch about Google’s inconsistent use of the terms “tags” and “labels” across their products. For those not familiar with these terms, tags and labels are used in blogs to create groups of topics. For example, this post is labeled “consistency” and can be viewed with other posts that use that label. Google’s Gmail and Blogger (which hosts this blog) use the term “label” while Picasa and Google Video use the term “tags” for the same feature.

I see this sort of thing happening often, especially in large companies that have a lot of acquisitions. The acquired company has their own user experience style for terms, interactions, etc. that may or may not be the same as their new parent company. Most of the time, there is no ue designer to update the newly acquired products with the parent’s design guidelines until several versions after the acquisition. Even if someone does point out this type of inconsistency, it can be a very big project to change one term in the user interface. All of the front end code (usually HTML), the back end code, and the help documentation have to be revised. Then everything has to go through internationalization and QA. Even if a term change is piggybacked on other product updates, you will often find this type of work at the bottom of the priority list.

I am often asked what should be done about high level ue inconsistencies across products. First, products must be consistent within. For example, Blogger uses the term “label” throughout their ui and help docs. Next, they should be consistent with the other products offered by the company. In this case, the use of terms is inconsistent across products. Last, terminology should be consistent with the industry standards. “Tags” is the term widely accepted term throughout the Web.

Were I making recommendations to Google, I would suggest they begin the process of switching all products to the term “tags.” Though the terms “tags” and “labels” are nearly interchangeable and pose few usability issues for users AND a term change will create no revenue returns, Google must consider their appearance. As an Internet leader, Google should adhere to the industry standards and appear to offer a consistent suite of products and services. Sometimes, having pride in appearances leads us in the right direction.

I drove a Toyota Prius today for the first time. I had read a lot about the innovation and design that went into the Prius, so I was excited to check out the car’s usability.

I was surprised at how new the user experience felt. Instead of turning a key to start the car, I inserted a plastic device into a slot and pressed a large “Start” button while my foot was on the brake. This process was not obvious to me at first, but it was learnable after a few times. I felt like Toyota was trying to make an experience statement that I was not in a car, but a new type of transportation. Unfortunately, the experience was tainted by the fact that I still had to do old fashioned things like disengaging the clunky parking brake with my foot and putting the car into drive.

From a usability perspective, I am concerned with the dashboard control system. It operates everything from the climate controls to the trip computer and stereo. Below is a picture where the radio interface is active.



Note the hard keys lining the screen. These are used for high level navigation of the features. They work well enough, however they are coupled with a touch screen which has multiple levels of navigation and various widgets for controls. On the screen above, I count 10 buttons and a couple more things that look like controls. I would be irritated if this jumble was thrown at me on a Web site, much less in a car traveling 70 mph that requires my attention. This user interface is far too demanding for someone whose primary task must be to operate a car.

The touch screen is also a poor choice by Toyota. How many times have you kept your eyes on the road while you reached for the temperature controls? You can do this because of the tactile feedback you receive from touching the buttons. Eyes are not required. However, with the Prius touch screen, both fingers and eyes are required to operate the radio. A decidedly poor safety choice by the designers.

The Prius was an interesting experience. I am excited about eco-friendly hybrid cars, but Toyota needs to spend some time rethinking the control system and ways to optimize the experience for ease of use and driver safety.

For a long time now, Elson User Experience has been researching and designing interactions with software, Web sites, devices and just about anything else with which a person can have an interaction. This blog will be a place to share the insights collected during our projects and personal observations about user experiences with things we have encountered.

As I have always said, ue design is not rocket science. At its most basic level, design is about using common sense and always considering the user. It’s my hope that the thoughts I share in this blog will provide a useful perspective for people as I write about both good and bad designs. I will also be writing about interesting challenges we have faced in our recent projects. Last, I look forward to your comments and I encourage you to turn these posts into discussions.

Thanks for reading,

-Shawn Elson