Tag Archives: UI

MacBook Air / Chrome browser: Be smarter about the swiping experience!

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Problem: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been using my Mac with a chrome browser and, in the middle of filling out a form (airline tickets, play tickets, you name it), accidentally swiped the touchpad in such a way that it thinks I wanted to go back to the previous webpage— form be d***ed.  I lose all the data I’ve filled out and frustratingly have to go “forward” again… and tediously fill it all out, again, praying my fingers don’t swipe funnily again.  [And yes, I know I could turn off this feature altogether, but then it loses its charm in non-form situations when it is actually helpful!]

Recommendation: It would save much heartache if the browser was smart enough to know when you’re filling out a form.  In that case, if it detects that you’ve make that gut-wrenching-oops-of-a-back-stroke on your touchpad, it can ask you: “Are you sure you want to abandon your form and lose all that you’ve input?”.  It can even offer to remember your choice in case someone loves to abandon and doesn’t want this safety net, but I’d bet that when a user is filling in a form, well over 80% of the time the “back” is an unintentional, painful mistake. And of course, it should be smart enough to know that if you’re always telling it “No, I don’t want to abandon”, that it just ignores that swipe in form-filling-out situations.

User-benefit:  With this little question, the user will have less angst and frustration (not to mention speed!) when filling out an important form…enjoying their mac and its experience, like they’re supposed to!

Confirmation message "Did you mean to abandon your form and lose all the information?"

Example of the browser being smart about what a “swipe” really means when filing out a form.

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LinkedIn: Let users tell you more about themselves!

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Background: As a job seeker, I’ve applied to many positions that LinkedIn has shown me—but usually through a company’s website directly. Clearly, LinkedIn doesn’t know I’ve done that, but it would be really easy to allow me to tell LinkedIn.

Problem: Right now in LinkedIn, you can only “hide” jobs—by pressing the little X in the top right corner of the job tile, which means that LinkedIn doesn’t know WHY people are “hiding” jobs… Are users not interested? Have they applied some other way?

Recommendation: LinkedIn could offer another way for users to check off that they applied elsewhere, which would provide LinkedIn various pieces of useful information that could be used to help users, their own targeting, and the companies placing job descriptions.

Business Benefits for LinkedIn:

  • Increased user relevance: LinkedIn will have a better idea of what jobs this person is interested in so as to improve tailoring of other recommendations and not have critical page real estate dedicated to jobs that the person has already applied to.
  • Better analytics around what jobs are applied to through linked in vs. not.
  • Improved knowledge about whether people who applied through LinkedIn are more likely to get/take a job than those who applied to a job another way.
  • Better value proposition for the listing companies since LinkedIn will be showing more roles that the user has not applied for yet.

User Benefits: From the user’s point of view, this improvement can also reduce their concern over how LinkedIn interprets using the “X” to hide that job. Instead they get to feel more secure that they’re giving accurate information back that can help LinkedIn to know that job was definitely relevant—so relevant that they applied for it!

LinkedIn

Example of how to improve the site to provide better information to LinkedIn

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