That's No Way to Greet a New User

That’s No Way to Greet a New User

Posted by gussvendsen - 10/15/09 at 02:10:28 pm

Recently I installed a handy collaboration tool called Kalexo. Overall, it’s does what you would expect for business and design use cases, but it’s got some sizzle. For example, the things I find most useful for what I do daily is the ability to share my screen on-the-fly with anyone via a browser, and I can quickly capture and share a recording of actions I take on my screen.

Having said all that, as a dude I found part of the UX offensive. Take a look and see if you can find what caught my attention.

Kalexo Fail

Did you see it? Come on, think like a junior higher. Ok, now I see that smile.

Granted, I rarely go “all in” before the flop, but do you really have to tell me I don’t have any balls? (Yes Beavis, I said balls.) That’s no way to greet a new user, and I certainly don’t want to read that first thing in the morning when I get to the office. Hmmm, could you think of a better term for projects… like maybe “projects” or something?

Quick Usability Test: How does this make you feel?

After the initial immaturity and shock wore off, I learned that a ball is also a thread. As a user, I found that confusing. Why not use the term thread across the board? It is a word that has meaning to the Web world, and it accurately conveys the conceptual “string” of subsequent items.

Kalexo is not alone in trying to find the right word. A ball/thread is very much like a Wave from Google or Activities in LotusLive. Wow, describing a collection of comments, files, and assignments for any given work project is a difficult thing to label. I can understand Kalexo’s desire for coining the right term, but in this context, I don’t think it works. BTW – WebEx effectively uses the term “ball” to refer to work that gets passed around. I get that. Enough about balls, here’s the take-away:

UX Rule: Be consistent with your terminology. Don’t use multiple labels to describe the same thing, especially if you are introducing a new concept.

PS: I was really hoping to make it past my third post before I started introducing bathroom humor, but alas, I failed. Thank you for reading, and please come back for more. (Posts that is, not bathroom humor.) Comments are now open.

October 15, 2009 | In User Experience (UX/UI) | 2 Comments

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Totally agree that Kalexo’s choice of word is not good. Just a slight correction to what it means though… Having a “ball” means that your attention is needed on a specific thread. Each tread can have multiple participants and the participants can pass the ball to one another. I think it originated from the concept of juggling many balls. Kalexo certainly has the ability to organize your work life very well. Folks are struggling to get the concept of a Google Wave, so kudos to you for explaining it by relating it to similar concepts form other collaboration tools. There’s a very informative post about how Kalexo differs from Wave – http://bit.ly/3Oz6e1 .

BTW – I can give you some balls if it will make you feel better

Comment by Gavin — October 15, 2009 #

Gus Svendsen