Mouse-over Previews

With his permission, I am forwarding a brief exchange with the lead on
User Experience Research for Snap.com.


> From: Bailey Bruce <Bailey@Access-Board.gov>
> Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:31:31 -0400
> To: Erik Wingren <erik@snap.com>
> Conversation: ZoomText and Snap
> Subject: ZoomText and Snap
> 
> Greeting Erik.
> 
> I happened across your post at URL:
>
http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2007/05/05/lets-hear-from-the-disabled/#com
ment-263316
> 
> This is something I have quite recently asked the W3C WAI WCAG 2.0 
> working group to discuss.  I think it will come up this Thursday (4:00

> EST).
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2007JulSep/0099.html
> 
> Did you make any progress back in May?
> 
> Thanks very much!
> 
> -- 
> Bruce Bailey, Accessibility IT Specialist, U.S. Access Board
> 1331 F Street, N.W., Suite 1000, Room 1014 Washington, DC  20004-1111
> 202-272-0024 (voice); 202-272-0082 (TTY, shared); 202-272-0081 (Fax,
> shared)
> bailey@access-board.gov


-----Original Message-----
From: Erik Wingren [mailto:erik@snap.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 7:32 PM
To: Bailey Bruce
Subject: Re: ZoomText and Snap

Hi Bailey,

Unfortunately I never heard back from Jo, but alarmed by these reports I
conducted a round of informal testing using ZoomText (which, as far as I
understand, is the most common Zoom application).

Essentially I recruited a handful of people working in the same office
building as Snap (not associated with Snap and unfamiliar with Snap
Shots) who wear eye glasses and asked them to take off their glasses and
visit a few Snap Shots enabled blogs with ZoomText turned on. Far from
ideal, I still figured this testing was better than none...

Apart from an overwhelming awe for the people who depend on these
technologies on a daily basis, we concluded that we needed to do a
better job of not "jarring" the reading experience for users of Zoom
applications.
Changes to the product informed by this testing include:

1. Make the Snap Link Icon a default during site owner signup.
2. Offer site owners the option to activate hover over Snap Link Icon
   *only*.
3. Disabling activation of the Snap Shots bubble while user is
scrolling.
4. Allowing end-users easy opt-out, directly from the bubble.
5. Allowing end-users to extend the delay before activation and
   deactivation from the in-bubble options menu.
6. Offer an "Opt-In Badge" where a site owner can let their readers turn
   the feature on themselves.
7. Encouraging site owners to announce the new functionality and while
   doing so, provide their readers with instructions for how to disable
   the feature if they do not want it.
8. Sending follow-up emails to site owners after signup reiterating
   the importance of the above through pointing them to pages such as
   <http://www.snap.com/about/bestpractices.php>

I did read your post on the W3.org mailing list, and based on my
understanding thereof, it seems like we have come to somewhat different
conclusions when comparing Snap Shots to other "preview hover effects"
such as Netflix (and the Smithsonian example, which I had not seen until
today).

Maybe I misunderstood your post but when using ZoomText we found Snap
Shots < not Netflix < as the *less* jarring of the two.

In our testing the predominant issue was "loss of orientation" when the
bubble was deactivated (via accidental mouseout) at a magnification
level of 4x or higher. 

After some tweaking we found that the usability/accessibility of Snap
Shots + Zoom application improved when (A) the bubble stayed fixated
once activated and (B) the default hover delay allowed for the user to
move his/her cursor in over the bubble.

In fact, at the ZoomText out-of-box default magnification of 2x, we
found the "condensed interaction" of our rich Snap Shots such as RSS
Shot and WikiShot a "more useful experience than clicking through the
regular hyperlink". For your reference, a full range of different types
of Shots currently offered is available at the lower part of the
following page:
<http://www.snap.com/about/shots_central.php>.

I would be more than interested in learning about what comes out of your
discussion. If there is anything further that you think I can provide,
please do not hesitate to let me know.

Best Regards.
-- 
Erik Wingren

Brand & User Experience Research
Snap.com <http://www.snap.com/>

e. erik@snap.com
o. +1.626.229.3030
m. +1.323.528.0058

Received on Thursday, 30 August 2007 00:46:32 UTC