All websites with login access have a “Forget Password” link that allows a user to input their username or email address and a new password will be sent to the user.  This is such a simple application to develop but the user experience can go wrong if it is not designed properly.

It is very easy for the user to get stuck or get confused on what their new password is.  I see a lot of applications developed in which the user receives their new password and is sent to a special webpage to enter their new system generated password.  Once they do that they are let in.  But the user will not remember the system generated password so when they logout and log back in at another time they will have to run through the Forget Password scenario over and over.  So to improve this process here are a few simple adjustments you can make to your functional use case and design:

1. User clicks “Forget Password”
2. User inputs their email address or username and clicks submit.
3. The system flags the account that the user has forgotten their password and that the password must be reset and sends the user a very friendly email. In this email will be link, with instructions, for the user to access a web page to reset their password. On this page the user is presented with two text boxes – password the user will like to set and confirm the password. Put a check in there too so that once the confirm password matches the password chosen a green check mark is placed next to the confirm box.
4. Once the user resets their password let the user in, remove the flag that is set in the database .

It’s ideal to guide the user through the website and to ensure the experience is ideal. Try to avoid system generated temporary passwords that the user will have to input into their login. Allow them to choose their own password.

Guide the user!

Post from: The Galvin Blog

Better User Experience on “Forget Password” Processes

As someone who is a product of Generation X I understand that we are next in line to start taking care of our communities and our nation. This is our time to shine. I hope and pray that we elect the right officials, make conservative financial decisions, grow our businesses, properly educate our children and build success for the next generations to come. Each of us can make an impact.

Post from: The Galvin Blog

This is Our Time to Shine

Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

What would happen if, out of nowhere, a company came out with a better MP3 player than Apple? Better storage, more functions, etc. for a better price? Well, it’s happened. Multiple times. Some competing MP3 players offer all of these superiorities, but have failed to achieve the prestige of the Apple iPod due to its seemingly ever-increasing popularity. There are multiple reasons why the iPod has managed to own the competition, including – but not limited to – visual appeal of the product and the huge advantage that Apple has developed in advertising. Even if a product comes out on the market that is proven to be superior to the iPod, there’s a good chance it won’t surpass Apple’s stronghold on the mind of consumers as a whole.

A parallel can be drawn to the existence of a keyboard you might not be familiar with. The modern keyboard layout was created before computers even existed so as to prevent typewriters jamming. While the “QWERTY” layout (the most common modern keyboard) did indeed solve this relative annoyance, there was a concern about the fact that there existed only one vowel on the home row, a feature that still exists today. While effective in its purpose, the need for the layout of QWERTY was rendered moot by computers, machines that don’t have to be concerned with jamming in the same manner of typewriters. However, consumers had gotten extremely comfortable using the QWERTY, and it was perhaps inevitable that electronic keyboards would have the same character layout. Even today, the vast majority of the computer-using population uses a very slight variation of the original QWERTY. Look down at your hands, and there’s an exceedingly good chance that on the home row (middle row of letters), you will find exactly one vowel: “A.” One row up the first six letters will probably be Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The remnant of the typewriter-dominant past still exists.

Despite the fact that QWERTY prevented mechanical jamming on typewriters, there were concerns about the layout of the letters and the strain that was placed on hands during the action of typing. A different keyboard was created in the 1930s – the “DVORAK” – according to what letters were utilized most often and the way that people physically type; the most common characters are more accessible in DVORAK, and the lesser used are placed in more remote areas of the board. A, O, E, U and I are all on the home row, for example. Everything about the DVORAK points to superiority over the QWERTY. But, although the DVORAK is easier to get a hold of now than it was thirty years ago, the QWERTY still has the market by the throat. Yes, it would take you a bit of time to get used to the DVORAK, but carpel tunnel would be much less of a concern for you than it is now. Your efficiency would more than likely see a noticeable increase. But the QWERTY is what we are, as a whole, most comfortable with. The QWERTY, like the iPod, is what we use despite evidence that we should move on to the DVORAK, the usability pioneer in the keyboard world.

Our Interactive Portfolio

We at Galvin Technologies like to think of ourselves as the DVORAK of website usability. It’d be easy for us to go the same route as everybody else and design websites according to the QWERTY layout the industry has provided us, but we choose to take a step or two out of the box. We don’t want to completely buck the trend, and do pay close attention to the requirements of business models, but try to take into effect usability aspects: the QWERTY vs. the DVORAK. Just as the DVORAK was created with the user in mind, we design websites with the users in mind. The QWERTY was useful when it was necessary, but it’s time to move on; sometimes it’s better to come up with something new and a little different, more user-friendly, than continue to follow a trend of blatant usability inferiority.

Post from: The Galvin Blog

Comfort of Popularity vs. Usability: Bucking the Trend

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.”The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. “I am going to give each one of you a SEED today – one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you.

I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO.”

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story.. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown.. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow.

Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.
Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by — still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however… He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil – He so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot.

But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick to his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right.
He took his empty pot to the board room. When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful — in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him!

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO.
“Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!”
All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the Financial Director to bring him to the front.

Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!” When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed – Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive Officer!
His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed..

“How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.

Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead – it was not possible for them to grow.
All of you, except Jim, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Jim was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer!”

* If you plant honesty, you will reap trust
* If you plant goodness, you will reap friends
* If you plant humility, you will reap greatness
* If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment
* If you plant consideration, you will reap perspective
* If you plant hard work, you will reap success
* If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation
* If you plant faith in God, you will reap a harvest

So, be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you will reap later…
“Whatever You Give To Life, Life Will Give Back To You” “Whatsoever a man seweth; that he shall also reap.”

Post from: The Galvin Blog

The Seed