It was as if older cats didn't even care.
April 1, 2013 6:09 AM   Subscribe

Mobile Usability for Cats: Essential Design Principles for Felines. "Even the simplest video of a cat using an iPad app easily gathers millions of viewers. Bowing to this takeover, our clients are increasingly asking us, 'How can we improve our site or app for cats?' With their lack of opposable thumbs and ever-shifting focus, cats are certainly a challenging target audience."

Jakob Nielsen recruits a focus group of 16 cats and tests 28 apps and 12 websites for usability. Common sources of irritation were the pointless presence of instructions...
posted by evilmomlady (17 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Of the 16, 4 were declawed and 4 were kittens under 3 months old.

:/
posted by curuinor at 6:29 AM on April 1, 2013


Cacahuate, my 15 year old kitty will often invoke Siri on my iPad or iPhone. The last time she meowed and Siri respond thinking the cat said "secret".
posted by birdherder at 6:39 AM on April 1, 2013 [5 favorites]


One of my cats has played the iPad cat games, but that test had to end early as he grabbed it in his mouth and started dragging the iPad plus clearly trapped mice to the edge of the table.
posted by jeather at 6:54 AM on April 1, 2013 [3 favorites]


I can't begin to describe how wonderful this is, April fools or not.
posted by dgran at 7:52 AM on April 1, 2013


I'm surprised Mr. Nielsen did not include heat maps.

Also, he's brilliant.
posted by ersatz at 8:22 AM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


May I suggest that you add the "poom" tag to this fine post? Thank you.
posted by maudlin at 10:08 AM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


I kind of think this is an April Fools joke, but there are actually several iPad/iPhone games for cats. Including one where your cat paints you a picture that you can then print out and frame.

Many cats enjoy these games (although my cats do not).
posted by ErikaB at 10:21 AM on April 1, 2013



You know, I really need to get an iPad for Eartha and Malcolm, because when the games become available....I'm all about it!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:43 AM on April 1, 2013


Ruthless Bunny: That picture is set to private :(
posted by Canageek at 1:29 PM on April 1, 2013


NNG is a real group, who do real (and real good) consulting on usability. And this is awesome. April fool!
posted by ubi at 5:38 PM on April 1, 2013


Is declawing cats still considered acceptable among any remotely responsible cat owners? I thought that, as a practice, it had gone the way of foot-binding.
posted by acb at 6:06 PM on April 1, 2013


My stepmom looooves her cats but she apparently loves her furniture just a tad more. I had to bite my tongue really hard when she got her last kitten declawed; the poor thing was limping around for several weeks. In every other way, she's an exemplary cat owner.
posted by desjardins at 6:23 PM on April 1, 2013


I made the mistake of reading this to Mom and she is now planning on purchasing Fruit Ninja for our cat, Higgins.

acb: My cat is declawed, but we got him 14 years or so ago before we knew how nasty it was for the cat.
posted by Canageek at 6:36 PM on April 1, 2013


STEPHEN. PAWKING.
posted by maryr at 8:26 PM on April 1, 2013 [1 favorite]


maryr: "STEPHEN. PAWKING."

Yes, I know. It's true, we've been ripped off.
posted by pwnguin at 11:14 PM on April 1, 2013


Google Glass for Cats
posted by homunculus at 3:37 PM on April 4, 2013


Oh please, clearly 'shopped. Like a cat would ever leave that on its head.
posted by maryr at 4:40 PM on April 4, 2013


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