News flashes - handpicked since 1997

For suggestions, contact Peter J. Bogaards (pjb at BogieLand dot com).
Also on Twitter.

July 3, 2009

User Experience Evaluation Based on Values and Emotions

"In this paper, we explore a user experience evaluation possibility by combining the identification of person's personal values and evaluation of product emotions. By personal values we mean a type of user concern that is guiding his/her choices and evaluations of products or actions in order to reach the desired goal. By product emotions we mean emotions that a certain product evokes in the user. Theoretical reasoning for this user experience evaluation approach is given by reviewing the existing literature. In addition, possible applications of use are suggested." (Piia Nurkka - UXEM09)

PJB @ 2:37 PM | Classification: User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

reboot 11 closing talk: Bruce Sterling

"On Favela Chic, Gothic High Tech and where we are heading. - Reboot#11 is not a sign of a stable system. (...) The future is an old paradigm and will get out of use." (reboot 11 videos)

PJB @ 1:41 PM | Classification: Information design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

The Architecture of Knowledge: The public library of the future

"Information is knowledge. Knowledge is the library’s commodity. As a result it attracts producers and consumers of this knowledge. To survive it should be aware and adaptable to changes and influences in this age of information and communication. What form and position will its physical and conceptual structure need to take in order to endure these changes in the data saturated realm of public and private society?" (Bart Verschaffel - Tomaat)

PJB @ 1:26 PM | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Interview with Scott Berkun

"In 1956 a documentary called The Mystery of Picasso was released, showing two hours of Pablo Picasso doing what he did best: making paintings. This film gave the public a first-hand glimpse directly into this infamous artist's creative process. Public speaker and writer Scott Berkun and I got together for tea to talk about the film and our own experiences around creativity. As both managers of creative teams and creators of work ourselves, we looked at how our processes aligned with Picasso's... or where we could learn from him. As the discussion unfolded, we came up with an interesting set of guidelines that enable creativity to flourish." (Tea with Teresa)

PJB @ 11:38 AM | Classification: Interviews - Podcasts | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

July 2, 2009

European Modernism and the Information Society: Informing the Present, Understanding the Past

"Uniting a team of international and interdisciplinary scholars, this volume considers the views of early twentieth-century European thinkers on the creation, dissemination and management of publicly available information. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the volume reflects the nature of the thinkers discussed, including Otto Neurath, Patrick Geddes, the English Fabians, Paul Otlet, Wilhelm Ostwald and H. G. Wells. The work also charts the interest since the latter part of the nineteenth century in finding new ways to think about and to manage the growing body of available information in order to achieve aims such as the advancement of Western civilization, the alleviation of inequalities across classes and countries, and the promotion of peaceful coexistence between nations. In doing so, the contributors provide a novel historical context for assessing widely-held assumptions about today's globalized, 'post modern' information society. This volume will interest all who are curious about the creation of a modern networked information society." (W. Boyd Rayward) - Introduction chapter available for download

PJB @ 4:57 PM | Classification: Classics - Information design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Future Practice Interview: John Ferrara

"Working in the user experience, we want to capitalize upon interfaces that people already have a lot of experience using. If gaming is so ubiquitous, we'd be terribly remiss in not paying careful attention to it. But there's also just so much innovative work going on in games right now. Game designers are viciously competing with each other to create unique, engaging experiences, and you see rapid development of new ways of interacting. There's really exciting work being done in motion control, voice control, gesture-based interfaces, and online collaboration, as well as elegant solutions to significant design challenges in unassuming games. I think these things make games impossible to ignore." (Louis Rosenfeld - Rosenfeld Media)

PJB @ 4:48 PM | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Abandoning Service Design

"Service design faces an uphill battle here in the US. There's plenty of interest on the design side but we need more voices speaking to the business side of the equation. For better or worse, Merholz is one of the few people with access to a platform for making that argument." (Jeff Howard - Design for Service)

PJB @ 12:56 PM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Interactions interviews Adam Greenfield

"Serendipity, solitude, anonymity, most of what we now recognize as the makings of urban savoir faire: it all goes by the wayside. And yes, we’re richer and safer and maybe even happier with the advent of the services and systems I'm so interested in, but by the same token we're that much poorer for the loss of these intangibles. It's a complicated trade-off, and I believe in most places it's one we're making without really examining what's at stake." (Speedbird)

PJB @ 11:44 AM | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

The Future of HCI: Intelligent User Interfaces as Agents of Change (preso)

"The predominant interaction paradigm for the last 30 years has been Direct Manipulation. This metaphor is starting to crack under the weight of information it has to deal with. The Indirect Management approach taken by systems such as Intelligent Agents aim to alleviate the cognitive load on users. This presentation shows the constraints we face in the user experience field and some future opportunities and threats." (Christopher Khalil)

PJB @ 11:31 AM | Classification: HCI | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

July 1, 2009

Pattie Maes on interfaces and innovation

"There is a wealth of information available, and most of it these days is digitized. I feel that we still don't have good ways to know what information may be available and what is relevant to whatever we are currently doing, to be able to access information, especially while we are in the middle of something. The current computers and the interfaces that we use, they are not really the ideal information-accessing devices." (MHT)

PJB @ 4:44 PM | Classification: HCI | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Being an Experience-led organization

"We've heard it before: we should focus on designing for an experience; experiences are fundamentally different design challenges to a product or services; experiences are designed from the outside in. We're also told that we can apply this experience-centric perspective to tackle problems beyond the design of a product or piece of software. But we don't often see examples of these ideas being put into practice." (Steve Baty - Johnny Holland Magazine)

PJB @ 11:08 AM | Classification: User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

"Effective writing skills are to a writer what petrol is to a car. Like the petrol and car relationship, without solid skills writers cannot move ahead. These skills don’t come overnight, and they require patience and determination. You have to work smart and hard to acquire them. Only with experience, you can enter the realm of effective, always-in-demand writers." (Smashing Magazine) - courtesy of khalvorson

PJB @ 9:22 AM | Classification: Writing | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 30, 2009

Service Design / Customer Experience Design

"(...) the term 'service design' has succeeded in the UK and Europe because there have been government-sponsored public sector service design projects which have demonstrated its value." (PeterMe)

PJB @ 2:59 PM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

A Scientific Approach to Infographics

"If you've been reading this blog regularly for awhile, you know that I occasionally bemoan the sad state of most information graphics. Most of the folks who produce infographics lack guidelines based on solid research. In their attempt to inform, describe, or instruct, most of the infographics that I've seen fail-many miserably. I'm thrilled to announce, however, that a new book is now available that takes a great step toward providing the guidelines that are needed for the production of effective infographics." (Stephen Few - Visual Business Intelligence)

PJB @ 2:19 PM | Classification: InfoViz - Information graphics | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Usability Engineers vs Designers: The Process Problem

"A Designer works on a conceptual design with the customer. Then he works out a detailed design into a prototype that can be tested. So far so good. But what goes wrong is that the Usability Engineer is often disconnected to either the design concept or the detailed design. The usability engineer ends up suggesting new designs that totally contradict the conceptual design. The designer is gone. The engineering team implements the changes and the result is a Frankenstein's monster that despite the best UX resources, fails in the marketplace." (Jonathan Arnowitz - User Experience in Arnoland)

PJB @ 1:28 PM | Classification: User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

CMU/Mayo Clinic Podcast on Service Design

"The Lab A6 series from College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University presents a podcast on service design featuring Shelley Evenson from the School of Design and CMU alum Maggie Breslin from the Mayo Clinic. The podcast covers some familiar 'what is service design' ground but also delves into the service design course at CMU and the Advanced Medical Home project that Mayo and Continuum sponsored last year at the university." (Jeff Howard - Design for Service)

PJB @ 10:41 AM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Building Better User Interfaces

"A great user experience starts with the user interface. In this talk, we will explore best practices in user interface design in a learn-by-example approach of the good, bad and the ugly in user interface design. From web sites to rich client, you will learn how areas such as navigation, layout, typography, controls and dialogs can make or break the usefulness of an application. At the end of this talk, you will have the tools and tips you need to bring great user experience through best practices in user interface design." (Microsoft NL DevDays 2009) - courtesy of all2gether

PJB @ 10:16 AM | Classification: HCI | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 29, 2009

Service Design

"Service design, while often talked about in academia, is getting more and more attention from design companies and service providers, as the impact of experience design has been proven to increase customer satisfaction and brand perception." (Jennifer Bove - Creativity Online)

PJB @ 12:03 PM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

UI Pattern Documentation Review

"User interface (UI) patterns have the potential to make software development more efficient. The prospect of such efficiency gains has led to interest in user interface (UI) patterns by individuals and organizations looking for ways to increase quality while at the same time reducing the costs associated with software development." (Patrick Stapleton - Boxes and Arrows)

PJB @ 10:44 AM | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Preso: Reiss On e-Service (UX London)

"Service is 100% about user experience, although user experience is not 100% about service. But as UX designers, we can learn a lot from the service-management gurus of the 1980s, who (lucky for us) don't understand digital media." (Presos tagged 'UXLondon')

PJB @ 9:46 AM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

A practical definition of content

"Simply put, content is contextualized data." (Intentional Design)

PJB @ 9:42 AM | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Redefining content strategy

"When we talk about content strategy, then, my contention is that the type of content we include in the definition needs to broaden beyond Web content, as does the recognition that the content, even if just for the Web, includes not only persuasive content, but instructive/informative, user-generated, and even entertainment content." (Intentional Design)

PJB @ 9:42 AM | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 26, 2009

Movie review: Objectified

"Sadly, the film is simply not worth seeing." (PeterMe)

PJB @ 10:29 AM | Classification: Information design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 25, 2009

How to Generate Reader Interest in What You Write

"Who has not discovered to their dismay that no one wants to read their most carefully crafted, meritorious, compelling, and passionate writings? Think of all the proposals you have written that no one is interested in. Or the web pages, the blog posts, or the company brochures. Chances are, your failures are linked to an inability to connect with what your readers would be interested in reading." (Phil Yaffe - ACM Ubiquity)

PJB @ 3:33 PM | Classification: Writing | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 24, 2009

A conversation with Ed Niehaus, new CEO of Cooper

"Working with Steve can be brutal, but you get a chance to see firsthand his tremendous eye for detail and the clarity of his vision. Nobody can judge work like Steve can -- design, advertising, engineering -- you name it, Steve knows, and look out because he'll tell you. He has got a hierarchy of judgment that's really pretty simple: at the top is 'Insanely great', which is the best in category that you'll see in your lifetime. Then there's 'really, really, really great', - and he says it packed with emotion - that's the best that you'll see this year or maybe this decade. And, there's 'shit', and that's the entire hierarchy." (Cooper Journal)

PJB @ 3:30 PM | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

June 23, 2009

Why Microsoft Had to Destroy Word

"Crafting a set of experience principles has become standard for our projects, from web site redesigns to mapping multi-channel customer experiences. When done well, these statements have remarkable power in guiding teams to deliver coherent, cohesive, and appropriate experiences for their customers." (Peter Merholz - Harvard Business Review)

PJB @ 5:26 PM | Classification: User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Maps as service design: The Incidental

"From the early brainstorms we came up with idea of a system for collecting the thoughts, recommendations, pirate maps and sketches of the attendees to republish and redistribute the next day in a printed, pocketable pamphlet, which, would build up over the four days of the event to be a unique palimpsest of the place and people's interactions with it, in it." (dark)

PJB @ 11:56 AM | Classification: Service design | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

Stop Password Masking

"Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

PJB @ 11:13 AM | Classification: Usability | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

The Forces of User Experience

"It always bothered me a little that Jesse's 'planes' diagram could be interpreted to mean that only adjacent planes influenced each other. So here is my version, with some thoughts about the additional 'forces' acting from the strategy plane." (Richard Dalton - mauvyrussel) - thnx hansk

PJB @ 10:12 AM | Classification: User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

The Social Buzz: Designing User Experiences for Social Media

"The emergence and rise of social media [1] have been nothing less than phenomenal. In the perennial battle between patterns of intellect and patterns of society, the rapidly spreading influence of social media has initiated the most significant shift toward dominance of intellect [2] in recent times. A groundswell [3] has unmistakably occurred. Social media’s rise has induced a paradigm shift and changed the way the common man perceives the Internet immensely. Social networking is now the number one reason people get online. [4] Getting the world out of the socioeconomic rut it was in required something of this magnitude to come along." (Junaid Asad - UXmatters)

PJB @ 9:58 AM | Classification: Social Web - User experience | Permalink

From: InfoDesign: Understanding by Design