All posts from
July 2009

Credit Card Statements: Communication Benchmarks 2009

Added on 6 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“We were disappointed that this Communication Benchmarks study found such uniformly poor designs, and we want to encourage industry to do better in the future. However, we would not recommend any of the opportunistic suggestions by graphic designers. These are highly speculative sketches not based on any benchmarking data, nor have they been tested. As the evidence from many previous studies suggests, such speculation is rarely an acceptable solution, and may not even be a good starting point.” (David Sless and Alex Tyers – CRI)

Design Ethnography & Mood Maps

Added on 6 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“The sole purpose of this exercise is to document and map the emotional states of a user so that it can guide the creation and communication of personas to stakeholders while also informing the design process itself. I’m not one for ux deliverables for their own sake, but this is one that carry’s a lot of weight and also goes a ways towards ‘traceability’ – that is, the ability to show all the real research that went into your personas.” (Will Evans) – courtesy of ppf

User Experience Evaluation Based on Values and EmotionsPDF Logo

Added on 3 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

The Architecture of Knowledge: The public library of the future

Added on 3 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

Interview with Scott Berkun

Added on 3 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

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

Added on 2 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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

Future Practice Interview: John Ferrara

Added on 2 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

Interactions interviews Adam Greenfield

Added on 2 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

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

Added on 2 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

Pattie Maes on interfaces and innovation

Added on 1 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

Being an Experience-led organization

Added on 1 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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)

50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills

Added on 1 July 2009 Peter Bogaards
“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