All posts from
January 2016

Replacing personas with characters: Resolving the destructive effects of personas

We used to call these kinds of personas Living Personas.

“Over the years, many people have recognized that Personas can cause more problems than they solve. To fix this, designers began making Personas bigger and more rich. Some Personas can be 1-2 typed pages which meticulously describe attributes of these imaginary customers. Yet, no amount of colorful attributes can fill the gaps our brains will automatically fill when reading Personas. These missing gaps are the causalities which drove the customer to consume a particular product.”

Alan Klement a.k.a. @alanklement | /aklement (courtesy of vanderbeeken)

Top 6 predictions for Service Design in 2016

We also have to invent it, the future of service design.

“The service design movement is gaining a tremendous amount of inertia. New conferences are popping up each month, existing conferences are adding service design to their speaker and workshop schedules, new books books are being published, and whole global communities being spun up. For better or worse, it’s becoming the latest buzzword and practice that many companies want to talk about, but are still grasping at how to integrate. I’m going to share my top 6 predictions for what we can expect from service design over the next 18 months. This is a combination of what I’ve experienced, what I’ve seen, what others have shared with me, and aspirations that I want to put into people’s minds as a seed.”

Erik Flowers a.k.a. @erik_flowers ~ HelloErik

White space isn’t just a UX fad

White space, silence and other ‘moments-in-between’.

“All good visual artists understand the importance of negative space, the empty area that draws attention to, and accentuates, the actual subject. Negative space (the artistic equivalent of a designer’s white space) is like the supporting cast whose duty is to make the star of the show stand out more by not standing out so much themselves.”

Jerry Cao, Kamil Zieba, and Matt Ellis ~ AIGA

How to design killer micro-content

Micro, nano or pico content.

“Micro-content is small. In fact, it can be some of the tiniest bits of a framework and when it is done well, it’s often pretty invisible. The definition of micro-content has expanded in recent years and what was just a term used to describe labeling and calls to action is much more in today’s landscape.”

Carrie Cousins a.k.a./carriecousins1 | @carriecousins ~ design shack

Leading change through adaptive design

Design thinking, the scientific method of our century. Design doing?

“Change is fun. Change is hard. Between those truths, there yawns a large gap that poses a challenge for would-be change makers. Yet by integrating two widely influential practices – design thinking and adaptive leadership – social innovators can manage transformative projects in a way that’s both creatively confident and relentlessly realistic.”

Maya Bernstein and Marty Linsky ~ Stanford Social Innovation Review Winter 2016 (courtesy of @jimkalbach)

Temporal form in interaction design

Or how to integrate computation into interaction design.

“In this paper, we show the power of working explicitly with temporal form in designing computational things. We give a nuanced account of what temporal form is in interaction design, and we look at related work synthesizing what we already know of the temporal concerns in interaction design and HCI. In the second part we present a design experiment through which we explore the experiential qualities of a set of 11 simple temporal forms by letting a series of expert designers reflect upon them. We borrow a framework from Boorstin’s film theory in which he distinguishes between the voyeuristic, the vicarious, and the visceral experience. We show how to use rhythms, complexity, gentle or forceful behavior, etc., to create experiences of ‘being alive’, being entertained, or being something that we empathize with. We end the paper by arguing how the temporal form in computational things enables richer experiences than static objects do.”

Anna Vallgårda, Morten Winther, Nina Mørch, and Edit E. Vizer ~ International Journal of Design Vol. 9(3) Dec. 2015

Why desktop UX still has something to teach mobile

The more reflective the designer is, the more it doesn’t matter how big the screen is. Only context then drives design.

“Mobile isn’t killing desktop in the way most of us expected it to. It is clearly the future growth platform of computing (at least, until the next thing comes along) but we have over-hyped the New Market Effect, focusing on “the shiny” and not paying attention to critical microinteractions that make a difference. We are so in love with flashy UX features that we ignore the deep impact of the proven and the mundane. The directions listed here are too easily ignored. They are actually the core building blocks of powerful UX experiences and need to be improved. It’s just a bit surprising that so much mobile inspiration can come from its inferior predecessor, the desktop UX.”

Scott Jenson a.k.a. /scottjenson | @scottjenson ~ FastCo.Design

What is the technical writer’s role in content marketing?

Switching labels or is technical communication now finally addressing a general audience?

“Technical writers should repurpose their information-rich content into content marketing deliverables that can be used to build relationships with potential audiences in the market. This content can help establish thought leadership, visibility, and trust with your audience so that when you start releasing and mentioning your 1.0 product, your audience adopts it.”

Tom Johnson a.k.a. @tomjohnson ~ I’d rather be writing

How to determine the right number of participants for usability studies

Have we left N=5?

“UX researchers and other project stakeholders often fervently debate the number of participants that are necessary for usability studies. At the core of this debate is often the tension between the usability professional’s desire for the best possible study and the business team’s desire to reduce time and expense.”

Janet M. Six a.k.a. /janetmsix | @JanetMSix and Ritch Macefield a.k.a. /dr-ritch-macefield | @Ax_Stream ~ UXmatters

Complete beginner’s guide to Information Architecture

But how complete can it be?

“Information architecture is a task often shared by designers, developers, and content strategists. But regardless of who takes on the task, IA is a field of its own, with influences, tools, and resources that are worth investigation. In this article we’ll discuss what information architecture really is, and why it’s a valuable aspect of the user experience process.”

UX Booth