All posts from
August 2017

Usability testing of spoken conversational systems

Good old usability testing for brand new technologies.

“The philosophy behind usability testing for speech-enabled systems is shared with general usability practices, but many usability practitioners have little or no experience testing speech interfaces, and the specific techniques required for collecting valid and reliable data are not widely understood. Spoken language and conversation have a number of properties that should influence the methods used to test speech user interfaces.”

Susan L. Hura a.k.a. /susan-hura | @SpeechUsability ~ Journal of Usability Studies 12.4

Integrating animation into a design system

Perceived behavior of the machine triggers human behavior.

“Keeping animation choreography cohesive from the outset of a project can be challenging, especially for small companies. Without a dedicated motion specialist on the team, it can be difficult to prioritize guidelines and patterns early in the design process. What’s more likely to happen is that animations will be added as the product develops.”

Alla Kholmatova a.k.a. /allakholmatova | @craftui ~ A List Apart

To be a design-led company

Design as the primary organizational competence. I see John Maeda’s hand in this.

What got us here won’t get us there. I want to have design leading the way. A lot more user research. A lot more mockups.(…) Design as tactical driver: where design alters a discrete product, service, or communication effort. Design for system innovation: where design alters an existing system or creates a new one to deliver a better solution. Design as a catalyst for transformation: where design changes attitudes and behaviors of a community or organization.”

Ashleigh Axios a.k.a. /ashleighaxios | @AshleighAxios ~ A8C DESIGN

Accessibility for visual design

Creating color, typography and lay-out to fit humans, all of them.

“They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As designers, we need to remember that the same is true of color and all visual abilities. It’s estimated that 4.5% of the global population experience color blindness (that’s 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women), 4% suffer from low vision (1 in 30 people), and 0.6% are blind (1 in 188 people). It’s easy to forget that we’re designing for this group of users since most designers don’t experience such problems.”

Nick Babich a.k.a. /nbabich | @101babich ~ UX Booth courtesy of @MikeClickr

Human-centered machine learning: 7 steps to stay focused on the user when designing with ML

New technology waves are ahead of us.

“Machine learning is the science of helping computers discover patterns and relationships in data instead of being manually programmed. It’s a powerful tool for creating personalized and dynamic experiences, and it’s already driving everything from Netflix recommendations to autonomous cars. But as more and more experiences are built with ML, it’s clear that UXers still have a lot to learn about how to make users feel in control of the technology, and not the other way round.”

Jess Holbrook a.k.a. /jessholbrook courtesy of O’Reilly Design

The profession of UX won’t disappear, but adapt

Adaption is the strategy of survival.

“After 17 years in the profession of User Experience—the past 10 in consulting with enterprise customers over a wide range of industries—amidst all these swirling pontifications about the demise of User Experience, I can confidently add my resounding support for the continuation of the profession of User Experience. Organizations will always need people who focus on how other people interact with technology and products. Of course, there is no doubt that we will have to adapt, but to what do we need to adapt?”

Baruch Sachs a.k.a. /baruchsachsuserexperience | @basachs ~ UX matters