May 2008

Keeping Up With Social Tagging

Video presentation - Thomas Vander Wal presents during the experts workshop 'Social tagging in the knowledge organisation: Perspectives and potentials' on January 21, 2008 - courtesy of wolf nöding

Posted by PJB on May 30, 2008 | Classification: Metadata | Permalink

Kill Your Mouse: Kinetic Computing Arrives Main Stage

"Paradigm busting interfaces are bringing new life into computing and entertainment, enabling people to interact with digital tools in more natural and intuitive ways – with Intention and Motion as the key platforms for communication – harnessing the explosion of the emerging digital experience that is changing our lives." (Cheskin podcasts)

Posted by PJB on May 30, 2008 | Classification: Podcasts | Permalink

Design Research for Emerging Markets

"In this podcast Cheskin Emerging Markets Practice leader LiAnne Yu speaks with Microsoft User Experience Researcher Masuma Walji about Microsoft's approach towards developing products and services for Emerging Markets." (Cheskin podcasts)

Posted by PJB on May 30, 2008 | Classification: Podcasts | Permalink

Leading the Rebellion Inside Large Organizations

"What are the stories behind the truly great ideas? What are the obstacles that got in the way of these ideas? And, what’s the real story behind visionary products that do manage to make it through otherwise hostile environments? From sticky notes to the RAZR phone, the stories of how these things came to be typically includes some form 'rebellion' against business as usual— which in large organizations has a tendency to be about power, position, predictability, and a score of other concerns fairly well-removed from the idea itself." (Stephen P. Anderson - poetpainter)

Posted by PJB on May 30, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

The top 8 mistakes in usability (and companies investing in it)

"(...) when committing to customer-centered development (of a product, service, website, or whatever), it's important to stay strategic, always try to improve the business, and listen to customers (as human beings, not as users of a tool)." (Mark Hurst - Good Experience)

Posted by PJB on May 30, 2008 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

UX Social Interviews from IA Summit 2008

Interviews with Chris Fahey, Peter van Dijck, Anders Ramsay, and John Ferrera. (About UX Social)

Posted by PJB on May 29, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Urban procedural rhetorics

"This is a transcript of my presentation at The Web and Beyond 2008: Mobility in Amsterdam on 22 May. Since the majority of paying attendees were local I presented in Dutch. However, English appears to be the lingua franca of the internet, so here I offer a translation. I have uploaded the slides to SlideShare and hope to be able to share a video recording of the whole thing soon." (Kars Alfrink - Leapfrog)

Posted by PJB on May 28, 2008 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

OK–Cancel or Cancel–OK?

"Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following platform conventions is more important than suboptimizing an individual dialog box." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on May 27, 2008 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Book Review: Subject To Change

"This is an excellent, well-written book packed with great advice from veterans in the field. It’s highly recommended and essential for anyone currently trying to innovate products and services in just about any field." (James Kalbach - Experiencing Information)

Posted by PJB on May 26, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

UX Design-Planning Not One-man Show

"Suppliers sell. Customers buy. Various people discuss UX, but don't really identify what it is. Agencies search for ways to offer this line of work to clients and seek best practises to develop UX. Holger Maassen posits his ideas about the process of planning and designing for User Experience Design-Planning (UXD-P) as Expectation Design." (Holger Maassen - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on May 21, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

User Experience is Everyone's Responsibility

"Focusing on the connective tissue between disciplines makes products holistic. This is the essence of experience design." (Dan Saffer - Adaptive Path blog)

Posted by PJB on May 21, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Everything in Moderation: Using Content Units to Manage UX

"The Roman philosopher Cicero stated, 'Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.' The trouble is, even though people have repeated this particular quotation over the past couple of millennia, our clients often push the limits excessively—beyond moderation—for both content and presentation. As a UX professional, how do you demonstrate to your clients the benefits of moderation in user experience? You show them." (Keith LaFerriere - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on May 20, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Breaking Down the Silos: Usability Practitioners Meet Marketing Researchers

"Being a consultant with experience in both traditional marketing research and user experience and usability gives me a unique perspective on a broad range of issues relating to customer experience. Not only do I have a good idea of what the other discipline does, I am a practitioner of the other discipline. However, in attempting to play both roles at once, I often find that client companies keep these two disciplines locked up in separate silos—usability research within IT and marketing research within the Marketing Services department. This can have a serious impact on the sharing of information relating to customer experience." (David Kozatch - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on May 20, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Getting Emotional With... Lorraine Justice

"Lorraine Justice Ph. D., is currently head of the Design School at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Dr. Justice has served in higher education for the past seventeen years, teaching in the areas of industrial design and human computer interface design. (...) Currently, Lorraine is involved in the shared organization (between the Polytechnic University and the Design & Emotion Society) of the 6th International Conference on Design & Emotion in Hong Kong, October 6-9, 2008 . The International Conference on Design & Emotion is a forum where practitioners, researchers and industry meet and exchange knowledge and insights concerning the cross-disciplinary field of design and emotion. Lorraine will also give a key-note lecture at this exciting event." (Design & Emotion - Marco van Hout)

Posted by PJB on May 19, 2008 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Design Coding

"Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration (...)"
(Tasty Blog Snack)

Posted by PJB on May 19, 2008 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Subject To Change: The Movie

"Well, not exactly ... but two of my co-authors, Brandon Schauer and David Verba, recently gave a presentation on Subject To Change at Google and it was recorded on video. It's a good overview of the main points of the book so we thought it would be good to share as a way to learn more about what the book has too say. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy." (Todd Wilkens - Adaptive Path Blog) - courtesy of marcfonteijn

Posted by PJB on May 19, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Patterns for Sign Up and Ramp Up

"This document contains a library of patterns used by sites in the Web 2.0 landscape to support the new user sign-up and ramp-up experience. By leveraging the patterns we identified across twenty applications, you'll learn how to get users to join and participate in your network or application." (Adaptive Path Reports)

Posted by PJB on May 16, 2008 | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

Thoughts on Interaction Design (download)

"Interaction designers are the shapers of behavior. Behavior is a large idea, and may, at first blush, seem too large to warrant a single profession. But a profession has emerged nonetheless. This professional category includes the complexity of information architecture, the anthropologic desire to understand humanity, the altruistic nature of usability engineering, and the creation of dialogue. These topics are discussed in the four sections of this text. Download 'Thoughts on Interaction Design' as a single .pdf file suitable for on-screen reading (2,520k)" (Jon Kolko et al.)

Posted by PJB on May 14, 2008 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

Document Engineering and User Experience Design

"A great user experience on the web site doesn't mean squat if this back stage 'content choreography' goes wrong. So I've been saying that it is essential to consider the entire network of services that comprise the back and front stages as complementary parts of a 'service system'. We need new concepts and methods in service design that recognize how back stage information and processes can improve the front stage experience." (Robert J. Glushko - DocOrDie)

Posted by PJB on May 13, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Link List Color on Intranets

"Lists of links are an intermediate case between content-embedded links and menu items. Showing listed links in blue or in the site's main link color is the recommended design — and the one most intranets follow." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on May 13, 2008 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Interviewed by BusinessWeek

"Among the podcasts I subscribe to is BusinessWeek's 'Innovation of the Week', featuring interviews with people on the subject of design and innovation. So I was excited when BusinessWeek reporter Matt Vella asked me to talk with him about our MX 2008 conference, and our new book. You can listen to the interview." (Peter Merholz - Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on May 09, 2008 | Classification: Podcasts | Permalink

Luke Wroblewski on Form Design

"I recently had the pleasure of talking with Tom Crawford, CEO of VizThink, about my Web Form Design book and its relevance for the visual thinking community." (LukeW)

Posted by PJB on May 09, 2008 | Classification: Podcasts | Permalink

An Interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Liz Danzico

"After working on five books as an editor or co-author, Lou Rosenfeld became disenchanted with the traditional book publishing model. So, in late 2005, he founded Rosenfeld Media, a new publishing house that develops short, practical, useful books on user experience design. Rosenfeld Media published their first book, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, in early 2008. I recently had the opportunity to interview Lou - along with Liz Danzico, Senior Development Editor at Rosenfeld Media - about starting a new publishing house and 'eating their own dog food'." (Joshua Kaufman - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on May 08, 2008 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

Simplicity in Your Mind

"There is increasing interest in the simplification of information technology (IT). The IT industry is recognizing the need to simplify software technology as businesses express their increased interest in governing the return on their IT investments. Two goals are surfacing as explicit mandates to which all software vendors are responding: (1) lowering the skills required of software users and (2) increasing their productivity. Although this simplification mandate is most essential to small- and medium-sized businesses, where people with high-end technical skills may not be affordable, an awareness of the damage complexity inflicts on users is spreading to the enterprise market as well. Commoditization pressures make it necessary for the IT industry to reduce skills requirements as well as service and maintenance costs." (Lucinio Santos - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on May 08, 2008 | Classification: Complexity | Permalink

XProc: An XML Pipeline Language

"An XML Pipeline specifies a sequence of operations to be performed on zero or more XML documents. Pipelines generally accept zero or more XML documents as input and produce zero or more XML documents as output. Pipelines are made up of simple steps which perform atomic operations on XML documents and constructs similar to conditionals, iteration, and exception handlers which control which steps are executed." (W3C)

Posted by PJB on May 07, 2008 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

How Little Do Users Read?

"On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on May 06, 2008 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Information Design Patterns

"A sophisticated online collection of about 48 design patterns that describe distinct methods for the display of interactive information graphics, their active behavior as well as the forms of user interaction with them." (Niceone) - courtesy of informationaesthetics

Posted by PJB on May 06, 2008 | Classification: Patterns | Permalink

User Experience Evaluation in Nokia 

"Nokia has a long history in designing for experiences, as mobile phones are very personal and experiental devices. We have established processes to take user needs and wants into account when designing new concepts, and we do various types of evaluations with real users during the development process. Experience evaluations are, however, an area we want to improve. In this paper, we describe the user experience evaluation practices in the different phases of Nokia product development process." (Virpi Roto et al.)

Posted by PJB on May 05, 2008 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Bill Morggridge's keynote presentation

"Bill Morggridge delivered a really cool talk during the Service Design Symposium, hosted by the CIID. It’s really interesting the way he explains how design has evolved over time. Just after graduation, back in the 60’s, he thought he would spend his whole life designing kettles and washing machines. But as technology evolved, and life became more complex, he realised that designers needed to design the systems that actually surround a product. For example, how to make a train journey more delightful? Designers need to not only worry about making a comfy seat, they actually need to think about the whole customer journey, and how systems, processes, people impact a customer’s experience. Welcome to the amazing world of service design!" (Erick Mohr - intuire)

Posted by PJB on May 05, 2008 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

User Experience Factor 1: State Glue

"I finally got myself an iPhone, ... and it is reeeaaally nice! Perhaps not the best phone on the market but using it is a real joy. One of the great things about it is that the interaction feels so smooth and sweet. It made me wonder what makes it so nice. One of the things I want to show you in this article is how this actually works in practice and what makes it such a good user experience." (Martijn van Welie - Thoughts on Interaction Design)

Posted by PJB on May 05, 2008 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

User Interface Implementations of Faceted Browsing

"Just as it is important to choose the proper knife when slicing-n-dicing vegetables, it is critical to prescribe a suitable user interface to support faceted filtering. Faceted filtering allows you to narrow down a large list of objects to a manageable size by applying flexible combinations of attribute filters in any order. Rather than forcing you down fixed paths within a website’s information architecture, faceted filtering allows you to multi-dimensionally slice-n-dice the information in a manner that best accommodates your specific needs. A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web." (Mike Padilla - Digital Web Magazine)

Posted by PJB on May 02, 2008 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

The Nature of Design Practice and Implications for Interaction Design Research

"The focus of this paper is interaction design research aimed at supporting interaction design practice. The main argument is that this kind of interaction design research has not (always) been successful, and that the reason for this is that it has not been guided by a sufficient understanding of the nature of design practice. Based on a comparison between the notion of complexity in science and in design, it is argued that science is not the best place to look for approaches and methods on how to approach design complexity. Instead, the case is made that any attempt by interaction design research to produce outcomes aimed at supporting design practice must be grounded in a fundamental understanding of the nature of design practice. Such an understanding can be developed into a well-grounded and rich set of rigorous and disciplined design methods and techniques, appropriate to the needs and desires of practicing designers." (Erik Stolterman - International Journal of Design) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted by PJB on May 02, 2008 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink