September 2009

IORG: The Information Overload Research Group

"We work together to understand, publicize and solve the information overload problem. We do this by (1) defining and building awareness of information overload, (2) facilitating and funding collaboration and advanced research aimed at shaping solutions and establishing best practices, and (3) serving as a resource center where we share information and resources, offer guidance and connections, and help make the business case for fighting information overload." (About The IORG)

Posted by PJB on September 30, 2009 | Classification: Design research - Information design | Permalink

Information overload

"Information overload dates back to Johannes Gutenberg. His invention of movable type led to a proliferation of printed matter that quickly exceeded what a single human mind could absorb in a lifetime. Later technologies – from carbon paper to the photocopier – made replicating existing information even easier. And once information was digitised, documents could be copied in limitless numbers at virtually no cost. (...) In looking for ways to reduce the burden of information overload, an organisation must strive to balance sender benefits against recipient costs; to ensure it doesn't simply shift the burden from one group to another, at a net cost to the organisation." (Paul Hemp - The Guardian)

Posted by PJB on September 30, 2009 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Visions: Upcoming and current capabilities

"Various enterprises and especially Microsoft has joined forces with collaborators, partners, customers, and leaders across multiple disciplines to develop scenarios that discover capacity, challenges, and powerful technologies." (Holger Maassen - UX4dotcom)

Posted by PJB on September 29, 2009 | Classification: Prototyping | Permalink

EuroIA '09 Report Day 1 and 2

"About 150 UX professionals are gathered in the center of Copenhagen to talk, listen and at EuroIA '09. Johnny was invited to the party to cover the event and bring the good stuff to you. So enjoy the show." (Jeroen van Geel - Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on September 27, 2009 | Classification: Events - Information architecture | Permalink

We Are Colorblind: Patterns for the Color Blind

"About 8% of the male population has some sort of color blindness. The color blind have the inability to clearly distinguish different colors of the spectrum, they tend to see colors in a limited range of hues. Because of this, the color blind have trouble with a lot of websites." (Tom van Beveren) - congrats to tom

Posted by PJB on September 25, 2009 | Classification: Information design - Visual design | Permalink

A Glimpse Ahead Microsoft Office Labs Vision 2019

"Some visionaries over at Microsoft Labs have put a lot of hard work and devotion to a video displaying our digital world in 2019. Heavily relying on touch and constant interconnectivity, our digital future looks quite promising - especially to geeks like us. In 2019 smart office and household devices cater for our needs in the most intuitive way possible. Mobile phones for one, have seen quite a few changes." (YouTube)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2009 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

A shorthand for designing UI flows

"Flows are just as important to good interfaces as individual screens are. Customers don’t land on screens from out of nowhere. Specific sequences of actions lead customers through your app as they try to accomplish their tasks." (37signals)

Posted by PJB on September 24, 2009 | Classification: HCI - Interaction design | Permalink

IA Deliverables

"The profession is still judged, by and large, by the quality of our documentation. Most recruiters and hiring managers seem more interested in the quality of annotation than the quality of thinking." (Karen Loasby- IA Play)

Posted by PJB on September 23, 2009 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

Integrating Prototyping Into Your Design Process

"(...) prototyping is a high silver content bullet. When aimed well, a prototype can answer design questions and communicate design ideas. In this article, I talk about the dimensions of prototype fidelity and how you can use them to choose the most effective prototyping method for the questions you need answered." (Fred Beecher - Boxes and Arrows) - courtesy of jjursa

Posted by PJB on September 23, 2009 | Classification: Prototyping | Permalink

interactions: Looking Broadly to the Future

"This issue explores the future, where traditional boundaries of interaction are broken, creating a view of design as a larger, more culturally embedded, and ultimately more widely dispersed activity. We hope you enjoy the breadth of these efforts as presented in this issue of interactions." (ACM SIGCHI Interactions Magazine)

Posted by PJB on September 23, 2009 | Classification: HCI - Interaction design | Permalink

Beyond Goals: Site Search Analytics from the Bottom Up

"(...) be wary of the standard reports that come with your analytics application. They certainly have value, but these reports also provide a false sense of security—as if they were designed with your needs in mind. Nothing could be farther from the truth: Top-down, goal-driven analytics should be centered on your KPI, and your organization’s goals aren't the same as everyone else's." (Louis Rosenfeld - A List Apart 292)

Posted by PJB on September 22, 2009 | Classification: Search | Permalink

Elements of a Networked Urbanism

"Over the past several years, we’ve watched as a very wide variety of objects and surfaces familiar from everyday life have been reimagined as networked information-gathering, -processing, -storage and -display resources. Why should cities be any different? What happens to urban form and metropolitan experience under such circumstances? What are the implications for us, as designers, consumers and as citizens?" (Adam Greenfield - dConstruct)

Posted by PJB on September 22, 2009 | Classification: Podcasts - Social Web | Permalink

The Importance of Website Content in Online Purchasing Across Different Types of Products

"Several authors have suggested that the importance of website content elements in online purchasing varies across different types of products. Our aim is to empirically test this proposition. Here, we focus on goods versus services and hedonic versus utilitarian products. After reviewing the literature on the role of website content, we hypothesize which elements are more important for which type of product. The results of an empirical study confirm most of the different roles across different types of products. This suggests that retailers would profit from taking the differences in product types into account in designing their online stores." (Tibert Verhagen and Jaap Boter - VU Amsterdam)

Posted by PJB on September 22, 2009 | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

Fresh vs. Familiar: How Aggressively to Redesign

"Users hate change, so it's usually best to stay with a familiar design and evolve it gradually. In the long run, however, incrementalism eventually destroys cohesiveness, calling for a new UI architecture." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Understanding the Experience of Social Network Sites

"This past year social media, and social network sites in particular, have reached new heights of popularity and adoption. It is no longer unusual for clients to request that designers “add Facebook” to their respective sites, mainly for the purpose of increased engagement and community building for their brand as a part of a greater social marketing strategy." (Alla Zollers - Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: Social Web - User experience | Permalink

UX in the Boardroom: A Solid Case for Investing in UX

"Some think the best way to demonstrate the value of usability in a corporate setting is to emphasize the resulting cost savings. While that may be sage advice in some organizations and industries, following it in the information technology and government arenas would cost you respect and a meeting. For some years, I was guilty of following this tack—before I discovered what really matters to executives, learned how finances and budgets work, and realized the true value of user experience lies not in cost savings at all, but in intangibles." (Kate Walser - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Designing Tables 101

"In this column, I'll review some of the basic principles of good table design from an information developer's perspective, then discuss their visual design and interactivity. These principles and my examples provide the bare essentials of table design. When designing tables, a key information design objective is keeping them simple, so if you start needing more than this column provides, you might be making things unnecessarily complicated for your users." (Mike Hughes - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Audience Segmentation Models

"Understanding the people who will ultimately engage with a product or service provides the foundation for user experience design. Modeling those people and segmenting our models into meaningful groups lets us explore different clusters of needs, then address our solutions to meeting the needs of people belonging to specific clusters." (Steve Baty - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: Design research - UCD | Permalink

NING: Agile Experience Design

Integrating the Agile and Experience Design Practices - "Our goal is to explore, evolve, and empower the emergent discipline that fuses Agile Software Development with User Experience Design." - courtesy of puttingpeoplefirst

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: Social Web - User experience | Permalink

CHI Conversations

"CHI Conversations covers Computer/Human Interaction, including design, human factors, cognitive psychology, social science, and more. Our initial series is BayCHI, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of ACM SIGCHI."

Posted by PJB on September 21, 2009 | Classification: HCI - Podcasts | Permalink

Why low-fidelity prototyping kicks butt for customer-driven design

"In my discussions with designers, one of the interesting recurring conversations is the tools and process they use to prototype and mock up experiences. In particular, there’s a lot of divergence on how high or low-fidelity to go with a prototype." (Andrew Chen) - courtesy of uxtweets

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2009 | Classification: Interaction design - Prototyping - UCD | Permalink

Vinay Venkatraman on Interaction Design

"Vinay Venkatraman, an interaction designer, is one of a rapidly expanding group of scholars and professionals around the world working to define the way our stuff behaves. Although it's natural for most people to understand the need for interaction with gadgets like software and mobile devices, the field is actually remarkably broad. In an increasingly interactive age, the success of systems, services and even whole corporations and organizations often comes down to an effective interface, created with human behavior in mind." (WorldChanging) - courtesy of puttingpeoplefirst

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2009 | Classification: Interaction design - Interviews | Permalink

(Preso) Designing Social Interfaces: 5 steps, 5 principles, 5 anti-patterns

"In this presentation we share a family of social web design principles and interaction patterns to help user experience designers and strategists grapple with the social dimensions of their products and services. The family of patterns, principles, and practices provides a framework and starting point for the conceptual modeling of any interactive digital social experience." (Erin Malone & Christian Crumlish)

Posted by PJB on September 18, 2009 | Classification: HCI - Social Web - User experience | Permalink

Warren Buffett Cell Phone Skills: Did They Doom Lehman?

"Fast forward 10 months. Buffett, who admits he never has really learned the basics of his cell phone, asked his daughter Susan about a little indicator he had noticed on the screen: 'Can you figure out what's on there?' It turned out to be the message from Diamond that he had been waiting for that night." (WSJ)

Posted by PJB on September 17, 2009 | Classification: Mobile design - Usability | Permalink

Preso: Visualization Tool or How communicate the service design concepts

"(...) the slide comes from the input package materials for the workshop CHITA08, mobile services and digital communities, that is taking place at Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China, as a research and didactic experience beetween School of Design at Jiangnan and Design Faculty at Politecnico di Milano." (Francesca Valsecchi) - courtesy of wichertvane

Posted by PJB on September 17, 2009 | Classification: Service design | Permalink

Playfulness, Usability, & Context: The Three Pillars of a Delightful User Experience

"When I bought my first iPhone almost three months ago, I also acquired a new obsession with the role of playfulness in user experience design." (Fred Bleecher) - courtesy of hotstrudel

Posted by PJB on September 17, 2009 | Classification: Mobile design - User experience | Permalink

User Experience Vision Videos

"As powerful networked device capabilities continue to enter mainstream use, several technology companies have released 'vision' videos portraying how capabilities like augmented reality, flexible OLED screens, and rich sensors can alter our lives in the future." (LukeW)

Posted by PJB on September 16, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

HCI 09: Interaction gets all Emotional

"The ubiquity of computing means it’s now present in all aspects of our lives, and – perhaps not unexpectedly – that increasingly means our emotional lives. Emotions drive a huge proportion of what we do and likewise, our interactions with technology impact on our emotions. Emotion as a 'property' to take into account during design and usability evaluation featured in many papers – hinting at a whole new field of emotional design to come." (Usability News)

Posted by PJB on September 15, 2009 | Classification: Events - HCI - User experience | Permalink

Participatory Design

"As I've read more about the history of PD it seems to be focused almost exclusively on the development of digital computing systems. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising given the time period; in some ways it seems more akin to HCI than service design. But while the techniques don't always seem to be a match for the problems service designers encounter many of the principles still seem to resonate." (Design for Service)

Posted by PJB on September 14, 2009 | Classification: Service design - Social Web | Permalink

Discount Usability: 20 Years

"Simple user testing with 5 participants, paper prototyping, and heuristic evaluation offer a cheap, fast, and early focus on usability, as well as many rounds of iterative design." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 14, 2009 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

An Interview With Edward Tufte

"(...) as far as academic memory serves, the revolution in modern information design started with a man named Edward Tufte." (VizWorld)

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2009 | Classification: Information design - Interviews | Permalink

The Amsterdam Centre for Service Innovation opens it's doors

"The opening attracted a crowd that you would expect just by reading the description. The ratio suits vs. jeans was about 25:1. I think service designer need to be in these kind of surroundings. Like Larry said, they need to step forward to the playing-field. Being at these events also keeps you connected with the rest of the world (the non-designers). We truly need those guys who eat the business side of services for breakfast!" (31Volts)

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2009 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

The Philosophy of Service Design

"If we perceive any inconsistency in how a service appears, or if we perceive an inconsistency between the touchpoints of a service and the service itself, we render the service design inauthentic and we lose faith in it. This impacts on our ability as users to engage with the service and therefore impacts on the value it generates both for it’s designers and/or for the bottom line of company who provide it." (Freg's Blog)

Posted by PJB on September 13, 2009 | Classification: Service design | Permalink

Content Strategy for the Web Professional

"You're a web professional: a designer, developer, information architect, or strategist. Your team has the web design disciplines covered: research, strategy, user experience design, standards-based development, and project management. But something’s going wrong with your projects; the user experience just isn't meeting your expectations. You're reasonably sure you know why: there's a problem with the content." (Jonathan Kahn - lucid plot)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2009 | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

STC Content Strategy SIG

"This site is the home of the Content Strategy SIG (Special Interest Group) of the Society for Technical Communication. (...) Content strategy is an emerging field of practice dealing with the planning aspects of managing content throughout its lifecycle. Strategy includes alignment to business goals, analysis, and modeling, and influences the development, production, presentation, evaluation, measurement, and sunsetting of content, including governance." (About Content Strategy SIG)

Posted by PJB on September 09, 2009 | Classification: Content strategy - TechCom | Permalink

Service Design Conference 2009: The Programme

"At this year's SDN conference, participants will experience  experts in the Service Design field presenting and explaining, partly together with business partners, compelling examples of their Service Design projects in depths." (Service Design Network)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2009 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

A few words with Ezio Mancini

"Professor of Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano, Director of the Research Unit Design and Innovation for Sustainability and coordinates the Masters in Strategic Design and Doctorate in Industrial Design programmes. He works on strategic design and design for sustainability, with a focus on scenario building and solution development. He has written several books on product-service systems and sustainability." (Philips New Value Sept. 2009)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2009 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

User Experience Designer vs. Creative Director

"Professionals within our industry are completely awash with opportunities by which they can tweak and cajole better user experiences from their projects. The difficult part is maintaining quality across all of these channels. Because of how multifaceted User Experience is, a user experience designer begins to take on a more directorial position within a project/company, which I see as analogous to that of a creative director." (UX Booth)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Social Media Outsourcing Can Be Risky

"Hosting a company's content and services on 3rd-party social networking sites involves both tactical risks (lower usability) and strategic risks (less user loyalty)." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on September 08, 2009 | Classification: Social Web - Usability | Permalink

Defining Social Media Settings

"UX professionals must now take up a new design challenge. We must address the changing needs for social media and facilitate users’ taking better advantage of everything social media has to offer." (Junaid Asad - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 07, 2009 | Classification: Social Web | Permalink

What's My Persona? Developing a Deep and Dimensioned Character

"Designers gather data to understand the personas that represent the users for whom they are designing a user interface. This is quite similar to the way actors must develop an understanding of their characters." (Traci Lepore - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 07, 2009 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

Best Practices for Designing Faceted Search Filters

"Faceted search user interfaces are fairly new, and potential design pitfalls abound. Fortunately, there are a few relatively simple and straightforward design best practices that should help designers to minimize cognitive friction and create search user interfaces that are easy to understand and use." (Greg Nudelman - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on September 07, 2009 | Classification: Search | Permalink

Service Design: A robust way to build brands

"It appears that brand builders have a powerful new process to help them build strong brand relationships. The design methodology called service design gives every indication of being a robust methodology for delivering high levels of brand value. In fact, as a method of value delivery it may be more effective than traditional brand practices based on communications and persuasion." (Brian Phipps - Brands Create Customers)

Posted by PJB on September 03, 2009 | Classification: Service design | Permalink

50 Most Usable RIAs

"Bill Scott and I have reviewed hundreds of RIAs while compiling examples for our book Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, and subsequent talks and articles. We recently realized that we had amassed quite a list of applications. Thinking other designers and developers might be interested in these resources, we applied two simple criteria to identify the top fifty." (Theresa Neil - InsideRIA)

Posted by PJB on September 03, 2009 | Classification: Technology - Usability | Permalink

The Art and Science of Experience Design

"Businesses that historically have approached things in a purely scientific manner are now trying to engage their users at a more fundamental level. Through great experiences. And great experiences, the way in which these stories unfold, have this innate ability to change or enhance the way in which people view and interact with their world. We're not advocating that we throw our concerns about platforms and technology considerations out the window but rather how best to combine them with thoughtful, engaging design principles. The Art and Science behind great experiences balancing one another in harmony, embodied within the end product." (Christian Saylor - InsideRIA)

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2009 | Classification: Technology - User experience | Permalink

The Ambivalence of Engaging Technology: Artifacts as Products and Processes

"In this paper, I will discuss several cases in order to explore how technological artifacts engage and are engaged in larger sociotechnical arrangements. I will show how they inscribe a certain relationship between users and designers and a certain level of engagement." (Cristiano Storni - Nordic Design Research Conference 2009 Engaging Artifacts)

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2009 | Classification: Service design - User experience | Permalink

An interview with Joe Lamantia

"Ahead of this year's EuroIA conference I caught up with experience architect, strategist and all-round nice guy Joe Lamantia. We talked about designing for experiences, games design, Killzone and monasteries." (Steve Baty - Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on September 01, 2009 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink