November 2009

Measure User Experience

"Qualitative studies allow receiving quick and valid feedback that is needed during the development process of an interface. Another reason is that qualitative tests are usually cheaper than tests with a larger sample size. But this larger sample size is needed when it comes to really measure user experience." (Tim Bosenick - Usability Marathon 2)

Posted by PJB on November 30, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Beyond the experience: In search of an operative paradigm for the industrialisation of services

"The contributions to the definition of a disciplinary corpus for service design come from two main directions: the first focuses on real cases, developing projects that are advancing the practice of service design and making service design visible to private business and public administrations. The second area concerns the definition of a methodological framework for service design. The main concern in those studies is on the development of methodological tools for analysing, designing and representing services." (Nicola Morelli - Re-public) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted by PJB on November 30, 2009 | Classification: Service design | Permalink

A Conversation on Design w/ Richard Saul Wurman

"Germany. First printed book in Western world. Importance and misinterpretation. Pagination. Yellow Pages. Google. Encyclopedia Britannica. Finding things. Making the complex clear. Aesthetics change. Understanding is permanent. The Tango. The duality of design." (Thirty Conversations on Design)

Posted by PJB on November 26, 2009 | Classification: Interviews | Permalink

How Xanadu Works: Technical Overview

"Pause for a moment and think about the history here. 1993 is 16 years ago as I write this, about the same span of time between Vannevar Bush's groundbreaking 1945 article 'As We May Think' and Nelson's initial work in 1960 on what would become the Xanadu project. As far as software projects go, this one has some serious history." (Micah Dubinko - Micahpedia) - courtesy of markbernstein

Posted by PJB on November 26, 2009 | Classification: Classics - Hypertext | Permalink

Why Help Authoring Tools Will Fade

"Using any of the standard authoring tools — Flare, RoboHelp, Author-It, Doc-to-Help — leaves you with the ridiculous model of a single author working from a single vantage point from a single organization trying to pull together an ocean of information." (Tom johnson)

Posted by PJB on November 25, 2009 | Classification: TechCom | Permalink

Velocity of Media Consumption: TV versus the Web

"The granularity of user decisions is much finer on the Web, which is dominated by the instant gratification of the user's needs in any given instant. Content must cater to this rapid pace." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on November 24, 2009 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Getting to the customer: Why everything you think about User Centred Design is wrong

"A simple product like a hammer is best tested in it's final form. But a digital product, that in some ways is much more complex, is being tested before, by lesser means as if you can extract important feedback about the hammer." (Thomas Petersen - Black & White) - courtesy of jameskelway

Posted by PJB on November 24, 2009 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

The Service Design Thinks Videos

"Alice Casey and Jo Harrington introduced a range of new tools, perspectives and ideas from their public service design projects at Involve, NESTA and Barnet Council. Joel Bailey gave us a brisk tour of service design on the front line of one of the UKs biggest websites - businesslink.gov.uk - and Karl Humphreys talked us through his two killer apps for service designing - Propositions and Prototyping through his work on the Heathrow Personal Rapid Transit programme."

Posted by PJB on November 24, 2009 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

The Power of Prototyping: An Interview With Todd Zaki Warfel

"Any design based on a written spec is a design based on theory. A design based on a prototype is a design based on experience and practice." (Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on November 24, 2009 | Classification: Interviews - Prototyping | Permalink

Real or Imaginary: The effectiveness of using personas in product design

"The use of personas as a method for communicating user requirements in collaborative design environments is well established. However, very little research has been conducted to quantify the benefits of using this technique. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using personas." (frontend.com)

Posted by PJB on November 20, 2009 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

Social and Experience Design: Inspired Ideas, Practical Outcomes (IDEA 2009 Day 2)

"IDEA2009 had the world's foremost thinkers and practitioners converge on Toronto's MaRS Convention Center to share the big ideas that inspire, along with practical solutions for the ways people's lives and systems are converging to affect society. Listen and learn from experts in a variety of fields as we all continue the exploration of Social Experience Design." (Jeff Parks - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on November 19, 2009 | Classification: Events - Information architecture - User experience | Permalink

Four Key Principles of Mobile User Experience Design

"I do not presume these following principles to be all-inclusive or ultimately authoritative; rather, it is my hope that they are received as an anecdotal summation of my findings that might then spark and contribute to the larger conversation and consensus-building process." (Dakota Reese Brown - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on November 19, 2009 | Classification: Mobile design | Permalink

Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media

"As of late, we've been talking a lot about content streams, streams of information. This metaphor is powerful. The idea is that you're living inside the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it. The stream metaphor is about reaching flow. It's also about restructuring the ways in which information flows in modern society. (...) If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity." (Danah Boyd)

Posted by PJB on November 18, 2009 | Classification: Social Web | Permalink

UX Design Tools & Techniques

"UX design defines how software looks and behaves. We're deeply interested in the interaction models that affect how software is perceived, learned and used. Our goal is to make compelling software that's usable, useful and desirable. We are not the only discipline at Microsoft that has an active hand in experience design. In fact, we are a partner." (Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering)

Posted by PJB on November 18, 2009 | Classification: HCI - User experience | Permalink

UX Design Patterns

"This is a simple, HTML-based list of the design patterns in Quince. We suggest using the Quince UX Patterns Explorer for richer pattern discovery and community interaction." (Quince)

Posted by PJB on November 18, 2009 | Classification: Patterns - User experience | Permalink

Service Design Network Conference 2009: Videos and presos

"Missed a presentation? Didn’t quite catch something? Enjoyed the conference so much you just have to see it again?! Go for it! Find below downloads of the presentations and videos of our speakers (some are not available due to client confidentiality). Videos are available of the plenary session presentations only." (SDN)

Posted by PJB on November 18, 2009 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

Report on Service Design Network Conference 2009

"I raise what I believe are important questions for an emerging community seeking not just to survive but also grow, as it thinks about how to create new institutions and ways of validating its knowledge." (Design leads us where exactly?) - courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted by PJB on November 18, 2009 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

A unified approach to visual and interaction design

"Unfortunately, my observation has been that even when all of the right people are involved, more often than not, the various design disciplines opt to compartmentalize the problem. In other words, they divide the project into an interaction design problem, a visual design problem, and an industrial design problem. Each of these problems is then tackled separately, and the resulting individual design solutions get bolted together at the end. It's a Tower of Babel situation, where huge opportunities are lost because the team fails to work together to come up with an innovative product solution and to employ a single, unified design language." (Nate Fortin - Cooper Journal)

Posted by PJB on November 17, 2009 | Classification: Interaction design - Visual design | Permalink

On Web Typography

"We've been spoiled. Until now, chances are that if you dropped some text onto a webpage in a system font at a reasonable size, it was legible. What's more, we know the ins and outs of the faces we've been forced to use. But many faces to which we'll soon have access were never meant for screen use, either because they're aesthetically unsuitable or because they're just plain illegible." (Jason Santa Maria - A List Apart) - courtesy of lucraak

Posted by PJB on November 17, 2009 | Classification: Typography | Permalink

6 Things Video Games Can Teach Us About Web Usability

"Those who think video games are not educational, this post is for you. Not only can video games be an enjoyable experience, they can teach us many things. Websites and video games often use similar concepts about usability in order to achieve an amazing end-product. I've come up with 6 essential concepts that video games can teach web designers about usability." (Mark Riggan - Atlantic BT)

Posted by PJB on November 17, 2009 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

I Have an Idea! Forums for Design Conversations and Negotiations

"Working together in a group to produce a creative outcome is difficult - don't let anyone tell you it's not. Let me share a memory with you - from my Performance Theatre and Community class." (Traci Lepore - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on November 16, 2009 | Classification: Social Web - User experience | Permalink

First, Do No Harm

"In my column, On Good Behavior, I'll explore the essentials of good interaction design. This first column provides a brief introduction to interaction desigdefining the scope this column will cover - then explores some key design principles." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

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

Cooking a Website

"(...) what I do find interesting is that I'm seeing several parallels between cooking and designing interfaces and websites." (Usability Post)

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

Information Architecture for Ubiquitous Ecologies

"In the paper, we describe how cross-mediality and bridge-experiences are playing a major role in redefining the goals and scope of information architecture as a strategic practice and discipline for the successful design of user experiences, and propose a seven point manifesto for a holistic approach to the design of digital – physical human information interactions as ubiquitous ecologies." (Andrea Resini and Luca Rosati - Proceedings of the International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems 2009)

Posted by PJB on November 16, 2009 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

Social and Experience Design: Inspired Ideas, Practical Outcomes (IDEA 2009 Day 1)

"IDEA2009 had the world’s foremost thinkers and practitioners converge on Toronto’s MaRS Convention Center to share the big ideas that inspire, along with practical solutions for the ways people’s lives and systems are converging to affect society. Listen and learn from experts in a variety of fields as we all continue the exploration of Social Experience Design." (Jeff Parks - Boxes and Arrows) - courtesy of jjursa

Posted by PJB on November 13, 2009 | Classification: Events - Information architecture - Social Web | Permalink

Customer journey mapping

"Customer journey mapping is the process of tracking and describing all the experiences that customers have as they encounter a service or set of services, taking into account not only what happens to them, but also their responses to their experiences. Used well, it can reveal opportunities for improvement and innovation in that experience, acting as a strategic tool to ensure every interaction with the customer is as positive as it can be." (Cabinet Office)

Posted by PJB on November 11, 2009 | Classification: Design research - Service design | Permalink

Designers vs Developers: Coming together to build the best RIAs

"What is the fastest way to get from a product idea to a rich internet application? By breaking down the communication barriers between designers and developers. This talk takes a quick look at how to build a shared vocabulary and use prototyping to bypass extensive wireframes and development specs." (Theresa Neil - Designing Web Interfaces)

Posted by PJB on November 10, 2009 | Classification: Interaction design - Technology | Permalink

Rough, rough draft: What info was

"In the Age of Links, we include everything. Links create a world of abundance. The irony is that while the Info Age's strategy was to exclude bad and useless info, in the Age of Links we're better able to manage the abundance of crap than the abundance of good stuff." (David Weinberger)

Posted by PJB on November 10, 2009 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

What online journalists can learn from information scientists

"I recently took part in a fascinating ‘unconference‘ in Seattle aimed at information professionals of various stripes — librarians, information architects, interaction designers and the like. It's called InfoCamp, and it seems like a natural venue for online journalists too — though there were few in attendance. The sessions covered such familiar topics as information visualization and user-created content, but from a broader perspective than we journalists usually look. This got me thinking: Why should there such a gap between the information gatherers (us) and the information organizers (them)?" (Eric Ulken - De Nieuwe Reporter.nl)

Posted by PJB on November 09, 2009 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

The Information Architecture of Behavior Change Websites

"The extraordinary growth in Internet use offers researchers important new opportunities to identify and test new ways to deliver effective behavior change programs. The information architecture - the structure of website information - is an important but often overlooked factor to consider when adapting behavioral strategies developed in office-based settings for Web delivery. Using examples and relevant perspectives from multiple disciplines, we describe a continuum of website IA designs ranging from a matrix design to the tunnel design." (Brian G Danaher H. Garth McKay, and John R Seeley) - courtesy of a'path

Posted by PJB on November 09, 2009 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

How to Achieve Painless Registration

"I'm about to give you a number of ways to increase sales on ecommerce sites and increase sign-ups on service sites, but first, raise your hand if you personally, when surfing the web, enjoy registering to use a site." (Bruce Tognazzini)

Posted by PJB on November 05, 2009 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Agile User Experience Projects

"Agile projects aren't yet fully user-driven, but new research shows that developers are actually more bullish on key user experience issues than UX people themselves." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on November 04, 2009 | Classification: Usability - User experience | Permalink

Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients

"As UX researchers, we're hired to be the glue between business stakeholders and users. In a sense, we're informed facilitators. And before a contract is signed, our role is to influence our clients with kindness, grace, and wit, on the true value of our engagement." (David Sherwin - A List Apart)

Posted by PJB on November 04, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

The Age of the Informavore

"We are apparently now in a situation where modern technology is changing the way people behave, people talk, people react, people think, and people remember. And you encounter this not only in a theoretical way, but when you meet people, when suddenly people start forgetting things, when suddenly people depend on their gadgets, and other stuff, to remember certain things. This is the beginning, its just an experience. But if you think about it and you think about your own behavior, you suddenly realize that something fundamental is going on." (Edge)

Posted by PJB on November 03, 2009 | Classification: Information design - Interviews | Permalink

Looking back at EuroIA 2009

"The presence of so many cultures, and varied talks made for a surprisingly vibrant and enlightening event. This is the EuroIA's real strength and perhaps why I feel it has a greater meaning in the global sphere. There are few other groups in UX who have such a mix of backgrounds, experience and cultural references to call upon." (James Kelway - User Pathways)

Posted by PJB on November 03, 2009 | Classification: Events - Information architecture | Permalink

Participate in the 2009 UXmatters Reader Survey

"This month, we're celebrating the fourth anniversary of UXmatters, which launched in November 2005. UXmatters is thriving. Since our launch we’ve published 290 articles on a great diversity of topics. Our community of readers is growing. Over the last year, almost 260,000 UX professionals have read UXmatters." (Pabini Gabriel-Petit - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on November 02, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Communities of Practice: Optimizing Internal Knowledge Sharing

"An intranet has the potential to unify a corporate culture, emphasize core company values, and develop a sense of community among employees, in addition to its basic function of providing access to documents and procedural information. Unfortunately, some intranets have simply grown organically, as collections of disjointed Web sites for different departments or document repositories for particular workgroups." (Michael Hawley - UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on November 02, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Infuse Emotion Into Experience Design

"The Web is becoming an increasingly important channel for companies, yet online experiences leave a lot to be desired. Our research shows that most sites have poor usability and they don't reinforce key brand attributes." (Bruce Temkin - Experience Matters)

Posted by PJB on November 02, 2009 | Classification: User experience | Permalink