June 2010

The Yahoo! Styleguide

"Writing, editing, and creating content for the digital world." (Y!)

Posted by PJB on June 29, 2010 | Classification: Writing | Permalink

Inside The Mundaneum

"On the night of June 1, 1934, a Belgian information scientist named Paul Otlet sat in silent, peaceful protest outside the locked doors of a government building in Brussels from which he had just been evicted. Inside was his life’s work: a vast archive of more than twelve million bibliographic three-by-five-inch index cards, which attempted to catalog and cross-reference the relationships among all the world’s published information. For Otlet, the archive was at the center of a plan to universalize human knowledge. He called it the Mundaneum, and he believed it would usher in a new era of peace and progress. The Belgian government, however, had come to view Otlet and his fine mess of papers, dusty boxes, and customized filing cabinets as a financial and political nuisance." (Molly Springfield ~ Triple Canopy)

Posted by PJB on June 29, 2010 | Classification: Classics | Permalink

Twelve emerging best practices for adding UX work to Agile development

"If the user experience practice in your company was weak before Agile, Agile development isn't going to help things. If your user experience practice was strong before Agile, it'll remain strong after Agile, and evolve to adapt." (Agile Product Design)

Posted by PJB on June 29, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Designing from the Content/Story Out

"If you create a design that doesn't build from the content, you end up with a mismatch. When it comes to add your content, you find that your content/story doesn't actually fit the design/theme." (Tom Johnson ~ I'd Rather Be Writing)

Posted by PJB on June 28, 2010 | Classification: Content strategy - Writing | Permalink

Don’t listen to Le Corbusier - or Jakob Nielsen

"This is what psychology and neuroscience tell us: the beauty and the rot is all mixed up. You can’t have a human without both. (...) The voices of interaction design pretend to be scientists. They take eye tracking studies, and scrolling studies—and never mention how well-done the content in question might be, or whether it was exciting and relevant to the test subject." (Cheerful)

Posted by PJB on June 24, 2010 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Anatomy of a Noob: Why your Mom Suck at Computers

"The words metaphor and intuitive are often used in UX. They are the metrics that we use to judge the quality of a solution. But is this quality really as universal as we might like to believe? (...) Understanding something intuitively really means that you understand it holistically. If you understand it holistically you can fill in the gaps. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make your design intuitive or improve on it, not at all. Just understand that you are doing it for the natives not for the noobs." (Thomas Petersen ~ Black&White)

Posted by PJB on June 23, 2010 | Classification: Usability - User experience | Permalink

UX Myths: Debunking user experience misconceptions

"(...) the most frequent user experience design misconceptions and explains why they don't hold true. And you don't have to take our word for it, we'll show you lots of researches and articles from design and usablity gurus." (Zoltán Gócza and Zoltán Kollin)

Posted by PJB on June 23, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Agile+UX: Six strategies for more agile user experience

"Six ways to be more agile and better integrate user experience and information architecture into agile development teams." (Austin Govella ~ Thinking and Making)

Posted by PJB on June 23, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Born to Adorn: Why We Desire, Display and Design

"Humans around the world wear clothing and accessories to hide their bodies, to emphasise them, even to evoke magic. Indeed, personal ornaments appear to be among the first forms of symbolic communication. US psychologist Nancy Etcoff linked fashion to psychology in the sixth Premsela Lecture." (Nancy Etcoff ~ Premsela)

Posted by PJB on June 23, 2010 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

On Curation and Curators: Skills vs. Roles

"(...) if content strategy is going to succeed, the community needs to know how they’ll get every team members skills dialed up to world-class levels. Once they do that, they'll see a world of difference. No ivory tower or self-serving academic interests here. This is the real world, baby." (Jared Spool)

Posted by PJB on June 23, 2010 | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

Zombie Personas

"This is by far the nerdiest episode we ever did, so fasten your seat belts. In his session at UXcamp, Tom said: "Personas – love 'em or hate 'em – you can't not use 'em. Either you have zombies, or you have living ones." In this recording of his session he talks about different kinds of zombies like Mirror Personas, Undead Personas, Unicorn Personas or Stupid User Personas. He gives advice on how to avoid these fellas and how to make good use of living personas during a project. As a bonus, Tom explains why 37signals doesn't need personas at all." (UX Café)

Posted by PJB on June 22, 2010 | Classification: Personas - User experience | Permalink

The Importance of a Focused User Experience Strategy

"An important aspect of user-centered design is identifying a strategy for how you will support an experience that addresses user needs and business goals. It is critical to remember that you need to focus your website’s strategy based on experiences that are relevant and valuable in context of the services your organization provides." (inspireUX)

Posted by PJB on June 22, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

International UPA 2010 Conference: Research Themes and Trends

"For the first time in its history, the International Usability Professionals' Association (UPA) conference took place outside of North America. While this certainly shifted the percentage of attendees from different geographic regions, all reports are that the conference was well attended, with crowded presentations filled with attendees from Europe, North America, and Asia." (Michael Hawley ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: Events - Usability | Permalink

User Experience Balance Scorecard

"Customers have experiences with an organization’s products and services regardless of whether the organization is consciously managing them. A good user experience delights customers—increasing adoption, retention, loyalty, and, most important, revenue. And a poor user experience discourages customers from using a product or service and drives them to the competition—eventually, making a product offering unviable." (Sean Van Tyne ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Ethnography in UX

"On my current project, I'm designing and implementing a framework for business that provides workflow management and supports information gathering and reporting. While there may be a software component further down the track, for now the technology is taking the form of procedures, reporting templates, and guidance material. This technology is both intellectual and social. Its goal is to support teams within the organization, and it requires people to work together. The biggest challenge with designing and implementing such technology is not creating code or a user interface, but ensuring its compatibility with team dynamics. This is where ethnography comes in." (Nathanael Boehm ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: Design research - User experience | Permalink

Favorite UX & Technology Blogs

"When I presented this question to the Ask UXmatters panel of experts, I had expected to have much overlap among their responses. However, as you can see, our experts’ favorites include a great variety of blogs and other news sources." (UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: User experience - Weblogs | Permalink

Architecture and User Experience: An Ecology of Use

"Over the past several months I've proposed Architecture differs from design in its strategic and political positioning. In the last article, I suggested User Experience Architecture is at its best when it forces the business to question its assumptions about its market, its offerings, the technologies it depends on, and ultimately its vision. Do all businesses benefit equally from a User Experience Architecture? When is the time, effort and cost valuable, and when is it unnecessary? Hasn't business done just fine for the past several thousands of years without a need for a User Experience Architecture? Why now?" (CHIFOO)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: Information architecture - User experience | Permalink

Website Response Times

"Slow page rendering today is typically caused by server delays or overly fancy page widgets, not by big images. Users still hate slow sites and don't hesitate telling us." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on June 21, 2010 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Taxonomy: A 'Disambiguation'

"Taxonomy is an ancient scientific practice. It means to find names for things. In naming things, you try to figure out how sets of things are related to one another, so that each, unique item will not only have a unique name, but also a reference to the others to which it relates. Taxonomy creates a hierarchy of inheritance, from general down to specific and back: A giant tree, on which there is a unique place for every item, like the leaves at the ends of twigs at the ends of branches connected to a trunk and running deep into the earth." (The Content Strategy Noob) courtesy of basevers

Posted by PJB on June 18, 2010 | Classification: Information architecture - Metadata | Permalink

Engagement, Entertainment, or Get The Task Done: Cognitive, Visual, and Motor Loads in UX Design

"Before the days of websites and user experience, the interaction designer's job was focused. The term wasn't user experience, it was usability, and there was one goal: make it simpler and easier for users to get their tasks done. The design wasn't of websites, but software applications. 99% of the software applications were being used by people to get something done: write a report, analyze financial data, or sell an apartment building. There were lots of constraints on what the technology could do, and most of the technology was largely unusable for the everyday user who was not a computer expert. It took a lot of negotiation to make any interface changes, since programming was cumbersome and every change meant someone had to rewrite programming code." (Susan Weinschenk - UX Magazine) courtesy of janjursa

Posted by PJB on June 18, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

What every UX professional needs to know about statistics and usability tests

"Do you like computers, but hate math? Would you love to work on creating cutting-edge technology, but don’t think you have the quantitative aptitude to be a programmer or electrical engineer? Then become a user experience professional! If you can count to 5 (the number of users in a usability test), then you already know all the math you'll need! Everything else is art! I bet you're good at art, aren't you?" (Stat 101) courtesy of usanews

Posted by PJB on June 17, 2010 | Classification: Design research - User experience | Permalink

Master user experience design

"Craig Grannell talks to UX experts to demystify the process behind web design and development's fastest-growing and potentially most important industry." (.net magazine)

Posted by PJB on June 17, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Design Better And Faster With Rapid Prototyping

"Prototypes range from rough paper sketches to interactive simulations that look and function like the final product. The keys to successful rapid prototyping are revising quickly based on feedback and using the appropriate prototyping approach. Rapid prototyping helps teams experiment with multiple approaches and ideas, it facilitates discussion through visuals instead of words, it ensures that everyone shares a common understanding, and it reduces risk and avoids missed requirements, leading to a better design faster." (Lyndon Cerejo ~ Smashing Magazine

Posted by PJB on June 16, 2010 | Classification: Prototyping | Permalink

The Importance of Copywriting in Web Design

"Designers often neglect to focus on both well-written copy and structuring a design so that it highlights the copy on the page. Today we'll discuss why copywriting is so important, who needs to learn it, and how to create content-centric designs." (Joshua Johnson)

Posted by PJB on June 15, 2010 | Classification: User experience - Writing | Permalink

Infographics: User-Centred Design

"This is an information graphic poster illustrating the underlying lifecycle, methods, principles and techniques in a user centred design process where the visual part is only the tip of the iceberg." (Pascal Raabe)

Posted by PJB on June 15, 2010 | Classification: Information graphics - UCD | Permalink

A user's guide to service design

"If you don't, it might sound like something that's complicated, difficult and costly to get involved in. To help you get to grips with service design, we've talked to the experts, read the academic papers and compiled a set of case studies of some well designed services. This users' guide to service design contains lots of information about how we at the Design Council are demonstrating that design can improve our public and consumer services. But it also contains great examples from design agencies, universities and businesses and public services who've used design." (Design Council)

Posted by PJB on June 11, 2010 | Classification: Service design | Permalink

Usability is in the details

"Although usability practitioners love to show examples of big usability issues with websites and applications, the vast majority of usability issues are typically in the details. By forcing your application users or website visitors to be constantly bothered with more detailed usability issues, you eventually wear down their patience and force them to decide whether to continue being annoyed, or to try a different application or website." (W Craig Tomlin ~ Useful Usability)

Posted by PJB on June 11, 2010 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Globalizing an information architecture

"So in the interest of resurrecting a six-year old conversation, here are some questions. I plan to use these to get my client to think strategically about the challenge of developing a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-regional information architecture. Being the information architect that I am, naturally I categorized them." (Louis Rosenfeld)

Posted by PJB on June 10, 2010 | Classification: Information architecture | Permalink

The Problem with Great Ideas

"Even great ideas have a limited shelf life. Bill Buxton has some stern words of advice for those looking to rest on their laurels." (Business Week)

Posted by PJB on June 10, 2010 | Classification: Interaction design - User experience | Permalink

Beyond design: Creating positive user experiences

"Good user experience isn't just about good design. Learn how to create a positive user experience by being fast, open, engaged, surprising, polite, and, well... being yourself. Chock full of examples from the web and beyond, this talk is a practical introduction for developers who are passionate about user experience but may not have a background in design." (Google I/O 2010)

Posted by PJB on June 09, 2010 | Classification: Technology - User experience | Permalink

Global User Research: Practical insights to ensure success

"(...) the first book to focus on global user research. The book collects insight from UX professionals from twenty countries and, following a typical project timeline, presents practical insights into the preparation, fieldwork, analysis and reporting, and overall project management for global user research projects." (About the authors)

Posted by PJB on June 09, 2010 | Classification: Design research | Permalink

From Industrial Design to User Experience: The heritage and evolving role of experience-driven design

"In this article, I want to share some thoughts about user experience design, UX practice today, and its parallels to industrial design practice. In efforts to continue the conversation about the true fit of UX as a growing specialization, I will attempt to position it within the landscape of established design disciplines. I will also to raise questions and considerations to entertain as UX emerges from its software-related origins and grows into strategic leadership across design disciplines. This is neither a manifesto nor a hard-lined stance on UX; rather just some ideas to help carry the collective discussion forward." (Mark Baskinger - UX Magazine)

Posted by PJB on June 09, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

A theory of digital objects

"Digital objects are marked by a limited set of variable yet generic attributes such as editability, interactivity, openness and distributedness. As digital objects diffuse throughout the institutional fabric, these attributes and the information–based operations and procedures out of which they are sustained install themselves at the heart of social practice. The entities and processes that constitute the stuff of social practice are thereby rendered increasingly unstable and transfigurable, producing a context of experience in which the certainties of recurring and recognizable objects are on the wane. These claims are supported with reference to 1) the elusive identity of digital documents and the problems of authentication/preservation of records such an identity posits and 2) the operations of search engines and the effects digital search has on the content of the documents it retrieves." (Jannis Kallinikos, Aleksi Aaltonen, and Attila Marton ~ First Monday Volume 15, Number 6)

Posted by PJB on June 08, 2010 | Classification: Information design - Social Web | Permalink

(Digital) Experience

"(...) if we start with the concept of experience as an event, the common historical lineage of these distinct understandings reveals itself. We are interested in this historical lineage, and would like to explain 'digital experience' as a historically developing category." (Ronald E. Day and Hamid R. Ekbia ~ First Monday Volume 15, Number 6)

Posted by PJB on June 08, 2010 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Web Fonts at the Crossing

"Font designers are very still very much focused on print. By and large, the money is in catering to professional customers in the printing industries: Books, magazines, displays, etc. Prices usually move on a sliding scale based on the number of users. The fear is that once fonts are on the web, they will become a commodity, the current model will break, and a devaluation of fonts, in general, will occur." (Richard Fink ~ A List Apart)

Posted by PJB on June 08, 2010 | Classification: Technology - Typography | Permalink

Using Persona Advocates to develop user-centric intranets and portals

"Grasping complex information needs and uses can indeed be daunting. One powerful design tool, personas, can help make sense of these needs and provide a framework for building Intranets that will satisfy a variety of needs. Effectively developed and used, personas enable Intranet teams to hone in on user needs and build interfaces and user experiences that end-user audiences can and will use." (McQueen Consulting)

Posted by PJB on June 08, 2010 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

Interdisciplinarity vs Cross-Disciplinarity

"The way disciplines are often defined is by what people do, but really they have always defined by how people think. (...) Let’s stop using the term interdisciplinarity as a magic buzzword and actually tackle what it means to mix mindsets, to work across disciplines." (Andrew Polaine)

Posted by PJB on June 08, 2010 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Does SharePoint Destroy Intranet Design?

"As intranet projects benefit from powerful implementation platforms, teams should focus on optimizing the user experience for specific organizational needs, as 4 winning examples show." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on June 07, 2010 | Classification: Technology - Usability | Permalink

Engaging with the future differently: From pyramids to pancakes

"Within a new worldview emerging from chaos and complexity, networks and systems thinking, what are the ways to decentralise and distribute innovation, strategy and design?" (Josephine Green ~ Chi Nederland vids)

Posted by PJB on June 07, 2010 | Classification: Events - HCI - Information design | Permalink

So, You Want to Do User Research: Characteristics of Great Researchers

"One of the best things about user research is that anyone can do it. On the other hand, it takes real commitment and a lot of personal development to do user research well. People commonly assume that research is research—and doing any kind of research is better than doing none at all. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Not all user research is created equal. Flawed research can be a significant liability to the success of a product, as well as the company developing it, so it really is important to get it right." (Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 07, 2010 | Classification: Design research | Permalink

Designing with Behavioral Economics

"Much of economics theory is based on the premise that people are rational decision-makers. In recent years, behavioral economics—also known as behavioral finance—has emerged as a discipline, bringing together economics and psychology to understand how social, cognitive, and emotional factors influence how people make decisions, both as individuals and at the market level. Many of the findings of behavioral economics have a direct influence on how users interact with a product. In a worst‑case scenario, a product’s design may encourage user behaviors that are detrimental to users’ best interests." (Peter Hornsby ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 07, 2010 | Classification: Design research - UCD | Permalink

Personas as User Assistance and Navigation Aids

"A lot of work goes into creating personas, and I was delighted to discover this innovative way in which the team carried forward the benefits of that work into the final product, where users could benefit from it as well. The personas also provide a rich form of user experience by portraying typical practices for effectively using the portal. I recommend that other UX designers consider applying personas in this way—initially using these user research artifacts during design, then incorporating them into products as user assistance and navigation aids." (Mike Hughes ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on June 07, 2010 | Classification: Personas | Permalink

Lou Rosenfeld Talks Past, Present And Future Of User Experience Design

"I had the pleasure of interviewing Lou and, I have to admit, I was surprised by what I learned about my own role in the world of User Experience Design. We all contribute to the Big Tent of User Experience, and the future is very bright." (Anthony Viviano ~ Three Minds)

Posted by PJB on June 04, 2010 | Classification: Information architecture - Interviews - User experience | Permalink

UPA Conference 2010: Day 1&2

"(...) I have provided some insights and experiences from the presentations I attended on the first and second day of the UPA conference." (Researching Usability)

Posted by PJB on June 03, 2010 | Classification: Events - Usability | Permalink

Jakob Nielsen critiques the iPad's usability failings

"There were really a lot of usability problems in this first-generation of iPad applications. It's often quite difficult for people to discover what they have to do because the options are not very visible. I have to say of both the device itself and the content, it's very attractive, which is good. But at the same time, overemphasising the attractiveness and hiding the functionality, that does cause problems." (The Guardian) - courtesy of oliverreichenstein

Posted by PJB on June 03, 2010 | Classification: Tablet design - Usability | Permalink

The How, What, and Why framework for Experience Design

"Many companies have used the phrase "content is king" in recent years to talk about the importance of the material their sites ship. I heard this phrase first at Adobe Max a few years ago and have since noticed it in a number of places online. I think this is near to the mark but not quite there. In our framework here I've rephrased it as "The 'why' is king" because it puts the user at the center. Your content is pretty important to your site, but without users it's kind of worthless. The reason your users are coming to your site is of preeminent importance - that should drive your content. Then your content can drive your presentation, etc. etc." (R.J. Owen ~ Inside RIA)

Posted by PJB on June 02, 2010 | Classification: Technology - User experience | Permalink

John Underkoffler points to the future of UI

"Minority Report science adviser and inventor John Underkoffler demos g-speak -- the real-life version of the film's eye-popping, tai chi-meets-cyberspace computer interface. Is this how tomorrow's computers will be controlled?" (Huffington Post)

Posted by PJB on June 02, 2010 | Classification: HCI | Permalink