April 2011

The Theory Behind Social Interaction Design

"Via this article, I would like to give you the big picture introduction to the theory behind social interaction design. Many of my articles on this topic are anchored in social theory but don't make explicit reference to it, so I thought an overview might be in order." (Adrian Chan ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 28, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design - Social Web | Permalink

Content First

"I'm perplexed by the reasoning that concludes that if a website is suffering from clear usability issues, the solution is to create a splinter site for some users while leaving everyone else to suffer on. Note that I'm not suggesting that everyone get the same experience - far from it. Thanks to progressive enhancement (and let's face it, responsive design done right is a perfect example of progressive enhancement) we can serve up the content that people want and display it to the best ability of any particular device. That's the key difference: start with the content, not the device." (Jeremy Keith ~ Adactio)

Posted by PJB on April 28, 2011 | Classification: Technology | Permalink

Marketing: Don't be a Hater

"Let's consider branding an essential part of service design solutions. How does branding help unify cross-channel experiences? How can it make services more enjoyable, memorable, and likely to be used again? Let's acknowledge the value that marketing brings to the UX conversation by including people from marketing departments in our client stakeholder interviews. Ultimately they will be telling the world about the products and services we create." (Kim Cullen ~ Adaptive Path)

Posted by PJB on April 28, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Creating a Content Strategy Maturity Model

"A strategic and disciplined approach to content strategy will explicitly support overall business intent, explain how it will do so, and align with annual sales and marketing (and perhaps customer care) objectives. Done well, it could be a source of strategic advantage for the enterprise." (Christine Thompson)

Posted by PJB on April 27, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy | Permalink

Better together: The practice of successful creative collaboration

"Savant. Rockstar. Gifted genius. Many of the ways we talk about creative work only capture the brilliance of a single individual. But creativity also thrives on diversity, tension, sharing, and collaboration. Two (or more) creative people can leverage these benefits if they play well together. Cooper's pair-design practice matured over more than a decade, and continues to evolve as we grow, form new pairs, and learn from each other every day. While no magic formula exists, all of our most successful partnerships to date share remarkably similar characteristics." (Stefan Klocek ~ Cooper Journal)

Posted by PJB on April 27, 2011 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

The UX of this article

"In many respects, when we talk about, evaluate, and revise products from a usability standpoint, we overlook the most important piece: content. Our tendency is to be concerned only with the wrapper or container, navigation through that container, and the interplay of the elements that make up the container. But what about the content which populates this otherwise dead space?" (Brett Sandusky ~ UX Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 27, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - HCI - User experience | Permalink

Workflow Expectations: Presenting Steps at the Right Time

"Actions at one step of an application impact subsequent steps. When users don't understand this relationship, usability suffers." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on April 26, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

Ten Guidelines for Quantitative Measurement of UX

"Most UX designers use qualitative research - typically in the form of usability tests - to guide their decision-making. However, using quantitative data to measure user experience can be a very different proposition. Over the last two years our UX team at Vanguard has developed some tools and techniques to help us use quantitative data effectively. We've had some successes, we've had some failures, we've laughed, we've cried, and we've developed ten key guidelines that you might find useful." (Richard Dalton ~ UX magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 26, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Novices Orienteer, Experts Teleport: The effect of expertise on search behaviour

"Expertise significantly impacts how we seek information online. Just as novice and expert photographers prefer different tools, so novices and experts behave differently when searching for information. Understanding these differences will help us design better search interfaces for both groups of users." (Tyler Tate ~ Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on April 21, 2011 | Classification: Search | Permalink

Are your users S.T.U.P.I.D? How good design can make users effective

"Effective Intelligence is a helpful concept in the design toolbox. User research and testing are the best ways to know your users, but knowing what may limit a user in reality helps design ways to make them smarter." (Stephen Turbek ~ Boxes and Arrows)

Posted by PJB on April 21, 2011 | Classification: UCD | Permalink

Share The Sandbox: UX Can't Own Customer Experience

"While CX is becoming a key competency for many companies, there isn't an agreed upon definition. I view it as an extension of UX, where non-digital experiences and services are just as important as screen interactions, and the full range of touchpoints with a brand across time has to be explicitly designed." (Samantha Starmer ~ UX Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 20, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Is Marketing The Evil Empire?

"UX Magazine attended the 2011 IA Summit in Denver this year to interview conference speakers and attendees. In this video, interviewees respond to the question: Is Marketing the Evil Empire? We were expecting to get at least a couple of embittered responses, but instead found consistent opinions that marketing is misunderstood and should be treated as a partner rather than an adversary." (Jonathan Anderson ~ UX Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 20, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Conversation is the New Attention

"In a world where every piece of information can, with a single tap on a pocket-sized glass screen, lead to more and more information, our ideas need to move faster, people need to share ideas and bounce them off of each other more spontaneously than ever, anytime, anywhere. Public speaking technology has not kept pace with the technology of everything else." (Christopher Fahey and Timothy Meaney ~ A List Apart)

Posted by PJB on April 19, 2011 | Classification: Social Web | Permalink

Why Great Designers Steal - and Are Proud of It

"It is a fact of life that creative people - if they are any good-constantly absorb input and stimuli that influences their own creative output. By nature, they imitate and play with the ideas of other creative people. It's how they learn and grow. It doesn't matter whether you call this trait awareness, empathy, or even stealing. No innovative or successful design happens in a vacuum. Regardless of whether you realize it, what you see and interact with around you every day influences your work. Picasso just happened to be a master when it came to using stolen goods for the benefit of his own artistic pursuits." (Traci Lepore ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on April 19, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Integrating UX into Agile Development

"Requirements definition is an integral part of an agile development process, and writing user stories is a fast, effective way of capturing requirements and estimating level of effort. UX professionals on agile teams sometimes add value by taking responsibility for writing user stories." (Janet Six ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on April 19, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Typeface As Programme

"Like many disciplines dependent on technology for execution or production, type design has undergone a series of fundamental revolutions and transitions in the past century. Driven by technological advance, this process has completely changed the way people work with type, to the point where someone employed in the field had to adapt to a significantly changing situation multiple times throughout a career. " (Jürg Lehni ~ Typotheque) courtesy of latebytes

Posted by PJB on April 19, 2011 | Classification: Typography | Permalink

How Print Design is the Future of Interaction

"There are three areas that I covered in the talk. First, how the visual language of UI has evolved and been shaped in to what we find in the interfaces we are familiar with today. Second, I'll discuss why I think a new approach to the visual design of interfaces, influenced by Print Design, is emerging and necessary. And finally, why I think Print Design is an important influence to the next evolution of UI, and what we (as UI and Interaction Designers) can learn from the discipline of Print." (Mike Kruzeniski)

Posted by PJB on April 18, 2011 | Classification: Interaction design | Permalink

Anticipating the Next Wave of Experience Design

"We live in a world defined by increasing time pressure and more and more things competing for our attention. In such a frenetic world, it is understandable that we place more value on the quality of our experience. We want to make the most of the time we have. Experience design has emerged in part as a response to this growing need we all have. It is no longer enough to design products and services so that they have aesthetic appeal and perform well. We demand a more satisfying broader experience when interacting with these products and services so that we more effectively pull out the true potential of these products and services." (John Hagel)

Posted by PJB on April 18, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Mobile Application Development: Web vs. Native

"In this article, we discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of both Web and native approaches, with special attention to areas where the gap is closing between Web technologies and their native counterparts." (Andre Charland and Brian LeRoux ~ ACM Queue) courtesy of janjursa

Posted by PJB on April 18, 2011 | Classification: Mobile design | Permalink

Book Review: Everything is Miscellaneous

"Some of his philosophical interests surface more visibly here, but overall the book is extremely relevant to the field of technical communication. For anyone who has ever struggled to organize help content, this book provides solid answers and strategies." (Tom Johnson)

Posted by PJB on April 15, 2011 | Classification: Information architecture - Metadata | Permalink

Bill Moggridge: Prototyping Services With Storytelling

"The storytelling supports the exploration of the service idea. Through the use of simple workds, the teller will illustrate the solution as it is a story. This allows the communication of the idea inside a group but also the preparation of the first sketches for the storyboard. The storytelling leaves some blanks to be fill in by the suggestions of other stakeholders and users." (think + design + change)

Posted by PJB on April 13, 2011 | Classification: Events - Service design | Permalink

The new 'Redesign Must Die' talk

"This presentation is an updated version of my old Redesign Must Die talk, given a few years back. I think that the only slide to survive this redesi... (cough) new version is the infamous one featuring the kittens. If you care nothing for redesign and only for kittens, jump ahead to slide #5." (Louis Rosenfeld)

Posted by PJB on April 13, 2011 | Classification: Events - Information design | Permalink

Content/Communication

"The way we talk about our content has significant impact on the way we treat it within our organizations... and, therefore, the quality of the content we produce. How can we make the shift from treating content as a commodity to valuing it as a business asset? With a little storytelling and the help of a few powerful metaphors, you can begin to turn the tides." (Kristina Halvorson ~ Webstock 11 videos)

Posted by PJB on April 12, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Events | Permalink

Making the right products in the right way: a consistent product lifecycle

"Creating a world class BBC Online depends on teams from diverse backgrounds working together, and this demands clear and consistent terminology, processes, and governance structures across all products in the BBC Online portfolio. The Product Lifecycle Management provides a framework for collaboration between technical and editorial disciplines." (BBC)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2011 | Classification: Content management - Content strategy | Permalink

Incompetent Research Skills Curb Users' Problem Solving

"Users increasingly rely on individual pages listed by search engines instead of finding better ways to tackle problems." (Jakob Nielsen ~ Alertbox)

Posted by PJB on April 11, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

The Elements Of Player Experience

"Video games are breaking out of the roles they've traditionally occupied and are moving into spaces where they collide with UX design. There are games that serve as social glue between old friends, and games that bring strangers together to collaborate on solving problems. There are games that help people meet their life goals, and games that let people reward others for meeting theirs. There are games that facilitate creative self-expression, help people understand the news, train doctors to save lives, and advocate for human rights. As they expand into these realms, the lines separating game design from software UX design are growing fuzzier and less important." (John Ferrara ~ UX Magazine)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

Idea Collider: From a Theory of Knowledge Organization to a Theory of Knowledge Interaction

"A new and novel addition to core concepts of information science and technology is the Idea Collider, adapting the conceptual basis of the particle accelerator. The Idea Collider is presented as a theory of information and an information retrieval tool that deconstructs text to the underlying elements - the concepts, ideas, knowledge entities, taxons and knowledge bases - and then reconstitutes groupings of data. The authors champion the idea of a 'multiverse of knowledge', in contrast to the 'universe of knowledge' that is an important metaphor in traditional classification theory. A historical review of outstanding theoretical landmarks in classification theory explores the universe of knowledge metaphor, faceted classification theory and the universe of concepts, moving from a holistic view of existing knowledge to an elemental deconstruction that can account for all knowledge, past and future. The Idea Collider is proposed as a theoretical approach to identifying the essential parts of knowledge, dissociating those elements from culture- and time-bound dimensions and making them available for a bottom-up reassembly process." (Richard P. Smiraglia and Charles van den Heuvel ~ ASIS&T Bulletin)

Posted by PJB on April 08, 2011 | Classification: Information design - Metadata | Permalink

Design Thinking Is A Failed Experiment. So What's Next?

"(...) the construction and framing of Design Thinking itself has become a key issue. Design Thinking originally offered the world of big business--which is defined by a culture of process efficiency--a whole new process that promised to deliver creativity. By packaging creativity within a process format, designers were able to expand their engagement, impact, and sales inside the corporate world. Companies were comfortable and welcoming to Design Thinking because it was packaged as a process." (Bruce Nussbaum ~ Co.Design)

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Five lessons from an Information Architecture career

"Today I delivered the opening keynote address at the Polish IA Summit in Warsaw, entitled 'Come as you are'. It is the story of how I've come to spend 13 years building digital products, and how I've observed and been part of the changes and development in the UX and IA disciplines over that time. It finishes with what I consider to be the five key lessons about computers and people from my career as an IA practitioner." (Martin Belam)

Posted by PJB on April 07, 2011 | Classification: Events - Information architecture | Permalink

The Meaning of User Experience

"Even though UX is also concerned with satisfaction, usability is seen only as a part of UX, in which the satisfaction can arise from some other source than product's good usability. Collectively, UX is about designing for pleasure rather than preventing usability problems." (User Intelligence)

Posted by PJB on April 06, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink

There Should Be Limits to Usability

"People generally regard improving the usability of products or systems as a major part of our role as UX designers. While there are tradeoffs in all aspects of design, our assumption has generally been that products and systems that are easier to use are preferable to those that are harder to use. However, despite what seemed to be a common understanding, a number of articles have recently reported on research that suggests increased ease of use can be detrimental." (Peter Hornsby ~ UXmatters)

Posted by PJB on April 06, 2011 | Classification: Usability | Permalink

The Problem with Design Education

"Design - central to successful technologies - is too isolated from science education, argues design guru Don Norman." (MIT Technology Review) courtesy of markvanderbeeken

Posted by PJB on April 06, 2011 | Classification: Design research | Permalink

Progressive Disclosure in User Interfaces

"As designers, we're always trying to get the most out of our interfaces and maximize whatever space is made available to us. While many solutions have been devised over the years, one above all others has consistently influenced the way visitors access the content they seek. From simple techniques, such as tooltips and drop-down menus, to complex single-page websites powered by Ajax, progressive disclosure has become a formidable force. This article explores the methodology of progressive disclosure and its impact on our interface design work." (Alexander Dawson ~ Six Revisions)

Posted by PJB on April 05, 2011 | Classification: HCI | Permalink

Karen McGrane: CS Forum podcast episode 4

"People love the recent history of things like Xerox PARC and Apple Computer. And I might set the history of content strategy almost on like a separate track, an alternate timeline. A lot of the history of principles that apply to content strategy come out of very old traditions in rhetoric and technical communication. (...) And that's one of the things that's so exciting to me about content strategy is, it's bringing a lot of these principles that have been discussed for decades into this new space of the web and digital media." (Randall Snare ~ CS Forum '11)

Posted by PJB on April 05, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Events - Interviews | Permalink

How Design Thinking Can Help Prevent Another Mortgage Bubble

"Here was a chance to remake a tool that plays a vital role in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every year. But what happened that day turned out to be much more than streamlining a critical form in the home-buying process. Even much more than the redesign of a vital 'touch point' within the larger 'user experience'. What happened was that the symposium's attendees discovered just how radical a solution Design Thinking could offer; not only to the problem of a broken mortgage process, but to public policy at its highest levels." (Monica Bueno ~ Co.Design)

Posted by PJB on April 05, 2011 | Classification: Design research - Service design | Permalink

IA and Content Strategy

Content Talks Episode #3 ~ "Kristina picks Louis Rosenfeld's brain about the relationship between IA and content strategy, and how the burgeoning content strategy community can avoid the pitfalls of other professional associations." (Content Talks)

Posted by PJB on April 04, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Information architecture - Podcasts | Permalink

The Five Models Of Content Curation

"Content Curation is a term that describes the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue. It is such a powerful idea because curation does NOT focus on adding more content/noise to the chaotic information overload of social media, and instead focuses on helping any one of us to make sense of this information by bringing together what is most important." (Rohit Bhargava ~ IMB)

Posted by PJB on April 04, 2011 | Classification: Content strategy - Social Web | Permalink

The fall and rise of user experience

Closing plenary of the IA Summit 2011 ~ "Although there's still a substantial gap between aspiration and execution, business leaders are at least now talking about the right things: experience, prototyping, design strategy, and innovation. (...) User experience converts are typically drawn to the glamour of interaction design on shiny technology, and the amateur psychology that helps them sound authoritative about their approaches. Most lack knowledge of basic information architecture, design theory and elementary programming skills." (Cennydd Bowles)

Posted by PJB on April 04, 2011 | Classification: Events - Information architecture - User experience | Permalink

John Maeda from the Adobe Museum of Digital Media

"In the first part, John gives a wonderfully succinct summary of the developments in technology in the last 40 years, showing how the content migrates from text to movies in each successive platform. Next is a summary of his own personal progress as a graphic artist and designer in the digital realm, leading into an illustrated story of development of digital media, identifying key contributors and designs." (Bill Moggridge)

Posted by PJB on April 03, 2011 | Classification: Information design | Permalink

Are SEO practitioners the digital equivalent of bankers?

"When I think about the banking industry, I'm reminded of the world of Search Engine Marketing. They too are trying to find weaknesses in a set of rules designed to level the playing field, in order to create a competitive advantage for their clients. It's just that rather than these rules being laid down by central government, they have been developed in the labs at Google." (Andy Budd ~ Blogography)

Posted by PJB on April 01, 2011 | Classification: Search | Permalink

Are you experienced? Business and the web user experience

"(...) designing online user experiences is now an important process for any company that is serious about the web, from huge names such as Google and Facebook all the way down to small businesses. "User experience designers are the digital equivalent of architects," says Andy Budd." (Bobbie Johnson ~ BBC)

Posted by PJB on April 01, 2011 | Classification: User experience | Permalink