All posts from
January 2010

Better User Experience With Storytelling (Part One)

Added on 29 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Stories have defined our world. They have been with us since the dawn of communication, from cave walls to the tall tales recounted around fires. They have continued to evolve with their purpose remaining the same; To entertain, to share common experiences, to teach, and to pass on traditions. Today we communicate a bit differently. Our information is fragmented across various mass-media channels and delivered through ever-changing technology. It has become watered down, cloned, and is churned out quickly in 140-character blurbs. We’ve lost that personal touch where we find an emotional connection that makes us care.” (Francisco Inchauste – Smashing Magazine)

Stephen Anderson on Seductive Interactions

Added on 29 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“How can we design systems that encourage the behaviors we want? One of the bleeding edge ideas we’ll be talking about at the UIE Web App Masters Tour is adding motivation to web applications. How do you encourage user behavior through the design of your web app? It may initially sound a little far-fetched, but there’s an industry that’s been shaping its customer’s behavior since the beginning: the gaming industry.” (UIE Brain Sparks)

Thoughts on Apple’s iPad

Added on 28 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The iPad is not a laptop nor is it a smart phone. It is a couch device, a bedroom device (don’t read that the wrong way), and a kitchen device (swivel it to cook from a recipe you find online). In all these places, a laptop always felt wrong. The iPad is optimized for surfing the Web, reading blogs/news/books, watching TV shows, playing casual games, listening to music, managing personal productivity (calendar, contacts) and looking at photos. Expecting it to do what a laptop does is the wrong frame of reference.” (Luke Wroblewski)

The Differences between Usability and User Experience

Added on 25 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Usability refers to the ease with which a user can accomplish his or her goals using any tool. (…) Somewhat in contrast, user experience refers to the way a user perceives his or her interaction with a system. User experience design encompasses both interaction design and visual design and seeks to promote an interface that is pleasing to the user.” (RJ Owen – InsideRIA)

UX design in print media: Designing with the user in mind

Added on 20 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Due to the increasing popularity of usability design and user experience design articles that focus on the internet and web design, you might not be aware that user experience design has been around a lot longer than the internet has. This article will discuss the effects that user experience design has specifically in print design. It is my firm belief that user experience design is important in any design setting and your future success in the design industry depends on how well you can design an experience.” (Preston D. Lee – Graphic Design Blender)

Preso: Wireframes for the Wicked

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Wireframes beyond the basics, not for the weak at heart. In this panel, three experienced designers will share their tried and true tips for making wireframes really work. We’ll talk about how to sketch a wireframe on the fly to demonstrate an idea and how to create a standalone wireframe deliverable; when to show a concept and when to describe nitty-gritty detail; how to make a narrative wireframe and how to make a specification wireframe. And best of all, we’ll show you plenty of examples.” (Michael Angeles, Nick Finck and Donna Spencer – March 6, 2009)

What have we forgotten about UX?

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Maybe I’m not very smart (don’t answer that!). Possibly it’s because I got my Graphic Design degree almost 20 years ago. Or maybe it’s because most of what I’ve learned about UX design is geared toward eLearning, where the overriding goal is to make sure the user has the best possible chance of absorbing whatever content is presented. But I seem to have some concepts about what constitutes good usability that are at odds with what I see demonstrated on websites that are about UX and design or are by people who are using their sites to market their UX design services. Before I get specific about what I’m seeing in these sites, I thought I’d outline what the criteria are for me for good UX.” (Amy Blankenship – InsideRIA)

Apple’s Proposed Multi-touch User Interface System

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“(…) these proposals outline an integrated interaction model of virtual “floating” controls that are specific to the mode or application the system is in. The controls are accessed and manipulated through touch-based gestures, combinations of mutli-touch inputs, and/or inputs detected through sensors. Users get haptic, audible, and visual feedback when using these input methods to interact with the system’s set of virtual controls.” (LukeW)

Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing information space in ubiquitous ecologies

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Information is going everywhere, bleeding out of we thought was cyberspace and back into the real world: increasingly, many tasks we perform every day not only constantly require us to move between different media, but actually have us move from the digital to the physical environment and back. Computation is everywhere, and so are search and interaction. It’s time to move beyond the computer screen to design information space in these new ubiquitous ecologies.” (Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati)

Embedding User Experience in the Product Development Lifecycle

Added on 18 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“All UX professionals, not just user assistance developers, face the problem of integrating their work into the product development lifecycle. At lower levels of organizational usability maturity, too often, the contributions of User Experience tend to be reactive. Usability professionals test the usability of a given product, then designers mitigate any shortcomings they find, and user assistance developers merely document what is already there. This column takes a look at the full scope of the product development lifecycle and how UX professionals can add value.” (Mike Hughes – UXmatters)

Design Trends across Decades

Added on 16 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Joining Karel on this episode are Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), Ben Sykes (UX Design Strategy Consultant at Interactoid), and Shawn O’Keefe (Interactive Festival Producer and Web Developer at SXSW. The panel discusses recent design related news from the last month or two, the biggest user experience design innovations of the last decade, and predictions about what the next decade holds in store.” (UXDEsignCast)

Fantastic Information Architecture Resources

Added on 15 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Information architecture can be a daunting subject for designers who’ve never tried it before. Creating successful infographics and visualizations takes skill and practice, along with some advance planning. But anyone with graphic design skills can learn to create infographics that are effective and get data across in a user-friendly manner. Below are a collection of resources to get you going down the information architecture path. Whether you just want to become more familiar with infographics and data visualizations for occasional use or are thinking of making it a career, the resources below will surely come in handy. There are also some beautiful examples and more roundups to see even more fantastic graphics.” (Cameron Chapman – Noupe)