All posts from
December 2015

Tracing the Dynabook: A study of technocultural transformations

Added on 28 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

Know thy history!

“This work is a historical study of the Dynabook project and vision, which began as a blue-sky project to define personal and educational computing at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. It traces the idea through the three intervening decades, noting the transformations which occur as the vision and its artifacts meet varying contexts. The dissertation was for a PhD in education; the focus of this work is mostly educational, though I’ve tried to do justice to the technology throughout. I defended it successfully before a committee of profs from education and compsci on Halloween 2006.”

John W. Maxwell a.k.a. @jmaxsfu (courtesy of @worrydream) ★

Efficient UX design within an organization

Added on 21 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

In-house, the place to be for upcoming UX professionals.

“As UX designers, we spend a lot of time helping other people to be more effective. This is the heart and soul of good design. Is the new approach making users more effective in what they do? If not, it’s failing. While there are countless articles about how to understand users and design and test applications, I want to take a look at how to make the design process itself more effective, particularly within the sometimes neglected context of designers working within—rather than contracting with an organization. While your circumstances may be different from those I’ve experienced and this column is likely to be more helpful to designers earlier in their careers, I hope it provides some value to more experienced designers as well.”

Peter Hornsby a.k.a. /peter-hornsby | @PeterHornsby ~ UXmatters ★

The birth of content

Added on 14 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

Data, information, knowledge and … all content-related?

“Believe it or not, there was a time when we did not talk about content. At least not in the way we do today. To some ears this will sound decidedly odd. To others it might even sound outrageous. But it is neither. I would like to suggest that the concept of content that we now associate with management and publishing has been shifting under our feet and that these changes should help us to define the term more precisely and to wield it more effectively.”

Joe Gollner a.k.a. /jgollner | @joegollner ~ The Content Philosopher ★

How mature is your omni-channel content strategy: A model to assess how you’re doing

Added on 8 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

A brain dump of how to assess a content strategy in a channel-oriented ecosystem.

Disclosure: I work at Informaat experience design (The Netherlands) ~ “Designing for omni-channel ecosystems not only deals with the interactive and visual elements of experiences, but also has a significant content dimension. In this post, the role, value and meaning of content in products, services and brand experiences are addressed. In this context, omni-channel content strategy is a mandatory precondition for excellent customer experiences and should be part of the customer experience excellence of organizations. For the purpose of analysis, we developed a maturity model with which we can assess the current state of omni-channel content strategies and for identifying steps towards excellent customer experiences in ecosystems with omni-channel services.”

Peter Bogaards a.k.a. /peterbogaards | @bogiezero ~ Informaat BiRDS ★

What UX roles you need and why

Added on 8 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

Roles and activities, responsibilities and points-of-view in UX are changing all the time.

“When thinking about what UX roles a given team requires, so much depends on the nature of the company and the type of project. But there are definitely some UX roles that most teams need when designing and developing applications. Let’s start with the most obvious, then work our way to those that are more obscure. Finally, I’ll describe the soft skills that all UX professionals need to succeed.”

Christian Rohrer a.k.a. /crohrer | @christianrohre ~ UXmatters ★

Why content reigns supreme in UX design

Added on 2 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

Finally, content is discussed by UX designers. Why does it take so long?

“We know that it’s not edgy to defend one of the most timeless pieces of advice in design, but we’re not doing it to grab attention. We simply believe that it’s far too easy to overlook content as a design fundamental when the bulk of work focuses on visual design elements.”

Jerry Cao, Kamil Zieba and Matt Ellis ~ FastCo.design ★

Micro-moments: Are you designing for them?

Added on 2 December 2015 Peter Bogaards

Moment-of-truth, the tiny versions.

“Mobile devices have changed our lives in many more ways than we can realize. They are just part of us now, and we have lost sight of how we behaved before. As user experience designers, we also have to play the part of anthropologists: well, a little. We need to understand our target users’ culture. In these fast-paced times, it can be hard to get time to stop, stand back, and look at what’s going on in the big picture. However, that’s the point: given that smartphones alone have changed life so much, it might take some effort to stop peering into their screens and see what’s happened to us as a species!”

Muriel Garreta Domingo a.k.a. /murielgd ~ Interaction Design Foundation ★