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User experience

User experience is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. (source: Wikipedia)

Beyond user experience: Onward and upward

Added on 3 June 2014 Peter Bogaards

UX turning into an interdisciplinary field for real, just like the field of complexity.

“One of the aspects that I enjoy most about the field of user experience is the constant injection of talents and perspectives from a long, eclectic list of other fields, including library sciences, cognitive psychology, ergonomics, anthropology, industrial design, architecture, computer science, and game design to name a few. Many of these fields have been fundamental in defining the roles and processes that we use in modern UX design.”

(Luke Chambers a.k.a. @lukcha ~ UXmatters.com)

The secret to making UX a top priority in Agile

Added on 20 May 2014 Peter Bogaards

Don’t defend, attack!

“Has anyone ever had to publish a list of companies that hire coders or marketers? Of course not. Everyone hires coders and marketers. Companies that hire UX professionals, on the other hand, are harder to come by. This has always been mind boggling to me. Everyone speaks of meeting the needs of users as the single most important thing. But when it’s time to put together a budget, many managers think of hiring a UX professional as a nice-to-have and leave it out of their budget. Unless, of course, a manager is in the gaming industry. Gamers are unforgiving and vocal. The competition in gaming is fierce. And on top of everything, games must actually be complete when they’re released. This is probably why game developers pay extra attention to user experience, and the leading gaming companies always have UX professionals on board.”

(Roy Man ~ UXmatters)

Playful or gameful? Creating delightful UX

Added on 14 May 2014 Peter Bogaards

Playing is how you learn. Gaming is how you get entertained.

“For many of us non-digital-natives over 30, our first contact with interactive technology came about through playing video games. Long before personal computers and mobile phones became part of our daily lives, we were already hooked on these games. In places as diverse as Chile, Greece, and Finland, at the arcade or at home (for example, with the Atari 2600), there was something powerful about these games that had us captivated from the very first moment we played Donkey Kong, Centipede, or Pole Position. But what made them so interesting and intriguing? What made us go back regularly (even daily) to the arcade? Over the years, games scholars have been studying some of these issues. But could some of the power behind video games be channeled to motivate people and help them achieve their goals? Could playful designs inspired by what makes games fun and entertaining help create better user experiences?”

(Andrés Lucero et al. ~ ACM Interactions Magazine May-June 2014)

The gap between UI and UX Design: Know the difference

Added on 12 May 2014 Peter Bogaards

Would the design of UI be any different than the design for the UX when you understand the delta between UI and UX?

“All of us have already understood that a UI and a UX are not the same concepts; however, they are to be combined for a greater purpose – to interest the users in your product or to convey certain information to them. The intrigue is that a UX can exist and work very effectively having a poor UI. For example, you can have an application with a stunning design that is hairy to use (good UI, bad UX). You can also have an application that has a poor look and feel, but is very intuitive to use (poor UI, good UX). We hope that now you understand the difference between these interrelated concepts and can clearly imagine a huge gap between their meanings. Nevertheless, for justice sake we would like to mention the following. Current UI design trends, tendencies and technologies are being developed with one and the same aim: to make online UX better, easier and more intuitive. In other words, UI developers finally began creating for people, so it’s safe to say that today’s user interfaces are aimed on excellent UX. So, if you want to create a stunning app, you should learn the principles of both (UI & UX) design types.”

(Helga Moreno a.k.a. @templatemonster ~ One Extra Pixel)

The role of user experience in the product development process

Added on 5 May 2014 Peter Bogaards

With the interdisciplinary work of agile/scrum, UX is not an integral part of product development. And therefore everybody’s responsibility.

“As someone who has worked in the field of user experience for decades, received training on half a dozen development methodologies, and completed over 150 agile projects, one thing that I am quite confused about these days is the term waterfall. In pre-agile times, I never worked in any organization that claimed they were doing waterfall development. If I did hear terms like ‘toss it over the wall’ – and they were as derisive back then as they are now. Product development – at least for products that anyone expects to be successful – has always been iterative, incremental, and collaborative.”

(Steven Hoober a.k.a. @shoobe01 ~ UXmatters)

At the INTERSECTION of design thinking and systems thinking

Added on 1 May 2014 Peter Bogaards

Great to be part of this emergent topic and community. More to follow, that’s for sure.

A trip report from a cross-disciplinary event ~ “Last month, I attended an event on what hopefully will become a new community of knowledge and practice: strategic enterprise design. At INTERSECTION (Paris, 16-17 April 2014), the communities of experience design and enterprise architecture and design hooked up, each with their own views, opinions and insights on the enterprise of the future. The conference was a cross-disciplinary encounter of communities, previously hardly aware of each others existence. And as they say, the most interesting things happen around the edges.”

(Peter Bogaards ~ BiRDS on a W!RE)

Relating Systems Thinking and Design 2013 Symposium Proceedings

Added on 29 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Some deep thinking regarding design and systems thinking by academia.

“The second Oslo symposium engaged over 120 participants in the emerging renaissance of systems thinking in design. The emerging context is being revealed in transdisciplinary responses to increasing complexity in all challenges faced by designers, innovators, and decision makers everywhere. Our worlds have become too complex for linear and goal-driven management, as the modern world is experiencing in hopelessly complicated social, economic, and political institutions. The global demand for sustainability, democratic economies, and better education, employment, and development has resulted in new movements, but perhaps insufficient redesign. The emerging social arrangements have become too complex for conventional thinking.”

(Systemic Design: Emerging contexts for systems perspectives in design)

Why UX designers need to think like architects

Added on 24 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Design and architecture or architecting. Designer and architect. More parallels than differences: bits and atoms.

“The connections between architectural and experience design are undeniable, the thought processes nearly indistinguishable from one another. When we explore other, older design disciplines, their evolution may begin to guide ours, and we may begin to truly innovate. We are truly the architects, the chief builders, of the web (…)”

(Rima Reda a.k.a. @rimareda ~ UX Magazine)

Cross-platform service user experience: A field study and an initial framework (.pdf)

Added on 23 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Complexity goes exponential with the IoT design challenge.

“Many web-based services utilize both desktop and mobile terminals in delivering content and functionality to their users. In terms of user experience, the overall chain of interactions, including mobile and non-mobile settings, becomes a central design target. The aim of this study was to investigate, what are the key elements of user experience associated with these, cross- platform interactions. This paper presents the findings from a four week long field study with three web-based cross-platform services. During the study, participants used the services on both their PCs and mobile devices. Diaries and interviews were used for gathering users’ experiences with the services. Based on our findings and reflection with related work, we argue that central elements of cross-platform service UX include fit for cross- contextual activities, flow of interactions and content, and perceived service coherence. We propose an initial conceptual framework of cross-platform user experience. The framework can be used to guide the design of cross-platform web services, as it draws attention to elements of user experience that are essentially influenced by the characteristics of cross-platform settings.”

(Authors: Minna Wäljas, Katarina Segerstah, Kaisa Väänänen-Vainio-Mattila, Harri Oinas-Kukkonen)

The UX axioms: Design better products for people

Added on 22 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

And now not only remember these, but also act upon them accordingly.

“The set of UX axioms has gone through an evolution over the last year as I iterated through the concepts, refined and combined ideas. I started with 150 concepts that were combined and synthesized into an initial set of 50 axioms presented to IxDA Grand Rapids in December 2012. Over the course of 2013, I presented the UX Axioms several times and further synthesized the set down to 21 Axioms. I recently added a few more axioms to the set I felt were missing. The current set stands at 26 UX axioms. Once the axioms are finalized, I will work to produce a card deck similar to the previous Design Axioms and Health Axioms decks produced by Invo. As you go through the axioms, you may notice that several of them equally apply to how we make sense of the world and how we craft our products that are birthed into the world.”

(Erik Dahl a.k.a. @eadahl)

Designing effective experiences for financial services

Added on 22 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Financial management for people is a great UX design challenge.

“In this article I want to focus on what we can consider from a UX design perspective to address these challenges. I’ll draw from a set of powerful truths about how people evaluate options and make decisions. These have been gleaned from robust research findings within the fields of behavioral decision theory and cognitive psychology.”

(Colleen Roller a.k.a. @DecisionUX ~ UX magazine)

Get started in UX: The complete guide to launching a career in User Experience Design

Added on 21 April 2014 Peter Bogaards

Still waiting for the ‘Bluff your way into…’ edition.

“Many of the UX techniques we discuss are strictly operational. These are important, but different roles allow you to have differing levels of input on a business’s strategy. While the challenges of directing a business strategy of a one-person startup are wildly different from making strategic decisions within a large corporation, it’s still useful to visualize at what stages you’ve had the opportunity to apply strategic thinking.”

(Matthew Magain a.k.a. @mattymcg and Luke Chambers a.k.a. @lukcha ~ UXmatters)