All posts about
User experience

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

Approaches to User Research When Designing for Children

Added on 7 March 2011 Peter Bogaards
“Children’s exposure to computing devices depends on a great variety of factors—including cultural traditions, economic power, and family values. But there is no doubt that, in general, children’s access to technological devices and interactive products has increased dramatically in recent years. We are now seeing even higher adoption of technology among children—thanks to the unpredictably intuitive interaction of youngsters with touchscreen technologies and mobile devices that they can carry everywhere and use at any time.” (Catalina Naranjo-Bock ~ UXmatters)

Tough Sell: Selling User Experience

Added on 6 March 2011 Peter Bogaards
“(…) this kind of a journey is a stretch for some UX professionals. It really does not suit all of us. In fact, you might be turned off by this kind of task, and that’s OK. For those of you who try it, it can be rewarding and a great career expander. You will have added a new skill to your repertoire, and you will likely have professional connections with new parts of your business that you never knew existed.” (Misha W. Vaughan ~ Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 6 Issue 2)

Measuring the User Experience on a Large Scale: User-Centered Metrics for Web Applications

Added on 22 February 2011 Peter Bogaards

“More and more products and services are being deployed on the web, and this presents new challenges and opportunities for measurement of user experience on a large scale. There is a strong need for user-centered metrics for web applications, which can be used to measure progress towards key goals, and drive product decisions. In this note, we describe the HEART framework for user-centered metrics, as well as a process for mapping product goals to metrics. We include practical examples of how HEART metrics have helped product teams make decisions that are both data-driven and user-centered. The framework and process have generalized to enough of our company’s own products that we are confident that teams in other organizations will be able to reuse or adapt them. We also hope to encourage more research into metrics based on large-scale behavioral data.” (Kerry Rodden, Hilary Hutchinson, and Xin Fu ~ Google Research)

Prospecting in the 21st century

Added on 18 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“Service design is the natural progression from UX – taking interactions across platforms and concentrating on the invisible and tangible connections around customer or user interactions. Information architects should be at the heart of this design work and don’t be surprised to start to see IAs appear in companies that you didn’t even think of as ‘digital’. (…) It is not just interface design. It is not just about making the world more usable and ethically correct. It’s all this and more. It is a force for changing business in its approach and to make it economically stable by providing for needs but also satisfying wants beyond the present day. This is the business value of UX. How you interpret the data you collect, and create something truly unique, relies on the teams skill set and experience.” (James Kelway ~ user pathways) | courtesy of petermorville

Persuasion in Design

Added on 9 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“Persuasion in design is often regarded as a subset of UX, but it goes beyond UX and the mechanics of traditional usability. It’s about understanding the emotions that influence people’s behavior and decision-making, and then acting on that information to design compelling user interactions. Persuasive design applies psychological principles of influence, decision-making in a consumer context, engagement strategy, and social psychology to every stage of the design process, and it identifies potential barriers and emotional triggers to elicit the desired actions.” (Elisa Del Galdo ~ UX magazine)

User Experience White Paper

Added on 7 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“(…) a result from a Dagstuhl seminar on Demarcating User Experience, where 30 experts from academia and industry worked together to bring some clarity to the concept of user experience. We see the white paper as an important step towards a common understanding on user experience.” (AllAboutUX) ~ courtesy of jaspervankuijk

The Relationship Between User Experience And Customer Experience

Added on 7 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“Moving forward I will still use the term user experience to refer to that total library experience we want to design and deliver. In my presentations on UX I would be more likely to introduce the term ‘customer experience’ and point out how each term adds to our knowledge about and conversation on designing better libraries.” (Steven Bell ~ Designing Better Libraries)

Business Objectives vs. User Experience

Added on 4 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“Here’s a question for you: would you agree that creating a great user experience should be the primary aim of any Web designer? I know what your answer is and you’re wrong! Okay, I admit that not all of you would have answered yes, but most probably did. Somehow, the majority of Web designers have come to believe that creating a great user experience is an end in itself. I think we are deceiving ourselves and doing a disservice to our clients at the same time. The truth is that business objectives should trump users’ needs every time. Generating a return on investment is more important for a website than keeping users happy. Sounds horrendous, doesn’t it?” (Paul Boag ~ Smashing Magazine)

Designing a Reason to Come Back

Added on 2 February 2011 Peter Bogaards
“For most of us, launching and maintaining a Web site is enough of a chore. But what change is there to look forward to? Once a year, a number of sites participate in a CSS reboot, where all the styles are dropped. Some sites even commit to refresh their look on this day. This gives casual visitors – especially those who rarely visit a site, reason to come back – to see what’s new. Department stores regularly have sales, seasonal offerings and other events, yet the only online equivalent seems to be cyber Monday.” (Stephen Anderson ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)

Passive magic, design of delightful experience

Added on 26 January 2011 Peter Bogaards
“It is noteworthy when the design of an experience is so compelling that you feel wonder and delight. When designed right it feels totally natural, some might even say it is truly ‘intuitive’. No training is needed, no set-up, no break in flow, the tool fits seamlessly, improving without disrupting your experience; it’s like a little bit of magic.” (Stefan Klocek ~ Cooper Journal)

UX, Design, and Food on the Table

Added on 19 January 2011 Peter Bogaards
“In this case study, Laura Klein takes us inside the design process in a real live startup. (…) Interactive prototypes and iterative testing let you improve the design quickly before you ever get to the coding stage. Targeting only the confusing parts of the interface for redesign reduces the number of things you need to rebuild and helps make both design and development faster. Lean design is about improving the user experience iteratively! Fixing the biggest user problems first means getting an improved experience to users quickly and optimizing later based on feedback and metrics.” (Eric Ries ~ Startup Lessons Learned)