On UX and advertising
“Peter Merholz’s rant The Pernicious Effects of Advertising and Marketing Agencies Trying To Deliver User Experience Design is bold, uncomfortable and dogmatic, as all rants should be.” (Cennydd Bowles)
All posts about
User experience
Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences
“As physical and digital interactions intertwine, new challenges for digital product designers and developers, as well as, industrial designers and architects are materializing. While well versed in designing navigation, organization, and labelling of websites and software, professionals are faced the crucial challenge of how to apply these techniques to information systems that cross communication channels that link the digital world to the physical world.” (Andrea Resmini and Luca Rosati ~ Pervasive IA)
IA Summit 2011, Denver CO
“The IA Summit is the premier destination for those who practice, research and are interested in the structural design of shared information environments. Some call themselves information architects (and many don’t) but all share a common desire to help people live better lives through meaningful experiences with information. (…) After 11 successful years bringing hundreds of practitioners together for five days of intense exchange of ideas and experiences, we pause to reflect on the state of information architecture and what is in store for this community of practice. As we continue to strive for more, we turn our focus to what can make us – as practitioners – and our practice, better.”
UX Card Sort
“If you are an Information Architect, User Experience Designer, Interaction Designer or similar and your job is designing digital interactive (web)sites, services or products then join in with the UX Card Sort! This card sort is a way of creating insight into what UX professionals have in common and what the differentiators are, based on your daily professional activities instead of discussing what a label such as IA/UXD/ID etc. should contain. The Card Sort does start though with the request to enter your job title as that might already identify existing clusters with a common label.” (George Miles)
We’re All Content Strategists Now (the video)
“The “Best Careers 2009” issue of U.S. News and World Report gently mocked the user experience profession for its inability to agree on a name for itself. Indeed, many job titles seem like a mix-and-match game, mashing up words like “information” and “experience” and “architect” and “designer.” And now “content strategy” comes around, looking for a seat at the UX table. Some say the profession fills a gap in our professional practices. Others argue that it’s just a different name for the things that we already do. In this session, we’ll discuss why UX needs content—and how UX practitioners of every flavor can put content strategy to work on their projects.” (Karen McGrane ~ IDEA 2010)
Storytelling for UX: An Interview with Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks
“This book looks across the full spectrum of user experience design to discover when and how to use stories to improve our products. Whether you are a researcher, designer, analyst, or manager, you will find ideas and techniques you can put to use in your practice.” (Daniel Szuc ~ UXmatters)
The UX Design Education Scam
“If you emerge from university today with a web design degree, chances are rather slim that you’re employable as a user experience or web designer. Maybe you learned a lot of stuff; it’s just probably the wrong stuff. Congratulations, you’ve been defrauded. Hope it didn’t cost you or your parents too much.” (Andy Rutledge)
More on European UX Events
“In Adaptive Path’s newsletter of September 28, I shared my views on the European UX scene. In response, several people wrote to me with additions to the landscape. Below are the most interesting ones, followed by my impressions of 3 more European conferences: Euro IA, UX Russia and Design by Fire. And yes, I will count Russia as part of Europe in this respect.” (Peter Boersma ~ Adaptive Path)
US UX versus EU UX – What’s the difference?
“In response to questions from Amy Knox regarding US.UX and EU.UX, Søren Muus (creative director at FatDUX and co-initiator of ECUX) recently posted on the mail list of the Information Architecture Institute some interesting ideas in this matter. We are happy to republish his piece, because we find it food for debate.” (European centre for user experience)
Information as a Material
“This talk will discuss what it means to treat information as a material, the properties of information as a design material, the possibilities created by information as a design material, and approaches for designing with information. Information as a material enables The Internet of Things, object-oriented hardware, smart materials, ubiquitous computing, and intelligent environments.” (Mike Kuniavsky ~ Kicker Studio D3)
Oliver Sacks on Empathy as a Path to Insight
“Oliver Wolf Sacks is a British neurologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist. He previously spent many years on the clinical faculty of Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine.” (HBR IdeaCast)
Making it suck
“Making conventional interactions suck seems counter-intuitive and cruel. But there are plethora of products and services that aim to suck at common expectations for good reason. Among the many possibilities, things that suck can lead to strength, fun, good business and can introduce friction to prevent improper usage.” (Cooper Journal)
Inspiration Beyond the Lab
“Over the last ten years, both of us have read countless articles about innovation, entrepreneurship, and socially responsible ventures that change the world. The theme that appears to emerge time and time again is the importance of getting out of the office, visiting different cultures, looking outside the bubble we live in, and experiencing new adventures. But it wasn’t until a recent vacation in Costa Rica, where Bryan had the opportunity to see rural farm workers using cell phones to talk with other farm workers—people who appeared to be very poor—that he fully realized the importance of understanding the world beyond that which we encounter on a daily basis.” (Bryan McClain and Demetrius Madrigal ~ UXmatters)
Aligning UX Issues’ Levels of Severity with Business Objectives
“Many of us in the field people now generally refer to as user experience have long used levels of severity as a means of indicating the criticality of a product’s or service’s usability issues to clients. Over the past several years, I’ve grown increasingly dissatisfied with the vague and somewhat solipsistic nature of the gradations UX professionals typically use to describe the severity of usability issues. High, medium, and low don’t begin to sufficiently explain the potential brand and business impacts usability issues can have.” (Paul J. Sherman ~ UXmatters)
Researcher-practitioner interaction update (UXRPI)
“One thing that has been useful for me is the overall model of the problem space that emerged for me.” (Keith Instone) – courtesy of resmini
UXpod: User Experience Podcast
“The User Experience Podcast features a wide range of interviewees and commentary. Transcripts are available for some episodes, and more are being added.” (Information & Design)
How to measure the effectiveness of web content?
“(…) I can see two issues that make this a pretty difficult task, and it’s the reason why the above three methods should not be used in isolation. In combination, they help tell the whole story. It is difficult to know what users really read on a page and it is difficult to isolate the effect of content changes from the other influencing factors on a page.” (Rian van der Merwe ~ Elezea)
Gastronomy: A source of inspiration for user experience design
“Today, I delivered my presentation at the EuroIA 2010 in Paris on the relation between my two passions: gastronomy and user experience design. Gastronomy: A source of inspiration for user experience design. “A crazy topic with a scary video clip of a positive eating experience”, I said in my impersonation as Lars Von Trier!” (Composing Cook ~ FoodUX)
Global launch of Designing intranets: Creating sites that work
“The definitive textbook for intranet teams on how to design intranets that work for staff. In 275 pages, this book walks through a practical user-centred approach to the design process, richly illustrating each step with full-colour screenshots from organisations across the globe.” (James Robertson)
Leveraging User Data by Embedding UX Design Knowledge in Products
“The role of data in a UX design process usually goes something like this: User researchers or UX designers gather data about users and their needs, using a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches. They then analyze the data—often developing documentation that synthesizes the data, such as a task analysis or a set of personas. Finally, they use their analysis as a basis for making design decisions or influencing the strategy of the broader organization. Throughout this process, UX professionals mediate the relationships between the data that describes users and their requirements, design goals, and business objectives, seeking to align them as closely as possible. This article looks at how we can make this process of data analysis and design—or redesign—more effective by embedding UX design knowledge in computer systems.” (Peter Hornsby ~ UXmatters)