Usability Ain’t Everything: A Response to Jakob Nielsen’s iPad Usability Study

Added on 26 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The conclusion of the Nielsen Norman Group’s April 2010 study of iPad usability is that it has problems and more standards are the solution. Yes, the iPad is imperfect, but resorting to standards as the solution is an antiquated reaction that fails to consider how interactive systems have evolved. We’re not usability engineers anymore (not most of us, anyway); we’re user experience designers. Experience is more than just usability.” (Fred Beecher ~ Johnny Holland)

Don Norman at IIT Design Research Conference 2010

Added on 26 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“There is a great gulf between the research community and practice. Moreover, there is often a great gull between what designers do and what industry needs. We believe we know how to do design, but this belief is based more on faith than on data, and this belief reinforces the gulf between the research community and practice. I find that the things we take most for granted are seldom examined or questioned. As a result, it is often our most fundamental beliefs that are apt to be wrong. In this talk, deliberately intended to be controversial, I examine some of our most cherished beliefs. Examples: design research helps create breakthrough products; complexity is bad and simplicity good; there is a natural chain from research to product.” (Videos of the IIT Institute of Design)

Tufte & Beautiful Evidence

Added on 25 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“It was a breath of fresh air not to be surrounded by fellow ad folk. Maybe you were there, but I didn’t spot you or find your tweets. There were certainly some designers and UX people. I found the lecture a mixed bag – it was certainly a lecture rather than a presentation. During the introduction and the conclusion Tufte seemed rather uncomfortable whilst reading from notes. But the core of the content, around analytical design, was delivered away from the lectern and that was when Tufte and the lecture came to life. My take out from the evening was that information doesn’t care what it is; but how it is brought to life is critical for its interpretation and power as a communicator. ‘Whatever it takes’ was Tufte’s recurring theme about how to visualise data, avoiding being a slave to a particular methodology.” (MBA Blog)

The Elegant Architecture of the Customer Experience

Added on 25 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“People are the most vital asset when designing and crafting a unique customer experience. Disciplined execution requires a robust set of processes to ensure efficiency and uniformity and keep pace with the burgeoning scalability requirements of the enterprise. Automated systems are vital to augment productivity of operations and to fulfill accuracy, efficiency, effectiveness, reliability and scalability needs.” (E-Commerce News)

Organizating Content: A 7 Parts Series

Added on 25 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“I’m starting a new series on organizing content. I’m not sure how many parts there will be in this series. Writing essays in a serial format is an experiment I’m exploring. Basically this approach to writing follows the agile model. I write a bit, get some feedback, write some more, get feedback, and keep going. The feedback along the way shapes the direction I’m heading. Also, with each serial post, I hope to take the issue a little deeper.” (I’d Rather Be Writing)

Understanding the Cost of We Can’t Find Anything

Added on 21 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“One problem I often hear when talking with any organization about new solutions is understanding the cost and inefficiency of their existing way solutions, processes, or general way of doing things. In the past year or two I have used various general measurements around search to help focus the need for improvement not only on search, but the needed information and metadata needed to improve search.” (Thomas Vander Wal)

Experience Design: Technology for all the right reasons

Added on 18 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“The book clarifies what experience is, and highlights five crucial aspects and their implications for the design of interactive products. It provides reasons why we should bother with an experiential approach, and presents a detailed working model of experience useful for practitioners and academics alike. It closes with the particular challenges of an experiential approach for design. The book presents its view as a comprehensive, yet entertaining blend of scientific findings, design examples, and personal anecdotes.” (Marc Hassenzahl ~ Experience Design)

Sketches and Wireframes and Prototypes! Oh My! Creating Your Own Magical Wizard Experience

Added on 17 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Why is every conversation about wireframes I’ve encountered lately so tense? For instance, at a recent UX Book Club meeting whose topic was a discussion of some articles on wireframes, the conversation moved quickly from the actual articles to the question of what a wireframe even was. What the discussion came down to was this: no one knows the answer, and trying to find it feels like a wild-goose chase—or like wandering off on our own down a yellow brick road to find the all-knowing and powerful Oz to figure the answer out for us.” (Traci Lepore ~ UXmatters)

Playful User Experiences

Added on 17 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“As user experience designers, we tend to focus on getting users to the end of the journeys we’ve designed for them as quickly and effortlessly as possible. We try to take them from point A to point B in the shortest possible time. To me, it sometimes feels a little like we’re trying to get a child to quickly undergo a blood test before he notices that it hurts.” (Shira Gutgold ~ UXmatters)

The Service Blueprints Overview

Added on 14 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“For some time now I’ve been collecting interesting service design visualizations. But having them stack up on my desktop just doesn’t add a lot of value. As I’ve noticed that this blog attracts a lot of people with an 3 year old article on service blueprints I decided that would be the best category to start with. So I’ve compile an overview of the service blueprints I’ve stumbled upon so far.” (Marc Fonteijn ~ 31volt)

The Future is Already Here: Three Trends in IA

Added on 14 May 2010 Peter Bogaards
“(…) my opening keynote slides and the talk I wrote out which I gave at the German IA Conference in Cologne, Germany May 14, 2010. I speak about experience design, social design and service design. The theme of the conference is Service. Design. Thinking. What I actually said may have been slightly different than the text here but the intent was the same.” (Erin Malone)