UX design in print media: Designing with the user in mind

Added on 20 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Due to the increasing popularity of usability design and user experience design articles that focus on the internet and web design, you might not be aware that user experience design has been around a lot longer than the internet has. This article will discuss the effects that user experience design has specifically in print design. It is my firm belief that user experience design is important in any design setting and your future success in the design industry depends on how well you can design an experience.” (Preston D. Lee – Graphic Design Blender)

Preso: Wireframes for the Wicked

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Wireframes beyond the basics, not for the weak at heart. In this panel, three experienced designers will share their tried and true tips for making wireframes really work. We’ll talk about how to sketch a wireframe on the fly to demonstrate an idea and how to create a standalone wireframe deliverable; when to show a concept and when to describe nitty-gritty detail; how to make a narrative wireframe and how to make a specification wireframe. And best of all, we’ll show you plenty of examples.” (Michael Angeles, Nick Finck and Donna Spencer – March 6, 2009)

What have we forgotten about UX?

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Maybe I’m not very smart (don’t answer that!). Possibly it’s because I got my Graphic Design degree almost 20 years ago. Or maybe it’s because most of what I’ve learned about UX design is geared toward eLearning, where the overriding goal is to make sure the user has the best possible chance of absorbing whatever content is presented. But I seem to have some concepts about what constitutes good usability that are at odds with what I see demonstrated on websites that are about UX and design or are by people who are using their sites to market their UX design services. Before I get specific about what I’m seeing in these sites, I thought I’d outline what the criteria are for me for good UX.” (Amy Blankenship – InsideRIA)

Apple’s Proposed Multi-touch User Interface System

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“(…) these proposals outline an integrated interaction model of virtual “floating” controls that are specific to the mode or application the system is in. The controls are accessed and manipulated through touch-based gestures, combinations of mutli-touch inputs, and/or inputs detected through sensors. Users get haptic, audible, and visual feedback when using these input methods to interact with the system’s set of virtual controls.” (LukeW)

Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing information space in ubiquitous ecologies

Added on 19 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Information is going everywhere, bleeding out of we thought was cyberspace and back into the real world: increasingly, many tasks we perform every day not only constantly require us to move between different media, but actually have us move from the digital to the physical environment and back. Computation is everywhere, and so are search and interaction. It’s time to move beyond the computer screen to design information space in these new ubiquitous ecologies.” (Andrea Resmini & Luca Rosati)

Embedding User Experience in the Product Development Lifecycle

Added on 18 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“All UX professionals, not just user assistance developers, face the problem of integrating their work into the product development lifecycle. At lower levels of organizational usability maturity, too often, the contributions of User Experience tend to be reactive. Usability professionals test the usability of a given product, then designers mitigate any shortcomings they find, and user assistance developers merely document what is already there. This column takes a look at the full scope of the product development lifecycle and how UX professionals can add value.” (Mike Hughes – UXmatters)

Design Trends across Decades

Added on 16 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Joining Karel on this episode are Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), Ben Sykes (UX Design Strategy Consultant at Interactoid), and Shawn O’Keefe (Interactive Festival Producer and Web Developer at SXSW. The panel discusses recent design related news from the last month or two, the biggest user experience design innovations of the last decade, and predictions about what the next decade holds in store.” (UXDEsignCast)

Fantastic Information Architecture Resources

Added on 15 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Information architecture can be a daunting subject for designers who’ve never tried it before. Creating successful infographics and visualizations takes skill and practice, along with some advance planning. But anyone with graphic design skills can learn to create infographics that are effective and get data across in a user-friendly manner. Below are a collection of resources to get you going down the information architecture path. Whether you just want to become more familiar with infographics and data visualizations for occasional use or are thinking of making it a career, the resources below will surely come in handy. There are also some beautiful examples and more roundups to see even more fantastic graphics.” (Cameron Chapman – Noupe)

People don’t remember what was said: People remember how they felt

Added on 15 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“This mantra has been one of my favourites for a good 7 years now. Working with a range of companies, charities and individuals, and having been in many board rooms, held live events, and developed digital strategy, I can certainly say it’s true. I’m not trying to brag here, but point out through experience I’ve learned that Experience itself is a big a deal. The other people who know how big a deal experience is are restaurant owners. They know that it’s not only the food they serve that people are paying for – it’s everything else that goes with it – and the things that go before and after it.” (Search Engine People Blog)

Search and Browse

Added on 15 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Historically I had been taught and understood search and browse as distinct elements – which they are visually and from a UI elements standpoint – but from a behavioral perspective, they really are not, rather, they are part of a continuum. A spectrum of discovery behaviors if you will.” (Livia Labate)

It’s time for content strategy

Added on 15 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Content is anything that informs, instructs, or entertains people. Text, raw data, images, games, music, lectures, videos, flash widgets, a good joke, roadside signs – it’s all content. A content strategy is a plan for creating, sharing, and governing content effectively. Content strategy isn’t just a web thing. In fact, it’s been around for thousands of years. Content creation and sharing began when our earliest ancestors started telling each other stories.” (Melissa Rach – Scroll Magazine)

A wheelbarrow of PPT slides

Added on 14 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“If we have a call for papers and no one writes them, we aren’t documenting our work. One has to then question what historical significance these excellent summits will have. Wouldn’t it be extremely advantageous to be able to look back at the papers for all the summits, especially as time marches on and the field continues to (hopefully) develop? Wouldn’t it be a valuable teaching tool and reference for those institutions with IA programs? Wouldn’t it also be a valuable reference for companies and their IA teams? A collection of papers from past summits could also be a important tool for spreading the value and knowledge that IA has to offer.” (Andrea Resmini)

Interaction Design’s Early Formal Education & Beyond

Added on 13 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“I believe that there has been a huge paradigm shift in the very nature of design practice and a growing shift in its education. And if we are not to acknowledge this shift at the core of education and career development we are doing a disservice to those who are interested in coming up the ranks as young interaction designers today. At the core of these issues is the believe in the separation between form and interaction. This myth can no longer be maintained – definitely not in education.” (David Malouf – Johnny Holland Magazine)

Order Out of Nothingness: Tagging 101

Added on 13 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“I’m organized but not overly so. I mean, I kept my books in alphabetical order as a kid, but I didn’t think of it as an early indicator of the career path I’d take. But I do appreciate order, so when I import a CD into iTunes and iTunes assigns metadata to my lovely new tunes via its Gracenotes system (which compiles user-generated and submitted data), it’s a relief to me, when the provided data has been entered with, you know, some semblance of order. Often, it isn’t. In reviewing this data over time, I noticed users make certain mistakes consistently when tagging their music. These mistakes then, reveal principles, and though they happen to apply to music in my iPod, in practice, they also apply to tagging other digital files.” (Robert Stribley – Scatter/Gather)

Design with a capital ‘D’

Added on 12 January 2010 Peter Bogaards
“Stefano Marzano, CEO and Chief Creative Director at Philips Design addressed a gathering of business leaders on the role of design in creating value for business and society. (…) And remember, the great and good companies will be remembered in the future as those who considered posterity, sustainability, quality of life and a better future for humanity. The choice is yours.” (new value by Design Jan. 2010 – Philips Design)