The UX Runway: Integrating UX, Lean and Scrum cohesively

Added on 14 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
Getting software development more into the world of people through UX design.

“This article looks to educate developers, project managers, ScrumMasters, Product Owners, product managers, UX team members, and the like about a way to integrate UX and Lean UX principles into Scrum projects. It specifically focuses on the Scrum framework so familiarity with that method is encouraged when implementing the UX Runway practice detailed here and understanding this article. There are some concepts from SAFe but an in depth understanding is not critical. Though I have based the UX Runway around Scrum, it does have reusable concepts and could be readily adapted for other Agile methods.”

(Natalie Warnert a.k.a. @nataliewarnert and Thomson Reuters ~ Methods and Tools)

The science behind fonts (and how they make you feel)

Added on 10 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
Typography as the integral part of UX design.

“The right font choice along with the absence of sidebars and popups makes everything feel easier and better to read. Websites like Medium, Signal vs. Noise, and Zen Habits are like yoga studios for content. Their presentation of content puts me at peace while reading, allowing me to fully focus on the stories without distraction.”

(Mikael Cho a.k.a. @mikaelcho ~ The Next Web)

Slow change interaction design

Added on 8 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
Slow food for thought for UX and interaction designers.

“This article sketches a theory of slow change interaction design as one way for designers to approach what we will call slow change problems-attitudinal and behavioral changes that are difficult to initiate and sustain. Those familiar with persuasive technology will recognize the theoretical foundation atop which slow change interaction design sits. The domains of persuasive technology and captology cast sufficiently wide nets as “the research, design, and analysis of interactive computing technologies created with the purpose of changing people’s attitudes or behaviors or both without using coercion or deception”. Slow change falls within these domains. Importantly, however, slow change offers evolved perspectives, or lenses, on the ethical, temporal, and systemic thinking that any designer should adopt in slow change interaction design practice.”

(Martin Siegel and Jordan Beck ~ ACM Interactions Magazine Jan-Feb 2014)

The Lean UX Manifesto: Principle-driven design

Added on 8 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
As there is always UX, there’s always lean or fat UX.

“This all boils down to something that I call principle-driven design. As stated, some lean UX is better than none, so applying these principles as best you can will get you to customer-validated, early-failure solutions more quickly. Rules are for practitioners who don’t really know the value of this process, while principles demand wisdom and maturity. By allowing principles to drive you, you’ll find that you’re more nimble, reasonable and collaborative. Really, you’ll be overall better at getting to solutions. This will please your stakeholders and team members from other disciplines (development, visual design, business, etc.).”

(Anthony Viviano a.k.a. @anthviv ~ Smashing Magazine)

How to improve UX with service design tools

Added on 8 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
Always thought service design and UX design were close cousins.

“We hear plenty of talk about the power of design. It is a very pragmatic discipline. Look around you, nearly everything you touch has been designed. For this particular scenario, design attempts to ask (and answer) questions such as: what should the customer experience be like? What should the employee experience be like? How does a company maintain a consistent brand essence and stay relevant to its customers? How might we take the principles of design and stretch them to examine the intangibles?”

(C. Todd Lombardo a.k.a. @iamctodd ~ jaxenter)

Taxonomy-driven content publishing

Added on 8 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
As long as we have content, we have metadata.

“Here’s something about taxonomies that might surprise you: they’re not just for librarians anymore. Taxonomies were once a niche concept – useful but complex structures tackled only by the most hearty of information managers in sprawling databases. The past few years have seen taxonomies demystified and ‘rebranded’ as powerful yet approachable tools for anyone with an interest in making content easier to find and use. One of the most popular applications of taxonomy to come out of this renaissance is taxonomy-driven publishing.”

(Stephanie Lemieux a.k.a. @stephlemieux and Michele Ann Jenkins a.k.a. ~ UIE)

The building blocks of designing UX for kids

Added on 6 January 2014 Peter Bogaards
Differentiation of the UX field into multiple roles: customers, patients, citizens and kids.

“Designing for kids is a unique and challenging situation for any UX professional. While many principles and practices span across all ages, there are many issues which arise exclusively when dealing with children. In this introductory article we’ll look at kids and the specific issues that they bring about. We’ll also examine some guidelines, constraints, and considerations that you should take into account when designing UX for kids.”

(Justin Smith a.k.a. @xenoabe ~ webdesign tuts plus)

Building the in-house design agency: Getting the best of both worlds

Added on 19 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Embedding UX capabilities in the enterprise is a major challenge for the field.

“The biggest barrier I’ve seen to using UX in a firm is often simple lack of knowledge of what UX can deliver. (…) An integrated internal UX team is critical to organizational success, and the stakes are higher in larger enterprises. An internal practice that builds lasting relationships, provides thought leadership, and acts as trusted advisors provides long-lasting value to the firm. As the digital space becomes increasingly human-centric, and organizations evolve offerings around consumer need, the internal user experience agency plays a significant part in delivering both short term wins as well as long term success.”

(Stephen Turbek a.k.a. @Stephenturbek ~ Boxes and Arrows)

Advancing the practice of IxD through better education

Added on 17 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Formal education and curriculums of design for UX, interaction or information architecture has been a neglected area for years.

“For the inaugural event, we brought together 25 people interested in education to listen to provocations from educators within different contexts and then to workshop around those same provocations. Although the outcomes were not as I had hoped, I do think it was a successful and well-timed event. I didn’t even know that the hosts of the next year’s Interaction conference were already thinking along the same lines and wanted to lead their own initiative. So we coupled our talents together to help prepare this year’s event with lessons learned from the previous year and we have prepared an amazing single-day event for people interested in the intersection of education and interaction design around the world.”

(Dave Malouf a.k.a. @daveixd ~ Core77)

The Service Design imperative

Added on 16 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Great collection of content when you haven’t attend the event in Cardiff.

“Service Design is the application of design practice to the other 80% of the economy. It demands new skills, tools and techniques, perhaps even a rethinking of what we mean by design itself. Designing product service systems and the business models that enable them, means crossing boundaries between design disciplines, business and technology. It means changing the processes and practices not only of designers but how firms innovate and organize themselves. This isn’t easy as we share different working practices and cultures, but, it’s essential, for service designers, if we are to collaborate or even lead innovation. Innovative service systems can create rich and integrated customer experiences — delivering real social and economic value, opportunities for self-expression, and bring meaning to peoples’ lives, as well as to the world we share.”

(Service Design Network 2013 conference videos and presentations)

Applied UX strategy: Maturity models

Added on 10 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
We have many maturity models, for usability (Nielsen), CX (Forrester) and now for UX.

“In a perfect world, companies would take a systematic approach to product design from their very first days. But, in reality, early product design efforts can be sporadic for various reasons – for instance, because a product must launch as soon as possible, there’s not enough money at the start, the user base must grow at the fastest rate possible, or the product idea changes constantly in trying to discover an effective business model. Why is this?”

(Yury Vetrov ~ UXmatters)

Designing moments of meaning and pleasure: Experience design and happiness

Added on 9 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Let’s be happy. Sure, for the rest of our life.

“While society changes its focus from ‘well-fare’ to ‘well-being’, design becomes increasingly interested in the question whether it can design for happiness. In the present paper, we outline Experience Design, an approach which places pleasurable and meaningful moments at the center of all design efforts. We discuss reasons for focusing on experiences, and provide conceptual tools to help designers, such as a model of an artifact as explicitly consisting of both the material and the experiential. We suggest psychological needs as a way to understand and categorize experiences, and ‘experience patterns’ as a tool to distill the ‘essence’ of an experience for inscribing it into artifacts. Finally, we briefly reflect upon the morality implied by such experiential artifacts.”

(Marc Hassenzahl et al. ~ International Journal of Design 7.3)

Smartwatches are the future, but Samsung Galaxy Gear only partway there

Added on 9 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
Just figured out design for smartphones and tablets. Next up for design challenges, wearable glasses and watches.

“The Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch poses unique problems due to the tiny touchscreen. The use of gestures and streamlining content are reasonable solutions, but need to be implemented in a more usable manner.”

(Raluca Budiu ~ Nielsen Norman Group)

IA and business strategy: An evolving relationship

Added on 6 December 2013 Peter Bogaards
All experience design fields will be part of the larger business ecosystem. Like it or not.

“Information architecture doesn’t drive business strategy, per se. It won’t tell you what sort of business you should be in, or if you should outsource part of your manufacturing, or if you should change to a matrix-based management structure. But increasingly, IA needs to be considered as an input to those decisions, because all of them require thinking through how the digital places where you do business have to change, structurally. The difference between success and failure — or if a new business approach is even possible – can depend on the shape, clarity, and resilience of those information environments.”

(Andrew Hinton a.k.a. @inkblurt ~ The Understanding Group)