“Websites spend too little homepage screen space on content of interest to users and fail to utilize modern monitor sizes. And? It’s worse now than it was 12 years ago.”
Change management for enterprise content strategy
“Content strategy, its processes and tactics, are for many employees a new way of doing things. With so many content stakeholders and creators within a company, it can be incredibly difficult to not only get buy-in for strategic enterprise content approaches, but also on-going adoption.”
(Kris Mausser a.k.a. @krismausser ~ the discontented company)
Experience design is a perspective, not a discipline
“Our intention is to help business and design collaborate more intelligently. Unlocking the power of design allows a business to anticipate, plan for, and deliver experiences that are more likely to engage a customer in value-based relationships – ones that can be differentiated in ways that are both meaningful and measurable.”
14 ways to improve the UX of on-site search results
“An effective site search tool is hugely important tool for ecommerce as it’s a common way for shoppers to navigate sites and find products. In fact up to 30% of visitors will use the site search tool and these tend to be highly motivated shoppers who know exactly what they’re looking for. The speed in which results are returned is very important, but there are also many other factors that influence the overall user experience and could be the difference between making a sale or losing a potential customer.”
(David Moth a.k.a. @DavidMoth ~ Econsultancy)
Ten facts about the brain that will help you design better websites
“Psychology provides a framework for understanding how your users think. This post explains how to use that knowledge to improve your websites.”
(Joe Leech a.k.a. @mrjoe ~ CreativeBloq)
User stories don’t help users: Introducing persona stories
“User stories are one of the most popular alternatives to traditional user requirement specifications. But despite their promising name, user stories are not about – and don’t necessarily help – users at all. In most cases, user stories are written about roles that users adopt and take no account of the needs and behaviors of real users. Were that not indictment enough, user stories suffer from demonstrable flaws in structure and are often written by the wrong people at the wrong time. Here, I examine the background of user stories in their current form, highlight their failings, and propose a more appropriate alternative for the development of interactive systems: persona stories.”
(William Hudson ~ ACM Interactions Magazine November/December 2013)
Mapping business value to UX
“(…) we’ll expand on our approach to mapping business value to User Experience and explain how we have put it to use. Our goal in sharing this information is to be as transparent as possible about our process and our intentions, so the greater UX community can pursue an important conversation that we’ve been eager to have. What is that conversation going to be about? It is a dialogue that centers around selling User Experience – which goes far beyond user-interface design – to all of our organizations. This is a dialogue in which we, as an industry, need to engage. Hopefully, hearing our story will inspire you to share your own story.”
(Lis Hubert a.k.a. @lishubert and Paul McAleer a.k.a. @paulmcaleer ~ UXmatters)
Flat vs. deep website hierarchies
“Information can be organized in either flat or deep hierarchies; both have their advantages and pitfalls.”
10 ways to pretend you know UX (when you don’t)
“The most amazing thing, to me, is when people try to pretend that they have expertise when they actually know very little. This is an epidemic in UX. And like any good vaccine, I have to infect you with a small dose so you can kill it in real life. So here’s my guide to how it’s done.”
(Joel Marsh a.k.a. @JoelMarsh ~ The Hipper Element)
Why Moore’s Law doesn’t influence design these days: Less is “Moore”
“Technology cycles have been on a tear for decades, with each chip iteration bringing more capabilities at lower prices. But less can be more in tech products-and design is the way to balance that factor.”
(Kevin C. Tofel ~ GigaOm)
Cross-channel design: A primer
“This article is a primer for people that want to gain an overview of cross-channel design. It will also address its impact on the ways we need to think and act in this new era where the digital-physical relationship is becoming increasingly blurred.”
(Simon Norris ~ Nomensa)
Three reasons why the Semantic Web has failed
“The focus on the semantic web was fun, but ultimately missed the big picture, which is people care not about knowledge graphs but about the people and current events happening in their social graphs.”
(Dominiek ter Heide ~ GigaOm) ~ courtesy of mikeatherton
A day in the life of an information architect
“The employment outlook for IA is healthy overall. Knowing this is encouraging – so now what? To help craft your personal career storyline, join this web conference to engage in some creative, divergent thinking about what’s possible. This presentation reviews the employment and career landscape for IA.”
(Stacy Surla a.k.a. @stacysurla ~ UXconnect)
Information architecture: Beyond web sites, apps, and screens
“Can a craft-like profession of information architecture that lacks internal theory keep up with the growing complexities of ubiquitous ecosystems that comprise both digital and physical objects? I don’t think so. To position the practice of information architecture for future success, we must not wait for the future to arrive, but try to anticipate it – and, in some cases, even help to create it. To offer theories of information architecture that transcend Web sites, applications, and screens, we need to pursue original theories of information architecture that address Web sites, applications, and screens, period. If we fail to do this, Toon and the rest of the IA community will have to be satisfied with stolen insights from other fields.”
(Nathaniel Davis a.k.a. @iatheory ~ UXmatters)
Customer Experience versus User Experience: What’s the difference and why does it matter?
“Companies with disdain for their customers provide bad service and poor user experiences. If an organization is just starting to think about customer experience, it’s a sign they have also just started thinking about any kind of experience design – customer or user experience. You might be able to help them, but you’ll be launching a culture-change initiative as much as a product-design initiative. Be prepared. Culture change is hard stuff.”
(Jon Innes a.k.a. @innes_jon ~ UXmatters)
The discipline of organizing (.pdf)
“It is normal to organize ourworld, but doing so systematically is key and the subject of the book The Discipline of Organizing (TDO).The driving concept is that,while organization of resources is fundamental to library and information science, it is a central issue for many professional fields employing different organizational strategies and descriptive vernacular. To bring the diverse perspectives together, a broadly applicable, abstract framework can be used, based on an assessment ofwhat is being organized,why, how much,when and by what means.These points of analysis of the resources to be organized inform organizational design decisions, considerations of stakeholders and costs and strategic planning for tools and methods. Principles underlying an organization system’s design may drawon frequency of resource use or coordination of items, alphabetic or chronological ordering or unique approaches to manage hybrid and novel resources.The TDO philosophy reflects an information management approach that spans disciplinary silos and avoids field-limited terminology, while building the critical skills of resource organization and management.”
(Robert J. Glushko ~ ASIS&T Bulletin Oct/Nov 2013)
Responsive web design: Relying too much on screen size
“As people continue to go online using an ever increasing diversity of devices, responsive Web design has helped teams build amazing sites and apps that adapt their designs to smartphones, desktops, and everything in between. But many of these solutions are relying too much on a single factor to make important design decisions: screen size.”
(Luke Wroblewski a.k.a. @lukew)
The four levels of UX design
“The strategic and tactical aspects of UX are foreign to most folks, hence the typical ‘lipstick on a pig’ approach they call UX design. Knowing a few key things about strategy and tactics makes the difference between designing a struggling site and a successful one. The examples and tips illustrate successful approaches to UX design that you can apply to your site.”
Google Glass and the experience of experience
“In this article, experience is described as interpretation, and semiotics are applied to analyze the new wearable augmented reality product, Google Glass. Various readings of Google Glass are offered, and a prediction is generated which implies that through drawing on the traditional syntax of spectacles (eye glasses) a greater user group will be reached including not just technology leaders or adventurers, but also technology laggards. Experience takes place before, during, and after technology usage, and by making new devices more familiar to the target market, there is increased likelihood that user experience will be positive.”
(Rebekah Rousi ~ UX magazine)
The trouble with content
“The core problem seems to be a feeling that the word ‘content’ reduces thoughtful, artistic expressions to a commodity. The websites and apps we develop to elegantly deliver words, images and media experiences are perceived as empty containers, hungry for content to be poured into them. Content marketing campaigns depend on calendars that demand to be filled on a regularly scheduled basis. This may give the impression that an effective approach to content is to churn out generic stuff that fits the size and shape of the container, and meets the deadlines.”
(Rachel Lovinger a.k.a. @rlovinger ~ Razorfish Scatter Gather)