Responsive Design is a poor man’s Content Strategy

Added on 29 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Sometimes, you need the Dutch truth to be told.

“Responsive design is a poor man’s content strategy to address multiple channels. Perhaps a technical masterpiece, but it adds nothing to the transmission of a message. It helps nothing with the basics of content strategy: the transfer of certain key messages to your target audience. Indeed, there is also such a thing as a need. When I use a smartphone, I have other needs, then when I’m on a desktop. Responsive design – solely – does not respond to that fact. It’s a technical trick that will make everything fit on my screen and makes it readable.”

(Ric van Westhreenen a.k.a. @roodlicht ~ Rood Licht)

Cross-channel usability: Creating a consistent user experience

Added on 28 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Experience happens between the channels.

“A consistent user experience, regardless of channel, is one of the 4 key elements of a usable cross-channel experience. Consistency across channels helps build trust with customers. (…) As companies and organizations design for the larger user experience, it’s important to consider consistency across all channels. Consistent experiences help users build trust with the organization. Each interaction is part of the overall user experience with a company. If the user experience isn’t consistent across channels, users will question the organization’s credibility.”

(Janelle Estes ~ NNGroup)

Is User Experience Design the next big thing?

Added on 23 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
The future is definitely unevenly distributed when you pose such a question.

“The world of Human Computer Interaction was distant and unconnected to this glossy world of communication. Here, the problems concerning mechanical or electronic interfaces were critical to the very success of the systems they were part of. The user’s ability to understand, learn and remember, were paramount and Visual Designers and Psychologists were brought in to resolve interface issues. Although these two disciplines also formed the basis of much of the traditional advertising work, the connections were not apparent. In HCI, the feedback loops were shortest – press a button, and you either got something done or failed at it. It wasn’t like releasing an ad and waiting for the consumers to react next time they went shopping! The former needed the user’s intervention, an action; the latter required just a reaction.”

(Saurabh Karandikar a.k.a. @s_karandikar ~ uxdesignlog) ~ courtesy of hfi

UX theory to practice: What’s the fuss about Agile & UX?

Added on 17 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
It must be the pressure from the IT department that everybody in UX now wants Agile and Scrum.

“This post illustrates how my UX role fits within the Agile methodology at ADstruc. This process won’t necessarily work for every organization or product, but I hope it will provide some guidance for marrying product with design decisions and using your UX deliverables as ways to feed the Agile machine.”

(Eliane Kabkab a.k.a. @elianek ~ ADstruc)

Flat UI and forms

Added on 15 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Forms (digital and physical) are always the orphans of information design.

“Though some decry flat user interfaces as pure fashion, or the obvious response to skeuomorphic trends, many designers have embraced the flat approach because the reduction in visual styling (such as gradients, drop shadows, and borders) creates interfaces that seem simpler and cleaner. The problem is that most flat UIs are built with a focus on the provision of content, with transactional components (i.e. forms) receiving very little attention. What happens when flat and forms collide? User experiences can, and often do, suffer.”

(Jessica Enders ~ A List Apart)

Nine rules for running productive design critiques

Added on 11 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Feedback and critique for design professionals.

“Design critiques – when a team gets together and reviews a design or a product prototype – can be painful. When people aren’t on the same page about goals and context, critiques can take a long time, they can lead to inefficient or unclear outcomes, and, let’s be honest, they can hurt feelings. But they don’t have to be that way. Here are my favorite rules to make them efficient, focused, and worthwhile.”

(Jake Knapp a.k.a. @jakek ~ Design Staff)

UX designers should be content strategists too

Added on 11 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
And information architects, visual designers, interaction designers, web designers, applications designers, etc. too.

“If we, as UX designers, are providing complete UX solutions and setting our clients up to successfully manage their site or application moving forward, then we are providing some form of information architecture, interaction design and content strategy together.”

(Callie Myers ~ Nerdery)

Incorporating more quiet into the UX design process

Added on 9 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
It’s all human.

“Behind every successful design is a dynamic creative team, and it takes all kinds of personalities and skills to get the job done. However, the culture and expectations of a design agency are often largely centered on one outspoken, gregarious personality. Things such as group brainstorming, on-the-fly presentations and open workspaces have become the norm in most design agencies.”

(Angela Craven a.k.a. @DotGridDotCom and SuAnne Hall a.k.a. @Swan5280 ~ Smashing Magazine)

How to be an educated consumer of info graphics: David Byrne on the art-science of visual storytelling

Added on 8 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
A couple of my universa coming together.

“(…) at the heart of the aspiration to cultivate a kind of visual literacy so critical for modern communication. Here are a few favorite pieces from the book that embody that ideal of intelligent elegance and beautiful revelation of truth.”

(Maria Popova a.k.a. @brainpicker ~ Brain Pickings)

How to do things with data: Metadata, metamedia, and metacommunication

Added on 8 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Meta, an enrichment of data, media and communication.

“Moving beyond prevalent technological notions of metadata, this essay conceptualizes metadata as the outcome of diverse social practices from the perspective of communication theory. First, I revisit cybernetics and consider the relevance of the concept of meta-communication for the study of the digital media environment. While the bit trails that users leave behind are not normally conceptualized as communication, they are prime candidates for inclusion in a contemporary theory of communication. Second, I discuss digital media as metamedia – media that potentially reproduce and integrate other types of media, old and new. Metamedia yield new varieties of meta-communication and meta-data. Third, I outline a typology of meta-communication for further research on digital media, integrating insights from cybernetics and semiotics.”

(Klaus Bruhn Jensen ~ First Monday Oct. 2013)

Designing healthy organizations: Education and transparency in XD consulting work

Added on 8 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Adding XD to the X-soup.

“Luckily, the healthcare industry has figured out more effective approaches to treating patients and achieving better outcomes. Unfortunately, those of us in experience design (XD) consulting have not. In this column, I’ll first explore why the typical XD consulting approach is not healthy for our client organizations. Then I’ll look at what I think should be the ultimate goal of an XD engagement: educating our clients and being transparent about our XD methods and approaches.”

(Laura Keller ~ UXmatters)

Fight the dark side of Lean UX with the Experience Canvas

Added on 7 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Connecting Lean, Scrum, UX and canvas thinking.

“As Lean UX becomes more mainstream in the practice of product design and build, more and more teams are coming up against an interesting problem: by focussing so much on results not deliverables, and shipping small and often, the product itself can be in danger of feeling like a loose collection of features added over time, rather than a cohesive, robust, well-considered experience.”

(Ben Crothers ~ Atlassian Blogs)

Design thinking is killing creativity

Added on 4 October 2013 Peter Bogaards
Is business killing creativity by nature?

“A fellow designer and I were discussing this in detail and jointly came to this disappointing conclusion. It was quite a significant conclusion and likely to be correct, as both of us were in positions to manage design processes and teams, and also shape and influence design centric business strategies. I do not think that this epiphany happened as a result of this discussion. This was something that has been cooking at the back of my mind since design thinking started gaining traction in the competitive corporate environment. My thoughts include design thinking’s impact, its fallout, and its side effects. This was really not an easy post to write, there were lots of information for me to manage and reorganize. As with any story, lets start from the beginning by looking at why design thinking was even needed in the first place?”

(Avi Bisram a.k.a. @avi_bisram)