How do users really hold mobile devices?

Added on 18 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
How to elaborate on just one facet of mobile devices: portrait versus landscape.

“Everything changes with touchscreens. On today’s smartphones, almost the entire front surface is a screen. Users need to be able to see the whole screen, and may also need to touch any part of it to provide input. Since my old data was mostly from observations of users in the lab-using keyboard-centric devices in too many cases – I needed to do some new research on current devices. My data needed to be more unimpeachable, both in terms of its scale and the testing environment of my research.”

(Steven Hoober a.k.a. @shoobe01 ~ UXmatters)

The five elements of modular and adaptive content

Added on 18 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Object orientation moving up the ladder. Now, it’s entering the info layer.

“When the word modular comes up in a conversation about web design, it’s usually in regards to the code. Object oriented programming on the backend, separating structure, presentation, and behavior on the front end, or perhaps the reuse of certain visual patterns like buttons across the site. However, if we’re going to spend some time talking about modularity in web design our first stop, like everything else web design, should be the content.”

(Steven Bradley a.k.a. @vangogh ~ Vanseo Design)

The grammar of interactivity

Added on 18 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Like all (visual) languages, digital has its own version of morphology, syntaxis, and semantics to communicate with humans. Grammar included.

“User experience design calls for us to write words on buttons all the time – but how do we know whether we’re choosing the right ones? Linguistics may provide a clue. What follows is a simple test to check whether your calls to action ‘work’ linguistically as well as a guide to consider the grammar of your experience elements.”

(Jonathan Richards a.k.a. @jonnyrichards ~ UX Booth)

What does a user-centered design process look like?

Added on 13 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Reading the high-level phases, thought it was rather circular, iterative and incremental than linear.”

“What really differentiates user-centered design from a more traditional waterfall model of software design is the user feedback loop, which informs each phase of the project. This feedback loop is established through the use of a range of techniques that have become the staple for UX Designers. There are a ton of them, and knowing when to use which techniques during which phase of a project comes with experience. Personally, I find experimenting with new techniques and tweaking old favorites is part of the fun of being a UX Designer.”

(Matthew Magain a.k.a. @mattymcg ~ UX mastery)

Content strategy: Separating content from information

Added on 13 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
A kind of new style DIKW and DTDT thinking with “(…) describes what content really is.”

“Content is a piece of information we want to share with our audience. We create content by turning a piece of information into a type that our audience is familiar with. Then we distribute that content on the channels where we think our target audiences spend their time.”

(Ahava Leibtag a.k.a. @ahaval)

Reading on the web: Implications for online information design

Added on 11 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Reading, still one of the most important activities on the Web.

“This presentation will sketch our evolving conceptions of reading on the Web. It examines the empirical literature about reading online with a focus on how reading has changed between 1980 and 2010. To support this analysis, I profile some typical purposes for reading online and suggest what these purposes imply for designing content and for supporting the human relationships that we intend to enable. I also point to research about how effective writing and visual design can help people understand, remember, and appreciate online content while creating human relationships and enabling actions.”

(Karen Shriver a.k.a. @firstwren)

A new research focus on service design: A report by the Design Council

Added on 11 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Taking the temperature of a new upcoming field.

“Due to the lack of clarity, definitions and nascent field as a discipline, instead of calling it service design, they recommend a focus on the role of design in service innovation and for specific sectors. More research is needed in the design in the service sector. Service design academics need opportunities to engage with larger, established businesses who would benefit from service design practices. Linking business and design schools and considering the impact agenda, as well as linking design with innovation studies and policy communities.”

(Yoko Akama ~ Service Design Melbourne)

Storyboarding in the software design process

Added on 8 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Great proof that software design is the cinematography of the 21st century

“Using storyboards in software design can be difficult because of some common challenges and drawbacks to the tools we have. The good news is that there’s a new, free tool that tries to address many of these issues. But before I get into that, let’s revisit the value of using storyboards (and stories in general) in software design.”

(Ambrose Little a.k.a. @ambroselittle ~ UX Magazine)

Prototyping for mobile designs

Added on 8 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Always wondered why mobile design would be different than plain software design. Is being able to move around the differentiator?

“Building a prototype is a great way to test your design early on with users. Whether you choose to go for a high-fidelity representation, or go lo-fi with paper, you can learn a lot about the usability of your site. Often, teams are concerned with which technique or tool to use because of the litany that are available.”

(Kelly Goto a.k.a. @go2girl ~ User Interface Engineering)

What to expect from a content strategy process

Added on 7 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Testimonial for content strategy, the Canadian way.

“Content strategy is the most important part of your project. It is where you plan what to put into the website, trade publication, brochure, catalog, fifty foot outdoor advertisement, or whatever. Some companies do content strategy intuitively, but most need a lot of help. Enter the content strategist.”

(Darcy Hastings a.k.a. @bioagency ~ BIO digital)

The past 100 years of the future: Human-computer interaction in science-fiction movies and television (.pdf)

Added on 5 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
HCI in films, TV shows and SciFi is really getting a genre.

“During the past hundred years, science-fiction (sci-fi) films and, later, videos, have, of necessity, had to depict detailed views of human-computer interaction (HCI) of the future, or alternate pasts/presents, in order to convey a compelling scene and, sometimes, in order move forward the plot. This publication explores some of the themes that emerge from examining this body of work. The basic premise is simple: HCI professionals can learn something from sci-fi media, and sci-fi media-producers can learn more from HCI professionals in order to show smarter views of the future.”

(Aaron Marcus a.k.a. @amandaberkeley ~ Amanda)

“All of the work we do is change management”

Added on 5 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Karens star is rising and rising.

Interview with Karen McGrane. ~ “For us this is a generational issue, and it’s our life’s work to help contribute to organizations’ learning how digital design (and information architecture) should fit into their organization. If we are going to be successful, we may not fix it for ourselves, but for the next generation of digital designers, I want to leave those organizations better off. There will also be some social darwinism, where the organizations that successfully navigate this transition are the ones that are going to survive.”

(IA Summit 2013)

User experience in startups: Challenges and realities

Added on 4 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Besides business, startups are the new hunting grounds for UX design.

“To understand how User Experience fits into a startup, it is critical that you understand the startup maturation cycle. While each startup has its own story, they all typically progress through the same stages. It is essential that you understand the personnel dynamics, the startup’s need for UX design, and its immediate business objectives and constraints at each stage.”

(Sasha Giacoppo a.k.a. @asgiacoppo ~ UXmatters)

Design dissonance: When form and function collide

Added on 4 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Very happy Eric (finally) contributed to UXm.

“Dissonance is a musical term. It means things are not in harmony. Design dissonance occurs when a product or service sends out cognitive signals that run counter to the desired effect. In the strictest sense of the term, design dissonance often relates to usability – when a design somehow pushes a user in the wrong direction, in terms of both understanding and action. But in a broader sense, design dissonance can create disappointment, particularly when it occurs in relation to a service.”

(Eric Reiss a.k.a. @elreiss ~ UXmatters)

Typography and information design: Reflections and critiques (.pdf)

Added on 1 February 2013 Peter Bogaards
Typography as the essential ingredient of design for search, find, and use information.

“A stroke, a letter, a word, a sentence, a paragraph, a page, and a book: all essentially linear constructs of the typographic mind put into action. There is a typographic order of ‘things’, a logical sequence from the most simple, to the most complex. A line, a space, a rectangle, a margin—an aesthetic device for visuality. As an infinite list of signifiers, the above lists signify the qualitative/quantitative display of the visual properties of typography: the micro and the macro, the color and the density, the positives and the negatives, the visible and the invisibles; these are some of the typographic paradigms that yield communicative visualization.”

(Chun-wo Pat ~ Parsons Journal of Information Mapping)