“The user experience of mobile websites and apps has improved since our last research, but we still have far to go. A dedicated mobile site is a must, and apps get even higher usability scores.”
Demystifying Design
‘Then a magic occurs’ is not enough anymore.
“Designers are makers who craft solutions to problems that plague customers, clients, and at times, society as a whole. The specialized tools and jargon (leading? kerning? cognitive load?) often understood only by other practitioners are a designer’s hallmarks. How we actually design and arrive at viable solutions is a mystery to most. Some believe this mystery helps us maintain the perceived value of design in our organizations. In today’s world – a world craving more and better design – however, this mystery is actually holding us back as a profession.”
(Jeff Gothelf a.k.a. @jboogie ~ A List Apart Issue 335)
Wizards Versus Forms
But where’s the magic from these wizards?
“When I find myself designing an application that is complex, either in terms of its length or its logical dependencies, my natural instinct is to take a wizard approach. Wizards are cool; forms are dull. Product managers love wizards because they are so Web 2.0. Developers like wizards because they involve more programming expertise than just cranking out forms.”
(Mike Hughes ~ UXmatters)
This Is Service Design Thinking: Deconstructing a Textbook
Part of becoming a field of knowledge and practice for real: a student textbook.
“This book is likely to become the quintessential service design textbook for students, educators, and professionals alike. In this column, I’ll share highlights from the book, along with some of my own interpretations, and tell you why you should add this book to your own personal collection.”
(Laura Keller a.k.a. @ServiceDesignLK ~ UXmatters)
What I Bring to UX From… Market Research
Market research is rooted in demographics related to consumerism. Design research does the psychographics of me and my ‘group’.
“Research plays a vital role in UX, as we need to understand our users and their motivations in order to design products which meet their needs. Market research is all about finding out what people do and why. But how many companies have combined market research and UX teams? I’m going to outline what it’s like to work in this kind of team and share how my background in market research led to a passion for UX.”
(Jessica Hall a.k.a. @mycatistheboss ~ Johnny Holland Magazine)
Seven Organizational Barriers to Designing Better Experiences
Reading this, I would almost give up on organizations. But I don’t.
“Over the last 6 years, I’ve been fascinated by watching how teams work together to create experiences. Much of these 6 years was spent with agile teams. Slowly, my personal practice as a user experience designer has evolved. Instead of focusing on what I can do to improve the experience, I’ve come to focus on what I can do to improve the organization.”
(Austin Govella a.k.a. @austingovella ~ Follow the UX Leader)
What is serendipity? A workshop report
Great to see such an important concept researched.
“On 16th June 2010, a workshop took place at Dundee Contemporary Arts with the aim of gaining an initial understanding of the nature of serendipity. This workshop involved 3 groups of interdisciplinary researchers and academics generating examples from their work or everyday lives that they deemed to be serendipitous. These examples, along with any patterns identified, were then discussed with the larger group. It was proposed that serendipitous events are unexpected, with the specific serendipitous outcomes unintended. It was also proposed that serendipitous outcomes are clear and positive, always resulting in a change in the head (and sometimes in a change in the world). It was also suggested that while some serendipitous connections might be recognised immediately, others might only be recognised after some time, or might not be recognised at all.”
(Stephann Makri & Ann Blandford ~ Information Research Vol. 16 no. 3)
Videos from Device Design Day 2011
After two instantiations, it looks like it’s going to be a tradition.
“Kicker Studio marked our 3rd Anniversary on August 8, 2011. To celebrate, we hosted the Second Annual Device Design Day at the San Francisco Art Institute, Jody’s alma matter. It was a great success thanks to inspiring speakers and involved attendees. Couldn’t make it? Don’t worry, we’ve posted videos of the talks for you to share and enjoy. And be sure to join us next year for our 3rd Device Design Day.”
The S.M.A.R.T. User Experience Strategy
Or how old skool insights can be revived.
“(…) I (and many others) have been told to “create a good user experience.” We’ve heard this in creative briefs, project kick-off meetings and critiques. It may have been a bullet point in a PowerPoint presentation or uttered by someone trying to sell a client or company on the value of their services. But there’s a fundamental problem with stating that your goal is to “create a good user experience.” It’s not specific, directly measurable, actionable, relevant or trackable. Thus, it will create disagreement and disorganization, sending many projects into chaos. However, we can avoid this by using S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting criteria when defining user and business goals.”
(Dickson Fong a.k.a. @dicksonfong ~ Smashing Magazine)
Interaction Design Tactics For Visual Designers
It keeps coming back to the idea of ‘know the material you work with’.
“Interaction design is a multi-faceted discipline that links static communications together to form an experience. Understanding the basic principles of this discipline is core to designing websites that are not only aesthetically pleasing but that actually solve business problems and bring delight to their users. This article just scratches the surface of interaction design. For Web designers of any kind, considering these fundamentals when designing any transaction or interaction is imperative.”
(Jeff Gothelf a.k.a. @jboogie ~ Smashing Magazine)
How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages?
I will stay much longer when there’s something interesting to read, which is mostly not the case.
“Users often leave Web pages in 10-20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer because visit – durations follow a negative Weibull distribution.”
Alignment Diagrams: Focusing the business on shared value
Or how designers can communicate with MBA’s on strategy.
“Alignment diagrams bring actions, thoughts, and people together to address the causes of poor experience at their root. Ultimately, they are a tool to help designers have real business impact. James Kalbach shows how designers can use their skills to map value creation and use design to solve business problems.”
(James Kalbach a.k.a. @JamesKalbach ~ Boxes and Arrows)
Framing the Practice of Information Architecture
The ship ‘Titanic’ sets course to a new UX iceberg.
“Over the past two decades, the volatile evolution of Web applications and services has resulted in organizational uncertainty that has kept our understanding and framing of the information architect in constant flux. In the meantime, the reality of getting things done has resulted in a professional environment where the information architect is less important than the practitioner of information architecture.”
(Nathaniel Davis a.k.a. @iatheory ~ UXmatters)
Leveraging UX Insights to Influence Product Strategy
How UX influences product strategy and the other way around.
“Many UX researchers and analysts aspire to influencing not only design implementation, but also product strategy. However, it is rather difficult to effect this kind of influence because user research insights tend to center on design and fail to speak to a company’s overall strategy for a product. In this article, I’ll describe how you can influence product strategy through a well-defined approach to user research and illustrate this approach by describing my first-hand experience with it. I’ll also discuss how any UX professional intending to add business value can leverage this approach in influencing product strategy.”
How Responsive Web Design becomes Responsive Web Publishing
I guess, content is becoming as fluid as possible.
“The last few years have been a good time to be a web designer. After a decade of making do with the aging technologies, methods and assumptions that gave birth to mainstream web publishing, designers are starting to trade the tiresome challenge of controlling the user experience for a few more interesting ones.”
(Chris Palmieri a.k.a. @cpalmieri ~ AQWorks)
Does context really matter for mobile design?
Always loves to go for counter-intuitive argumentations.
“Pick up most books about building web sites or products for mobile and you’ll hear a common refrain extolling you to pay attention to the mobile context. Usually this means paying attention to the fact that people using mobile phones are likely to be on the go, have limited attention, and slow Internet connections. This may have been true in the past, but data suggests that this behavior is changing: 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home, 62% of people use their mobile phone while watching television, 69% use mobile while shopping, 39% of smartphone owners use their devices in the bathroom.”
The Interaction Design of APIs
Great to see UX disciplines applied to geek technology.
“Alex Payne explores the interaction design of APIs, particularly through the lens of the speaker’s experience evolving the popular Twitter API. The speaker argues for the notion of a “humane” API”, one derived from simplicity, “explorability” and consistency. Alex Payne is API Lead at Twitter, Inc., a communications service used by millions to share short messages.”
Content Strategy for the Web
For many, adding value through content means more ‘conversion’ (a.k.a. traffic, leads, and sales).
“(…) the purpose of your web content centers on the customer’s experience. Just like keyword research attempts to identify what your customers are searching for in your industry, your website can provide the answer to those searches. A smart content strategy begins with understanding what the customer needs rather than what you want to offer them.”
(Arnie Kuenn a.k.a. @ArnieK ~ Business 2 Community)
Do you make these 4 mistakes when carrying out a usability review?
Following review recipes (a.k.a. tips, do’s and dont’s) means you’re following algorithms; if you follow anything, let it be heuristics.
“When properly carried out, usability reviews are a very efficient way of finding the usability bloopers in an interface. But there are four common mistakes made by novice reviewers: failing to take the user’s perspective; using only a single reviewer, rather than collating the results from a team; using a generic set of usability principles rather than technology-specific guidelines; and lacking the experience to judge which problems are important.”
(David Travis a.k.a. @userfocus)
(…) or ‘The user experience in the library’
Wandering through the structured space with information (a.k.a. the Library) has its UX too, made by librarians.
“It worries me that librarians still seem to think that the problem facing librarianship is that people aren’t visiting the librarians at the library. I haven’t read a really great world altering story anywhere about how a library has suddenly implemented a new program to get all the students rushing in to talk to the librarians, and basing future experience on past, I have to say no such program is about to fly in through the window to save the profession.”