User Interface

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  Signal vs. Noise

• I'm a tailor

  Jason F.

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:33 am

  When people ask me what I do all day I have a hard time summing it up. I design, I edit, I think, I review, I suggest, I teach. Some things I mess up, some things I fix up. But what I really do most of the time is trim, tuck, iron, cut, press, and fit. I’m a software tailor. And I’m starting to think that’s my perfect role. My team is incredible. I don’t need to tell them what to do. If there was a fantasy software league, I wouldn’t trade my team for anyone. But there are times during the development and design process where the things we make just don’t…

• Unicorns and projections

  Matt

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:53 am

  “Off the Chart” talks about how recent unemployment rate predictions turned out to be way off the mark. The reason: “Reality has produced numbers of its own.” And that’s the problem with projections. Reality is a terrible collaborator. No matter how much you try to work with it, it has a mind of its own. And it never listens to you. Plus, it’s easier to be a cheerleader than a doomsayer — especially when you have a vested interest in the outcome. That’s how people wind up in an overly optimistic fantasy world. No one ever submits a business plan…

• QUESTION: If you had to give it up, which subscription

  Jason F.

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am

  If you had to give it up, which subscription would you miss the most?

• Design Explorations: Basecamp To-dos with Due Dates

  Jason Z.

  17 Nov 2009 | 11:32 am

  We’ve just posted another article in our series of Design Explorations. This installment shows our process for adding a new feature to Basecamp: Add due dates to to-dos. We’re excited about this new feature and anxious to share this latest peek at our design process. Read the full Basecamp to-dos design exploration.

• [Podcast] Episode #2: Tech company valuations

  Matt

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:35 am

  Download MP3 | Time: 24:10 Like this episode? Please share it with your friends:   37signals worth $100 billion? Start time: 0:37 The story behind the mock press release claiming 37signals is worth $100 billion. The press should be more critical in covering valuation stories. Eyeballs aren’t the only thing that matter. The valuation dance Start time: 8:45 Was the press release a shot at Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube? Why was the sale of Mint to Intuit disappointing? Where will the next great generation of companies come from if they keep selling early? Also, VC money is a time…

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  456 Berea Street

• Microsoft talks about Internet Explorer 9

  Roger Johansson

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am

  In An Early Look At IE9 for Developers, Dean Hachamovitch (General Manager, Internet Explorer) reveals some of the news in the next version of Internet Explorer. Better JavaScript performance, improved standards support (border-radius and CSS 3 selectors are mentioned), and better text rendering are all good. I would really like to see CSS 3 support on par with that of other browsers, as well as support for “stable” parts of HTML 5. Here’s hoping that by the time we get a public preview version of IE 9 there will be much more news on improved standards support.Read full postPosted in…

• Do you find table summaries helpful?

  Roger Johansson

  17 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am

  On the W3C HTML Working Group’s mailing list there's been plenty of discussion about the future of the table element’s summary attribute. Should it be allowed at all in HTML 5? Should it be allowed but only “semi-valid”? Should other ways of providing information about the structure of a data table be encouraged? One question that I have seen being asked is if people who use screen readers actually are aware that data tables may have a summary attribute and if they find the information provided in it useful.Read full postPosted in Accessibility, HTML 5.

• Vendor-specific extensions are invalid CSS

  Roger Johansson

  16 Nov 2009 | 11:34 am

  In New W3C website launched I mentioned that the W3C’s new site uses a bit of invalid CSS. A couple of readers have told me that the errors caused by vendor-specific extensions aren’t really errors, and that the CSS validator is wrong to report such property names as errors. I wasn’t completely sure about whether or not this was true, so I did a bit of research. And, to the best of my understanding, vendor-specific extensions are invalid.Read full postPosted in CSS, Web Standards.

• WebKit Web Inspector improvements

  Roger Johansson

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:09 am

  The Web Inspector is the web development tool that ships with WebKit-based browsers, doing roughly what Firebug does for Firefox. It does some things better and others not quite as well. The list of things that it does not do quite as well as Firebug became a bit shorter with the recent Web Inspector Updates. Available in recent WebKit Nightly builds, the Web Inspector has improved or added support for things like:Read full postPosted in Browsers, Coding.

• Headings and document structure conclusions

  Roger Johansson

  10 Nov 2009 | 11:08 am

  Back in January I asked for opinions on Headings, heading hierarchy, and document outlines, hoping for a discussion that could lead to a conclusive recommendation. Unfortunately it seems very difficult to reach consensus on this topic. However, with input from the discussion in the comments on that post, along with private discussions via email and face-to-face, I see two options: Use headings for both document and site structure. Use headings only for the structure of the actual content, and use WAI-ARIA landmark roles for anything outside the content area. Read full postPosted in (X)HTML,…

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  Boxes and Arrows

• IDEA 2009 - Day 2

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:12 am

  IDEA2009 had the world’s foremost thinkers and practitioners converge on Toronto’s MaRS Convention Center to share the big ideas that inspire, along with practical solutions for the ways people’s lives and systems are converging to affect society. Listen and learn from experts in a variety of fields as we all continue the exploration of Social Experience Design. Subscribe to the Boxes and Arrows Podcast in iTunes or add this page to your Del.icio.us account: iTunes     Del.icio.us     IDEA Conference theme music generously provided by Bumper…

• Four Key Principles of Mobile User Experience Design

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:11 am

  Prior to becoming a senior UX designer at Popular Front Interactive, I spent two years as a mobile UX researcher within the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mobile Technologies Group – a lab tasked with both future-casting and then rapidly prototyping innovative mobile experiences.As I transitioned from academia to industry, I discovered that while mobile UX was discussed, it wasn’t discussed from the same broad frame of reference that I was used to within the confines of a research-based institution. Although more recent mobile UX conversations I have found myself in have…

• IDEA 2009 - Day 1

  12 Nov 2009 | 11:59 pm

  IDEA2009 had the world’s foremost thinkers and practitioners converge on Toronto’s MaRS Convention Center to share the big ideas that inspire, along with practical solutions for the ways people’s lives and systems are converging to affect society. Listen and learn from experts in a variety of fields as we all continue the exploration of Social Experience Design. Subscribe to the Boxes and Arrows Podcast in iTunes or add this page to your Del.icio.us account: iTunes     Del.icio.us     IDEA Conference theme music generously provided by Bumper…

• What design researchers can learn from hostage negotiators

  12 Nov 2009 | 11:59 pm

  It’s 2 a.m., and a call comes across the radio that a young man with a gun has barricaded himself and his mother in his home. No shots have been fired, and little communication has been established between the man and police officers outside. The officers on the scene report that the young man has been struggling with the loss of his job and feels like there’s no reason to live. The crisis response team has been called, and hostage negotiators are en route. It’s the negotiator’s job to ensure that the young man does not harm himself or others during this crisis. What…

• Experience Themes

  6 Oct 2009 | 1:25 am

  There’s an old adage among screenwriters that when a writer can sum up a story in a sentence or less, he has discovered what’s important about the story. He’ll know what the story is about and therefore have a strong sense of theme. And in knowing the theme, he’ll have a compass to use in the process of “designing” the damn thing (i.e. what to keep, what to lose, what actually happens at the end). The story will be all the better for it because it all hangs together with a central idea that will give it greater impact and meaning. Now wouldn’t it be…

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  ZURBlog

• Shrink your JavaScript with the Google Compiler Rails Plugin

  13 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  Looking for the plugin? Skip the article and go straight to the plugin page. For everyone else... Like it or not, JavaScript has become the heaviest asset on modern webpages. Long gone are the days of waiting for large images to load, now we wait for fancy effects libraries, re-tweet counters, and cornification. When you load Twitter, Yahoo, or Google docs, almost half the data you load will be JavaScript. Below is an asset breakdown for docs.google.com. Users Hate to Wait After download JavaScript files need to be evaluated as well. The greater the complexity and size of the JavaScript the…

• Crazy Go Nuts JavaScript Released by Google

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:26 pm

  Yesterday Google announced their Javascript Closure Library is available for public use. You may think you need another Javascript toolkit like you need another browser, but this library offers the experience of the Google collective which means speed, stability and cross browser support. It also means we now have access to the libraries used to implement all the nutty things Google does in their most popular apps. Take this toolbar for example, used in Gmail and Google Docs, now available for you to do even cooler things with. They also provide even higher level functionality, like this rich…

• Van Halen, Marriage and Crucial Mistakes

  21 Oct 2009 | 1:35 pm

  We had a rockin’ discussion with John Marshall last Friday at ZURBsoapbox. John discussed mistakes he’s made, as well as guidelines for success of product- vs. service-based companies. You can listen to the entire podcast below and read some great highlights from the event. Listen to John Marshall's Podcast Subscribe: iTunes RSS John starting out talking about his experiences at ClickTracks. Marry Someone Who Can Take Risk ClickTracks started from the idea that all John wanted to know was what people click on. No 3D pie graphs, no charts, no large tables, just tell me what people click…

• Behind the Scenes: Building the New Visual Annotations

  15 Oct 2009 | 6:45 am

  In part 1 of this post we talked about why we needed to redesign the Notable visual annotations, and how we went about framing the problem. Now we'll show how we actually implemented the design, including some cool CSS techniques we picked up along the way. Creating an Overlay with Layers The overlays comprise two objects: an overlay with the shine and a border with the transparency. Our solution was not technically too complex. With Notable (as well as most of our projects) we've embraced the concept of graceful degradation: we take advantage of new CSS techniques that degrade cleanly to…

• Easily Turn Your Images Into Polaroids with CSS3

  14 Oct 2009 | 10:48 am

  Yesterday, Jon and I were going back and forth about what to blog about next. Love of CSS and doing something cool with it is kind of our thing and we quickly jumped on a brand new idea: polaroid style images with just CSS. Holy super awesome, Batman! With our end goal in mind (polaroid style images), we needed to set a few ground rules: Has to work on a grid of linked images Images must be randomly rotated like a pile of images you're sifting through No actual text should be used on the images (only title and alt attributes) Has to be done with just CSS (no javascript) After establishing…

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  User Interface Trends

• Interactive Storytelling iPhone Concept

  Russell Wilson

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:04 pm

  http://www.everydayux.com/2009/11/09/a-peek-at-the-future-of-interactive-storytelling/

• An ode to my Nokia phone

  Kate Vander Ploeg

  18 Nov 2009 | 12:39 pm

  Trend: The Touch Screen The tipping point was when I had my trusty black Nokia 6300 sitting on the desk at a meeting and Jeff laughed hysterically when he saw that there wasn’t even a cover to the back but instead a piece of tape barely holding the battery in. I was way behind the curve in terms of phone technology to the point of embarrassment, so I finally sprung for a savvy sleek iPhone. My ‘06 Nokia (yep it was vintage) had very little going for it. No internet (I guess it technically could have, but why would anyone subject themselves to it), no text threads (so you sometimes…

• Microsoft Develops Bag-Based Computer Interface, For Poking

  Russell Wilson

  18 Nov 2009 | 8:31 am

  “Bag-based? Sack-based? Balloon-based? Balloon-boy-based? There’s no shortage of ways to describe Microsoft Research’s new tactile interface concept, which lets people interact with prods, pokes, massages and squeezes instead of clicks or taps…” http://gizmodo.com/5407454/microsoft-develops-bag+based-computer-interface-for-poking

• Don’t play Tetris with your web layouts!

  Russell Wilson

  16 Nov 2009 | 2:25 pm

  Trend: Geometric Layout vs. Logical Layout All too often I find myself in a room discussing a design layout for a web application or web site when someone suggests moving elements around to “save space”. Unfortunately, because they are focused on screen real estate alone, they forsake usability for geometric efficiency. They attempt to fit elements geometrically, like a game of Tetris, with total disregard for the logical order and relationships of the objects. All that seems to matter is that things are packed as tightly as possible, tossing whitespace, visual hierarchy, and…

• UItrends Web Design Tip #1

  Jeff Noble

  12 Nov 2009 | 7:09 am

  Hello and welcome to the first ever UItrends tip! If you are a web designer and upon viewing the source code (Firefox shortcut: Ctrl + U or Internet Explorer longcut: Alt + V + C) of a recent project of yours, you happen to see anything that resembles any of the following tags: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN”> <table> (For layout) <td> <tr> <IFRAME> <frame> <frameset> <hr> <br> <font face=”Arial” size=”1″> <bold> <strong> OK, this has been removed. Thanks…

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  Accessites.org

• Law Office of Lainey Feingold

  Blair Millen

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:45 am

  <a href="http://lflegal.com/" title="Law Office of Lainey Feingold site"><img class="right border" src="http://accessites.org/site/site-img/lflegal.png" alt="Visit Law Office of Lainey Feingold site" height="120" width="200" /></a> <a href="http://lflegal.com/">Law Office of Lainey Feingold</a>, the business site of disability rights lawyer Lainey Feingold, was designed by Mike Cherim specifically to conform to the level of AAA under the <a class="gloss"…

• Online Video Captioning

  Jen Rohrig

  7 Sep 2009 | 3:53 am

  <img class="right" src="http://accessites.org/site/post-img/onlinevideocaptioning.jpg" width="250" height="200" alt="" /> Guest author, <a href="http://jenrweb.com/">Jen Rohrig</a>, looks at online video captioning on US TV networks. Although I am hard of hearing myself, there was a time when I didn't consider captions for online videos to be of great importance, since I rarely watched videos online. More recently, I've been watching some new online shows and would have been disappointed if captions hadn't been…

• Le Web Accessible

  Joe Dolson

  26 Aug 2009 | 7:44 am

  <a href="http://www.lewebaccessible.com/" title="Visit Le Web Accessible site"><img class="right border" src="http://accessites.org/site/site-img/lewebaccessible.png" width="200" height="120" alt="Visit Le Web Accessible site" /></a> <a href="http://www.lewebaccessible.com/" lang="fr">Le Web Accessible</a>, the web site of web accessibility consultant Jean-Fran&#231;ois Naud, offers numerous touches which demonstrate a solid accessible web site. The site exhibits…

• Don’t Just Tick Boxes

  Mel Pedley

  6 Jul 2009 | 9:10 am

  <img class="right" src="http://accessites.org/site/post-img/checkboxes.jpg" width="250" height="200" alt="" /> Meeting the diverse needs of your site's visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints. You cannot just rely on an automated accessibility parser. As <a href="http://www.gawds.org/show.php?contentid=147">Grant Broome explained</a>, whilst automated testing is useful, it cannot replace a manual review or direct user testing. At Accessites, every site that…

• Refreshable Braille

  Roger Hudson

  9 Jun 2009 | 2:30 am

  <img class="right" src="http://accessites.org/site/post-img/braille-display.jpg" width="250" height="200" alt="" /> When guest author Roger Hudson presents accessibility seminars or workshops, he usually asks those attending to indicate if they have seen a screen reader being used. Several years ago, it was not uncommon for only about 10 percent of the audience to indicate that they had. Recently, often more than three quarters of the people attending say they have seen a screen reader in use. However, nearly all assume a screen reader…

• Photostream from Daylife
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  Architectures of Control | Design with Intent

• Persuasion for peace

  Dan

  7 Nov 2009 | 3:33 pm

  Influencing individual people’s behaviour often seems to be about mundane or trivial things, such as choosing one type of magazine subscription over another, or using less shower gel in a hotel bathroom. But if we’re honest, it’s only in aggregate that behaviour change is going to have any real effect on the world outside the specifics of individual interactions. I think most people involved with design for behaviour change appreciate that it’s going to be mass behaviour change that makes the difference to humanity’s health, environment, happiness and…

• Design for Conversion

  Dan

  7 Nov 2009 | 6:46 am

  Design for Conversion: The Mobile Edition – taking place on 11th of December in Amsterdam – looks like a great conference. Organised by Arjan Haring, it’s described as “a mashup of persuasive design, principles of persuasion and evidence based marketing” and brings together user experience design, analytics and online marketing, with a ‘persuasion’ focus. For this edition, it centres on using mobile technology, including speakers from Nokia, Symbian and Sagem and a multidisciplinary team-based challenge based on a real persuasive design problem…

• Thoughts on the ‘fun theory’

  Dan

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

  The ‘Piano Staircase’ from Volkswagen’s thefuntheory.com The Fun Theory (Rolighetsteorin), a competition / campaign / initiative from Volkswagen Sweden – created by DDB Stockholm – has been getting a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks from both design-related people and other commentators with an interest in influencing behaviour: it presents a series of clever ‘design interventions’ aimed at influencing behaviour through making things “fun to do” – taking the stairs instead of the escalator, recycling glass via a bottle…

• What’s been going on recently

  Dan

  13 Oct 2009 | 5:00 am

  RSA Design Directions 2009/10 The RSA’s 2009/10 Design Directions competition has been launched, which means up and down the country there are design students and new graduates working on one of the pretty wide selection of briefs. Given the RSA’s aim of ‘removing barriers to social progress’ – with a significant commitment to using design to do this – the briefs are themed around design for social benefit, addressing issues ranging from helping an ageing workforce to helping new architecture graduates apply their skills in other contexts. A couple of the…

• Some interesting projects (Part 2)

  Dan

  10 Oct 2009 | 6:57 am

  Following on from Part 1, here are a couple more very interesting student projects linking design and behaviour. This time, both involve providing feedback on the impact or costs of everyday behaviours in order to get people to think. Tim Holley’s Tio project, developed in response to a brief by Onzo, and described as ‘A Light Switch to Help Children Save Energy’ – deservedly won the HSBC Sustainability Prize at the Made in Brunel show: “Children play a key role in reducing energy consumption due to the fact that they will be among the key decision-makers in the…

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  Good Experience

• Gel Challenge 2009 finalists

  Mark Hurst

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:27 pm

  I'm happy to announce the finalist entries in the first Gel Challenge, which issued a call for entries around the theme of "listening." (See the guidelines.) I'm impressed with the range of ideas expressed in our four finalists - and I hope that, after exploring the entries, you'll leave a comment stating which entry you think should win the Challenge! Dear Driver, by Erik Fabian and Josh Weinstein Summary: a project to improve the understanding between cyclists and motorists. More Info Gel Voice, by Jacqueline Corbelli and Jim Anderson Summary: proposal to help children shape their future…

• The reality of a Times bestseller: After expenses and everyone...

  Mark Hurst

  18 Nov 2009 | 10:36 am

  The reality of a Times bestseller: After expenses and everyone else was paid, I netted about $26K of my $50K advance for this book, which is believe it or not very good -- most authors are lucky if they can make 10% profit on any book. This should also shut up everyone who says all bestselling authors make millions -- most of us don't. See also: Secrets of book publishing I wish I had known

• New Gel Video: Bridget Duffy

  Mark Hurst

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:47 pm

  After breaking her leg, Bridget Duffy got a close look at the patient experience - by being a patient herself. At the first Gel Health conference, Bridget discusses what she learned - and what has inspired her, throughout her career, to advocate for improved patient experience. See also: Video of Bridget Duffy at Gel 2008

• The patient experience and Matt Haughey

  Mark Hurst

  16 Nov 2009 | 11:48 am

  Matt Haughey's description of his "adventure in brain tumors" is worth reading. Matt is well-known as the founder of MetaFilter, one of the most successful and vibrant online communities ever created, and well-loved as an all-around good and positive person (which comes through in the experience of using MetaFilter). Matt's story about his hospital visit is instructive on two levels. First, his experience mirrors what is said all too often about the hospital patient experience: medical staff, even if capable and effective, don't create an efficient or especially comfortable environment.

• Customer experience weekend reading

  Mark Hurst

  13 Nov 2009 | 12:44 pm

  Some worthwhile reading on Friday afternoon: • Which is more useful? Google's links or the actual home page? asks Jason Fried. I hope he means it as a rhetorical question - of course Google's links are more useful... most corporate homepages have horrendous design. The issue is that Web designers have a huge screensize to fill up, and lots of bandwidth available, and a brand to communicate. Who can make a career as a designer with a few underlined text links? • Meanwhile, David Pogue exposes a billing scam at Verizon, which penalizes customers $2 for pressing the wrong button on…

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  information aesthetics

• Google Image Swirl: Visually Clustering Similar Images Together

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:37 am

  Google Image Swirl [googlelabs.com] is an experimental feature in Google Labs which is based on new computer vision research to cluster similar images into representative groups in a visual, exploratory interface. For example, for an "apple" query, images of the fruit appears next to many products or logos of Macintosh. Users can then click on any thumbnail and a cluster of images will "swirl" into view. Other examples include keywords like car or Eiffel tower. Via The Official Google Blog and Thnkx Andrew! See also Google Wonder Wheel, Google Similar Images, Google Fusion, Google Timeline…

• Marshall IDX: Comparing the Popularity of Words in the Media

  19 Nov 2009 | 3:12 am

  The web portal Marshall IDX [marshallindex.com] tracks the historical popularity of words used by several thousand media sources, from months to just down to seconds ago. It aims to go beyond counting search queries to bring more transparency and understanding of the impact of news, advertisement, trends, and terms to its users. The so-called "Marshall Index" is expressed by a number: 1 point represents 1 million individuals that got in touch with a particular term in a 24 hours time window. For example, if one searches for the word 'Olympics', the service will calculate an index based on how…

• Request for Help: Acquisition Security Related Policies & Issuances Chart

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm

  The graph Acquisition Security Related Policies & Issuances Chart (acq.osd.mil, PDF version) by the Office of the Director, Defence Research and Engineering is meant to increase the awareness of existing policies, in order to improve compliance, and to get policymakers to reflect about writing "one more policy" now that they are able to observe the huge existing "heap" they actually contribute to. The chart's designers are interested in your constructive feedback to make it better (and maybe help your country at the same time?). The chart organizes acquisition security policies and guidance…

• Tokyo versus Cairo: Comparing Obama's Foreign Policy Speeches

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:51 am

  Tokio | Cairo [blprnt.com] is a novel visual text comparison tool, which enables the discovery the similarities and differences between Obama's famous open address to the Muslim world, given in July at the University of Cairo, and his recent speech delivered at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Several keywords were shared, such as 'America', 'world', 'common', 'human', 'responsibility'. At the far extremes, the speech in Cairo was about 'Islam', about 'Palestinians', about 'peace', 'faith', and 'communities'. The Tokyo address was about 'China', 'North Korea', 'security', 'agreement' and 'growth'.

• Visualizar'09: Second Day of Seminars

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:12 pm

  Friday, November 14, was the 2nd day of seminar at Visualizar'09. See our previous post about its Kick-Off. Xavier Alonso presented data404, a collection of sources of public information. In the following talk, Jan-Christoph Zoels discussed on how data visualization can influence public behavior towards more sustainable attitudes. Jan presented several visualizations developed by Experientia within the context of the c_life project, which was the winner of the low2no design competition. He explained the importance of visualization in the process and in the final interface design of the…

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  UXmatters

• First, Do No Harm

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  15 Nov 2009 | 11:51 pm

  By Pabini Gabriel-Petit Published: November 16, 2009 In my column, On Good Behavior, I’ll explore the essentials of good interaction design. This first column provides a brief introduction to interaction design—defining the scope this column will cover—then explores some key design principles. What is interaction design? Here’s the definition I wrote for the UXmatters Glossary: “Good interaction design facilitates people’s tasks and ensures that digital products are both learnable and usable by reducing complexity as much as possible….” “Interaction design defines workflows…

• Your Participation in the 2009 UXmatters Reader Survey

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  15 Nov 2009 | 11:50 pm

  By Pabini Gabriel-Petit, Publisher & Editor in Chief Published: November 16, 2009 To take the survey, please click this link now: 2009 UXmatters Reader Survey To all UXmatters readers who have already participated in our fourth annual UXmatters Reader Survey, thank you! We really appreciate your sharing your thoughts with us. So far, 79 people have participated in the survey. We’d really like to hear from more of you, so our editorial staff can better understand and serve your needs. Please take this opportunity to participate in the 2009 UXmatters Reader Survey while you still have…

• I Have an Idea! Forums for Design Conversations and Negotiations

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  15 Nov 2009 | 11:49 pm

  By Traci Lepore Published: November 16, 2009 “Working together in a group to produce a creative outcome is difficult—don’t let anyone tell you it’s not.” Working together in a group to produce a creative outcome is difficult—don’t let anyone tell you it’s not. Let me share a memory with you—from my Performance Theatre and Community class. There I was with one other person, trying to get our group improvisational piece started—a performance that would serve as our final for the class. It was not going well. We were standing there, looking at each other a little…

• Visual Methods of Communicating Structure, Relationship, and Flow

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  15 Nov 2009 | 11:49 pm

  By Mike Hughes Published: November 16, 2009 “Many of us are more comfortable communicating in words than in pictures.” Many of us are more comfortable communicating in words than in pictures. For example, user assistance writers are by nature and training writers, so they understand words and are adept at using word processing and publishing tools. Writers use lexicentric tools not only for creating and delivering content, but also as cognitive tools—that is, tools that help them think more clearly and efficiently. Thus, a user assistance writer might create a user-task matrix or take…

• Usability Testing on a Budget

  pabini@uxmatters.com

  15 Nov 2009 | 11:49 pm

  By Janet M. Six Published: November 16, 2009 Send your questions to Ask UXmatters and get answers from some of the top professionals in UX. In this Ask UXmatters column—which is the second in a three-part series of columns focusing on usability—our experts discuss how to conduct usability testing with limited funding. To read Part I of this series, see “Usability Testing Versus Expert Reviews.” Next month’s column will cover what usability techniques you should use when time is tight and how to best conduct remote usability testing. For answers to your questions about user…

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  A List Apart

• On Web Typography

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  Until now, chances are that if we dropped text onto a web page in a system font at a reasonable size, it was legible. But with many typefaces about to be freed for use on websites, choosing the right ones to complement a site's design will be far more challenging. Many faces to which we’ll soon have access were never meant for screen use, either because they’re aesthetically unsuitable or because they’re just plain illegible. Jason Santa Maria, a force behind improved type on the web, presents qualities and methods to keep in mind as we venture into the widening world of web type.

• Real Web Type in Real Web Context

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  Web fonts are here. Now that browsers support real fonts in web pages and we can license complete typefaces for such use, it's time to think pragmatically about how to use real fonts in our web projects. Above all, we need to know how our type renders in screens, in web browsers. To that end, Tim Brown has created Web Font Specimen, a handy, free resource web designers and type designers can use to see how typefaces will look on the web.

• Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  It's hard for clients to understand the true value of user experience research. As much as you'd like to tell your clients to go read The Elements of User Experience and call you back when they’re done, that won’t cut it in a professional services environment. David Sherwin creates a cheat sheet to help you pitch UX research using plain, client-friendly language that focuses on the business value of each exercise.

• You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:00 am

  "Content-rich" is not enough. Most websites are not learner-friendly. As an industry, we haven’t done our best to make our content-rich websites suitable for learning and exploration. Learners require more from us than keywords and killer headlines. They need an environment that is narrative, interactive, and discoverable. Amber Simmons tells how to begin creating rich content sites that invite and repay exploration and discovery.

• Getting to No

  20 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am

  A bad client relationship is like a bad marriage without the benefits. To avoid such relationships, or to fix the one you’re in, learn the five classic signs of trouble. Recognizing the never-ending contract revisionist, the giant project team, the vanishing boss and other warning signs can help you run successful, angst-free projects.

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  Functioning Form: Interface Design

• Trackbacks vs. Retweets

  LukeW

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Over the past year or so, I've noticed an interesting trend here on Functioning Form that I believe is happening on many other blog and content sites across the Web. Trackbacks are steadily being overtaken by retweets. Let me explain what that means. If I publish an article on my blog that people find interesting, some portion of them may want to share it with others publicly or privately. Sharing privately is usually done through email or instant messaging. Public sharing can be done explicitly through social networks (Facbeook) and social news sites (Digg) or a bit more implicitly by saving…

• Android User Experience: When Open & Closed Collide

  LukeW

  17 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  As Google's Android operating system appears on more devices, more companies are extending the platform to develop custom user interfaces for their products. Though Google freely distributes Android and allows anyone to adapt its open-source components, they maintain control of the services (applications) they distribute with Android like Maps, GMail, Google Voice, and more. "This can lead to mainstream (and confusing) issues [...] Android OS supports multitouch, but Google's Android apps don't. So when a company comes along and decides to properly add multitiouch to the OS, they can only add…

• Audio & Articles: The Impact of Social Models

  LukeW

  16 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  In my The Impact of Social Models talk at IDEA09 in Toronto, I presented an overview of the different ways social relationships are modeled in online software and examined if these distinct approaches resulted in different online behavior. Recently, Boxes and Arrows released audio recordings from the conference and I wrote a few articles on the themes I covered in my talk. Here's a compilation of both in one place.Audio Recording Download Audio (61.2 MB mp3) Presentation Slides The Impact of Social Models (8.6 MB PDF) Articles on the TalkSocial Models in Online Software Part 1: the kinds of…

• Data Monday: Video Game Console Market

  LukeW

  15 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  When we teach our Influencing Strategy by Design course, Tom Chi and I ask our students to visualize the video game console market using data from 2007 and early 2008. At that time:In 2008 the video game industry had sales of $21.33 billion. Hardware was $7.81 billion and software was $10.96 billion. (source)This was up 19% over 2007 (which saw a 43% increase over 2006). (source)In 2007 & 2008, the Nintendo Wii sold a cumulative total of 16.4 million consoles. Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold 9.3 million consoles. Sony's Playstation 3 sold 6.1 million consoles. (source)In June of 2007, the Nintendo…

• Web Form Design in PayPal Interface Guide

  LukeW

  12 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  PayPal's open payments platform was recently made available to third-party developers. As part of the developer information and tools, PayPal released an Interface Design Guide that includes UI recommendations for services being launched on PayPal X and design principles to help developers create a good user interface. Several principles from Web Form Design are included in the guide: PayPal X Interface Guide (3.7 MB)Tags: forms, guidelines, Web companies, interface, usability

• 
  uselog.com | the product usability weblog

• Live webcast of Design for Usability Symposium

  Jasper (uselog.com)

  10 Nov 2009 | 4:42 am

  The Design for Usability Symposium of November 12 will be viewable via a live webcast. It will remain online afterwards as well. The symposium starts at 9:30 am CET (GMT+1).Your chance to see inspiring presentations by Gerrit van der Veer (President of ACM SIGCHI), Cees van Dok (frog design Europe), Abbie Vanhoutte and Robert Eijlander (Océ) and yours truly.The symposium is fully booked, though you can still sign up and try your luck on the standby list or watch the webcast in an adjoining room if everyone does show up.

• Comparing iPhone and Android application management

  Jasper (uselog.com)

  3 Nov 2009 | 11:52 am

  An intriguing comparison of the iPhone and Android UI paradigm for application access and management, by Luke Wroblewski. In the end, the within-product consistency that the iPhone offers seems to nudge him to a judgement somewhat in favor of the iPhone.I can’t help but wonder if the singular model Apple employs makes managing a set of mobile applications easier. Every app is accessed the same way and only open apps are running. Sure this is limiting in some ways (customization options, background processes) but empowering in others (clarity, control) at the same time.

• PC owner, but actually an Apple fanboy

  Jasper (uselog.com)

  30 Oct 2009 | 12:27 am

  Saw the guy in the picture above on the train during my commute. He covered the original logo on what appears to be a Dell XPS laptop with an Apple sticker. Imagine being the product manager for that Dell laptop and then running into this guy. No fun. If people put stickers of your brand's logo over that of others to create the (very poor) illusion that they have a different product than they actually have, you are doing a good job. Apple: congratulations. If people put stickers of another brand's logo over yours, you should worry. They've got no love for you. Dell: maybe you should look into…

• Why tablet PCs have failed and will fail

  Jasper (uselog.com)

  25 Oct 2009 | 2:56 am

  In this article in Design Issues design historian Paul Atkinson presents an insightful, amusing and at times depressing analysis of the rise and fall of the tablet computer, from the early pen computing of the RAND tablet, via the Momenta Pentop, to the inevitable Apple Newton Messagepad.Technological or social challenge?An interesting aspect of the article is that Atkinson analyses the issue from both the social constructivist and the technology determinism perspective. Social constructivists suggest that a complex range of factors are involved in the success of products, and that social…

• Nov.12: Design for Usability Symposium

  Jasper (uselog.com)

  12 Oct 2009 | 8:54 am

  On November 12, World Usability Day, the Design for Usability symposium on usability for professional and consumer electronics will take place in Delft. The event targets usability and design professionals as well as academics. The morning program features state of the art lectures on usability and design:Gerrit van der Veer (president of CHI): Designing for a moving target - from functionality to usability to experienceCees van Dok (creative director frog design Europe): The challenges in interaction design for consumer and professional electronicsAbbie Vanhoutte and Robert Eijlander…

• 
  Monday By Noon

• Inspiration is Something to Have and to Hold

  Jonathan Christopher

  16 Nov 2009 | 5:55 am

  One of the things I enjoy most about being a Web designer is my peers. I’ve thought about it quite a bit, and I’m hard pressed to find another industry in which you find such consistent inspiration. I don’t mean inspiration in the form of design galleries or blog posts, I mean inspiration from within the people I talk to every day. I sincerely doubt that you’ve come across a fellow [Web] designer who talks about his job as though it only pays the bills. I find that extremely endearing about our industry. We’re all here by choice, and apart from unavoidable…

• WordPress ‘Attachments’ Plugin Debut

  Jonathan Christopher

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:35 am

  Some time ago, I began meddling around with WordPress plugins. I had a specific need that WordPress wasn’t quite up to handling out of the box, and any existing plugins were far too over the top for my taste. I’m probably a bit different than most WordPress users in that I like to get my hands dirty with plugins. I’m not a fan of shortcodes doing all the work; I’d much rather integrate the plugin data directly with my theme using good old PHP. That said, I had an issue where I need to append any number of images to a Post. Sure, WordPress has its image gallery feature…

• WordPress Hidden Gem: get_extended()

  Jonathan Christopher

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:01 am

  I’ve been a WordPress fan for quite a long time now, and one of my favorite parts about that particular piece of software is that I still learn new things about it on a fairly consistent basis. When you build extremely custom websites for clients, there are often out of the ordinary requirements that must be met to ensure the needs of the project are catered to. By far, the biggest hurdle for me is to make sure that WordPress is set up in such a way that it’s as easy as possible for clients to edit their content. That’s the whole point after all, right? Publicly facing,…

• The Trouble with Lightbox (and its Variants)

  Jonathan Christopher

  12 Oct 2009 | 6:53 am

  Lokesh Dhakar changed things with the original Lightbox JS. He designed and produced an interactive functionality that made nearly every Web designer slap his own forehead in amazement that it hadn’t been thought of before. Those are the best ideas, aren’t they? More often than not, it’s because those ideas solve a problem so simple and common place, we hardly see it as a “problem” any more. In the case of lightboxing, it came down to displaying images either by using target="_BLANK" or simply dealing with a full page refresh. For what? Clearly both the latency…

• SuggestRSS is Back and Way Better than Ever!

  Jonathan Christopher

  6 Oct 2009 | 5:13 am

  I’m really thrilled to be able to announce the soft launch of SuggestRSS v1.0! If you happened to check out the site in its first incarnation, you may have thought it was neat, but you also must have thought id had a ways to go; it did. Due to scalability issues, I was forced to take the site offline nearly eight months ago. I wish I could say that I’ve been working on it consistently since then, but that’s not the case. Instead, I took the experience for what it was worth in an educational sense, and let it sit for a short while. The project was always on my mind, but the…

• 
  UserGlue UserBlog

• IDEA09 Debts of Gratitude

  Russ

  25 Oct 2009 | 11:54 am

  I’m woefully behind on this, but it’s no less important that the people who propped-up the IDEA Conference experience get recognized. Certainly, as chair of the 2009 IDEA Conference, there’s a bit of a light shone directly on me, but the reality is that there’s no way on earth that any conference could–or should, at least–be pulled off by a single person. Without much more preamble, these fine folks let me lead and chose to follow–often challenging and questioning steps along the way, but always supporting the event and the community it is intended…

• Solving the “Repeat Email Address” Form Issue. Maybe.

  Russ

  9 Sep 2009 | 9:37 pm

  One of the mailing lists that I’m on had a question posed today about using “Repeat Email Address” in form validation. I actually cringed as I typed that just now–that particular part of form validation is pretty annoying (to me, at least). I find it amusing that shift-tab, copy, tab, paste as a method for handling doesn’t cross anyone’s mind when creating these types of “validations” in forms. There were a number of responses to the thread, but Steve Krug (yeah, that Steve Krug) put out the notion that he suspects most of the email address…

• A Letter to my Lover Netflix

  Russ

  5 Sep 2009 | 5:35 am

  Dear Netflix, I like you–a lot. The service you provide is pretty simple in concept, and it’s great–to a degree. I no longer walk through the video store and get distracted by all the extra stuff that’s be offered up, especially now that I have kids. That’s pretty great. Maybe. I miss taking a look at the video library in the store and the New Release Wall that generally surrounds the store.  I miss seeing the goofy employee picks and the random surprise flick I would have never found otherwise. I don’t miss the realization on a Friday night that the new…

• Where’s Russ? – Fall 2009

  Russ

  23 Aug 2009 | 10:24 pm

  Things… have been busy. Busy is good! Busy is often exciting, too! That said, I’ve got a few places I’ll be this fall, and if you happen to be in these areas, it’d be great to see you. Agile 2009 – Chicago, IL – August 24 – 28, Hyatt Regency Todd Zaki Warfel and I will be presenting on “Guerilla Research Methods” on the User Experience Stage at the Agile 2009 Conference. More to come on this topic as discussions continue… This hands-on session will cover a number of low cost, yet powerful research methods, like the “burrito…

• IDEA 2009 – Social and Experience Design in Toronto, September 15-16

  Russ

  11 Aug 2009 | 4:23 pm

  As Director of Events and Marketing for the Information Architecture Institute, I’ve been more than a little busy diligently working with a fantastic team of people to put together this year’s IDEA Conference, which will be held at the MaRS Centre in Toronto. Everyone–and I do mean everyone–on this team of exceptional individuals–has been burning the midnight oil to bring you an outstanding program at a gorgeous facility.  Oh, and at a price that is reasonable given our economic climate.  I am more than a little proud of this conference, and I really hope…

• 
  Church of the Customer Blog

• New company, new history

  Ben McConnell

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:14 am

  When Jackie Huba and I decided eight years ago to start a company, we envisioned it as a consulting firm that would help clients create customer evangelists. It was March 2001. We'd both just left the web development company we had worked at for three years. Online advertising was king then, but we wanted to explore why some brands experienced strong word of mouth while others didn't. We wanted to understand what fueled the evangelism, how it happened, and how could we help others do the same. We started with a website and an email newsletter in an era that could only be described as Before…

• Advertising without advertising

  Ben McConnell

  12 Nov 2009 | 12:16 pm

  Sometimes a movie quote is the best way to capture what you're all about.

• Kicking out unwanted customers

  Jackie Huba

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am

  "Don't talk during the movie or we will take your ass out." If you've been to an Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater chain in Austin, Texas, then you've seen that semi-serious warning couched in a fun "public service announcement" before a movie showing. Theater founder Tim League knows that talkers mar the movie-watching experience for everyone else, and he does not tolerate them -- even if they punch the windshield of his car.See, Tim was a customer recently at one of his theaters. A nearby loud-talker was asked by a theater waiter to keep it down. The customer protested, loudly, demanding…

• Twitter: the killer app for customer service

  Jackie Huba

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:31 am

  "Hello, this is Sam Kaufman from the AT&T Internet Executive Office, and I am calling about your tweets."That's what I heard yesterday after posting a few tweets about my less-than-stellar customer service experience with an AT&T DSL technical support rep. The rep was trying to diagnose my DSL problems and after telling me to stay on the line for 10 minutes, he never returned after 30 minutes. I hung up. He never called back.With a few hours of my AT&T tweet, @ATTJohnathon, a customer care rep on Twitter contacted me, asking if he could help. I DM'ed him my account number as he…

• Fees are penalties. Always.

  Jackie Huba

  19 Oct 2009 | 1:24 pm

  It's a wonder why some businesses can't grasp this. Consider the U.S. airlines last month: Southwest reported an 8.8% increase in revenue passenger miles. Its load factor, the percentage of seats that were filled, increased 11% from a year ago, to 74.7% — a big increase for a month in which schools reopen and summer vacation travels stop. JetBlue saw a 9.8% jump in passenger miles. Its load factor rose about 1% from the prior year, to 77.6%. Compare those numbers to other airlines. Delta: Down 5% on its mainline operation. It also cut capacity by 5%. American: Down 2.6% domestically. It cut…

• 
  InfoDesign: Understanding by Design

• Real or Imaginary: The effectiveness of using personas in product design

  PJB

  20 Nov 2009 | 5:22 am

  "The use of personas as a method for communicating user requirements in collaborative design environments is well established. However, very little research has been conducted to quantify the benefits of using this technique. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using personas." (frontend.com)

• Social and Experience Design: Inspired Ideas, Practical Outcomes (IDEA 2009 Day 2)

  PJB

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:43 am

  "IDEA2009 had the world's foremost thinkers and practitioners converge on Toronto's MaRS Convention Center to share the big ideas that inspire, along with practical solutions for the ways people's lives and systems are converging to affect society. Listen and learn from experts in a variety of fields as we all continue the exploration of Social Experience Design." (Jeff Parks - Boxes and Arrows)

• Four Key Principles of Mobile User Experience Design

  PJB

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:41 am

  "I do not presume these following principles to be all-inclusive or ultimately authoritative; rather, it is my hope that they are received as an anecdotal summation of my findings that might then spark and contribute to the larger conversation and consensus-building process." (Dakota Reese Brown - Boxes and Arrows)

• Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media

  PJB

  18 Nov 2009 | 6:39 am

  "As of late, we've been talking a lot about content streams, streams of information. This metaphor is powerful. The idea is that you're living inside the stream: adding to it, consuming it, redirecting it. The stream metaphor is about reaching flow. It's also about restructuring the ways in which information flows in modern society. (...) If we're not careful, we're going to develop the psychological equivalent of obesity." (Danah Boyd)

• UX Design Tools & Techniques

  PJB

  18 Nov 2009 | 5:28 am

  "UX design defines how software looks and behaves. We're deeply interested in the interaction models that affect how software is perceived, learned and used. Our goal is to make compelling software that's usable, useful and desirable. We are not the only discipline at Microsoft that has an active hand in experience design. In fact, we are a partner." (Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering)

• 
  Information Architects

• Dynamic Pricing for Digital Goods

  We decided to sell the WordPress template of our own site. The problem we had to solve was not "why?" than "how much"? After a long back and forth we decided to try something new: Dynamic pricing. Here is how it works: Start selling at the lowest price you’d go ...

• Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics

  What makes Japanese design so special? Basically, it's a matter of simplicity; a particular notion of simplicity, different from what simplicity means in the West. So are things in general better designed in Japan? Well, actually, it's not that simple... The New York Times asked us to get them in ...

• Internazionale: Look and Feel

  Here are a few design explorations on the possible look and feel for Internazionale. They are based on the beautiful work that Mark Porter, creative director of the Guardian editorial did for the print edition. We'd like to post them without comment as we're curious to hear what you think. ...

• Google, Yahoo, Bing: Beyond the Hype

  The story is quite clear: Yahoo is going down. Google is going up, Bing is insignificant. It's becoming quite clear who the real winner of the Yahoo!-Microsoft deal is. Compared to their competitors, Bing doesn't do that well on usability either. As for Yahoo!--the latest UI changes on Yahoo! (and the ...

• Tell me again: Who Relaunched Krone.at?

  I got an email the other day from a young entrepreneur that asked whether we send out press releases. The answer is twisted: So far I have refrained from sending out press releases. But that might change... Press Releases: Contra Press releases are not authentic. They're written in an obsolete sleazy PR ...

• 
  Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report

• A Design Apart Q&A

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:11 pm

  “Content informs design; design without content is decoration. Content has the same relationship to design that product has to advertising. Good ads are based on the product; good designs come from and facilitate the content. This is one reason we bring content strategy to every design assignment, and one reason we insist on working with real content, not lorem ipsum (placeholder) content. Nothing is sadder than a beautiful design that works great with lorem ipsum but doesn’t actually support the real content.” A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman | Sparksheet

• As we were

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:11 pm

  Title images from the early years of A List Apart “for people who make websites” are now available for your viewing pleasure. Were we really ever that young? NAME THAT FONT! Here’s a nice rainy-day activity for ya. Visit the ALA historical header images collection on Flickr and name the fonts used in individual images. Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=3035

• FontShop Fonts on the Web

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  18 Nov 2009 | 1:08 pm

  FontShop announces that they are ready to deliver their font library as web type: [S]tarting today, Typekit users can pick from dozens of FontFonts, including FF Meta, FF Dax, and FF Netto. Plus, the Typekit service lets you test any of those FontFonts on your page before you publish. And tomorrow? Typekit is just one piece of a holistic strategy for FontFonts on the web. The library should be licensable in a more traditional way too. That’s where WOFF fits in. … Soon anyone will be able to license and download for their website the same professional quality FontFont they use in desktop…

• More Web Fonts

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  18 Nov 2009 | 4:46 am

  Ellen Lupton and Jeffrey Zeldman talk about web fonts, part 2. That is all. This has been a belated part of Web Type Day.

• Web Type: Lupton on Zeldman

  Jeffrey Zeldman

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:01 am

  Today in Print, Ellen Lupton interviews Jeffrey Zeldman (that’s me) on web typography, web standards, and more. Part one of a two-part interview. Ellen Lupton is curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. She is the author of numerous books and articles on design, a frequent lecturer, and an AIGA Gold Medalist. This has been a nutritious part of Web Type Day. Short URL: zeldman.com/?p=2932

• 
  Bloug

• Updates on new books and workshops

  louisr

  16 Nov 2009 | 12:20 pm

  So much going on right now—good stuff, really—but not much time to tend to Bloug. So just a few notes for now: Rosenfeld Media just published its fifth book: Todd Zaki Warfel's Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide. I'm thrilled with Todd's work; this is a hugely practical take on a hugely practical topic, and Todd will show you how to prototype from low-tech approaches (e.g., paper) to high-tech (e.g., Axure). And it's on sale now! Our sixth title is just around the corner, and it could be a real game-changer for the user research community. I've read the draft of Nate Bolt and…

• Early regi deadlines for my fall workshops

  louisr

  30 Sep 2009 | 6:40 am

  Howdy; just a reminder that the early registration deadline for the Seattle edition of my workshop on site search analytics is this Friday, October 2. The workshop takes place on Thursday October 29; Steve Krug's new workshop on do-it-yourself usability testing follows on the very next day. Steve and I will also tag team in Washington, DC, November 9-10; the early registration deadline is October 9. If you'd like to get a taste of what I'll cover, check out my slides on SlideShare or read my contribution to the recent special issue of A List Apart, which was devoted to site search analytics.

• Disaster Planning for the IA Community

  louisr

  13 Sep 2009 | 8:34 am

  It's been a year since the financial meltdown. And it's got me wondering: how hard have information architects been hit? I have plenty of anecdotal information, but really, I don't feel confident in saying that this has or hasn't been a disaster for the IA community. But it's clearly been a disaster for the many, many individual information architects and fellow travelers that have lost their sources of income. Which gets me thinking: how might we work as a community to blunt, if not avert, professional disasters large and small? Some ill-formed ideas follow; while you have a look, consider…

• The curation candidates

  louisr

  8 Sep 2009 | 6:01 am

  They're all wonderful candidates, and naturally it's hard to chose. So I voted for the candidates that are not going to try to change the way that information architects think, or are thought of by the outside world. That's not something a small board can do. Ever. Instead, I voted for the people who seem most likely to build and maintain the community's infrastructure to enable more bottom-up work to succeed. I want the Information Architecture Institute to help information architects and fellow travelers to engage with each other, and provide them with supporting tools and resources so they…

• This one goes to eleven

  louisr

  28 Aug 2009 | 6:22 am

  That's right. Eleventh IA Summit. Phoenix, April 7-11. Here's the call for participation.

• 
  mcu.org.uk

• 60 Hot To Touch Accessible Web Design Tips by Jim Byrne - published in paperback today

  New book by Jim Byrne launched: 60 hot to touch Accessible Web Design tips - the tips no web developer can live without!. Now available in paperback. It takes a different approach to the standard big and heavy web technique tomes currently available - this one offers light bytes for easy digestion. It contains 60 easy to understand, practical tips you can put to good use when developing your next website.

• New Website launched: Accessible Web Design Services Glasgow

  Former Making Connections Unit Director and Web accessibility specialist Jim Byrne has launched his new business website with the aim of helping organisations: Comply with Disability Discrimination legislation. Reach the largest potential audience - via an accessible, usable website. Access tailored training and support to maintain websites in the most efficient and accessible way.

• Seminar: The Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and UK websites

  A two hour seminar: Date: 25th May 9.45am - 12am. Book early to avoid disappointment. Venue: The Volunteer Centre, 84 Miller Street, Glasgow G1 1DT Cost: 39UK pounds per person. Facilitator: Jim Byrne email: ddaseminar@jimbyrne.co.uk Does your website comply with the DDA? Book your place on this seminar to explore the issues and find out what you need to know about the DDA and UK websites. This seminar is aimed at those individuals responsible for the creation, or management, of an organisation’s website. By the end of the seminar you will have answers to the following questions: Is your…

• Jim Byrne leaves Glasgow Caledonian University - now providing Web accessibility services

  Jim Byrne leaves Glasgow Caledonian University - to provide accessibility web design, development and training services. I have been working within Glasgow Caledonian University since 1996, running the Making Connections Unit as a non-profit organisation providing advice, support and services to organisations interested in publishing accessible information on the web. In the last year I have worked as the University Web Accessibility Project Manager, providing training and consultancy to the web team (and external organisations) and working towards ensuring university websites are accessible…

• Accessible Web Design in Practice Training Course

  There are still a few places left on the next Making Connections Unit, Accessible Web Design in Practice training course on the 9th and 10th of December. This a 2 day course being run in Glasgow Caledonian University Library in the Centre of Glasgow; the venue is close to both main Glasgow bus and train stations. Register your interest in the course by filling in the booking form. About the course This course is not about creating unattractive 'text only' pages; accessible design is about designing for disabled people and non-disabled people. The training combines off-line discussion and…

• 
  maxdesign.com.au

• Some links for light reading (17/11/09)

  Russ

  17 Nov 2009 | 1:59 am

  5 Simple, But Useful CSS Properties What beautiful HTML looks like Inexpensive ways to target problem areas How to create clear web navigation menus SPDY: The Web, Only Faster Drupal or Django? A Guide for Decision Makers A Guide to Creating Email Newsletters Why Retweet works the way it does Design - Exploring Options and Making Decisions DoesFollow - Find out who follows whom on Twitter iPhone Apps Design Mistakes: Disregard Of Context Why do WYSIWYG editors hate HTML5? World Wide Web Foundation Making your site html5 ready part two Google Closure: How not to write JavaScript When can I…

• Some links for light reading (10/11/09)

  Russ

  10 Nov 2009 | 2:13 am

  Designing “Coming Soon” Pages Playing with Transparency New microsyntax for Twitter: three pointers and the slasher The Future of Gaming: 5 Social Predictions Dive Into HTML5 18 Great Shopping Carts to Power Your Online Store TeamStream News Discovery and Collaboration CSS Navigation: No JavaScript, jQuery or Image Required Is HTML5 good for application developers? Cross-browser drop shadows using pure CSS Web Inspector Updates DearIE6 - So Long Making your site html5 ready pt1 Practical Guide to 404 Error Pages: What WordPress is Missing

• Some links for light reading (3/11/09)

  Russ

  3 Nov 2009 | 12:28 pm

  Pseudo-Phantoms Twitter lists, creators vs curators, and who owns the meta-data? Firefox Adds Support for Web Open Font Format (WOFF) via font-face Font Embedding Services Moderating with Multiple Personalities: 3 Roles for Facilitating Usability Tests Why do we have an IMG element? The Future of Interface Design You Can Get There From Here: Websites for Learners Can You Say That in English? Explaining UX Research to Clients Authoring invalid HTML - a key factor in the Web’s success? Dive Deeper into Wave - The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave Screen Reader User…

• Some links for light reading (27/10/09)

  Russ

  27 Oct 2009 | 1:18 pm

  Fonty font font Font Dragr: A drag and drop font tester After Firefox 3.6 - new font control features for designers Declaring Languages in HTML 5 Browser support for CSS3 and HTML5 Why is the HTML specification a failure? How to measure social media ROI Haystack: Discover the right Web Designer for your next project Online Database of Social Media Policies Getting to No The Myth of Usability Testing Logo Design Toolbox: 60+ Resources for Logo Design

• Some links for light reading (20/10/09)

  Russ

  20 Oct 2009 | 4:05 am

  iPhone Accessibility: High contrast “White on Black” Do I have to answer this question? Mandatory versus optional fields Comment Form Styling: Examples and Best Practices Streams, Walls, and Feeds: Distributing Content Through Social Networks and RSS HTML, CSS, and Web Development Practices: Past, Present, and Future UX Exchange - Q&A site for user experience professionals The essence of qualitative research Chrome Experiments Becoming a Font Embedding Master Call to Action Buttons: Examples and Best Practices Top 5 Twitter Trends to Watch Right Now 5 Ways Social Media is…

• 
  Muffin Research Labs

• Spotify: Linking to a specific time in a track

  Stuart Colville

  11 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  For a while I’ve wanted to be able to share a link to a track on spotify so that it jumps the right place. An example is when learning covers for the band I play in; or just to point out a great part of the track. The good new is that this is already possible! I asked a question on Get Satisfaction and a Spotify employee Emil Hesslow answered straight away that this feature already exists. Here’s some examples: Check out George Benson’s guitar break: Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey 4:04 A Nice hammond organ break from Greg Rolie: Toussaint L’Overture 0:46 You can also use…

• Web Application Security – LugRadio Live 2009

  Stuart Colville

  1 Nov 2009 | 3:04 am

  These are my slides from the presentation I gave at LugRadio Live 2009 at Wolverhampton. The presentation was a brief tour of some common security issues you might come across developing web applications. I also covered ReDOS which is a lot less well known but an interesting vulnerability. The notes are available on slideshare.net View more presentations from Stuart Colville. I’ve had to pull the presentation from slideshare.net temporarily – I’ll re-upload as soon as possible The problem at slideshare has now been resolved.

• Ubuntu: Lock Screen and Pause Spotify

  Stuart Colville

  22 Oct 2009 | 9:23 am

  When I used a mac I had a shonky little applescript to pause iTunes when I locked the screen. These days I mostly listen to Spotify (running under wine) on Ubuntu which of course doesn’t have applescript. What I wanted was a similar script so I can hit a keystroke and pause spotify and lock the screen at the same time. With a few utilities I was able to programatically tell if Spotify is playing and get focus on the Spotify window and send a keystroke to get spotify to pause. But the solution it has to be said is far from perfect. The need to know if Spotify is actively playing is as a…

• Open Redirects and Phishing Vectors

  Stuart Colville

  30 Sep 2009 | 3:43 pm

  There was an interesting article on the Google Webmaster Central blog back in Jan talking about open redirects being abused by spammers. One point they didn’t go into too much detail on is that of phishing vectors. If you’re running a site with any kind of user registration and you have a redirect script that allows redirects to any arbitrary urls. Then it’s fairly likely that you’ve straight away made it possible for a 3rd party to phish your registration form. Let’s see an example of how something like this would work, first a standard redirection script:…

• Distraxion

  Stuart Colville

  16 Sep 2009 | 5:01 am

  Brilliant animation – and nails exactly how I feel about Smooth Jazz. via BoingBoing

• 
  vanderwal.net Off the Top

• I Too Miss Blogging

  Ian said it best in the header for his post I miss blogging. There is so much good in Ian's brief post as well as the linked to Dan Cederholm post WoodPress. Before the thoughtless "15 ways to...", which rarely state anything worth reading. I am beginning to believe that the number lists are not meant for reading and only for SEO hits and ad revenue, which is not anything related to user experience but site owner's revenue experience. I repeatedly am finding things I blogged years ago in Google searches when looking for answers. Sadly, at some point I had the answer and was…

• I Love You Dad

  it is in this precious life of ours that we see the living the dying the loving the caring the sharing the bearing the seeing the believing the comforting the guiding and all of the grace we can embrace it is from these lessons most wonderfully shared from a father to his son that we do really see the greatness in life and the blessings within us to live each day as a gift not only to each of us but to all of us through the human bonds of love provided through everlasting grace

• Social Design for the Enterprise Workshop in Washington, DC Area

  I am finally bringing workshop to my home base, the Washington, DC area. I am putting on a my �Social Design for the Enterprise� half-day workshop on the afternoon of July 17th at Viget Labs (register from this prior link). Yes, it is a Friday in the Summer in Washington, DC area. This is the filter to sort out who really wants to improve what they offer and how successful they want their products and solutions to be. Past Attendees have Said... �A few hours and a few hundred dollar saved us tens of thousands, if not well into six figures dollars of value through improving our…

• Catching Up On Personal InfoCloud Blog Posts

  Things here are a little quiet as I have been in writing mode as well as pitching new work. I have been blogging work related items over at Personal InfoCloud, but I am likely only going to be posting summaries of those pieces here from now on, rather than the full posts. I am doing this to concentrate work related posts, particularly on a platform that has commenting available. I am still running my own blogging tool here at vanderwal.net I wrote in 2001 and turned off the comments in 2006 after growing tired of dealing comment spam. The following are recently posted over at Personal…

• Optimizing Tagging UI for People & Search

  Overview/Intro One of my areas of focus is around social tools in the workplace (enterprise 2.0) is social bookmarking. Sadly, is does not have the reach it should as it and wiki (most enterprise focused wikis have collective voice pages (blogs) included now & enterprise blog tools have collaborative document pages (wikis). I focus a lot of my attention these days on what happens inside the organization�s firewall, as that is where their is incredible untapped potential for these tools to make a huge difference. One of the things I see on a regular basis is tagging interfaces on a wide…

• 
  PinPoint Performance Solutions

• Media Selection for Outstanding Training

  Justin Beller

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:31 am

  Media is the means of transferring knowledge to the learner, the whole objective of training. It is something that can’t be overlooked and it is probably the most pivotal part of the instructional design process, next to the formation of learning and performance objectives. It is the one point in the instructional design process where you have a lot of choices based on your objectives and what your resources will allow you to do. continue reading...

• Planning for Effective Traditional Training

  Justin Beller

  2 Nov 2009 | 3:51 pm

  Much attention is given to e-learning, but from time to time traditional forms of training need to be created when, for example, your audience may not be technically savvy or if job conditions do not allow for learners to stop their work to be trained. Proper planning will help ensure the creation of effective, objective training.  The keys to effective training are the following elements: continue reading...

• 5 Ways to Jump Into Rapid E-learning

  Justin Beller

  9 Oct 2009 | 3:10 pm

  Articulate is a software company that produces e-learning authorware to create your own media-rich, interactive e-learning courses.  The term Rapid E-learning is used quite often throughout their website and supporting Rapid E-Learning Blog written and managed by Tom Kuhlmann. continue reading...

• 5 Ways to Improve Your Traditional Training

  Justin Beller

  28 Sep 2009 | 3:02 pm

  When you are creating training, some form of instructional design should be employed however most of us neither have the time or background to apply this practice to make objective, performance-based training. We use training as a way to improve performance or fill a knowledge & skills gap in our target audience. Sometimes, this training misses the mark. In other words, it proves to be unsuccessful but the intention was in the right place. continue reading...

• Defining Interactivity

  Justin Beller

  21 Jul 2009 | 9:52 pm

  There’s a common misconception that e-learning in an of itself is interactive.  However, interactivity is more than just delivering content in an online format.  Just because you use multimedia, doesn't make it interactive.  You have to have things such as challenges, decision making and problem solving on the part of the learner integrated in the content. Elements such as the following help make e-learning interactive: continue reading...

• 
  Putting people first

• Interaction design for specialised tasks

  Experientia

  20 Nov 2009 | 7:08 am

  Mikkel Michelsen discusses the core differences between specialised use contexts and the mainstream use of a mass consumer product, and tries to answer the questions how to design the best possible systems when faced with special contexts, and how to ensure that interactive systems for specialised users do not become needlessly complex and difficult to use. “A core difference when designing systems for special users is how the user accesses the learning curve of the system. A specialized interaction design can often suppose the end user to enter the interactive system relatively high on…

• Will consumers plug into home energy displays?

  Experientia

  20 Nov 2009 | 6:58 am

  Dozens of home energy monitors are coming to market, but nobody knows whether only hybrid Prius owners will use them. Martin LaMonica reports on CNet News. “The gadgets themselves vary, but the common thread among them is the ability to capture a stream of energy information from a meter at a given moment. Simply by surfacing real-time data, either with a small device or Web software, it’s believed the system will prompt people to change their habits and ratchet down consumption by 5 percent to 15 percent, according to studies. But even as more sophisticated and user-friendly…

• User-driven innovation in Denmark – an update

  Experientia

  20 Nov 2009 | 3:59 am

  Some English language websites, blogs, articles and publications updating on what Denmark is doing on user-driven innovation: Is Denmark a lead user of user driven innovation? You might think so since the world’s first government sponsored user driven innovation program is to be found in Denmark. The program aims to strengthen the diffusion of methods for user driven innovation and to contribute to increased growth in the participating companies. It also aims to increase user satisfaction and/or increased efficiency in participating public institutions. Søren Tegen Pedersen is the Deputy…

• How understanding the human mind might save the world from CO2

  Experientia

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:53 am

  What will solve climate change? Will it be technology? Policy? A growing number of researchers and activists say it’s what’s behind it all: people. And understanding them is vital to addressing climate change, argues Annie Jia of ClimateWire in The New York Times. “Participants at the three-day third annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference, which ended yesterday, in Washington D.C., focused on examining the underlying reasons behind why many efforts toward getting people to adopt more sustainable behavior have had limited success. They also explored ways to…

• EU ministers: accessible, interactive and customised online public services in Europe by 2015

  Experientia

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:17 am

  EU press release (link): EU ministers have committed to developing smarter online public services for citizens and businesses by 2015. The Commission has welcomed this step forward in making eGovernment more accessible, interactive and customised. At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö (Sweden) today, EU ministers outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how this should be delivered. eGovernment is a key step towards boosting Europe’s competitiveness, benefiting from time and cost savings for citizens and businesses across Europe. “Today’s…

• 
  Reaction!

• Water Stopping Water

  20 Nov 2009 | 2:05 am

  Yet another idea to file under "I wish I'd thought of that"...Water Stopping Water is a plug that looks like a drop of water...or alternatively, it's a water stopper that looks like water stopping. (Oh, and it won the I.D. Design Award in 2007 and the IDEA Design Award in 2008 too). [via Design Milk]

• A Preview of Google Chrome OS

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:52 am

  Take a look at the video below for a preview of Google's Chrome OS (not to be confused with Chromium OS, its open source precursor, which was released yesterday). According to Google, Chrome OS, will be about web apps, not desktop apps - in other words, the entire user experience will take place within the browser. [via Google Blogoscoped]

• Visualising the decline of empires

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:14 am

  Visualizing Empires Decline by Pedro M Cruz, who explains: "The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. The visual emphasis is on their decline."

• Walky: An iPhone-based robot controller

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:14 am

  Walky uses the iPhone's touchscreen to provide a more natural way of controlling robots. For example, to make your robot walk, you simply "let your fingers do the walking" across your iPhone's surface; to make your robot kick, you perform a kicking motion with your fingers; and to make your robot jump, you tap.

• Clever personal trainer t-shirt

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:33 am

  Personal Trainer Roland Semprie's self-promotional t-shirt let's you gauge the duration of your workout from your sweat patch!

• 
  Shane Morris: UXB

• OZCHI Next Week in Melbourne

  shanemo

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:24 am

  OZCHI is Australia’s annual Human-Computer Interaction Conference, where academics and practitioners get together to share the latest research and thinking around all things HCI. I went to my first OZCHI back in 1993, and my second Melbourne OZCHI will be next week from 25-27 of November, with workshops and tutorials in the two days beforehand. Keynote Speakers We have some amazing keynote speakers: Bill Moggridge, Co-founder of IDEO Patrick Hofmann, User Experience Designer, Google Australia Yvonne Rogers, Director, Pervasive Interaction Lab, Open University, UK   Industry Day We also…

• Surface SDK now available to all

  shanemo

  19 Nov 2009 | 2:15 am

  If you’re dying to try your hands (get it?) at developing for Surface, then you’ll be please to know that The Surface SDK Workstation Edition is now available to all at surface.com. Also, a bunch of information is appearing on MSDN, TechNet, Download Centre etc. But, why paraphrase when I can copy and Paste? Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition Now on Microsoft Download Centre! At PDC this week, we announced the broad availability of the Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition. Now anyone interested in developing collaborative, engaging massive multi-touch, multi-user experiences…

• What does Microsoft have to offer Digital Agencies? Microsoft Innovation Days

  shanemo

  8 Nov 2009 | 9:23 pm

  In December DPE (where I work at Microsoft) and the Partner Team are getting together to run a series of “Innovation Days” in five Australian cities. Innovation Days are a rapid tour of some of the latest goodies from Microsoft, with a focus on how they can benefit your business. We’ve divided the day into two halves: The first half of the day focuses on technologies related to user experience and the web. This half will be especially relevant to digital agencies and other organisations focussed on delivering great customer experiences. We’ll cover Silverlight, Expression, Sketchflow,…

• My two talks at Tech-Ed Australia and New Zealand

  shanemo

  1 Sep 2009 | 8:28 am

  I will be doing two presentations at Tech-Ed on the Gold Coast (8-11 Sep) and Auckland (14-16 Sep). The first talk is in the Architecture track, and the second in the Web/UX track. Silverlight Won't Save Your User Experience, You Will. You think adding a Silverlight UI to your application will solve your usability problems? You think downloading Expression Studio will eliminate user error? You think all your website needs to be more engaging is a generous sprinkling of drop-shadows? Think again. A great user experience requires more than a layer of whizzy new technologies. User experience…

• UX Australia – Canberra 26-28 August

  shanemo

  2 Aug 2009 | 3:01 am

  The first ever UX Australia Conference is coming up in August in Canberra. Donna, Steve, Andrew and Danielle have a great line-up of speakers from Australia and overseas. Oh, and me. I’m doing 3 presentations (gulp!): 1. Pre-conference Workshop: Interaction Design Studio This Half-day workshop focuses on building skills generating and critiquing user interface design solutions. It’s fast paced, with minimal lecturing and we usually have a lot of fun learning from each other as much as anything. Warning – this workshop contains crayons! Full Description: Interaction Design Studio 2. 101…

• 
  Standard Web Standards

• 5 Reasons to Attend Five Years of Firefox in Manila!

  Regnard

  17 Nov 2009 | 8:05 pm

  The Mozilla Philippines Community, Globe Telecom, and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) will be hosting the Five Years of Firefox in Manila! event this coming November 21, 2009 (3pm-5pm) at the Fuller Hall of AIM in Makati City. This event is a get-together of Mozilla Firefox and Web Standards fans in the Philippines and here [...]

• World Usability Day 2009 in Manila

  Regnard

  12 Nov 2009 | 5:22 am

  We had an event for the fifth World Usability Day event here in Manila yesterday, along with 123 other locations all over the world. Entitled “Design/Sustain,” the Adobe User Group – Philippines (AUGPhil) and the UST Information Systems Society (UST ISYS)  hosted the event with a focus on the theme “Designing for a Sustainable World.” We [...]

• PWDO’s 5th Mini-Web Design Conference

  Regnard

  11 Nov 2009 | 6:43 am

  It’s Mini-Web Design Conference season once again! The Philippine Web Designers Organization (PWDO) will be having its fifth Mini-Web Design Conference, the first after the major Form Function & Class web design conference. The event will be held at the De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB) in Manila on November 14, 2009. The event [...]

• Mozilla Firefox Turns 5

  Regnard

  8 Nov 2009 | 9:46 pm

  Five years ago, Mozilla Firefox 1.0 was launched with much excitement from the web community. And this was for good reason– prior to November 2004, there was very little options when it came to browsers as folks only had Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, and Netscape to choose from. Mozilla Firefox burst into the scene as [...]

• Design/Sustain: World Usability Day 2009 in Manila

  Regnard

  28 Oct 2009 | 7:47 pm

  For the fifth year, the World Usability Day will be in Manila. I’m working with the Adobe User Group – Philippines (AUGPhil) and the UST Information Systems Society to organize “Design/Sustain: World Usability Day 2009 in Manila,” the Manila event leg of the World Usability Day. Coincidentally, this is the last pending event I’m heading as [...]

• 
  Subtraction.com

• Font Hunt

  desk@subtraction.com

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:26 pm

  Giving back to Twitter department: earlier in the month I asked people who follow me on Twitter for recommendations for new typefaces. What I was looking for was an alternative to the typeface Klavika, which I quite like; it’s among the very best fonts that have been released in the recent past, in my opinion. Inconveniently for me, I somewhat subjectively regard Klavika as having been ‘claimed’ by a friend of mine who uses it more consistently and more effectively than I do. So I wanted something of my own, something similarly contemporary and similarly strong in…

• The Pencil Factory Has ”Fifteen Uses for Newsprint”

  desk@subtraction.com

  18 Nov 2009 | 2:07 pm

  Fifteen Brooklyn illustrators reminds us of various other useful applications for newsprint. On sale for US$10.

• Introducing Basic Maths, a Theme for WordPress

  desk@subtraction.com

  14 Nov 2009 | 7:58 am

  Things that have been keeping me from blogging: raising a brand new baby, having grown-up time with my girlfriend, walking my dog, holding down a day job and, now finally revealed: working on Basic Maths, a brand new theme for WordPress that I designed with my friend Allan Cole. After months of plugging away at in during whatever free time we’ve been able to find, we’re finally releasing it into the wild today, to coincide with WordCampNYC 2009. (In fact, I’m heading over to that conference later today, and Allan will be speaking there early this afternoon, so if…

• Watching Yankees Spending

  desk@subtraction.com

  8 Nov 2009 | 8:21 pm

  Last Wednesday The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Phillies to win their twenty-seventh World Series. After a nine year title drought, the victory predictably thrilled Yankees fans like myself while also re-igniting the old complaint that the franchise is a bully in the baseball market, that the team uses an obscenely resourceful payroll to effectively and unfairly buy championships. Actually, the pilot light for that particular criticism never goes out, whether the team has won or lost its most recent bid for the World Series (or even when they make no post-season appearance at…

• Hey Oscar Wilde, It’s Clobberin’ Time!

  desk@subtraction.com

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm

  Various comics artists interpret their favorite literary figure/author/character. Pretty entertaining.

• 
  UsabilityBlog

• Sorry, But I Don’t Know Your Acronyms Intel

  Paul Sherman

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:28 am

  [Click image to view full-sized] Illustrated in this simple dialog are three common errors that software producers make: Assuming that users know what the heck their acronyms mean, Not helping users understand the implications of selecting/not selecting an option, and Using a single selection control to perform what appears to be a combination of two actions (e.g., “run WinSAT” and “enable Windows Aero desktop theme.”) Here’s the context: I was finishing up a Windows 7 install, and found an updated driver for my laptop’s video card. When I started the…

• This Is Going To Take Awhile…

  Paul Sherman

  27 Oct 2009 | 8:26 am

  [Click image to view full-sized] Really? I need permission from EVERYONE? Well OK, but I think that’s going to take awhile…can you give me some time to get everyone’s permission? Or do you need to know right now? Fine, be that way.

• Computerworld Article On Linux Drawbacks Misses Usability

  Paul Sherman

  15 Oct 2009 | 11:05 am

  I just read an article I found via Digg (my favorite guilty pleasure social news aggregator) about the drawbacks of desktop Linux. The writer touches on the ecosystem-related reasons that desktop Linux is languishing, but almost completely glosses over the fact that many people who try out a Linux distro are beset by significant and sometimes insurmountable usability and user experience issues. First the author makes the dubious claim that “in 2009, any reasonably smart person can use any major Linux distribution without much trouble” (maybe he hasn’t read “The Great…

• Lazy Programming 101

  Paul Sherman

  15 Oct 2009 | 7:24 am

  (Click image to view full-sized) Not parsing phone numbers into area code-exchange-suffix is just plain lazy coding. It makes for hard-to-read numbers. ’nuff said. OK, I didn’t say enough. This is yet more evidence that the price of usability is eternal vigilance. Stepping off the soapbox now. Have a good day y’all.

• My Usability Marathon Preso

  Paul Sherman

  14 Oct 2009 | 9:34 am

  I just posted my Usability Marathon presentation to Slideshare. (I love Slideshare btw…no surprise; Rashmi Sinha started out as a UX person.) I’m getting good feedback and nice retweets on Twitter; which is a good sign. Normally, I’d pull some choice quotes to whet your appetite. But I’ve got a pile of storyboarding and wireframing to do this week, so it’s back to the UX grind (but what a satisfying fun grind!). Enjoy. Usability…Or Strategic User Experience? ::  Usability Marathon 2

• 
  User Centered

• User Centered Design...HTC HD2- ringer shuts off when it's picked up!

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:27 pm

  It's a simple matter that just about any modern smartphone can do, but it's the fit & finish that make a great user centered experience.The HTC HD2 (which I'm impressed with) uses its accelerometer to silence the ringer when the user picks up the device. Great for those that fumble around in their purse or computer bag because they forgot to switch to vibrate (use Locale on the Android platform!)

• Opera Unite Review - Part 3

  4 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm

  I apologize for the delay in this posting... While this fulfills an internal drive at bettering the world it doesn't quite pay for my rent. Job hunting bites.In Part 1, I discussed what Opera Unite wants to be. In Part 2, I reviewed the current offerings and my personal use cases. In Part 3, I'd like to discuss why I feel the underlying architecture seems flawed from a usability perspective and how that demonstrated itself in Part 2.As a reader pointed out to me. Opera Unite is not the Apps it runs, Opera Unite is the platform that runs it. However, I contend that is semantics, you cannot…

• Opera Unite Review - Part 2

  23 Sep 2009 | 12:22 pm

  Now onto the use cases. I actually wrote this first and will leave it in that original form for the sake of preserving my perspective.Opera Unite is still in Beta but the architecture issues here are still fair game.I've been playing with Opera Unite over the past couple of weeks, using it to share files and I must admit I'm disappointed. What is the problem Opera is trying to solve here? Let's use Opera's own words, "Opera Unite is a form of collaboration technology that allows you to share data such as files or photos with other users, directly from your computer." (What Is…

• Opera Unite Review - Part 1

  22 Sep 2009 | 11:35 am

  Greetings Usability Fans, Amateurs and Professionals!I've decided, unwisely for myself*, to spend some time reviewing the new Opera Unite feature being tested and with plans for general release soon. I enjoy Opera and for the amount of work being put into this new feature it was time to give it a go and being the Usability Amateur that I am, I wanted to share my experience.I'm going to work backwards. The first thing I did with Opera Unite was use it. I did not read about it. I heard from a friend that he had used it and it "basically turned your computer into a server." I think…

• Proclamation: I will never use a browser that doesn't support mouse gestures as long as I live

  15 Sep 2009 | 9:53 am

  (...unless forced to by work)Post updated 17 SeptSeriously- I love the irony of people haggling over milliseconds of JavaScript rendering times for pages, but don't bat an eye at the amount of time spent waste pushing a mouse pointer around the screen to find the "back" button, the "X" on the tab,the "new tab" button, or moving your hand back and forth from the keyboard to the mouse. I would think the user's "Locus of Attention" would at least factor in to the equation to some extent.To me, reading a page and being able to have my browser respond to my…

• 
  Yu Centrik

• The Risks of Socially Embodied Technology

  Jay Vidyarthi

  17 Nov 2009 | 6:45 am

  In the design of social media, our task is to provide a medium and context for human interaction.  With this power, the behaviour of our interfaces can be interpreted as the behaviour of our human colleagues, friends and family.  Considering this fact, we run the risk of creating unnatural, awkward or even hurtful social situations for our users - in other words, a terrible experience. An example.  I was recently conducting business out of town when a peer and I agreed to keep contact via text-messaging.  At the time, I hadn’t yet realized that my network provider was not stable in…

• Yu Centrik speaking at Cleverbridge networking event

  jstemp

  13 Oct 2009 | 1:28 pm

  Jay Virdyarthi User Experience Designer & Research Coordinator at Yu Centrik will be a speaker at Cleverbridge’s  Networking Event which will be held in Montreal, October 14th, 2009. More than 50 representatives from European and North American countries are expected. Jay will speak about Customer Experience. Cleverbridge solution is unencumbered by the limitations of traditional e-commerce platforms and is designed to cater to the ever-changing needs of clients, now and in the future. ———-

• Digital Etiquette

  Jay Vidyarthi

  29 Sep 2009 | 6:41 am

  Engaging with socially-powered technology for the past decade, I’ve noticed the slow, natural formation of ‘digital etiquette’.  In the same way that researchers have found information-seeking behaviour to be akin to animalistic ‘foraging’ behaviour, it seems that our typical social behaviour manifests itself on the web as well.  As online tools are appropriated by real users in a social context, we are starting to see the natural development of online ‘politeness’.  Some examples… Re-Tweeting and Sharing Posts When finding an interesting…

• Yu Centrik: Canadian Partner of UXalliance

  jstemp

  24 Sep 2009 | 5:13 pm

  Montreal, September 24th 2009 – Yu Centrik, an independent firm specialized in usability and user experience, is proud to announce its partnership with UXalliance. UXalliance is an international organization gathering the best user experience firms in the world under a common objective: maintaining consistency and high standards while conducting globalized user experience research. Since its inception in 2005, UXalliance has been gaining momentum through more than 250 international projects with its partners, testing 15 000 participants in 20 countries. We are proud of what we have…

• Captcha tests (2/2): Alternatives and Best Practices

  Yannick Roy

  14 Sep 2009 | 7:12 am

  In a previous bulletin, I was talking about captcha tests, their reason for being, and how easy it is to bypass the system.I also mentioned that adding more noise to the test also makes it more difficult for human users.However, in my research on different strategies to satisfy security requirements while still allowing the user to get through this step, I found out that a number of variations to the captcha test exist.Here’s a quick overview. The Classic Captcha 1. MSN sign-up The Animated Captcha Advantage -The captcha isn’t fully revealed all at the same time and/or its…

• 
  Methink

• Methink Rebranded

  patcheung

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:35 pm

  You probably noticed, our website just got a little facelift. Yes, throughout the past year, we’ve grown some…and we were long overdue for a site redesign to reflect our updated brand. Our team has been [...]

• HTML Wireframes in an Agile World

  patcheung

  16 Apr 2009 | 12:09 am

  In an Agile process, sometimes there’s very little time to front load a project with an in depth UX design process. Sprints happen so rapidly, there’s often little time to fit an entire UX development [...]

• 2 Books We Recommend to Startup Clients

  patcheung

  10 Mar 2009 | 11:42 am

  Every once in awhile…we come across clients that are pretty clueless about startups and creating web applications. While we love to work with budding companies, and help emerging ideas blossom…sometimes, it’s nice when clients also [...]

• Tools for Sketching

  patcheung

  21 Feb 2009 | 10:54 pm

  Recently, I read “Sketching User Experiences” by Bill Buxton, and was reminded of the importance of putting pen-to-paper and actually sketching out ideas, concepts, and user interfaces. For the record, I recommend skipping the wordy [...]

• UI Design Patterns

  patcheung

  19 Feb 2009 | 1:39 am

  In general, we always advise our clients to start with an solid iteration of user interface design. Whether clients hire us for this part of the project, contract it to a design company, or do [...]

• 
  Futile

• Exploring Electronics at the MIT Media Lab

  I really like the idea of the wall painted as a circuit. I’d also like to see more done with the Arduino LilyPad with sensors on clothing. Could be an interesting way to build monitoring clothes for scientific research cheaply. Related posts:MIT Media Lab: $100 LaptopHook BagTableTalk Project Related posts:MIT Media Lab: $100 LaptopHook BagTableTalk Project

• links for 2009-11-08

  Jaime Rodriguez : Introduction to WPF 4 Multitouch (tags: development programming ui .net wpf multitouch c# ux windows7 userexperience) MTmini – DIY Multitouch Mini Pad | SethSandler I'm going to build one of these right away. (tags: software howto interface technology tutorial interaction Multi-touch diy multitouch touchlib) breezemultitouch – Project Hosting on Google Code (tags: wpf Multi-touch development ux) Related [...] Related posts:links for 2009-08-11links for 2009-08-14links for 2009-08-13

• The Sony and Atracsys surface like interface

  Here’s a video about the Sony & Atracsys surface like table that was seen at the Vision 2009 conference From what I’ve seen most of the functionality of the is very similar to the Microsoft Surface table only bigger. Related posts:Wirestone Surface app at TechReady 8TiVo to Transfer Shows to iPods, Sony PSP – New York [...] Related posts:Wirestone Surface app at TechReady 8TiVo to Transfer Shows to iPods, Sony PSP – New York TimesLonely Planet on MS Surface

• Papercraft Self Portrait by Eric Testroete

  Made using: 3ds Max 2009 Mudbox 2010 Photoshop CS3 Pepakura Really amazing results.  I totally want to go and make a whole bunch of these. Related posts:links for 2009-04-13Intelligent design Related posts:links for 2009-04-13Intelligent design

• links for 2009-10-27

  That VideoGame Blog » Microsoft retail store lets you print your own physical copies of PC games Nice little article that was reposted many times (tags: "Microsoft Store" ondemand) Related posts:links for 2009-08-13links for 2009-08-11links for 2009-07-14 Related posts:links for 2009-08-13links for 2009-08-11links for 2009-07-14

• 
  Usability Counts | User Experience, Social Media

• Silly Saturdays: Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought…

  Patrick Neeman

  21 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Similar Posts: Internet Explorer 8: Beta, But Has Some Nifty Features Silly Saturdays: Beat Box Champion Consultant Thursdays: How To Avoid Bad Clients

• Consultant Thursdays: Designer Vs. Client (NSFW)

  Patrick Neeman

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  That’s about right.Similar Posts: Consultant Thursdays: The Vendor Client Relationship Consultant Thursdays: Six Signs Of A Trouble Client Consultant Thursdays: What If Your Client Asks You To Implement A “Crazy” Enhancement?

• Consultant Thursdays: 72 Questions to Ask New Web Design Clients

  Patrick Neeman

  19 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  Building a website is easy, right? Uh, no. Most clients are prepared to really handle a website, and don’t limit themselves to what they are capable of within a budget. Here’s the first 10 of 72 questions to ask web clients from bonfx. How does your company handle email? Do you need any password protected areas? Do you have the Pantone numbers for your current company colors? Did you take a look at our portfolio? What is your time frame? Is this a brochure site, or a blog? Who is your audience? Do you have any specifications? What are the website addresses of your competitors? How…

• Form Design And The Fallacy Of The Required Field

  Patrick Neeman

  18 Nov 2009 | 9:05 am

  I was on a mailing list today, and this came across: “Use red asterisks — they’re the standard for showing required fields.” Standards are wonderful, but if I asked my mom with is the international symbol for a required field, she would look at me like I was on drugs (not much different than today, but still). This was something even the great Jared Spool mentioned at an event as gospel, and showed an example in his PowerPoint (which I still haven’t received, but that’s another blog post). He was explaining how another client had used asterisks to show…

• Cool Website Tuesdays: Attention Wizard

  Patrick Neeman

  17 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

  One of the way cool, nifty things that you get by working for an online marketing education company is access to great tools that are just a bit beta. That’s just the sort of thing we needed over at Online Marketing Summit as we do usability testing and other analysis work. Enter Attention Wizard. Attention Wizard is a tool that shows possible eye tracking without the human part. The smart folks over at Site Tuners (Thanks Tim, for the invite) have written an algorithm that produces an “attention heatmap”, a way of saying here’s some possible areas that the users are…

• 
  Kotsego Design

• Carousel Navigation: Yay or Nay?

  Gabriel Alberola

  18 Nov 2009 | 3:27 pm

  You may have noticed the growing trend of carousel navigation in Web design. This method allows you to display several headlines without cluttering your page. But do users feel comfortable with this technique? Let’s take a look at the different challenges linked to this type of navigation. First, what are the benefits of properly implemented carousel [...]

• Tomorrow is the World Usability Day!

  Gabriel Alberola

  11 Nov 2009 | 12:21 pm

  Mark your calendars: November 12th is the World Usability Day! This celebration entirely focused on usability is organized by The Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA) since 2004. For this year, Utilisabilité Québec (the Quebec branch of the UPA) is preparing several conferences related to usability with the theme Designing for a sustainable world. The gathering will take [...]

• What Makes a Good Intranet site

  Gabriel Alberola

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:41 pm

  The development of corporate intranets is often overlooked. Not enough thought is put into organizing its content logically. Good intranets can really increase efficiency in your office. You need to think of the employees who will have to use it to publish or find information. Here are some key considerations of a good intranet: Clear purpose. Determine [...]

• Design Tips for Startups

  Gabriel Alberola

  28 Oct 2009 | 12:44 pm

  Thousands of startups are founded each year. Each and every one of them offers products that will fullfil needs on the market. Giving new products visibility is one of the biggest challenge startups face. Indeed, the launch of any new product has to be meticulously thought out to be successful. These first steps need to [...]

• Tips to encourage user registration and participation

  Gabriel Alberola

  23 Oct 2009 | 12:59 pm

  One of the many challenges of running a Website is attracting an audience that will stay loyal. It’s a jungle out there and there may be a dozen of Websites that offer similar content to yours. How can you differentiate yourself? To build loyalty, you may want to engage users by including a community. Setting up [...]

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  Usability Post

• Cooking a Website

  Dmitry

  13 Nov 2009 | 3:41 pm

  I’m not really an expert at cooking but I do love to watch professionals cook. I mean Michelin star level professionals. What these guys produce is really amazing and its also interesting to see just how much work some of these dishes involve and how many unique techniques are used. It’s not just food really, it’s art. Some art is there to be seen: paintings, some art is to be listened to: music, and some art is to be tasted. Anyhow… what does all this have to do with websites? Well, what I do find interesting is that I’m seeing several parallels between cooking…

• A Better Distribution Channel for Desktop Apps

  Dmitry

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:42 am

  My Tuesday’s post was about the iPhone and what it does right. Apart from being a usable device it has another great feature: the App Store. You can browse all the apps available for the phone and get them with just a tap of the finger (or two, together with password input to be precise). The apps you download are also updated through the App Store — so whenever there’s a new version of the app out, you see a little number pop up above the App Store icon. That number says: you’ve got a new update available. Going to the update window lets you see what’s been…

• 3 Things Phone Manufacturers Should Get Right to Beat the iPhone

  Dmitry

  3 Nov 2009 | 3:03 pm

  It’s interesting to see the latest developments in the phone market. Everyone is scrambling to match the iPhone in form and function in order to hold on to their market share. Sure, the iPhone is a high end phone, so not everyone is going for it, but it at is also a very very successful phone that gets a lot of things right, and the competition knows it. Which is why we’re seeing all those Storms, Pres and Droids on the market lately. They come close, but always seem to fall short. It’s not the features — these phones usually have more features and better specs than…

• Mouse Cursor Affordance

  Dmitry

  26 Oct 2009 | 12:18 pm

  One important interaction indicator on the web is the mouse cursor. The default cursor arrow changes into a pointing hand when you hover over links for example, which indicates they are indeed links and can be clicked on. It also changes into other things to differentiate context, for example it can change into a text input cursor when hovering over text fields to indicate you can type there. When styling your website with CSS, in some cases you may lose the correct cursor type for certain elements. It’s important to retain this indicator as it will inform the user about how the item…

• Everyday Usability Heuristics: Visibility Of System Status

  Guest post

  23 Oct 2009 | 9:41 am

  Guest post by Ondřej Válka Ondřej is a freelance front-end Web developer & designer, currently helping Pixmac to make its front-end bulletproof. Two weeks ago, I was watching my 45-year old father browsing the Internet. Every time I watch him I learn a lesson in usability. I’m sure you know with situations like this one – valuable opportunities to learn from the ordinary users for whom we design. As he is using Windows XP the very first thing he did was that he ran Firefox clicking an icon on the desktop. No response. Nothing happened so after a few seconds he clicked the icon…

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  UIE Brain Sparks

• Icons & Images on December 3

  Adam Churchill

  20 Nov 2009 | 8:22 am

  One of our most popular UIE Virtual Seminar presenters is back, sharing his thoughts with you on visual design.  On December 3, Patrick Hofmann drills down into one of his favorite topics, Effective Use of Icons & Images. Icons and images are being used more today than ever before to aid people in finding information. How can you employ these in design to maximum effect? How will you know if you’ve succeeded? This UIE Virtual Seminar will address Patrick Hofmann’s most recent usability research and visual design projects to answer these questions.  Want to learn more, see…

• UIEtips: Design – Exploring Options and Making Decisions

  Jared Spool

  11 Nov 2009 | 2:47 pm

  “It’s expensive.” “We don’t have time.” “This was the only solution we could think of.” Often, when we talk to teams about whether they think they explored enough design alternatives, they tell us they didn’t because of time, resources, or their own lack of imagination. However, good design doesn’t have to be an expensive process, if you have the right tools and techniques in your toolkit. At last week’s User Interface 14 Conference, I had the opportunity to hear Leah Buley, Donna Spencer, and Dan Rubin share their favorite…

• UI14 Session Sampler: Leah Buley’s A UX Team of One.

  Brian Christiansen

  11 Nov 2009 | 11:44 am

  An audio selection from Leah Buley’s A UX Team of One 7.5MB – 14min 15sec If you didn’t attend the User Interface Conference this year, you may have missed the buzz over Leah Buley’s session entitled “How to be a User Experience Team of One”. Attendees loved it. Leah gave them tips and techniques used by top user experience teams that any UXer can use in a small team or an unsupportive environment. Below are some notes I took during Leah’s session and slides from this portion of the talk. The slides here are shrunk to fit our blog, but the materials…

• UIEtips: Gerry McGovern Says “Manage the Tasks”

  Jared Spool

  28 Oct 2009 | 9:36 am

  For years, we’ve known about the importance of completing tasks. Not the items on your to-do list — the users’ tasks. What we found in our research over the last 10 years is that practically every measure of users’ performance correlates strongly with the users completing their task. Users who achieve their objective believe the web site looks more professional, rate it as more fun, tell us it runs faster, and are more satisfied with the site. There’s no doubt: if you want users to love your site, make sure they complete their tasks. Yet, even though we know task…

• SpoolCast: Innovation Beyond the Buzzword

  Jared Spool

  23 Oct 2009 | 1:31 pm

  Duration: 27.5m | 15MB Recorded: October, 2009 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer [ Subscribe to our podcast via ←This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Direct Link to MP3 File ] How many IBM or General Electric television ads do we need to see before we are groaning at the mention of the word “innovation”? It’s too late for me, personally. But that doesn’t mean real innovation is dead. Steve Jobs has been quoted saying Apple will innovate their way through tight times. This past week Apple announced…

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  Cone Trees

• 10GUI- a conceptual intput device and supporting GUI as an alternate to the mouse

  ConeTrees

  14 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am

  10GUI is Calyton Mill’s concept for an input device that uses all fingers that expands the bandwidth of interaction that is otherwise restricted by the mouse. The video talks about how the mouse restricts interaction and how multi-touch monitors are stressful because the user has to stretch out to use it- (something I fully agree with and believe will lead to its failure). It goes on to illustrate a GUI that is better optimized for usage with the proposed input device. Related links 10GUI website Clayton Mill’s website

• Axure

  ConeTrees

  11 Nov 2009 | 10:36 am

  My Axure libraries are included with fabulous others at Axure.com.

• Laika- a dynamic typeface created with Processing

  ConeTrees

  1 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  Laika is a dynamic typeface. Via a custom designed control panel, kerning, italics, size and other properties of a typeface can be adjusted. Laika can be responsive to any possible input. The final project installation included type that which was responsive to passers-by. Laika was done as a bachelor thesis project by Michael Flückiger and Nicholas Kunz. Laika was created using Processing. In case you did not know, Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. I recommend you have a look at it if you…

• Increase Conversions in Long Web Forms by Resolving the Accidental Back Button Activation Issue

  ConeTrees

  20 Oct 2009 | 5:08 am

  This article is published at Evolt. Read the article there.

• Fixing the sIFR 3 text wrap issue

  ConeTrees

  9 Oct 2009 | 8:30 am

  If you are facing the issue of sIFR text wrapping in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, just like I did while trying to implement it on my new website meant for the user experience community: UX Quotes , then you should find this post useful. I am assuming this solution should work with all version 3 revisions though I have particularly tried it with sIFR 3.436. Try one of the two arguments given below to fix the text wrap issue. 1. forceSingleLine The forceSingleLine argument forces text to be displayed in a single line. Values True, false Note Note that if you have a very long line of text,…

• 
  Erova Notebook

• #UXMove: So long DC, Hello Philly, Jersey & NYC

  Chris

  20 Nov 2009 | 1:56 pm

  After 9 years in and around Washington DC, I’ve decided to uproot myself and my family and relocate to New Jersey in December for a number of personal and professional reasons. From a professional perspective, I’m beginning a long-term consulting position as a UX Strategist with a major pharmaceutical company to help design a socially-rich enterprise intranet application. I’m also looking forward to expanding my network of user experience professionals to include New York City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey, and rest assured I’ll continue rebel rousing the UX community…

• Recapping UX Show and Tell Baltimore

  Chris

  16 Nov 2009 | 7:29 am

  Baltimore Parlay, a network of Baltimore-based information architects and user experience professionals, hosted the third UX Show and Tell November 12, at marketing and design collective 4thought, Inc. This workshop was unique from its predecessors in format, attendance, and dialogue. Specifically, as Show and Tell has previously consisted of about 10 people around one table, the Baltimore Parlay event attracted around 20 people in an open-air studio setting, with presenters showing their work at the front of the room.  And due to time constraints, two people shared work as the accompanying…

• UX Show and Tell Wrap-Up

  Chris

  2 Oct 2009 | 6:35 am

  Earlier this week, seven designers and information architects from Maryland, Washington DC, and Virginia met at Apt Media in Silver Spring for the first UX Show and Tell workshop. UX Show and Tell is an informal workshop that’s all about the work, where designers can share feedback and ideas on strategies, outcomes, and deliverables, and meet other practitioners in a focused but relaxed environment. Show and Tell participants brought a number of unique deliverables, such as concept maps and task models of complex web sites,  a process chart detailing how, where and when to integrate UX…

• Perceived Control Better for Users and the Business

  Chris

  13 May 2009 | 6:50 am

  Software that affords its user total control of its tasks and interactions is often thought to provide an ideal user experience.  After all, so goes the rationale, if I’m allowed to do anything I want unimpeded by the system, I should be satisfied by the experience. Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software recently claimed on his blog that “when people are successful at controlling their environment they become happier, and when they can’t control their environment, they get grumpy”.  This can certainly be true. But does this mean we, as experience designers, have to…

• Gauging the User Experience: In Defense of Usability Testing

  Chris

  23 Apr 2009 | 1:25 pm

  Can a designer build an engaging, effective user experience without usability testing? And does usability testing assure a successful user experience? Paul Sherman’s recent article Usability Testing ≠ A Good User Experience attempts to establish that usability testing doesn’t guarantee good user experience.  Claiming that the only reliable method to developing a good user experience is “strategic design”, the author asserts that focusing on “tactical usability” is a myopic exercise. I certainly agree that rigid, task-focused usability testing is unlikely…

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  HFI Connect

• A Brief History of Time

  Jimmy Morgan

  Ok, I’m no Steven Hawking, but let me give you a brief history of time. The monkey-type character lasted about one million years, slowly fading away. Then until about 30,000 years ago, we shared planet earth with only a couple of walking apes. Now we are 6.5 billion people, growing by an exponential 80 million per year. We separate ourselves from other mammals due to consciousness. We blindly feel our collective intelligence and language is a cut above the rest. However, it is the advanced tools we have developed, with the ability to communicate with each other any where in the world, which…

• World Usability Day Essay Contest Winners

  Eric Schaffer

  Thank You ALL so much for the brilliant essays. We had many that saw the UX role as designing more efficient and pleasurable things. These were all good. But the winners see it differently. They see the UX job as redesigning the aspirations and lifestyles that have gotten us into this mess. We have a whole new world to design and I think that our field is up to it. THE WINNERS: *Tim Kieschnick *Dave McColgin Honorable Mentions * Amy Harvey * Aparna Raman * Brian Mila * Guiomar Pimentel * Leina Elgohari * Marisa Lenhardt * Premjit Khanganba Sanjram * Rhys Nealon * Scott Stroud * Tara Schnaible…

• Happy World Usability Day!

  Gessica Lee

  Wow we even have our own day of recognition! Tell me, what will you do to contribute to WUD? Educate your co-workers, family members, create a better interface, improve an old interface, or simply think about our IA/UI ancestors? For example my favorite IA from the 1700's Carl Linneaus the name giver: "Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus was an early information architect. He believed that every kind of plant and animal on Earth should be named and classified." National Geographic http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/06/linnaeus-name-giver/david-quammen-text

• Do as the Dutch - Sex, Drugs and Pee Pee? - And how does this relate to HFI...

  Gessica Lee

  Having lived in the Netherlands for some time and visiting often, on my last trip I realized something about the dutch as I sat at a cafe in Leidseplein and watched men using urinals in the middle of the square...yes, you read correctly, urinals out in the open, men all around, and thousands of people as their spectators. This pic was actually taken on Queens Day, however the urinals are still being used. The dutch have this philosophy "we know people are going to do it", sex, drugs, pee pee in the street, whether they should or should not isn't the issue for them...it is how to deal and live…

• Where is a good chart when you need it?

  Diane Chojnowski

  HFI Trainer John Sorflaten, PhD, CPE, CUA, discusses guidelines for creating online decision tools. Remember the Challenger O-ring debacle? On 28 January, 1986 NASA managers had to decide if the circular rubber rings used to join sections of the orbital spaceship could perform. Unusually cold for the Florida launch pad, temperatures had dipped to about 28 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 degrees Celsius). Pretty cold for rubber O-rings that must flex to work. In a teleconference, engineers at Morton Thiokol recommended against launch. They said they had no performance data at temperatures below 53…

• 
  Talkabout Design

• Stephen Wiltshire - New York from memory

  talkaboutdesign@gmail.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:47 pm

  This astonishing 18ft drawing of the world’s most famous skyline was created by autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire after he spent just 20 minutes in a helicopter gazing at the panorama. Read more

• The work of Lisa Chin

  talkaboutdesign@gmail.com

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:26 pm

  Check out the work of the super talented Lisa Chin, who is an Art Director from NYC. Her work includes Web Design, Print, as well as email campaign design. Portfolio

• CNN.com New Design

  talkaboutdesign@gmail.com

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:09 am

  I am really liking the brand new redesign of CNN.com Even though the previous design was good, this new iteration just feels fresher and cleaner. It is also featuring a lot of social networking features like twitter and facebook. How do you feel about the new cnn.com ?

• Apple Magic Mouse

  talkaboutdesign@gmail.com

  20 Oct 2009 | 12:42 pm

  Today Apple introduced the new wireless Magic Mouse, the first mouse to use Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch technology. Pioneered on iPhone, iPod touch and Mac notebook trackpads, Multi-Touch allows customers to navigate using intuitive finger gestures. Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface. Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac and will be available as a Mac accessory at just $69.

• Apple intros New iPod nano With Built-in Video Camera

  talkaboutdesign@gmail.com

  9 Sep 2009 | 2:25 pm

  SAN FRANCISCO—September 9, 2009—Apple® today introduced the new iPod nano®, adding a video camera, mic and speaker to the world’s most popular music player. Music lovers can now shoot video wherever they are, view it on their iPod nano and use their computers to easily transfer their videos to YouTube. The new iPod nano features an ultra-thin and sleek design with a larger 2.2-inch color display and gorgeous polished aluminum and glass enclosure. iPod nano also features a built-in FM radio with live pause and iTunes® Tagging, as well as a built-in pedometer. The new iPod nano is…

• 
  90 percent of everything

• At last, a sketchy Axure widget library

  Harry Brignull

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:16 pm

  The default widget library supplied with Axure occupies an uncomfortable middle ground – it looks like it’s just badly designed high fidelity, rather than intentionally lo-fi. This sketchy Axure widget library by Kevin Wick gets around the problem by giving your your prototypes a rough hand-drawn look. You can see the full widget library here (You’ll need to install Scoder hand font for it to look right).

• “Just add an egg” – Usability, User Experience and Dramaturgy

  Harry Brignull

  20 Oct 2009 | 6:56 am

  I’ve always liked this story about Betty Crocker and how General Mills took such care in designing the experience of making a cake. They’d been espousing speed and ease in the kitchen since 1931 with products like Bisquick, but this story originates from a cake mix they launched in 1952, almost 2 decades later. To quote from Finding Betty Crocker by Susan Marks: “At this time, the company was still refining their approach to marketing. While they sought to promote a quick and easy product that still retained a “fresh, ‘home-made’” quality, ‘the…

• Pidoco° – prototying and remote, moderated user testing – combined!

  Harry Brignull

  19 Oct 2009 | 5:24 am

  I have to admit I only tried Pidoco° very briefly at UX Brighton last week, but I was impressed with what I saw. They’ve integrated an Axure-style prototyping tool with a remote, moderated usability testing tool, and the price is very competitive: only $45/month for the entry-level package. For the same service using Protoshare (which only does prototyping) and Uservue (which only does remote moderated testing), you’d be paying almost $200/month in total: almost 3x the price! Here’s a quick walkthrough the product: Above you can see the wireframing/prototyping tool.

• Achieving adoption of a disruptive product

  Harry Brignull

  14 Oct 2009 | 12:22 am

  “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” – Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878 “This telephone has too many shortcomings to be considered as a means of communication. The device is of inherently no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1876 “Getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult.” – Rogers, 1962 Adoption of technology by end users is key to its success – even the most brilliant innovation is worth nothing if…

• ABtests.com – great new resource for sharing A/B test findings

  Harry Brignull

  6 Oct 2009 | 3:15 am

  This is going to be something special. Abtests.com is created by Bokardo, Performable, and KISSmetrics. In their words: “Our goal is simple: to help people test their web sites/applications and share that knowledge with others, making everyone smarter in the process.” The site uses a well considered and concise format for the articles, making it really easy to read. I think it’s still in Beta, but it looks almost ready to me. Follow @abtests to find out more.

• 
  Konigi

• Touch User Interface

  jibbajabba

  19 Nov 2009 | 7:25 am

  I just discovered Touch User Interface, a blog that reports regularly on touch interface projects, and provides links to resources related to designing for touch screen interfaces.

• ixEdit: Visual Tool for Prototyping with jQuery

  jibbajabba

  19 Nov 2009 | 6:44 am

  ixEdit is a JavaScript-based interaction design tool for the web. With IxEdit, designers can practice DOM-scripting without coding to change, add, move, or transform elements dynamically on your web pages. It's specifically designed for HTML prototyping and allows designers to build interactive interfaces directly in the browser, and provides the code to copy and paste into the HTML page. Works with Firefox, Safari, Chrome, or IE. Watch the video below to see how it works. I haven't minded writing the jQuery for the prototyping toolkit I've been working with, but this is much better for a…

• Meet the super-light HTML prototyping toolkit in under 3 minutes

  jibbajabba

  17 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

  This is a demo of an HTML Prototyping Toolkit that I've assembled from a few open source libraries. The idea is to create something super light so you can sketch your wireframes in HTML. Using Templates I'm using a jQuery template for creating columns in a grid. Columns look like this: {cols}

• Chroma-Hash Password Masking

  jibbajabba

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:29 am

  Chroma-Hash is a jQuery script that Mattt Thompson created to explore a visual method for confirmation password matches during confirmation on login and registration forms. The idea is similar to Identicon, but uses a small colored bars in the input to visually check your strings. He describes the project on Mattt.com and you can try the demo out on GitHub or download it. Versions supporting other libraries are also linked from this page. Via Pauric

• iPhone-like Passwords using jQuery

  jibbajabba

  17 Nov 2009 | 9:21 am

  Stefan Ullrich's jQuery plugin on the DECAF site provides a behavior for masking passwords that is familiar to mobile users. The plugin obscures previously entered characters at delayed intervals or when new characters are entered. It falls back on using the browser's password masking when JS is disabled.

• 
  Kristian Andersen + Associates

• Pursuing Newness

  Janneane Blomenberg

  19 Nov 2009 | 1:20 pm

  “In __ , once you’ve got something, you’re already thinking about what’s next. Maybe it’s a little hysterical. Now, every day I’m thinking about change. It’s a constant anxiety that is probably a reflection of society’s anxiety in general. The big deal about __ is really very recent, this frantic pursuit of newness. It may be a good thing, or a bad thing, but it’s really defining this moment.” What do you think fits in the blanks of this quote? Although they could be filled with many words (digital marketing, mobile devices, restaurants, mechanical engineering, packaged…

• One Small Project

  Cullen Nance

  12 Nov 2009 | 6:37 am

  One Small Project is a movement initiated by Wes Jans, PhD, RA associate professor of architecture at Ball State University, through which he seeks to connect fellow architects, students, artists, and designers with “Squatters” and the world’s working and urban poor. By building small projects, Wes provides an opportunity for these two group to work alongside one another. I had the honor of working with Wes during my time at Herron by helping him create a visualization of his One Small Project for an upcoming exhibition titled “small architecture BIG LANDSCAPES”.

• Sight, Sound, and Design

  Cullen Nance

  12 Nov 2009 | 6:21 am

  CAN SOUND BE EXPERIENCED WITHOUT HEARING?!?!?! I believe it can. I recently listened to a presentation on TED.com given by Julian Treasure over the four ways sound affects us. The first way in which we experience sound is Physiological. Sounds are affecting our hormone secretions all the time; our breathing, our heart-rate, and our brainwaves.Examples of this can be waking up from our alarm clock in the mornings, a doorbell being rung, or a more pleasant sound such as waves crashing that can help us to get to sleep at night. The second way in which sound affects us is Psychological. Music is…

• Elinor Ostrom’s Organization of Cooperation

  Janneane Blomenberg

  10 Nov 2009 | 6:23 pm

  It might have caught your attention several weeks back when professor Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University was announced as a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, alongside Berkeley’s Oliver E. Williamson, for her work in economic governance and the organization of cooperation. It was pretty awesome that she was the first female laureate in the 40 year history, but what was more meaningful was the work for which she was rewarded. As one of her interviewers summed it up: Elinor’s cooperation theories have the potential “to catch the public imagination… people…

• Amex Successfully Manipulates My Emotions

  Nathan Sinsabaugh

  9 Nov 2009 | 11:34 am

  Even though it aired about 12 times too many, I found myself enjoying the Don’t Take Chances American Express commercial this weekend: I love how even the “happy faces” have a air of melancholy about them. Almost as if they realize that even though Amex will fix or replace them, they’re still just inanimate objects. The bittersweet mood of the piece seems to affirm the fact that no matter how much stuff you own, or how sweet your credit card company is, it’s still just stuff. And it won’t make you happy, at least not for long. I wonder if the…

• 
  The UX Booth

• Transparency: Benefits and Best Practices

  Matthew Kammerer

  17 Nov 2009 | 5:45 am

  When you visit a website of a business do you ever wonder who is behind that business? Being transparent online and in business has a plethora of benefits. Users gain trust and have the ability to see the human side of the business. The effects are incredible, from increasing sales to finding like minded clients.Showing that your business is human can easily make you a stronger company. The benefits go two ways though. Not only is it great for your company but it is also beneficial for the user in may ways. In this post I will detail many examples of transparency around the web. As we go…

• Review of UserTesting.com

  James Costa

  12 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  For those of us looking for quality usability testing, we know how expensive it can be. UserTesting.com is a low-cost alternative that gives you results from remote testers within your niche’s demographic.UserTesting.com is an online web application which gives it’s users a simple and intuitive analysis of their website at a fraction of the cost of it’s competitors. The application enables users to see real-time interaction with their website, hear what people are thinking while they use the site, and read a written summary of what their thoughts. Through utilizing…

• Long-tail User Experience: how to cultivate (or dissolve) a community

  Andrew Maier

  10 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  Websites are social creatures. Or rather, their users are. In turn, the websites you visit are tempered by the users that interact with them. Your experience with a website, say facebook.com, is directly linked to the people with which you interact on that website. But this introduces an interesting challenge for a user experience designer: do you design for the intial experience or the resulting experience?The answer, of course, is both.User experience isn’t only about the first few times a user uses your application. Nor is it about their day-to-day use of your application. Rather, a…

• The Future of Interface Design

  David Leggett

  3 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am

  Did you know the first “brain-tweet” was sent out this year? How about that we may someday be customizing windshields with widgets? In the not-to-distant future, we may be interfacing with computers in exciting and innovative new ways.In the grand scheme of history, it wasn’t long ago that the first telephone conversation took place. Relatively speaking, that makes the personal computer an invention of yesteryear, and social networking only a blink of an eye later. Just imagine what’s coming in the near future…The future of how we interact with computers is…

• 10 UX Blogs You Should Be Reading

  Matthew Kammerer

  28 Oct 2009 | 6:30 am

  In our recent redesign we’ve added more emphasis on our resources section. There are so many great UX related posts out there, we just have to share them with you. Besides, sometimes one awesome UX Booth post a week isn’t enough! Therefore, I wanted to share with you other UX blogs that you should be reading on a regular basis.Usability Post Usability Post knows exactly what usability means when they describe their site as: …a blog about design. Design isn’t what something looks like, design is about how it works. This blog run by Dmitry really dives into relevant…

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  Mantia

• Success and Jealousy

  Louie Mantia

  14 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm

  ately, there has been a lot of anti-App Store attitudes out there, along with anti-anti-App Store attitudes. I can certainly understand (and sympathize with) people being frustrated about Apple’s review process for moving your apps into the store. I am not here to argue about how some apps haven’t been approved or take forever to be approved. I am all for Apple improving or removing the approval process all-together. However, I think when it comes to success in the App Store, I think there’s quite a bit of confusion about how we should be measuring success. Disclaimer: These…

• Horde

  Louie Mantia

  10 Nov 2009 | 7:26 pm

• Your Death Certificate

  Louie Mantia

  30 Oct 2009 | 5:43 am

  Earlier this week I thought it’d be pretty cool to design my own Death Certificate, related to the Haunted Mansion. As I was showing it to my good friend David Occhino (who creates some fantastic typefaces, I must say), we agreed it would be exponentially cooler if we could somehow create a dynamic PDF so that other foolish mortals can enjoy it as well. Layton Duncan, who I’ve worked with before, jumped on board to make it a reality. I redesigned the certificate and it sports David’s new Mansion 3.0 typeface and witness signatures for your favorite Haunted Mansion…

• Eerie Eyes

  Louie Mantia

  27 Oct 2009 | 7:25 am

• Redesigning SF Transportation

  Louie Mantia

  24 Oct 2009 | 1:09 pm

  I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for about a year, and during that time, Caltrain and BART were essential for traveling, as I didn’t have a car. Just for a fun exercise, I wanted to redesign both of these logos. Top: original logo. Bottom: my redesign. Caltrain My apartment was in Mountain View, so Caltrain was an incredibly useful form of transportation to get me to Palo Alto where I worked. The train traveled all the way from San Francisco to San Jose, and therefore was also handy when I needed to get to the San Jose Airport or downtown San Francisco. I rode these trains nearly…

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  UX Passion - Things about user experience, usability, IA, SEO, tutorials, blogging and Microsoft

• On the Web, competition is just one click away (JustHost is our new host)

  UXPassion.com

  2 Nov 2009 | 1:31 pm

  This is a post about customer service, customer frustration and customer / user experience. I've made a move from my old webhost Inside.hr to JustHost.com. Reason? Well, I was frustrated with their „customer service“. After careful consideration, I’ve decided to use JustHost.com. I want to share my (user) experience with you.

• Design pricing: It’s never just about the price

  UXPassion.com

  14 Oct 2009 | 2:22 pm

  Setting proper pricing for your UX design work is crucial. It goes hand in hand with setting your customer's expectations. Set the price too low and you will gain reputation of the same kind. Set it high – you will also set high expectations. If you can deliver on them – then keep it that way. Reason: it’s never just about the price.

• UX ROI: User Experience Return on Investment

  UXPassion.com

  10 Oct 2009 | 12:58 pm

  Calculating and even trying to understand what all adds up to the UX ROI is difficult task. When we are faced with clients and investors – ROI is something they often ask for. How to even start thinking about return on investment in the field of user experience? Here I’m talking about UX ROI discussion tool and other metrics.

• Expression Blend tutorial: Brushes, gradients, fills and strokes (webcast)

  UXPassion.com

  6 Oct 2009 | 7:48 am

  This Expression Blend 3 tutorial introduces you to brushes and how to change the appearance of the specific object. You will learn how to use different types of brushes, and the special emphasis is given to gradient tools. How to create and modify gradients, using the gradient eyedropper and other goodies!

• RIA jobs market trends: Silverlight vs Flex vs JavaFX

  UXPassion.com

  17 Sep 2009 | 11:05 am

  Several days ago I've received message with link to the InsideRIA. Mike Slinn of the InsideRIA has posted interesting article about job trends regarding Silverlight, Flex and JavaFX. If you go to the Indeed webpage and search for these keywords, you might be surprised. Here are some really interesting facts.