November 6th, 2008
Opera has been on something of a roll lately (at least on the development front). They recently released a bundle of research into the “state of the web” as it is from their MAMA (Metadata Analysis and Mining Application) search engine, and a few months ago started a wonderful set of educational resources for front-end people with their Web Standards Curriculum. (more…)
Michael Raichelson
November 1st, 2008
The title “information architect” was coined by the innovative architect and designer Richard Saul Wurman in the mid-1970s, but it didn’t emerge as a profession until around 2000. At the height of the first internet frenzy the internet industry needed a title for this skill set. Information architects are experts at organizing information and designing user interfaces. We work at the crossroads of content and technology and use both to create highly usable online experiences.
Lynn Cheryan
October 23rd, 2008
Internet Strategy, Social Networking
Reggie Henry (CTO of ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership) led a terrific discussion at last night’s Web Content Mavens. The topic for the evening was how to sell social networking to senior executives. I’ve listed the most valuable nuggets from the presentation and ensuing discussion. Hopefully there’s something in this list that will help to shape your thinking around social networking as part of a web strategy. (more…)
Kristin Hodgson
October 16th, 2008
Now Gmail makes you think twice before sending that late night email to an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. You just have to answer a few math questions (you pick the difficulty) before the email will send. It automatically kicks in late at night on the weekends, but you can adjust the time parameters to fit your needs. You can read more about it on Gmail’s Blog. Now that’s thinking about the user’s needs!
Toral Contractor
October 16th, 2008
I did a double take as I approached this sign while walking from the beach this summer. Nomenclature like this may make sense in the context of the beach but without the other points of reference, i.e. the path leading up and over the sand dune, the sign taken out of context, say placed on a highway intersection, may be misinterpreted by many people and cause unnecessary alarm by others. I took a glance to my left and right just to make sure I wouldn’t get squashed by a runaway dune. (more…)
David Alexander
October 16th, 2008
Haven’t heard of World Usability Day? Thanks to UPA, Usability Professionals Association, we have a day to celebrate and bring awareness to the work we do everyday. As the words “user friendly” and “ergonomic” are being thrown around a lot more to market and sell products, it is important to teach people what those words really mean and how critical it is to put people first when designing a product, application, or website. (more…)
Toral Contractor
October 16th, 2008
The Livescribe Pulse Pen has been out for a while and has been marketed towards high school and college students. However, this will definitely make user researchers’ lives a little bit better. Let me rephrase that. It seems like this pen will make taking notes a little easier, but I still have not bought one yet.
Toral Contractor
October 3rd, 2008
From Human Factors Engineering, to User Interface Design, then to User Experience design, this field has experienced tremendous growth in the past 25 to 30 years. We as professionals in the field also have developed a lot of methods and patterns to help us adapt to the rapidly evolving technological innovations and user needs. I’ve recently come across two useful UX design resources. I thought to point them out so we can all take advantage of them without having to reinvent the wheel every time.
Cathy Lu
October 1st, 2008
Content Management Systems are a core component of the web delivery stack for many companies. Using a CMS, companies are able to exert greater control over the branding and presentation of their web properties. The CMS also helps to establish a repeatable and tunable process for creating, testing, approving and deploying content.
Daren Arnold
September 2nd, 2008
Yahoo!’s Nate Koechley recently posted slides and audio from a presentation he gave on Professional Frontend Engineering.
Yahoo! is a big site, and it works really well. As an example of cutting edge excellence in modern browser technologies, you’d be hard pressed to find many better examples today. Their mail application alone is an exceptional example of modern browser-based Web applications in action. Additionally, their YUI libraries are exceptional. (more…)
Rob Cherny
September 1st, 2008
According to a 2007 Nielsen study, intranets are no longer the “impoverished cousins of Web sites,” but rather have success rates that average 33% higher than the Web 1. A Web search for intranet best practices unofficially corroborates that data—many results address how to incorporate information architecture rather than whether it’s necessary. That’s good news and represents a more mature view of intranets that companies have long lacked.
Justin Borntraeger
August 14th, 2008
Hello once again from UX Week 2008!
Today’s focus at the conference is Service Design – basically designing for end-to-end services that involve many touchpoints and communication channels to users. The day started off with a keynote from the CEO of ZipCar, Scott Griffith, where he described the ZipCar service experience as well as the back office integration. Afterward, Jennifer Bove and Ben Fullterton gave a talk on making a memorable service experience. Their top 6 guidelines for services are: (more…)
Douglas Brashear
August 13th, 2008
I’m out in San Francisco all this week attending UX Week 2008, meeting like minded experience design professionals, watching demonstrations of products aimed at making design professionals more effective, and generally thinking outside the box. I’ll be blogging from the conference all this week…not really live-blogging but more digesting the most important topics.
I hope you enjoy the posts, and please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you may have.
Douglas Brashear
July 18th, 2008
What makes an experience good? Meet and exceed expectations. Allow the user to complete a task so efficiently that the system is almost unnoticeable. Here are two contrasting examples from recent excursions to Houston:
1) Good: Renting a Car
As we deplane we easily find and follow signs to “Rental Cars” and locate
Kristin Hodgson
July 17th, 2008
Interaction Design, User Research
If you haven’t yet read Prototyping 101 you may want to do so before proceeding. While it is widely considered a pre-requisite for Prototyping 102, experience may be substituted. (more…)
Kristin Hodgson
July 15th, 2008
Interaction Design, User Experience Design, Visual Design
Have you seen this site? It’s a listing of what Netmag believes are the 20 best Flash sites ever. Number one was Vodafone’s Future Site. For a site that was launched back in 2003 (5 years ago is an eternity in the Web world), it’s quite impressive even by today’s standards. What do you think are some of the best Flash sites around today? What would you say is your all time best Flash site ever?
Navaro Kim
July 14th, 2008
I was thinking about content governance this morning. My current project, a government Intranet, needs revised CMS workflows, prompting me to remember a lesson from a recent presentation: Use just enough content governance. (The presentation was by Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, at the June meeting of “Web Content Mavens“.) (more…)
Justin Borntraeger
July 14th, 2008
Information Architecture, User Experience Design
I ride the Metrorail in DC (and Virginia) almost every day, and sometimes I have a hard time figuring out which stop my train is at. The trains’ windows are heavily tinted, and the underground stations are significantly darker than the interior of the cars, making it difficult to read signs through the windows. Also, the text on the signs is not particularly large—certainly smaller than the ample signs in many NYC Subway stations. My intention in this post is not to bash my home transit system (which, it should be noted, totally smokes NYC’s in several important ways). Rather, I bring up this issue with the signs because it can make for a frustrating user experience. I also bring it up because I’m fascinated and obsessed with public transit.
Matt Winters
July 1st, 2008
Web strategy is the determination of how a business or organization’s web presence will manifest its overall business strategy. Whereas a Web site can accommodate the needs of its users and contribute to a company or organization’s bottom line without a pre-defined strategy to follow, informed pre-planning and thoughtful execution of that plan can only increase your odds of success.
Douglas Brashear
June 1st, 2008
On most design and development projects, the project sponsors and team want to see some manifestation of the concept well before the final launch, and a prototype may fit the bill. Prototypes can take on drastically different forms, from a paper sketch to a fully functional beta version. For this reason, it is not always simple to plan and set expectations for how a prototype will integrate in your project lifecycle.
Navaro Kim
May 1st, 2008
The customer experience encompasses what a person experiences on and off of your Web site. As experts in user experience design, we focus all our attention on the Web site to make sure the user’s experience on the site is the best it can be. Remember that the user’s experience with your company doesn’t start the moment they land on your home page and end once they leave your site. It begins with advertising, word of mouth recommendations, or an email campaign announcing an upcoming sale. Nonetheless, a Web site attracts and aggregates many different types of users and serves as an excellent platform for measuring and researching not only how they experience your site, but your brand overall.
Toral Contractor
April 1st, 2008
At age 17, Meghan has several hundred friends on Facebook and MySpace. She shares "vids" and "pics" through YouTube and Flikr and often studies with friends over AIM. Meghan reads Shakespeare on SparkNotes and keeps a blog on her second MySpace account, which she hides from mom and dad. If it’s out there, she StumbledUpon it, Reddit and Digg(ed) it. If it was del.icio.us, she added it to her Super Wall. Meghan Twitters and desperately wants an iPhone. She “hearts” iLike, hates e-mail and loves to "txt."
Meghan is a .teen.
Graziella Jackson
March 1st, 2008
A social network is a structure comprised of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, ideas, affinities, etc. The resulting structures are often complex.
Shivani Aneja
February 1st, 2008
Agile development refers to a methodology for building software that promotes development iterations throughout a project. Rather than defining a very specific scope during the project’s planning phase, agile development advocates rapid and incremental feature releases to production. The process is highly collaborative and emphasizes working software as the primary measure of progress.
Caroline Trudeau
January 1st, 2008
Wikis, blogs, comments, questions, reviews, and discussions are threaded throughout the Web, and not just on the usual suspects dedicated to community building and networking. This growth of collaboration and participation is typically included in definitions of "Web 2.0" and is the reason why Time magazine declared you, the user, the person of the year in 2006. It is not surprising that executives and web teams everywhere are now wondering: do I need user-generated content on my site?
Cindy Blue
