Your New Excuse to Get an Xbox: How UX Professionals Can Learn from Video Game Design

Games are fun, addictive, beautiful, and immersive. Websites, for the most part, are not. Take a moment and think about what video games look like, what they sound like, the way you can move on the screen, what “you” can be. Think of how you feel when you play and who you play with. Consider the launch of Halo 3 on Xbox 360, with unprecedented graphics, sound, and interactivity that Time.com called “refined to the point where it delivers only pure unadulterated gaming bliss.”

Northrop, Mia. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Interface

User Experience Design: The Evolution of a Multi-Disciplinary Approach  

Easy task completion (traditional usability) is not enough in the Web world. Appealing visual site design is not enough. A site visitor needs to not only be attracted to a site and able to figure out how to buy (or register, sign up, etc.)-they need in addition to be able to tell quickly that a site will meet their needs, and they need to want to buy from this site, as opposed to a competitor's site. This is a key aspect of overall Web site success.

Mayhew, Deborah J. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Usability

Online Travel Booking: What Influences Consumers?

An overview of what influences consumers when booking a holiday and what travel companies can do to offer the best user experience.

Alexander Baxevanis. Webcredible (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>E Commerce

In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams

What does it mean to be strategically relevant? It means executives consider you a trusted advisor. It also means other disciplines—such as Engineering, Product Management, Business Development, and so on—consider you a partner and want you to participate in strategic decision making, even if they are not required to do so.

Nieters, Jim and Laurie Pattison. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Management>User Experience

What Place Does Theater Have in the Creative Process of Design?

As designers, to be truly innovative, we must open ourselves up to new ideas, surround ourselves with diverse inputs, and be willing to embark on a new journey—regardless of whether we know the destination. Actors and others who create theater would tell you this kind of mindset is part their everyday work culture. So, what can we learn from the way actors and other theatrical artists work that will help us be more innovative, too?

Lepore, Traci. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience

In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams

Although our UX management peers have shared many tactics with us that have made their groups more strategically relevant, we’re presenting just a few here. We’ll highlight what we feel are the most salient factors in getting you to the strategy table.

Nieters, Jim and Laurie Pattison. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Management>User Experience>Collaboration

Designing User Experience

A blog about user experience, usability, design, navigation and interfaces.

Designing User Experience. Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Blogs

UX Designers Focus on Your Users

UX designers often have a library of different interface patterns - navigation types, methods to help people find their way in software - and a deep understanding of how people actually DO find their way or navigate. They’re good communicators, and good at quickly plugging symptoms to design pattern. General doctors can prescribe medications, whereas UX designers can often actually bring the design patterns to life using CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax, and Dojo, or .Net, Java, JSP, and so forth. They may not be coding geniuses, but they have to be aware of what’s out there and what it can do, just like your general doctor needs to know about surgical options and prescriptions, even if they don’t actually spend their day in surgery or the lab.

Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience

Companies Just Don’t Get It

People often don’t know exactly how they want software to allow them to complete a task. They recognize how the existing software makes them work around what they want, and they understand vague ideas like “make it easy to use”, but they may not be able to translate that into interface design. And why should they?

Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience

Review: Web Design Evolves

I have recently noticed a new breed of web design books that focus on strategy and users rather than specific programming languages or applications.

Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Reviews>Web Design>User Experience

Overview of User Experience Design Concepts

User experience design has become an essential consideration in the development of websites and technical communications. No longer can we throw together a few headings and numbered lists in CSS and XHTML and hope the result will be worthwhile and meaningful to users. As the web expands and content becomes more accessible, it is necessary to take content and websites to the next level - to provide information that is not just useful or even usable, but enjoyable. If a person has to spend more than a few seconds trying to find what they need they are that much more likely to “Google it” and find a site or help system that provides the answer quicker.

Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>User Experience>Search Engine Optimization

First Fictions and the Parable of the Palace

this column will take the form of a journey through a wide range of topics at the intersection of user experience design and everyware.

Lamantia, Joe. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Technology>Ubiquitous Computing>User Experience

A Tale of Installation Frustration

The technology business is filled with frustration. Trying to hook something up, troubleshoot something, make it do something–on a deadline–is a weekly occurrence for me. But last week, I just about blew my stack.

Pogue, David. New York Times, The (2006). Articles>Technology>Usability>User Experience

Technical Support: (Yet Another) Holy Grail

His own vendor conspiracy theories aside, Lou Rosenfeld knows of three main reason why technical "support" is often not support at all.

Rosenfeld, Louis. CIO Magazine (2000). Articles>User Experience>Help

An Ethnographic Approach to User Experience: A Bibliography

A 2002 bibliography of writings in the area of ethnography and user experience.

Ferguson, Louise. Louise Ferguson (2002). Articles>Bibliographies>User Experience>User Centered Design

Web Traffic Analytics and User Experience

As a specialist in the user, you gain knowledge through observation and direct questioning of individual users. Now, you can add to that insights gained from data pulled during their actions on the site. By looking at this information, you will get a fuller picture of user behavior, not in a lab, but in the true user environment.

Diamond, Fran. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Log Analysis

Making the Customer CEO

The key revolution of the Web is customer empowerment and engagement. The Web empowers the customer more than it empowers the organization. The implications are enormous.

McGovern, Gerry. New Thinking (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

PDF Manuals: The Wrong Paradigm for an Online Experience

Let me describe a familiar user assistance experience. A user installs a new application, and when the user wants Help, the application directs her to the user documentation on a Web site or CD-ROM. What the user finds there is a PDF file containing the manual—or a collection of PDF files, representing a library of manuals, including a user guide, configuration guide, troubleshooting guide, and various references. And the layout of each of these PDF manuals is exactly the same as if it were a printed book. This raises an interesting question: If we’re giving manuals to users to read online, why do we design and write them for paper?

Hughes, Michael A. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Documentation>User Experience>Adobe Acrobat

Results of a Study about Online Experience

Users’ “enjoyment” of a site is tied closely to how easily they can find the information they want and stay oriented at the same time. I think this is a given for technical communicators; we know that users want to get answers as fast as possible, and documentation must be navigable.

Gryphon Mountain (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>User Centered Design

Building Ease of Use Into the IBM User Experience  

This paper provides an overview of the process and organizational transformation that IBM has gone through in improving the user experience with our offerings.

Vredenburg, K. IBM (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Case Studies

Seven Things to Know about Building a User Experience Team

Make sure each team member clearly understands the underlying business case for the user experience, and the measures of success.

Donoghue, Karen. Built for Use (2002). Articles>Management>User Experience

Seven Reasons Why Web Apps Fail

I’m not one to believe that we’re in a Bubble 2.0 or anything like that (aren’t we always bubbular?), but here are a few ideas about why some of the web apps out there fail.

Porter, Joshua. Bokardo (2006). Articles>Web Design>Programming>User Experience

Designing for Limited Resources

Even in an ideal world, designs must optimise both the user experience and the business return. When resources are limited, the design must be optimised to make the best use of all resources as well. To account for this complexity, it is important to have a clear understanding of both sides of the design equation--what you have to work with and what you are trying to build.

Quinn, Laura S. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>User Experience>Design

Modeling User Workflows for Rich Internet Applications

As Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) become more advanced, the tasks, problems, and processes they address become increasingly complex, making it more important than ever to accurately model user workflows. Early Internet applications were often narrowly focused in scope, and the steps were relatively simple and sequential, for example, purchasing items through simple e-commerce, reserving hotel rooms, or renting cars. But as productivity applications move toward a web-based distribution model, the tasks become more complicated.

Hogue, David. Adobe (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Flash

The Web 2.0 Experience Continuum

There’s been a lot of talk about the technology of Web 2.0, but only a little about the impact these technologies will have on user experience. Everyone wants to tell you what Web 2.0 means, but how will it feel? What will it be like for users?

Saffer, Dan. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Experience