http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/User-Experience A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and User Experience in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/User-Experience http://tc.eserver.org/35797.html http://tc.eserver.org/35797.html The use of digital products and services has expanded from largely instrumental, work-oriented settings to include entertainment, leisure, personal communication, and other classes of hedonistic use. The development of foundational concepts in the interaction design community to succeed usability and utility has lagged behind considerably. I argue that interaction design would benefit from attempts to articulate experiential qualities of digital products and services, and illustrate the approach by presenting the concept of fluency. It refers to the degree of gracefulness with which the user deals with multiple demands for her attention and action, particularly in augmented spaces where the user moves through shifting ecologies of people, physical objects, and digital media. I develop the concept of fluency by analyzing a range of digital artifacts in use situations, addressing the main themes of (1) social norms and practices and (2) peripheral interaction and calm technology. In terms of research methodology, this paper illustrates how design and criticism can be merged to construct elements of transferable knowledge for communication with design-research communities. http://tc.eserver.org/35798.html http://tc.eserver.org/35798.html Product experience is influenced by information from all the senses. Our experiments provide insight into how sounds contribute to the overall experience of a product's expression. We manipulated the sounds of dust busters and juicers so that they either did or did not fit the expressions of the products' appearances. In some, but not all cases, we found an inverse relationship between the degree-of-fit of a sound and the degree of surprise evoked. Furthermore, we found in some cases that the expression of a product's sound influenced the overall expression of that product. http://tc.eserver.org/35643.html http://tc.eserver.org/35643.html 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? http://tc.eserver.org/35598.html http://tc.eserver.org/35598.html I’m part of the AEC User Experience Team at Autodesk. Our goal is to design a great user experience for our customers, but just what does that mean? Our definition of user experience focuses on all the touchpoints that current or new users have with our product. For example, the downloading of software trials is often the beginning of one’s user experience with a product. If you have to fill out forms that ask for too much information, (should “cell phone number” be a required field on a trial download form?) or present you with too many obstacles, the likelihood of a positive user experience will be low. Your interactions with technical support, documentation, the product, and even other products that you use, are all aspects of the user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/35600.html http://tc.eserver.org/35600.html This tutorial is intended for practitioners who have come to interaction design from a research, psychology, information architecture, or other non-design background. It focuses on what happens after the requirements are done and before you build your first prototype. Design fields such as graphic arts, architecture, and industrial design have long-standing practices for innovative design, and these apply well to interaction design. http://tc.eserver.org/35604.html http://tc.eserver.org/35604.html As interaction designers at Autodesk, we sometimes engage in design and thought investigations that are not directly related to the task at hand. These investigations are ways to frame problems by venturing into related design disciplines. For example, in order to understand what might be an appropriate transition when changing views in a 3d model, we try to understand how a video artist would create a transition between two scenes in a video. To understand how to improve the graphic quality of elements drawn in a building information model, we look at lots of pencil sketches drawn by architects. We think, what would happen if an on-screen element was made from physical material? http://tc.eserver.org/35590.html http://tc.eserver.org/35590.html The site focuses on web usability, user research, usability testing, accessibility and standards focused design. http://tc.eserver.org/35552.html http://tc.eserver.org/35552.html The article presents a point of view about analyzing and designing the user experience within pervasive networks made of distributed services and applications, where the user is the primary actor who freely and opportunistically connects and activates the system components following an activity-driven process. A digital content case study is used to outline the main characteristics of this scenario and to introduce a tool for user experience modelling and designing. From the application of this model are proposed some considerations about how the design process could change to support this vision. http://tc.eserver.org/35487.html http://tc.eserver.org/35487.html It's not uncommon to hear people complaining about the poor user experience of some B2B and enterprise applications. Read through these top tips to help you design enterprise applications that offer a better user experience and increase productivity. http://tc.eserver.org/35493.html http://tc.eserver.org/35493.html When writing software, *please* don't give error messages that are only meaningful to developers of the software. Microsoft used to be awful for this: "System fault at DEAD:BEEF, please contact your system administrator". Which would've been cool, except that I *was* the system administrator. http://tc.eserver.org/35381.html http://tc.eserver.org/35381.html We don't really know what attention is, despite all the mumbo-jumbo spouted by Nobel laureates. My guess: most of what people say about attention is hogwash: mere anecdotes, or flimsy cultural norms offered up in a 'be productive, be happy' wrapper. Whenever business thinkers seek to apply an economic metaphor to human cognition, it is a mess: remember "knowledge management"? http://tc.eserver.org/35367.html http://tc.eserver.org/35367.html When a screenwriter can summarize a story in one sentence, he has a compass that can guide him throughout the writing process. Cindy Chastain chronicles how we can translate this approach to help us remember the quality and value of the experience we intend to deliver. http://tc.eserver.org/35372.html http://tc.eserver.org/35372.html Concepts, principals, and parts of User Experience Design can often times be difficult to approach—and this tends to create barriers with new bloggers. This begs the question: Do ordinary bloggers have to worry about UX Design? http://tc.eserver.org/35330.html http://tc.eserver.org/35330.html Information design has traditionally focused on usability as measured by functionality and efficiency in the execution of user tasks. Newer approaches to experience design and new communication technologies such as the so-called Web 2.0 platform and its Ajax engine emphasize total user engagement with the technology and richer collaborations among users. These developments complicate traditional notions of agency by highlighting the role of technology as mediator between and among users. A project in Tech-Mediated Communication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, funded by the Society for Technical Communication, illustrates how these developments impact the development of novel and creative information resources, with several experiments in cross-cultural, community-oriented, and educational systems design. This work also emphasizes the need to develop research agendas and programmatic initiatives that support interdisciplinary collaborative design activities and thus help technical communicators to meet their collective responsibility to influence and shape the mediating technologies of the future by creating more engaging and more collaborative total user experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/35235.html http://tc.eserver.org/35235.html Although social networking sites have become the commonplace over the past eight years since the introduction of Friendster in 2002, designers have not yet explored two important notions: 1) What kind of social experience do social networking sites foster?; and 2) Do social networking sites encourage community? http://tc.eserver.org/35236.html http://tc.eserver.org/35236.html Once you’ve come up with tons of ideas, how do you choose which ones are worth pursuing? You use a set of design principles that will not only help select the best ideas, but guide the design through refinement, prototyping, development, and beyond. But first, let’s diverge and come up with concepts. http://tc.eserver.org/35238.html http://tc.eserver.org/35238.html As an Interaction Designer, I’m perpetually impressed with the continual design success inherent in most video games. We are taught to know our users by understanding their goals, leveraging mental models, and taking ourselves out of the equation in order to design useful and appropriate interfaces. And although a user-centered design approach is invaluable, I can’t help but wonder how game designers just seem to nail it time and again for what are large and diverse audiences. http://tc.eserver.org/35240.html http://tc.eserver.org/35240.html A collaborative approach enables clients to actively participate in the process, increasing the likelihood of achieving a collective vision for the project. This article focuses on the first step in the journey towards collaboratively developing a User Experience Strategy and is concerned specifically with how user stories are generated, themed and prioritized. http://tc.eserver.org/35230.html http://tc.eserver.org/35230.html I live and breathe user experience design, and yet it took me two years to get myself the device referenced by almost every single presentation about user experience since 2007… Apple’s iPhone. My reasons were very specific and perhaps boring, but what is interesting is the perspective this wait has afforded me. Since it was released, the iPhone has grabbed an astonishing share of mobile Web traffic, been regarded as a “game-changer” in both the design and business worlds, and has even been referred to as the “Jesus Phone.” Now that I’ve owned one for two weeks I’ve developed a different perspective. The iPhone is surprisingly difficult to use, but it sure is fun! And that is why it’s a game-changer. http://tc.eserver.org/35232.html http://tc.eserver.org/35232.html Through the designs we create, we have the ability to directly influence another person’s behavior. The ethical implications of this are important and not easily definable. I was interested in ethics before I ever considered becoming a designer, but the lessons I learned while studying philosophy impacts the way I view my designs. In nature, our goal is a good one. We strive to help others by improving the interactions that define their life. This drives us to create and innovate new ways of interacting with old concepts. The question remains, do we have the right to influence another person? Further, are there guiding principles we can follow that can keep us on the moral path? The answers to these questions rests on the shoulders of the whole community, not a single person or group. http://tc.eserver.org/35233.html http://tc.eserver.org/35233.html The watchclock is another kind of interaction design, one whose function corrals the user into a single, linear, constrained sort of behavior. The night watchman has a fundamental social constraint — the desire to not get fired from their job. This constraint allows the watchclock patrol system to work so effectively (some would say insidiously) as an interaction design instrument of control. http://tc.eserver.org/35178.html http://tc.eserver.org/35178.html The role of the interaction designer is to specify the interface’s behaviors and elements, so that engineers know what to build and how the product should operate. This documentation is commonly known as a UI specification or UI spec. There are several applications for authoring a UI spec, with wikis being a relatively new tool. However, designers should be aware of a wiki’s benefits and drawbacks for documentation, since UI specs uniquely reflect a project and its context. The documentation needs are often based on the size of the project, launch date, team dynamics, audience, technology, and the product development process. The development process usually plays a major role in how teams interact and how work is completed or delivered, thus, there is a direct relationship between the UI spec and the process the team is using. http://tc.eserver.org/35099.html http://tc.eserver.org/35099.html As we explore what social technologies can offer and the boundaries they can cross—boundaries that had confined the traditional Web—UX professionals must now take up a new design challenge. We must address the changing needs for social media and facilitate users’ taking better advantage of everything social media has to offer. http://tc.eserver.org/35101.html http://tc.eserver.org/35101.html While ubiquitous computing remains an unpleasant mouthful of techno-babble to most people who know the term, and everyware is still an essentially unknown idea, the visibility of augmented reality has surged in the last twelve months. http://tc.eserver.org/35102.html http://tc.eserver.org/35102.html In this article, I’ll discuss the cognitive elements at the intersection of advertising and human behavior. By taking an approach to advertising that looks at the impact psychological factors have on customer behavior, I’ve learned that customers respond directly to online advertisements, as we can see from their emotions, behavior, and interactions on the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/35052.html http://tc.eserver.org/35052.html Marketing departments – especially in IT – like to speak in the modern lingo about a product’s innovative “Look and Feel”. While “Look“ refers to the design of the solution, “Feel” means usability, the quality of use. Developers of Content Management Systems and other enterprise IT solutions have to walk a fine line to meet the exacting demands of users in both areas. But in recent years a clear trend has become apparent: There is a drive towards the modern, “cool” product design where at a minimum usability takes a back seat, often to its detriment. http://tc.eserver.org/34939.html http://tc.eserver.org/34939.html Wiggly, distracting, or poorly placed ads irritate users. Worse, they teach site visitors to ignore whole sections of layout. Yet some online ads work. They capture visitors visually, and present an engaging hook. They get visitors to click. Even, at times, from the home page. So what's the difference? http://tc.eserver.org/34945.html http://tc.eserver.org/34945.html Practitioners of User Centred Design method tend to focus only on immediate user goals and short focused usability. What is meant by long term usability and long term user experience? It needs due attention because only then the impact of products on our environment and health gains prominence! If we take a long term perspective then what we consider usable based on our immediate experience might turn out to be a disastrous product. http://tc.eserver.org/34956.html http://tc.eserver.org/34956.html The Indian community of Interaction Designers and Usability Professionals is growing by rate of 20% annually which is far too less. Around 6 to 8 new design institutes have suddenly opened up in past couple of years (to name a few- Symbiosis Institute of Design, MAEER MIT’s Institute of Design and Creative-I College, Pune, Raffles Design International, Mumbai, IILM School of Design, Gurgaon, Wigan & Leigh College, New Delhi) But all these are indirect contributors to interaction design, as they do not offer education in that area. http://tc.eserver.org/34866.html http://tc.eserver.org/34866.html Just as companies need to differentiate themselves by creating and promoting a clear value proposition, so do UX groups. What is our value proposition? What can UX teams do that other disciplines cannot? We think in terms of design. We communicate visually. Nobody else can do this as well as we can. Other disciplines may do a much better job of communicating numbers in spreadsheets or giving slick presentations highlighting features. What we, as UX professionals, can do is bring possibilities to life by visualizing solutions for stakeholders and enabling them to see those possibilities in tangible form. http://tc.eserver.org/34705.html http://tc.eserver.org/34705.html The people who own the creation, collection, and distribution of content may not be the same people in the very near future. I also believe technical communication is part of information architecture and user experience design. While the technical communication community, specifically many STC members, also work in usability or information design, the culture of the user has changed faster than the culture within the tech comm community. http://tc.eserver.org/34663.html http://tc.eserver.org/34663.html User interface experts are often suspicious of the role of visual aesthetics in user interfaces—and of designers who insist that graphic emotive impact and careful attention to a site’s visual framework really contribute to measurable success. Underneath the arguments, I see a fundamental culture clash. http://tc.eserver.org/34648.html http://tc.eserver.org/34648.html When we as web designers create screens we are defi http://tc.eserver.org/34563.html http://tc.eserver.org/34563.html When things are going well in a design, we don't pay attention to them. We only pay attention to things that bother us. The same is true with online designs. We attend to things that aren't working far more than we attend to things that are. When the online experience frustrates us, we pay attention to its details, often because we're trying to figure out some way to outsmart it. http://tc.eserver.org/34568.html http://tc.eserver.org/34568.html If we simply look at what's already working well, and why, we can give ourselves two things we desperately need: a starting point for the design, and insight into to how to create better-stronger-faster interactions that are just as easy to use as the old classics. http://tc.eserver.org/34517.html http://tc.eserver.org/34517.html Technical writing is a profession in transition. The way companies think of, use, and manage the people who help users make sense of and use products is absolutely changing. A lot of companies have started to use the term “information developer” to describe their technical writing positions. I don’t really care what label the profession chooses for itself, but I do know this: if technical writers don’t transition more than their job title then they will be missing out on a huge opportunity to move from the “gotta do it” category into the “can’t live without it” one. http://tc.eserver.org/34459.html http://tc.eserver.org/34459.html The out of box experience (OOBE) describes the users first interaction with a product or service. In the technology sector this first experience invariably involves plugging stuff in, installing some software and crossing your fingers in the hope that the product will work. The problem is that, in far too many cases, it doesn’t. http://tc.eserver.org/34168.html http://tc.eserver.org/34168.html The role of the information architect (IA), interaction designer, or user experience (UX) designer is to help create architecture and interactions which will impact the user in constructive, meaningful ways. Sometimes the design choices are strategic and affect a broad interaction environment; other times they may be tactical and detailed, affecting few. But sometimes the design choices we make are not good enough for the users we’re trying to reach. Often a sense of democratic responsibility is missing in the artifacts and experiences which result from our designs and decisions. http://tc.eserver.org/34170.html http://tc.eserver.org/34170.html All of the members of the best teams could tell us, with relative ease, the top five business goals of their application, the top five user types the application was to serve, and the top five platform capabilities and limitations they had to work within. And, when questioned more deeply, each team member revealed an appreciation and understanding of the challenges and goals of their teammates almost as well as their own. http://tc.eserver.org/34126.html http://tc.eserver.org/34126.html What started out as something people did via e-mail and bookmark-sharing services like Delicious, is now moving to Facebook, Twitter, and other social broadcasting services. It is just so much more efficient to share a link once with all your friends and followers than to send it to each one individually. http://tc.eserver.org/34095.html http://tc.eserver.org/34095.html There’s one area that I believe user experience has lagged behind: the enterprise software space. I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection? http://tc.eserver.org/34096.html http://tc.eserver.org/34096.html In this column, I’ll provide a technology selection framework that can help enterprises better assess the usability and appropriateness of enterprise applications they’re considering purchasing, with the goal of ensuring their IT (Information Technology) investments deliver fully on their value propositions. http://tc.eserver.org/34046.html http://tc.eserver.org/34046.html Using a self-designation with a certain amount of specificity sacrifices practicality to accuracy. Individuals who have been hired as a single-function specialist may have the luxury of presenting as a “usability engineer” or “information architect”. For the independent consultant, this strategy can have definite negative consequences. http://tc.eserver.org/34049.html http://tc.eserver.org/34049.html Empathy is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have an ability to imagine things the way that others see them and how it makes them feel. We don’t even have to have a disability ourselves. Accessibility is NOT a checklist. Accessibility is about usability. Accessibility is a paradigm shift. Accessibility is a personal issue. http://tc.eserver.org/33934.html http://tc.eserver.org/33934.html Having determined to collect and share with you the top ten definitions of User Experience Design from the most credible sources, and so you to form your own, say, meta impression, I found the network falling just short. So, here are the top seven, with an invitation to you to contribute those definitions of user experience design (full three terms) that you find or know of. Inclusion is conditional, however, on a credibility standard that can only be defined as “secret sauce.” http://tc.eserver.org/33935.html http://tc.eserver.org/33935.html User experience design can sometimes be a slippery term. With all the other often used terms that float around in its realm in the technology and web space: interaction design, information architecture, human computer interaction, human factors engineering, usability, and user interface design. People often end up asking “what is the difference between all these fields and which one do I need?” This article examines the term and field of user experience to plainly extrapolate its meaning and connect the dots with these other fields. http://tc.eserver.org/33936.html http://tc.eserver.org/33936.html User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting "all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used." User experience design, most often abbreviated UX, but sometimes UE, is a term used to describe the overarching experience a person has as a result of their interactions with a particular product or service, its delivery, and related artifacts, according to their design. http://tc.eserver.org/33938.html http://tc.eserver.org/33938.html The term “user experience” or UX has been getting a lot of play, but many businesses are confused about what it actually is and how crucial it is to their success. I asked some of the most influential and widely respected practitioners in UX what they consider to be the biggest misperceptions of what we do. The result is a top 10 list to debunk the myths. http://tc.eserver.org/33657.html http://tc.eserver.org/33657.html I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection? http://tc.eserver.org/33584.html http://tc.eserver.org/33584.html The industry has spent a lot of time defining Web 2.0 and mapping its DNA. But as we attempt to emulate the fast-growth success of the Web 2.0 darlings, we need to zero in on the parts of the DNA that actually create this noteworthy new value. http://tc.eserver.org/33488.html http://tc.eserver.org/33488.html What can the User Experience field learn from the world of museums? Peter Samis and Tana Johnson of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) Interactive Technologies Team can help answer the question. The issues that they grapple with (and solve through inventive design) are firmly grounded in the goal of providing exceptional and inspiring museum experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/33445.html http://tc.eserver.org/33445.html In this paper, we describe the results of an effort to first understand the value of personalising a website, as perceived by the visitors to the site as well as by the stakeholder organisation that owns it, and then to develop a strategy for introducing personalisation to the ibm.com website. http://tc.eserver.org/33405.html http://tc.eserver.org/33405.html Ecommerce websites are typically set up as if they were just glorified catalogs: a list of products, some pictures, brief descriptions, and an order form. No human interaction at all. http://tc.eserver.org/33386.html http://tc.eserver.org/33386.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33387.html http://tc.eserver.org/33387.html 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? http://tc.eserver.org/33389.html http://tc.eserver.org/33389.html Think of Web 2.0 as more of a concept than a person, place or thing and you'll find firmer ground. Even better, spend some quality time with O'Reilly's lengthy essay. Finally, keep in mind that the lion's share of Web 2.0 discussion is from a technological perspective; it hasn't yet filtered down to the information architecture, interaction design and similar discussion lists. http://tc.eserver.org/33348.html http://tc.eserver.org/33348.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33362.html http://tc.eserver.org/33362.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33158.html http://tc.eserver.org/33158.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33161.html http://tc.eserver.org/33161.html This paper provides an overview of the process and organizational transformation that IBM has gone through in improving the user experience with our offerings. http://tc.eserver.org/32976.html http://tc.eserver.org/32976.html A 2002 bibliography of writings in the area of ethnography and user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/32986.html http://tc.eserver.org/32986.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/33013.html http://tc.eserver.org/33013.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32832.html http://tc.eserver.org/32832.html It is the primary goal of this text to better define Interaction Design: to provide a definition that encompasses the intellectual facets of the field, the conceptual underpinnings of Interaction Design as a legitimate human-centered field, and the particular methods used by practitioners in their day to day experiences. http://tc.eserver.org/32759.html http://tc.eserver.org/32759.html I have recently noticed a new breed of web design books that focus on strategy and users rather than specific programming languages or applications. http://tc.eserver.org/32747.html http://tc.eserver.org/32747.html A blog about user experience, usability, design, navigation and interfaces. http://tc.eserver.org/32748.html http://tc.eserver.org/32748.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32749.html http://tc.eserver.org/32749.html 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? http://tc.eserver.org/32423.html http://tc.eserver.org/32423.html An overview of what influences consumers when booking a holiday and what travel companies can do to offer the best user experience. http://tc.eserver.org/32358.html http://tc.eserver.org/32358.html 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. http://tc.eserver.org/32283.html http://tc.eserver.org/32283.html Logic+Emotion exists at the intersection of business + experience design—where passive consumers become active participants. http://tc.eserver.org/32031.html http://tc.eserver.org/32031.html User experience is a term that is widely used these days to refer to all sorts of interactions between people and technologies. But when it comes to videogames, experience is the only sensible word to use. Games are pure experience. And the range of experiences they offer is huge from what it is like to land a 747 at Heathrow Airport to slaying space dragons with a team of like-minded warriors. Thus, when it comes to really understanding user experience in games, it can be hard to say anything that would apply in general. However, one expression that does seem to crop up regularly, and that gamers relate to, is that games are immersive: when people are having a good experience, they get lost or immersed in the game and the world outside the game fades into the background. So what is this notion of immersion? What causes it? And is it the heart of what makes a good game? These are the questions that I have been trying to answer, together with my colleagues and students, over the last few years. http://tc.eserver.org/32029.html http://tc.eserver.org/32029.html The common wisdom is that we now live in the age of information; the freedom and access we have to data is unprecedented in history; and the efficiency and convenience of online commerce, research, and communication has already transformed our lives for the better. While this is true, of course, our excitement should be tempered by a few realizations. http://tc.eserver.org/32030.html http://tc.eserver.org/32030.html The number one enemy of any strategy is poor execution. All across the business landscape, the ability of an organization to execute its strategy is one of the most critical elements of success. And for an effective UX strategy, the broad range of elements requiring alignment and implementation make its successful execution all the more difficult. http://tc.eserver.org/31998.html http://tc.eserver.org/31998.html We create software and websites to display and represent information to people. That information could be anything; a company’s product list, pictures of your vacation, or an instant message from a friend. At this moment, there’s more information available to you than at any other time in history. http://tc.eserver.org/31949.html http://tc.eserver.org/31949.html Jeffrey Kalmikoff is partner at skinnyCorp and chief creative officer at Threadless. In this article he relates what a trip to a sandwich shop can teach you about customer service. http://tc.eserver.org/31830.html http://tc.eserver.org/31830.html Where would we be without rating and reputation systems these days? Take them away, and we wouldn’t know who to trust on eBay, what movies to pick on Netflix, or what books to buy on Amazon. Reputation systems (essentially a rating system for people) also help guide us through the labyrinth of individuals who make up our social web. Is he or she worthwhile to spend my time on? For pity’s sake, please don’t check out our reputation points before deciding whether to read this article. http://tc.eserver.org/31681.html http://tc.eserver.org/31681.html The complexity of new technology demands more than one participant in the design process to imagine future products and systems, and this is practitioners in design might learn from other professions in the development phase. But that indicate that design industries might have to challenge themselves in changing work practice in the development phase of a design. http://tc.eserver.org/31581.html http://tc.eserver.org/31581.html Document engineering is a methodology for specifying, designing, and deploying the information models and repositories that enable document-centric applications, and a synthesis of information and systems analysis, business process modeling, electronic publishing, and service-oriented architecture. http://tc.eserver.org/31127.html http://tc.eserver.org/31127.html We can't force people to look at the work we do, but if we want to make them happy, we need to provide them with the information they need in a manner that makes it easy for the top-down mechanisms to work efficiently. It's our job to help them observe, rather than just see. http://tc.eserver.org/31093.html http://tc.eserver.org/31093.html Some failure allows complex organizations to learn and grow; others can be catastrophic. In Part 2 of his series, Peter Jones explores the factors of user experience role, the timing dynamics of large projects, and several alternatives to the framing of UX roles and organizations today. http://tc.eserver.org/30796.html http://tc.eserver.org/30796.html An interview with Dan Saffer, 2008 Conference Chair and IxDA Director. Dan discusses the context of the organization, how the conference emerged and formed, what the conference will be like, and how one might get a flavor even if attendance is not an option. http://tc.eserver.org/30767.html http://tc.eserver.org/30767.html Good web design does not necessarily mean good use of colors and layouts, but it does transcend beyond it. Design elements like color, font, size, frame, etc. play an important role nonetheless, but what is more important is that how it affects the aesthetic sensibilities of the users. The warmth and the feel of the web site, or in another words, the texture of the web site is a crucial area to turn our attention to. By texture of the web site what it means is the subtleties of the surface of the web site. Varied aspects as discussed in this article, when sensibly used -- and in combination with good deign skills aimed at creating intuitive appeal -- are of definite help of when it comes to developing engaging graphics on your web site. http://tc.eserver.org/30721.html http://tc.eserver.org/30721.html This is the recording of the presentation from the Catalyze Community monthly webcast featuring Charlie Kreitzberg on December 13, 2007. Charlie spoke on "Web 2 and You - How Web 2.0 Will Catapult Business Analysts and Usability Professionals into Center Stage" which examined his models for understanding Web 2.0 and explored the vast opportunities for professionals who define and design new software and websites. http://tc.eserver.org/30682.html http://tc.eserver.org/30682.html These days, the idea of customer engagement is almost as hot as Web 2.0--and almost as controversial. As busy UX professionals, should we invest our time and energy in caring about engagement, or is it just another buzzword? I think we do need to understand customer engagement, so that, at a minimum, we can respond intelligently to questions about it from marketers or executives. We might even glean some useful insights from thinking about engagement. This column aims to cut through the hype and reveal the potential value of engagement. http://tc.eserver.org/30683.html http://tc.eserver.org/30683.html The design decisions that both industrial designers and interaction designers have made on the Breva provide an enhanced experience for the rider--that is, for me. http://tc.eserver.org/30633.html http://tc.eserver.org/30633.html Finding the right person to complement your User Experience team is part art and part luck. Though good interviewing can limit the risk of a bad hire, you need to carefully analyze your current organizational context, before you can know what you need. Herein lies the art. Since you can't truly know a candidate from an interview, you gamble that their personality and skills are what they seem. Aimed at managers and those involved in the hiring decision process, this article looks at the facets of UX staff and offers ways to identify the skills and influence that will tune your team to deliver winning results. http://tc.eserver.org/30635.html http://tc.eserver.org/30635.html With so many choices as to how we can spend our time in the digital age, attention is becoming the most important currency. In today's splintered media environment, new digital products and services must compete with everything under the sun, making differentiation key to developing an audience that cares, invests, and ultimately drives value. http://tc.eserver.org/30626.html http://tc.eserver.org/30626.html Presents a strategic roadmap for user experience design. Combining usability with the science of persuasion, learn how you can: impact online decision-making and user motivation; create a dashboard-based framework to measure and track user experience; integrate your customer channels and internal-facing systems; and help executives appreciate and understand the value of user-centered thinking and design. http://tc.eserver.org/30625.html http://tc.eserver.org/30625.html Explains how HFI's evolving set of user experience metrics can help you: quantify best practices in design at a site, sub-site or page level; prioritize your usability resources across a range of projects; get valuable feedback quickly, in 'design time'; track and benchmark user experience over time; learn how you score against your competitors; and synthesize your various user data streams into an integrated UX dashboard. http://tc.eserver.org/30461.html http://tc.eserver.org/30461.html Blog on interface design, interaction design and usability. http://tc.eserver.org/30227.html http://tc.eserver.org/30227.html As information architects, interaction designers, usability consultants, and developers, we don't have to change our careers to do something good for society. All we have to do is connect with the right nonprofit: One that shares our goals and whose mission we support. http://tc.eserver.org/30209.html http://tc.eserver.org/30209.html This framework comprises the competencies a UX professional or team requires. The following sections describe these five competencies, outline some questions each competency must answer, and show the groundwork and deliverables for which each competency is responsible. http://tc.eserver.org/30205.html http://tc.eserver.org/30205.html Recent redesigns at Yahoo!, Microsoft Live Search, and Ask.com are providing graphically rich alternatives to the minimalist search giant. http://tc.eserver.org/30187.html http://tc.eserver.org/30187.html Experience designers need to transition from designing for a single, static space--the desktop--to imagining the broad possibilities of the geospatial Web. For digital products and services, the next dimension of user experience we should consider during design is location. http://tc.eserver.org/30030.html http://tc.eserver.org/30030.html Ever visited the website of a company with a glaring error either on the site or in their product, only to discover that they have successfully sealed themselves off from the world, so you can't report it? Sure you have, and it's not only causing you frustration, it's costing that company real money. http://tc.eserver.org/30035.html http://tc.eserver.org/30035.html DVD menus often miss out on usability and are complex and difficult to navigate through. One of the main problems is the lack of design standards. By conducting an expert walkthrough we identified typical usability issues of DVD menus and verified them with usability testing and a user survey. Our research goal is to develop a set of specific solutions for designing usable DVD menus to improve the overall user experience. As a first step towards this goal we present an initial set of usability issues that are specifically relevant for DVD menu design. http://tc.eserver.org/30028.html http://tc.eserver.org/30028.html Slashing subjective time on your site by 50% is a perfectly reasonable goal. Indolent worker George Costanza once reflected on the time in the shower you wait for the hair conditioner to work as, 'a really tough minute.' A minute waiting for hair conditioner to work while getting ready for a date can feel longer than the three subsequent hours you spend with that very special person. Reducing/eliminating boredom points can make the time spent on your website appear to really fly by. http://tc.eserver.org/30027.html http://tc.eserver.org/30027.html The experience profile of a product can be described in terms of these experiential components. Once such an experience profile has been properly defined, it must be translated in all product properties the designer can affect. It has an effect on the sensorial aspects of the product, but also on the way it functions, it affects the way people operate the product and even the way the product is marketed. In sum, the profile has an impact on all aspects that together shape the human-product interaction. http://tc.eserver.org/30024.html http://tc.eserver.org/30024.html Your seemingly elegant design begins to bloat with features, tear under the pressure of localization, and nearly keel over under the weight of new content that pushes it to its breaking point. Before long you give up. It's time to redesign--again. Could you have avoided this all too common cycle? Was there anything you might have done to anticipate these changes? One potential answer lies in scalable design considerations. Screen frameworks, user interface structures, and components that enable your product design to gracefully accommodate new features, new markets, and dynamic content--that can shrink or grow--are the cornerstones of a scalable design. http://tc.eserver.org/30009.html http://tc.eserver.org/30009.html The shortcomings and limitations of user-centered and user experience design are considered and contrasted with usage-centered design. The iterative, trial-and-error approach of traditional user-centered approaches is argued to lead to excessive dependence on user testing and user approval, leading to overly conservative designs. By contrast, model-driven approaches based on fine-grained task models have a proven record of leading to dramatic improvements in user performance through innovative designs. http://tc.eserver.org/29925.html http://tc.eserver.org/29925.html The user experience field has been trying to move beyond mere usability and utility for years. So far, no one seems to have developed easy-to-implement, non-retrospective, valid, and reliable measures for gauging users' emotional reactions to a system, application, or Web site. In this column, I'll introduce you to a promising method that just might solve this problem. http://tc.eserver.org/29820.html http://tc.eserver.org/29820.html Incorporating emotional value into products has become an essential strategy for increasing a product's competitive edge in the consumer market. It is therefore important for product manufacturers to understand how products affect consumers' emotions. This study was undertaken to investigate the types and characteristics of household products that elicit pleasurable responses, in particular among young, college-age consumers. The results of the study could suggest the types and characteristics to consider when developing pleasurable products aimed at young consumers. http://tc.eserver.org/29815.html http://tc.eserver.org/29815.html Apple and Netflix gained insight by investing in understanding the current experience of their potential customers. Those insights led to industry-changing innovations that have made an indelible impression on businesses everywhere. As innovation is now the new black, experience design is the fabric of new insight. The work designers do is now the hot spot to be. http://tc.eserver.org/29762.html http://tc.eserver.org/29762.html Creating any system of sufficient complexity requires a diverse team and a dizzying amount of documentation. While these documents do a great job of conveying components of the system, they do not provide an integrated view. This is because each covers different aspects of the system, written by a different author for a different audience. This paper proposes that project teams should create a user experience specification, a document that shows what the system looks like, how it behaves, and how it works. This specification needs to describe the system for all team members, at a useful level of detail, in a form that encourages team members to read it and inviting enough to get them to participate in the design, as well as allow developers to build from. http://tc.eserver.org/29672.html http://tc.eserver.org/29672.html How can a designer increase the degree to which people bond with a product? This is the question researcher Ruth Mugge tackled, who has recently received her PhD degree on this topic at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. http://tc.eserver.org/29556.html http://tc.eserver.org/29556.html After the eras of the Commodity Economy, the Manufacturing Economy, the Service Economy and the Information Economy, we have now entered the era of the Dream Economy. The key to success in the Dream Economy is an in-depth and holistic understanding of people. It's not only about meeting people's practical needs, but also about meeting their aspirations and providing a positive emotional experience. http://tc.eserver.org/29557.html http://tc.eserver.org/29557.html In the current discussion of where design is going and what matters, there is an emphasis on the user and his or her (emotional) experience. It is a hot topic in books, blogs and the minds of industrial designers and interaction designers, worldwide. The importance of a focus on (emotional) experiences in addition to a merely technological or functional focus is being stressed by professionals with many different cultural backgrounds. http://tc.eserver.org/29558.html http://tc.eserver.org/29558.html Is it more important for your web site to be desirable or accessible? How about usable or credible? The truth is, it depends on your unique balance of context, content and users, and the required tradeoffs are better made explicitly than unconsciously. http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html http://tc.eserver.org/29496.html Monthly articles on the latest usability research and its practical implications for user interface design. http://tc.eserver.org/29497.html http://tc.eserver.org/29497.html The UX Pioneers project aims to reveal the motivations and perspectives of key players in the User Experience industry through in-depth interviews and discussions. http://tc.eserver.org/29471.html http://tc.eserver.org/29471.html As user experience designers in an enterprise, we find ourselves knee deep in pixels. Should we use a dropdown element or a set of radio buttons? 10pt or 12pt size font? A broad-and-shallow or narrow-and-deep information architecture? While such design considerations are necessary and important, we miss huge user experience opportunities outside the webpage, outside the website, outside the browser. By tackling inter-application usability opportunities, user experience (UX) professionals can make things easier in a big way. http://tc.eserver.org/29358.html http://tc.eserver.org/29358.html Inspired by Don Norman's classic book, 'The Design of Everyday Things', I started to collect my own examples of bad designs to analyse according to interaction design principles. Here are just a few. http://tc.eserver.org/29292.html http://tc.eserver.org/29292.html Once we begin looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of various organizational models, we can almost immediately start brainstorming ways of mitigating the challenges and put policies into place that help improve the strategic impact of UX. http://tc.eserver.org/29291.html http://tc.eserver.org/29291.html Interaction design lies at the junction of several design disciplines. The resulting crossover between various specialties and issues is often muddled, understandably. There is no doubt that interaction design, as a design discipline, differs from applied human-computer interaction and cognitive psychology. These distinctions are omnipresent in the current literature. http://tc.eserver.org/29278.html http://tc.eserver.org/29278.html Using JavaScript can be particularly useful when a website is content managed. Rather than having to rely on site editors to remember to open a link to a PDF in a new window the process is handled by a simple JavaScript function. http://tc.eserver.org/28950.html http://tc.eserver.org/28950.html In this interview with Louis Rosenfeld, The Rockley Bulletin asks the information architecture and user experience guru to talk about enterprise information architecture, what it is, where it's heading, and how you can get started. http://tc.eserver.org/28917.html http://tc.eserver.org/28917.html Creating a User Experience (UX) process can be a very rewarding journey; it can also be a nightmare if approached from the wrong angle. Initiating a culture-shift, overhauling existing processes, evangelizing, strategizing, and educating is an enormous undertaking. Often it's a lonely path the UX advocate walks, especially if you are the only one who is driving that change from within the company. But that path is ripe with opportunities to improve your company's product creation process, as well as the product itself. http://tc.eserver.org/28938.html http://tc.eserver.org/28938.html Is there a smart and graceful way to transition into a product manager role? Chris Baum and Jeff Lash talk about the differences between product management and design and increasing your influence. http://tc.eserver.org/28939.html http://tc.eserver.org/28939.html What will you need to leave behind to enter the wine-and-roses world of Product Management? In Part 2 of this series, Jeff Lash and Chris Baum give us a preview of what's in store for your new role and give us tips on how to prepare. http://tc.eserver.org/28897.html http://tc.eserver.org/28897.html Audio signals also help us interact with our environment. Some of these signals are designed: We wake to the buzz of the alarm clock, answer the ringing telephone, and race to the kitchen when the shrill beep of the smoke alarm warns us that dinner is burning on the stove. Other audio signals are not deliberately designed, but help us nonetheless. For instance, we may know the proper sound of the central air conditioning starting, the gentle hum of the PC fan, or the noise of the refrigerator. So, when these systems go awry, we notice it immediately--something doesn't sound right. Likewise, an excellent mechanic might be able to tell what is wrong with a car engine just by listening to it run. http://tc.eserver.org/28899.html http://tc.eserver.org/28899.html One of the most important aspects of the work of designers do on a project is their ability to explain their choices and the reasoning that led to given design solutions--both to their clients and to other member of a product team. Clear communication is vital to the smooth progress of a project, as even a single misunderstanding or communication glitch can lead to mistakes during implementation. http://tc.eserver.org/28898.html http://tc.eserver.org/28898.html You are the lead designer--or perhaps even the sole designer on a product team. You have just completed your product design, and it's time to walk through your design approach with the project stakeholders, including management, developers, and users. What do you need to do to prepare for your presentation? This article provides some basic tips to help you better prepare to walk through your product designs with stakeholders. http://tc.eserver.org/28703.html http://tc.eserver.org/28703.html There's a lot we, as designers of the web experience, can learn from something as simple as a water glass. http://tc.eserver.org/28688.html http://tc.eserver.org/28688.html As user experience professionals, we have the opportunity to work more closely with brand and marketing specialists to clearly articulate the brand perception we want to elicit from our customers. Brand perception is, in part, an expectation on the part of a customer regarding future interactions with a company and its products and services. To achieve our desired brand perception, we must consistently represent and deliver the brand values we have led customers to expect. http://tc.eserver.org/28535.html http://tc.eserver.org/28535.html The most effective companies realize that they can't succeed on advertising alone; the customer matters. http://tc.eserver.org/28532.html http://tc.eserver.org/28532.html User Experience (UX) design is traditionally seen as the domain of user interface (UI) design, but within a software development team it should mean so much more! UX should permeate through the whole development team. It should influence the way middle tier developers' craft their components and the way database administrators create their tables, stored procedures and views. http://tc.eserver.org/28357.html http://tc.eserver.org/28357.html In part one of 'Metrics for Heuristics,' Andrea Wiggins discussed how designers can use Rubinoff’s user experience audit to determine metrics for measuring brand. In part two, Wiggins examines how web analytics can quantify usability, content, and navigation.