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.'
#31604
Recycle These Pixels: Sustainability and the User Experience
Whether we’re designing the user experience for a digital product or a physical one, as UX professionals, we are uniquely positioned to influence the behavior of other people, for good or ill. Our employers or clients charge us with responsibility for not only defining a design problem from multiple perspectives, but also finding solutions that are better than the ones that came before. Increased energy consumption, materials waste, and the resulting climate change are the chief difficulties our generation of designers and thinkers must address—or ignore at our own peril. But for most UX professionals, sustainability—unlike usability, technical feasibility, aesthetic appeal, and even business viability—is not yet a baseline factor that we take into account when designing a product or service.
Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Environmental
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Rendezvous with KnowGenesis: Dr. Carol M. Barnum 
Carol M. Barnum is Professor of Technical Communication and Director of the Usability Center, at Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, GA. She is also a technical communication consultant specializing in custom training and usability, an award-winning author, a top presenter at the Society for Technical Communication (STC) annual conferences, a Fellow of STC, and a recipient of the STC's Jay R. Gould Award for Excellence in Teaching Technical Communication. She was a member of the STC's board of directors for seven years, three years as a Director-Sponsor and four years as Assistant to the President for Publications. Her graduate and undergraduate courses in technical communication at Southern Polytechnic include a graduate level course in usability testing. Her consulting work includes testing hardware, computer-based training, software, and websites. Her most recent book, Usability Testing and Research, reflects the focus of her work on usability since 1992. In her discussion with KnowGenesis, she shared her views on how organizations can benefit by investing more on usability research.
Kudesia, Saurabh. International Journal for Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Interviews>TC>User Experience
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ROI Is Not a Silver Bullet: Five Actionable Steps for Valuing User Experience Design
How can design managers use valuation methodology to better increase their visibility and position themselves as a strategic corporate resource? Here are five steps that will help.
Hirsch, Scott. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Management>User Experience
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Rosenfeld Media: UX Publishing Startup: An Interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Liz Danzico
After working on five books as an editor or co-author, Lou Rosenfeld became disenchanted with the traditional book publishing model. So, in late 2005, he founded Rosenfeld Media, a new publishing house that develops short, practical, useful books on user experience design. Rosenfeld Media published their first book, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior, in early 2008. I recently had the opportunity to interview Lou—along with Liz Danzico, Senior Development Editor at Rosenfeld Media—about starting a new publishing house and “eating their own dog food.”
Kaufman, Joshua, Louis Rosenfeld and Liz Danzico. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Interviews>User Experience>Case Studies
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There's a lot we, as designers of the web experience, can learn from something as simple as a water glass.
Gustafson, Aaron. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>User Experience
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Salary Survey: User Experience Professionals Earn Good Money
A survey of 1,078 user experience professionals finds that usability specialists make more money than designers and writers in the same field. In all three areas, salaries are highest in the U.S., lower in Canada and Asia, and much lower in Europe and Australia.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Careers>Usability>Salaries>User Experience
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Satisficing describes the situation where people settle with a solution to a problem that is 'good enough.'
Soegaard, Mads. Interaction-Design.org. Articles>Usability>User Experience>Cognitive Psychology
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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.
Wroblewski, Luke. UXmatters (2007). Design>Web Design>User Experience
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The Science and Art of User Experience at Google
Takes you through the art and science behind Google's design process and shares examples of how design, usability and engineering are combined by Google's development teams.
Fitzpatrick, Jen. Google (2006). Design>Web Design>User Experience>Methods
#31854
Secil Watson Tells Jesse James Garrett About Experience Design at Wells Fargo
When I joined the company, they were making the transition from being an online servicing group, where people could access their accounts and check their balances, to one where they could start a relationship with their customers, through selling anything from checking accounts to brokerage accounts to services on those accounts.
Watson, Secil and Jesse James Garrett. Adaptive Path (2008). Articles>Interviewing>User Experience>Case Studies
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By working closely together in harmony, product management, UX, and engineering can achieve synergy, making the product user experience greater than the sum of their individual efforts.
Gabriel-Petit, Pabini. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Experience>Collaboration
#31602
This article postulates that we cannot address the issue of simplification exclusively by analyzing the physical and computational parameters of technology. Instead, we must understand the goal of simplification in light of the knowledge, tasks, and processing-load demands on its users. We can approach simplicity as an engineering endeavor by controlling the impact on these three usage dimensions.
Santos, Lucinio. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Usability>Minimalism
#30028
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.
Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2007). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience
#31603
So You Want to Be a UX Manager—Seriously?
Almost weekly, I talk with a UX designer or researcher who wants to become a manager of a UX team. For some people, this is a good choice. Both they and their teams thrive. But for many, it’s honestly not the right goal, and the end result is that neither they nor their teams are happy. The book Now, Discover Your Strengths [1] suggests that we tend to be good at the things we love doing, and we love activities at which we excel. I find that we do our best work when we’re in a playground. (I’ll explore this idea more in my next column.) Isn’t life too short to pursue a path we don’t enjoy?
Nieters, Jim. UXmatters (2008). Careers>Management>User Experience
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Starting a Career in User Experience
This article is based upon my own experience transitioning from a career in corporate-world project management into the field of user experience design. With dedication, some talent, a few classes, and a healthy dose of self-promotion, the transition was fairly easy, very enjoyable, and took about two years. I have outlined a few key points to consider if you are planning to start a career in user experience design.
Haid, Marcus. uiGarden (2007). Careers>Usability>User Experience
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Starting a Career in User Experience
This article is based upon my own experience transitioning from a career in corporate-world project management into the field of user experience design. With dedication, some talent, a few classes, and a healthy dose of self-promotion, the transition was fairly easy, very enjoyable, and took about two years. I have outlined a few key points to consider if you are planning to start a career in user experience design.
Haid, Marcus. Adaptive Path (2003). Careers>Usability>User Centered Design>User Experience
#31875
Over the past three decades of computer/human interaction, we’ve seen digital technology evolve from a curiosity to a convenience to an integral part of our everyday lives. For UX professionals, the demand for our skill sets and the opportunities to practice seem only to grow, whether we be designers or developers, usability specialists or information architects, working in fields as diverse as Web, mobile, desktop, and embedded software systems. The UX professions are at a stage that could very well be a tipping point—where the rapid rise of digital devices, services, and connectivity converge to create a massive need for UX professionals. The mobile space alone could generate demand that we can only begin to imagine.
Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Human Computer Interaction>Community
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Stories are the Human Experience
Usability through storytelling, the theme for the UPA 2006 conference, was examined from many angles. Presenters looked at how stories fit into our work, throughout the entire user-centered design process.
Quesenbery, Whitney. uiGarden (2006). Articles>User Experience>Rhetoric
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Story telling has been going on for millennium; it is a wonderful way to entertain and to engage others. Stories are not direct or personal, but they convey a message that can be interpreted by other world views. Various story-telling devices, such as films, novels and plays have become part of a vast entertainment industry that often reflects cultural ideals. Religions often use a book of stories, such as the bible, to convey moral beliefs. So it is perhaps not surprising that HCI has developed forms of narrative to convey stories and messages about people's lives that it wants other world views to hear.
Jones, Rachel. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Rhetoric>User Experience
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Success with User-Centered Design Management
With the proliferation of digital products, including computers, desktop and Web-based applications, and mobile and embedded devices, the quality of the user experience (UX) has become one of the key determinants in the success of competing products. Productivity, entertainment, and business-application programs for non-technical users in particular must have 'intuitive' interfaces.
Ashley, Jeremy and Kristin Desmond. uiGarden (2005). Design>User Centered Design>Project Management>User Experience
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How valid is the assertion that 'attractive things work better'? This article explores the association, if any, between user's perceptions of usability and aesthetics for developed systems.
Chawda, Bejal. System Concepts (2005). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Experience
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Technical Communicators as Potential Usability Reviewers 
This article defines the niche for Technical Communicators / Writers in Usability Engineering. It makes an important observation "Technical Communicator explains the product to users and Usability Engineer attempts to design self-explanatory products. If the design doesn't speak up, Technical Communicators have to overwork." Technical communicators can serve as the 'barometer' of user interface design.
Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>Usability>Technical Writing>User Experience
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Theoretical Approaches to Designing Experiences with Technology 
This paper examines various theoretical approaches on designing the user experience with technology and argues that a humanistic, conceptual framework augment current design industry practice. Taking into account psychological approaches and traditional narrative theory, this paper presents a theory for the human experience and applies this theory to "experience design," or the design of the human experience with technology. Guiding principles for the experience designer based on the paper's theoretical underpinnings are proposed.
Fukumoto, Dane K.T. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Technology>User Experience>Theory
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Tools of the UX Trade searches the Web for software, books, services, and other resources for user experience practitioners.
Deaton, Mary M. Tools of the UX Trade. Resources>Usability>User Experience>Blogs
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Transitioning from User Experience to Product Management: Part 1
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.
Lash, Jeff and Chris Baum. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Design>User Experience>Project Management
