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.'
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A forum for the discussion of progressive ideas about important issues relating to user experience.
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News, events and other items of interest about user experience as an umbrella concept for collaboration and cooperation.
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UXnet Local Ambassadors: Building a Global Community One Locale at a Time
Over the past few decades, we have seen a steady expansion in the number of people who design or evaluate the quality of the user experience of digital products. The popularization of the personal computer in business and at home, the explosion of the Web and Internet applications, and the sudden presence of computer interfaces in everything from medical systems to voting stations to home entertainment centers has greatly accelerated the growth of the user experience (UX) movement.
Ferrara, John, Pabini Gabriel-Petit and Louis Rosenfeld. UXmatters (2006). Design>User Experience>Collaboration>Civic
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Walking Through Your Product Design With Stakeholders
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.
Szuc, Daniel. UXmatters (2007). Design>Project Management>User Experience>Collaboration
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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.
Jones, Peter. Boxes and Arrows (2008). Design>Web Design>User Experience
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A presentation about online community and experience design in modern web design.
Wroblewski, Luke. LukeW Interface Designs (2005). Presentations>Web Design>User Experience
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News and articles about web development, design, and marketing for higher education. Plus, occasionally, anything else that strikes our fancy.
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What Puts the Design in Interaction Design
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.
Silver, Kevin. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Experience>Interaction Design
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Puzzled why your site is not living up to your expectations? The problem may not lie with your content or products, but rather in your site's user experience. Find out what common pitfalls to avoid by following a few simple guidelines to improve the user experience and transform surfers into customers.
Paul, Chris. IBM (2000). Design>Web Design>User Experience>Usability
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Where Are You Now? Design for the Location Revolution
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.
Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Design>User Experience>Wireless Web
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A solo usability consultant who focuses on user research and strategy, Whitney thinks and writes about the role of storytelling in user experience design.
Adlin, Tamara and Whitney Quesenbery. UX Pioneers (2007). Articles>Interviews>User Experience
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Who Are You? Get a Personality 
Our most memorable experiences are those we can not only see and hear, but also feel. Building such experiences on the Web requires an understanding of how the design of your Web site creates a personality that interacts with and speaks to your audience. A Web site needs to be both effective and affective: not only usable but likable as well. Therefore, designing an appropriate and engaging personality for your site is not the icing on the cake (as visual design is sometimes called): It is the recipe that determines your final result and whether or not it will appeal to your audience.
LukeW Interface Designs (2006). Design>Web Design>User Experience
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Who's Keeping Score? The Value of Usability Scorecards and Metrics
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.
Goddard, Phil and Susan Weinschenk. Human Factors International (2007). Design>User Experience>User Centered Design>Podcasts
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Why Consumer Products Have Inferior User Experience
Physical products, from consumer electronics to cars, are needlessly complex because they're developed by insular companies that continue to ignore the growing usability trend.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Centered Design
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Why Do People Become Attached to Their Products?
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.
Mugge, Ruth. uiGarden (2007). Design>User Experience>User Interface
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Why Game Documentation is Essential to a Satisfying User Experience
Documentation and information organization are an integral part of video game construction. The video game industry may be one of the directions technical communicators will move toward in the near future.
Peterson, Martin. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>Documentation>User Experience>User Centered Design
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I hate user manuals that are distributed as PDFs. They are mainly used online so why the artificial page constraints? I'm in the middle of a topic and all of a sudden there is a page break--not because of a topical shift but because had it been printed on 8.5 x 11 we would have run out of paper. News flash: I didn't print it and I was not running out of paper.
Hughes, Michael A. User Assistance (2008). Articles>Documentation>User Experience>Adobe Acrobat
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I view a user experience as a conversation between people separated over the distance of time. At one end of that conversation are those who create the product; at the other, the people who use it. In between is the product itself--with a design that either helps or hinders; creates a barrier-free interaction or shouts in an unfamiliar language. Because this conversation does not happen in real time, we are not there to smooth over the rough spots and make sure that we have spoken clearly. Instead, we have to build our understanding of those users into every aspect of the design, by putting people--users--at the center of the design process.
Quesenbery, Whitney. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Experience>Communication>User Centered Design
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Why UX Should Matter to Software Companies
A good--even great--user experience is an essential component of a quality software product and provides a sustainable strategic advantage that differentiates a product from those of a company's competitors. Thus, user experience is a core competency within today's software companies, and an expert in UX strategy and design is an indispensable part of a software product team--just as the product manager and software architect are--particularly if a team is working on a new product.
Gabriel-Petit, Pabini. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Experience
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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
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Logic+Emotion exists at the intersection of business + experience design—where passive consumers become active participants.
Armano, David. Logic Plus Emotion. Resources>Information Design>User Experience>Blogs
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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
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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
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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
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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
