Global Market, Global Emotion, Global Design?

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.

van Hout, Marco. uiGarden. Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions

Google广告有害吗？

Google是一个什么样的公司？对于大多数人来说，对这个问题的回答会是“搜索”。虽然说Google确实是一个关注搜索的公司，它却并不靠搜索来生存。与之相反，和其它公司一样，由利益来决定。并且就像John Gruber所指出的，它通过出售广告来生存。 这使得Google成为一家广告公司。这意义也许比你一开始猜测的要深远的多了。 不过让我们不要走得太远。让我们来谈一会儿可用性。我将要向您解释Google对于广告的必要关注可以让我们学到很多可用性的内容。更严格的讲，这篇文章将描述一个困境，一个与Google对于发布商如何防止广告的建议紧密相关的困境。可用性解决了这个困境，也因此告诉我们许多如何将商务与用户体验结合起来。

Rhodes, John S. uiGarden (2006). (Chinese) Articles>Web Design>Ethics>Search

The Greatest Design of all Time

After a while one of my dining companions asked me what I regarded as the greatest design of all time.

Jordan, Pat. uiGarden (2005). Design>Usability>User Interface

Hands Across the Screen: Why Scrollbars are on the Right and Other Stories

Why are scrollbars on the right, and is it the best place for them? There are good reasons to think that the left-hand side may be the better choice. In this short paper we'll talk about two cases, from which we can find: the best placement does not look right when you see it statically, but feels right when it is used.

Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface

Hotspots and Hyperlinks: Using Eye-Tracking to Supplement Usability Testing

This article discusses how eye-tracking can be used to supplement traditional usability test measures. User performance on two usability tasks with three e-commerce websites is described. Results show that eye-tracking data can be used to better understand how users initiate a search for a targeted link or web object. Frequency, duration and order of visual attention to Areas of Interest (AOIs) in particular are informative as supplemental information to standard usability testing in understanding user expectations and making design recommendations.

Russell, Mark C. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Eye Tracking

The Human Interface

The phrase 'human error' is taken to mean 'operator error', but more often than not the disaster is inherent in the design or installation of the human interface. Bad interfaces are slow or error prone to use. Bad interfaces cost money and cost lives.

Dix, Alan. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Usability>User Centered Design

Human-Computer Interaction: Guidelines for Web Animation

Human-computer interaction in the large is an interdisciplinary area which attracts researchers, educators, and practioners from many differenf fields. Human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in communication, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human side. This paper is related to the human side of human-computer interaction and focuses on animations.

Galyani, Golnessa Moghaddam and Mostafa Moballeghi. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Experience>Flash

IDEO's "Ten Faces"

Tom Kelly's latest book 'The 10 Faces of Innovation' internal personas are used to help illustrate traits critical in building an innovation culture.The Experience Archtect is included.

Armano, David. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas

IDII: A Life Changing Experience

Almost two years ago, twenty students from all over the world came to Ivrea, a city that once was the epicenter of Olivetti and of the Italian Hi-tech. They came to study interaction design.

Kikin-Gil, Erez and Ruth Kikin-Gil. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Education>User Centered Design>Italy

Immersion in Videogames

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.

Cairns, Paul. uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design>Games

Infographics: Being and Doing (Part II)

Organizing the available information and coming up with a plan for presenting it is the first and probably the most difficult stage in designing any infographic.

Rajamanickam, Venkatesh. uiGarden (2007). Design>Graphic Design>Technical Illustration

Informed Design: Understanding Your Web Audience

Although there are lots of elements to consider when designing compelling Web experiences (writing style, look and feel, information organization--to name just a few), there is one 'knowable' element that can be used to appraise the rest: audience.

Wroblewski, Luke. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Innovative User Interface Design

Increasing numbers of websites are developing new types of user interface design, taking advantage of users' increasing levels of Internet-sophistication and faster connections. This article will have a look at some of them.

Fidgeon, Tim. uiGarden (2006). Design>Web Design>User Interface

Interaction Design is Story Telling

Language is a unique communication system and fundamental to the survival of human beings. Story telling is a very old method to describe the facts, to spread knowledge, to share our experiences and feelings. A good story can be accepted and stored by our brain instantly, and leaving a long term effect on us. At the same time, it is also easy for people to understand and accept new facts and imagine similar scenarios as they happen in their own lives. In the following paragraph, let's examine why Interaction Design is story telling.

Jiang, Windy. uiGarden (2006). Design>Web Design>Interaction Design

Interface in Form: Paper and Product Prototyping for Feedback and Fun

Sketching and modeling are integral features of the design process, critical for both the generation of ideas, and the communication of concepts to others for discussion and evaluation, particularly in the context of human-centered design. While these methods are a natural component of the designer’s education and professional tool kit, there is immense value in exposing other professions involved in the development of products and interfaces to at least a limited set of these same basic tools.

Hanington, Bruce. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Interface

Introduction to Agile Usability, User Experience Activities on Agile Development Projects: Part II

What would happen when usability community meets agile community? How to adopt usability practice by agilists?

Ambler, Scott W. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Usability>Agile

An Introduction to Personas and How to Create Them

There are many ways to identify the needs of users, such as usability testing, interviewing users, discussions with business stakeholders, and conducting surveys. However one technique that has grown in popularity and acceptance is the use of personas: the development of archetypal users to direct the vision and design of a web solution.

Calabria, Tina. uiGarden (2005). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas

iPhone Evaluation Report

User Centric, a privately held usability consulting firm based in Chicago, evaluated the long-term usability and user experience of the iPhone in 2007.

uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Experience>Usability

iPhone是否名符其实？

终于问世了，iPhone的可用性测试！毫无疑问，iPhone广告营销和推广已经超过了当代所有的消费设备，达到了登峰造极的程度。但是它真的名符其实吗？ inUse公司几位最好的可用性专家组织了一次比较性的可用性测试，测试了5个用户，比较了四款手机。众所周知，人们会很容易喜欢上那些外表华丽的产品，可是 如果这个产品很难使用，新鲜感就会烟消云散，沮丧和挫败感就会随之而来。 那么测试结果如何呢？难以置信！iPhone 给这个世界带来了全新的交互方式，再次证明在用户体验上“简洁才是王道”。

uiGarden (2008). (Chinese) Articles>Usability>Wireless Web

Is Design Political?

Politics is commonly thought of as the activities of political organizations--from which the majority of designers (if not majority of people) feel disassociated. But there is a missed opportunity here: at base, politics is about values, and design is nothing if not a means of embodying values.

Winhall, Jennie. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Graphic Design>Cultural Theory>Politics

Is Google Advertising Evil?

Google's necessary focus on advertising can teach us a lot about playing the usability game. Specifically, this article will characterize a dilemma that is tied to Google's advice to publishers on how to place advertisements. The dilemma is resolved through usability, which in turn will teach us a lot about how to mix business and the user experience.

Rhodes, John S. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>Ethics>Search

Is Universal Design Really Universal?

Today, as I write this article, my Google search found “about 13,200,000” references. There is no denying that the concept of Universal Design has gained widespread use. But what does it really mean?

Salmen, John. uiGarden (2008). Design>Usability>Accessibility>Universal Usability

It's a Small World After All: Western Usability Guidelines Predict Behavior of Chinese Users of On-line Bookstores

The present study examined whether Western usability guidelines apply to Chinese web sites. Nielsen et al (2000) proposed a set of 207 usability guidelines derived from observations in the field. We took a subset of 48 rules, and looked at the compliance rate (number of guidelines a web site complied with, divided by the total number of guidelines), task completion time, task accuracy, and users’ perceived usability and likeability for four Chinese online bookstores. Results showed a clear relationship between adherence to the rules and usability of the site: as the web site’s compliance rate increased, so did the usability and the impression the web site received from its users. These results suggest that the rules governing behavior of Chinese users are similar to those of Western users. More generally, this study calls into question the widely-held intuition that usability for Asian web sites should be different than usability for Western sites.

Yau, Josephine K. Y. and William G. Hayward. uiGarden (2005). Design>Web Design>Usability>China

Key Steps in Creating Your Reader Persona

The Web is about self-service and self-service is about simplicity and convenience. You've got a small screen and every time you add something extra to that screen you make the world more complicated for your reader. You must make very difficult choices if you want your website to work. You can't serve everybody, and if you try to you will serve nobody.

McGovern, Gerry. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

Leveraging Universal Design in a Financial Services Company

The changing physical, cognitive and social requirements of customers demand the changes of user interfaces. Universal design is a solution. Let's look at what Fidelity has done to incorporate accessibility into their system and in return how Fidelity benefits from it. Though there are no formulas and figures to calculate ROI in this article, the ROI of the universal design adoption is obvious.

Bergel, Marguerite, Ann Chadwick-Dias and Tom Tullis. uiGarden (2007). Design>Usability>Case Studies>Universal Usability