This week, our good friend Peter Merholz joins us for the show. Peter is president of the noted experience strategy and design consultancy Adaptive Path.

In our discussion, I asked Peter about mapping out a product’s evolution. Launching a product is no simple task. Every new product falls on the spectrum somewhere between feature-complete, perfect execution and actually shipping with a pile of features on the cutting room floor. Realistically, most sway towards the latter. But that doesn’t mean your products needs to feel unfinished.

 

 SpoolCast: Product Evolution with Peter Merholz [36:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

User research is now a critical tool in the toolbox of design teams. However, it only works well if you involve the right participants in the study.
Having the participants that match the design’s audience will give the team feedback on what works well and where the design needs rethinking. By learning from the participants, the [...]

Today at 1pm EST, we’re holding our next UIE Virtual Seminar, The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content.
In this 90-minute online presentation, I’ll share the results of years of research examining how the best sites navigate users to their content. I’ll introduce you to the concept of the Scent of Information, the biggest [...]

This week, I had the great honor of speaking with Dana Chisnell, noted usability expert and principal at Usability Works, a consultancy based in San Fransisco. Dana is also the co-author of the recently-released second edition of the Handbook of Usability Testing, a book so fine, I agreed to write the foreword.

 

 SpoolCast: Usability Guerillas with Dana Chisnell [23:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve recently had the opportunity to observe a master chef teach a class of good cooks how to create some great dishes. While the cooks all knew how to make the dishes, the chef’s version was notably better.
It wasn’t that the chef used a different recipe or better ingredients. What made the difference was that [...]

Jeremy Keith shares his strategy for creating applications with Ajax that do the right thing when JavaScript isn’t available.

This week, Ajax design expert Jeremy Keith joins us from Brighton, England. Jeremy is the technical lead at Clearleft, a leading design consultancy in the UK. We talked about the evolution and best use of the techniques we call Ajax.

 

 SpoolCast: Ajax with Jeremy Keith and Jared Spool [39:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You’re invited to attend a party to honor the launch of the second edition of the Handbook of Usability Testing.
Where: Cinghiale Restaurant, 822 Lancaster Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
When: Wednesday, June 18, 5:30-7:30
RSVP for the event.
(RSVPing isn’t required, but will help us make sure we don’t run out of food or drinks.)
Buy the book
In 1994, Jeff [...]

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Donna (Maurer) Spencer, a world-renowned information architect and owner of the freelance agency MaadMob, based in Canberra, Australia.

In this episode I asked Donna, “What separates good Information Architects from great Information Architects?”

 

 SpoolCast: What Makes a Great IA with Donna Spencer [33:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

When designing online experiences, it’s very tempting to ask the users what they would expect. Where would they expect the search box to be? Where would they expect a login element to appear? Where would they expect to find contact information?
Asking for their expectations makes sense: if we know what they are already preconditioned to [...]