What is Seductive Interaction Design? More and more, we’re seeing web sites use rewards systems, competitions, and fun progress indicators to get people engaged. Interactions such as these trigger different elements of human behavior and encourage your visitors to engage with your web site more. They differentiate the casual glance from a longer involvement with [...]

Here in the northeast United States, we rely on the French Toast Alert System. This is how local, state, and federal emergency officials communicate the severity of an oncoming snowstorm. The alert system tells us how quickly we should get to the supermarket before all the eggs, milk, and bread run out. The thinking is [...]

Leah Buley discusses her latest findings in her work with small teams and solo UXers with our Jared Spool.

This seems to be a common sentiment about this year’s User Interface Conference. I’m sitting here staring at the updated program for #UI15 and I am thinking that I need to clone myself. Too many cool sessions, only one me. – @mxfive4 So we thought we’d try to help in the decision making process. Figuring [...]

Often, when we talk of finding inspiration for our visual design techniques, we turn to the discipline of fine arts. From the rich history of the arts, we can see many parallels between the artist’s work on the canvas and the designer’s work on the screen. Because much training in visual design often comes out [...]

Scenarios are comprehensive stories that describe the way a persona would interacts with your product or service. If there is a grand dutchess of personas, scenarios, and design processes, it’s Kim Goodwin. That’s why we asked Kim to do a workshop on turning user research into action at UI15. Jared Spool spoke with her to preview that workshop, and clear up confusion surrounding scenarios in this podcast.

Probably more used than any other tool in the toolbox, the critique is the lost orphan of the user experience world. There are books written about usability testing, endless debates on the validity of heuristic evaluations, and hours of lectures on persona development. But, when it comes to developing the essential skills for a good [...]

I’ve often said good design is like the air conditioning in the room. If it’s working well, maintaining the right climate, nobody even notices it. You only pay attention to it when it’s not working. Little design details are the same. If they are implemented well, the users won’t pay them any heed. If they [...]

To give you a taste of Luke Wroblewski’s upcoming UI15 talk, Jared Spool had a chance to speak with him about some of the latest trends, good and bad, in web input.