A few years back, Blockbuster, the video rental business, launched an amazing new service. Customers could select movies from the company’s web site, which Blockbuster would mail to their home. The customers could take as long as they wanted to watch the videos, returning the DVDs any time without late fees, all for a recurring [...]

Every week, teams approach us looking to conduct their first usability study. Having spent months (sometimes years) arguing the value of a study with their management, they’ve finally received the necessary approval.
Under the guise of making this study as valuable as possible, these teams make the novice mistake of trying to do too much. Their [...]

One of the most questions we get in regard to our popular podcasts is,
“What’s that catchy intro music?”
Today, I thought I’d share.
SpoolCast: Mocean Worker - Right Now
SpoolCast Crew: Cal Tjader - Soul Sauce
Josh and Jared Show: Medeski Martin & Wood - End of the World Party
Usability Tools Podcasts: Medeski Martin & Wood - Mami Gato
All [...]

As we continue our research into what separates the best design teams from the rest, we see one factor consistently bubbling to the top: an attention to the user’s entire experience. This attention comes in the way the team thinks about their design. Are the elements designed right? Do they account for where the user [...]

Are you an ACM or SIGCHI member? Have you seen me give a presentation? Did you like it? If so, I may need your help.
I’ve been nominated to the Association for Computing Machinery’s Distinguished Speakers Program.
They’ve contacted me and asked for references.
If you think I’d be a good addition to their program, please feel free [...]

Guy Kawasaki, owner of the How to Change the World blog, recently conducted an interview with Scott Berkun, one of our expert speakers at this year’s UI12 Conference.
Scott is the best selling author of The Art of Project Management, and recently published his new book, The Myths of Innovation. In The Myths of Innovation, [...]

If you missed the WebGuild’s Usability 2.0 event in April, have no fear: the entire video is available and there’s a great followup blog interview with Luke Wroblewski available.

User experience teams serve the various product groups within the organization, helping them create the best possible product or service. This can only happen if the team has a great relationship with the group.

Over at UXMatters, Joost Willemsen has written an insightful article about single-screen interfaces.
Joost points out that single-screen interfaces have a big advantage over page-based approaches because they allow users to work in their own, non-linear way. He says:
“In a multi-page environment, there are likely to be separate pages for almost every task in [...]

Last week, I talked about the difference between generalists and specialists. In that post, I may have implied specialists are often singular in their specialty, such as a specialist in ethnography.
However, I think that would be a narrow interpretation of how specialties work.