So here’s the thing: Innovation isn’t a bad word. Overused? Perhaps. But not bad. How do I know this? Because cheese in bread, cookie dough in ice cream, and Genius Bars inside Apple stores are AMAZING. These are just a few examples of innovation that create great user experiences. They’re creative ways of putting existing [...]

Truly innovative designs anticipate users’ needs and add value in unexpected ways. They require strategic creativity more than invention — as you’ll learn when you join us in Boston from Oct. 21–23 for the User Interface 18 Conference. This year’s speaker line-up will make you look at UX like you’ve never had before. Kevin Hoffman [...]

In this week’s UIEtips, Stephen P. Anderson discusses micro-moments in design. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Good interaction design is about attending to every moment that passes between a person and the device (or system, or service) with which he or she is interacting. These moments can be explicit, as with gestures, taps, a [...]

In the desire to expand your prototyping toolkit, you need to regularly try out new tools and techniques. Your goal is to have, at your disposal, as many different prototyping tools as possible. Maybe you want to learn a new software tool? Maybe you’re interested in practicing your whiteboard sketching skills or play with paper [...]

In this week’s UIEtips, Richard Rutter discusses how you should consider the users’ medium and their environment. Here’s an excerpt from the article: Designing web sites is a strange and wonderful thing. The web is often described as a medium, but it is no more a medium than ink. To be a medium, ink must [...]

In this week’s UIEtips, Jared discusses the cost effectiveness of responsive design vs. creating a separate mobile version of a web site. Here’s an excerpt from the article Which is more expensive: a responsive design web site or creating a separate mobile version? This is a constant debate among many organizations. We can answer it [...]

In this week’s UIEtips, I discuss some practices to help prepare your design to be adaptive for multiple device sizes. Here’s an excerpt from the article This year, it will be hard to find an organization that doesn’t prioritize making their web site responsive. Yet, as we talk to organizations moving in this direction, we’re [...]

In today’s UIEtips, I talk about an important difference between the best and not-so-best teams. Here’s an excerpt from the article The first big distinction between the struggling and successful teams was who they considered as part of their team. When we asked folks who was on their team, the members of the struggling teams [...]

The Kano Model focuses on users’ basic expectations first; it predicts the investment a team needs to make to elicit delight from users. On October 25 our own Jared Spool will talk about how your competitors, existing design debt, and the evolution of ideas from innovation to market maturity all affect how you need to [...]

“Meetings are a waste of time.” “Meetings, ugh—I have real work to do.” Heard these? The perception of meetings worsens when you have an unproductive one. The entire team feels like their time could have been better spent.