There’s lots to say about Search and how to best design for it. Folks often reach out to our own Jared Spool for his thoughts and sage advice on Search. Want to know what he has to say? Jared will be presenting at our July 9 UIE Virtual Seminar - Search, Scent, and the [...]

Joe wrote us:
I was just in a pattern review meeting, and the age-old discussion of whether to use icons and labels vs. just icons or just labels came up. Years ago, I recall Jared Spool and UIE posting an article in which their tests showed that icons and labels together were generally better. I can’t [...]

Carrying the User Experience flag through your organization can be a daunting task. Whether you’re a UX-Team-of-One or manage a 20-person Experience Design team, our research shows that organizations are varied in their readiness to accept and act upon this idea of User Experience Design. To pull off successful design, regardless of where your organization [...]

Slideshare presentation: On its surface, Amazon.com just seems like a large e-commerce site, albeit a successful one. Its design isn’t flashy, nor is it much to write home about. But deep within its pages are hidden secrets — secrets that every designer should know about.

How does your design team’s vision, feedback, and culture affect the experience design you strive to create? How do your team’s great designs get delivered to your development team? How does your organization deal with major design changes? What’s your design decision style?
All these questions are addressed in the conclusion of our series on top articles on Experience Design. If [...]

This week’s episode features a shadowy UI Designer from a secretive organization located somewhere in Texas. He asks, “how should you style links that trigger different types of interactions?”

 

 Userability #8 - The Case of Multiple Link Types [13:55m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Experience design has become a strategic tool for most organizations. Great experiences for customers, vendors, partners, employees, and shareholders create long-lasting bonds and strengthen their engagement with the brand.
Recently we’ve re-published two articles focusing on experience design. The first article, The 3 Steps for Creating an Experience Vision, focused on specific steps design teams should take to create an experience vision. [...]

I think we can all agree the most fun part of any design project is coming up with something nobody has ever thought to do before. These moments of innovation are exhilarating, getting the heart pumping and the adrenaline flowing.
However, on most projects, they are few and far between. That’s because, even in the most innovative projects, the portion [...]

An interaction design framework is a collection of patterns that make up an entire subsystem of your design. In your project, you’ll need to ensure you’ve got all the essential features along with those new, super-cool, hip capabilities that will dazzle your users. By using these interaction design frameworks, you’ll have a ready kit of [...]

For years my kids, when assigned the chore of cleaning out the refrigerator, exhibited a consistent idiosyncratic behavior. They’d take a sniff of a far-too-mature item, make a face, then turn to me and insist, “Smell this. It’s gross!” My experience and wisdom had granted me the knowledge to know that I didn’t have to [...]