Archive for the 'Design' topic

SpoolCast: Followup Q&A from the Scent of a Web Page

Brian Christiansen and I recorded a special episode comprised entirely of questions from our customers. On July 17, we held the UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of a Web Page—The Five Types of Navigation Pages. During the seminar, we received far more questions than time would allow answering. As is tradition, we put together this follow-up podcast to answer even more of your excellent questions.

 
icon for podpress  SpoolCast: Followup Q&A from the Scent of a Web Page [24:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Assessing Weights for Users’ Needs, Part 2

Yesterday, I talked about how we come up with each row in our Weighted Differences Matrix. For each of these differences, we need to then assess how important it will be to the user’s experience, which we represent with a weight. The weight is a number from zero to ten, where a zero means the [...]

Assessing Weights for Users’ Needs, Part 1

When I presented my suggestion for how to compare multiple design alternatives, one step involved creating what I called a Weighted Differences Matrix. In the matrix, each row represents a difference between the design alternative, which, in turn, we interpret to be a factor to help us decide which design is better. How do we [...]

HBR Article: Design Thinking by Tim Brown

In the corporate boardroom, Innovation has moved beyond the fad stage and has now become an enterprise mandate. Problem is, ordering your institution to innovate is akin to a gym teacher ordering the class to meditate. (“OK CLASS, TODAY WE’RE GOING TO MEDITATE. BEGIN. ONE. TWO. MEDITATE. THREE. FOUR. MEDITATE. SPOOL! YOU’RE NOT MEDITATING!” Is [...]

UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of a Web Page: The Five Types of Navigation Pages

We’ve got another great UIE Virtual Seminar coming up:
The Scent of a Web Page: The Five Types of Navigation Pages
Date: July 17th, 2008 — 1pm ET / Noon CT / 11am MT / 10am PT
You work hard providing top-notch content on your site. Will your users find it? If they don’t find it, all [...]

SpoolCast: Followup Q&A from The Scent of Information

Brian Christiansen and I recorded a special episode comprised entirely of questions from our customers. Last week, we held the UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content. During the seminar, we received far more questions than time would allow answering. As is tradition, we put together this follow-up podcast to answer even more of your excellent questions.

 
icon for podpress  SpoolCast: The Scent of Information Virtual Seminar Questions Show [27:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

SpoolCast: Product Evolution with Adaptive Path’s Peter Merholz

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.

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

Virtual Seminar: Designing for the Scent of Information

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 [...]

UIEtips article: Interaction Design - It’s All About the Subtleties

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 [...]

SpoolCast: What Makes a Great IA with Donna (Maurer) Spencer

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?”

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