Pull-to-Refresh is all the rage in mobile apps. Take something like the Twitter client. In the timeline, if you want to see if any new messages have been posted, you pull down on the list with your thumb, then release. The gesture signals the app to check with Twitter’s servers to see if anything new [...]

Analyzing data is a great way to make design decisions. But when your analytics log contains billions of clicks, how do you distinguish which ones you should use in forming those decisions? Users’ behavior and activity can provide you with great information and insights. But when do you look to that and when do you trust your own instincts? Julie Zhuo discusses Facebook’s design process.

Kate Brigham is the Patient Experience Manager at PatientsLikeMe. Rather than focusing solely on forums and discussion, she has helped create an environment that encourages sharing amongst the patients. In this podcast, Kate talks to Jared Spool about how PatientsLikeMe uses data visualizations to help create the level of understanding within the community.

One thing I love about my neighborhood grocery store is how they have a little demonstration area where they feature different food items each week. Often times they’ll cook the items up in a little, easy-to-make recipe that’s quite tasty. More often than not, I’ll end up buying whatever they’re demoing. The grocer is definitely [...]

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 [...]

It’s becoming common to see behavioral cues in everyday web applications. Stephen Anderson is the first person we think of when it comes to these kinds of interactions. Stephen is an independent consultant and creator of the Mental Notes, a set of reference cards with design insights from the world of psychology.

Stephen is one of the most popular speakers at the Web App Masters Tour and we want to share a sample of his talk, Designing Seductive Business Apps.

It seems we’ve failed to offend our international audience sufficiently, so this week we’ll try again by chatting with Jay Vidyarthi, a designer hailing form Montréal, Québec, Canada. Jay is working on a project with social design aspects. He’s helping design a site where the goal is to build “an involved and contributing community of users.” He wants to know if there are any user experience techniques to encourage participation.

Some days, I sit and wonder what it will be like for our children’s children. After all, our parents’ parents didn’t think that houses came with plumbing. So what will our grandkids think? Computers, it seems, are here to stay for a while. However, they’re getting smaller, ubiquitous, and are far more connected. We’re already [...]

The time has come to wrap up the final part of the Web App Masters interview series. Today we feature Ken Kellogg from Marriott and the authors of Designing Social Interfaces, Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone. Ken Kellogg’s podcast talks about navigating the design process within a large corporate world, and how customer research plays [...]

Recently in UIEtips, we featured part 1 of the Interviews with the Masters. Julie Zhuo shared how Facebook handles design changes and public reaction to these changes. If you didn’t get a chance to listen, Julie’s podcast shares some fascinating Facebook processes that you’ll want to hear. Bill Scott’s podcast looked at design patterns and [...]