Archive for the 'Uncategorized' topic

Upgrading Your UX Team, with Sarah Bloomer

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 [...]

So, What Are These IxD Frameworks Robert Hoekman, Jr. is Talking About?

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 [...]

Web Anatomy: Effective Interaction Design with Frameworks

When starting a new design project, whether it’s a design-from-scratch or an upgrade beyond existing functionality, much of what we are about to do has been done before. How do you make sure you’ve got everything the user will expect? Even the most thought out design requirements (and most, unfortunately, aren’t too well thought out) [...]

The Challenge of Sign-up - an Upcoming UIE Virtual Seminar

UIE Virtual Seminar - Designing for Sign-up
with Joshua Porter
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008
Time: 1:30pm ET
(Please note the special start time)
Is sign-up part of your design? How do you engage users long enough to motivate them to take that precarious step of giving you information? What methods do you use to assure them that [...]

Testing Your Critiquing Skills: ‘Get Ready’ Preview

In next week’s UIE Virtual Seminar, Testing Your Critiquing Skills, you’ll get to compare your critiques of our selected sites against my critiques. We’ll see if you found the same things I found and we’ll look at your style and technique for critiquing. To help you prepare, I’ve created this little preview.
[If you haven't [...]

UIEtips Article: A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Evaluating Design Alternatives

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 [...]

Our Podcast Theme Music

One of the most common 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 [...]

UIEtips Article: Seven Critical Decisions for Designing Effective Applications, Part II

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 [...]

Anyone Want To Give Me A Reference?

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 [...]

How to Change the World’s Interview with Scott Berkun

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, [...]