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) [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

If you missed the WebGuild’s Usability 2.0 event in April, have no fear: the entire video is available and there’s a great followup blog interview with Luke Wroblewski available.