While the traditional “mouse and cursor” interfaces are still in use, many of us are becoming familiar with touch-based interactions. The power and capabilities of mobile and tablet devices is growing. Often, these devices are the more convenient alternative for users to access your content. But beyond accessing your information, how are they interacting with your design?

UI16 OnDemand brings you the best of the premier UX conference, complete with 12 hours of video, audio, and every presentation slide from 10 experts. You’ll hear the latest insights on: Web forms and user input from Luke Wroblewski Application maps from Hagan Rivers Kickoff meetings from Kevin Hoffman UX leadership from Kim Goodwin Design [...]

Players of the Nintendo DS game known as Legend of Zelda – Phantom Hourglass may come across a difficult puzzle involving a lit candle. To complete the puzzle, they need to tell the game to extinguish the candle, however, there’s no tool in the game for putting out the flame. They’ll be stuck until they [...]

On the Quora, Alexia Tsotsis asked an interesting question: What are the key differences between “Normals” (normal mainstream users) and tech early adopters? Here’s the answer I posted: I’ve been thinking about this question for a while now. Something was bothering me and I think I’ve figure it out. Instead of thinking about ‘early adopters’ [...]

Want to achieve a dramatic innovation in your design’s user experience? That’s easy. Just increase the hours of exposure to real users that your design team has. In our research, we found successful design teams have each team member spend a minimum of two hours every six weeks watch real users interacting with either their [...]

Personas are a powerful tool in the UX toolbox. When done well, they rally the team around a small, specific set of archetypal users. Each team member becomes closely familiar with each of the personas, then can create designs that closely match those persona’s needs. In our research on personas, we’ve found this works best [...]

Over at the User Interface Conference LinkedIn Group (which you should join, as we’re having lots of interesting conversations over there), a discussion popped up about Lean UX. In the discussion, one group member, Lorena, posted what she’d been doing, which sounded a lot like what I’ve heard folks are doing in Lean UX. She [...]

How did all those horrific designs in Myspace come about? Two words: Unconscious Incompetence. Unconscious incompetence is the first of the Four Stages of Competence. In this stage, someone doesn’t realize just how much they don’t know. It’s a blissful state and, frankly a place that is wonderful. Imagine not knowing what you don’t know. [...]

The term Lean UX is bandied about quite a bit these days. Along with it, there seems to be some confusion as to whether this is just a buzzword, a new way of working, or simply a new description for what people in the UX realm already do. Jeff Gothelf of The Ladders is a champion of Lean UX, so Jared Spool sat down with him to find out what Lean UX was all about.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Four Stages of Competence. These four stages are unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. As someone learns and adapts to your design, they are working their way through the stages. The ultimate is the user who is unconsciously competent — they can seemingly move [...]