One of the criticisms of the UX field is that often the concern is to have a product that is usable, but is that all that is needed? Shouldn’t people have a pleasurable experience as well? I haven’t quite found a way to measure this within a usability test... Read more
I’ve decided to pour through my Gmail account to delete and archive old emails that I’ve been too busy to move from my inbox. Sure, I really don’t have to perform this task when I can just archive everything, but I’m pretty anal about categorizing my emails, even if... Read more
I’m not a huge LinkedIn user, but I am impressed that they iteratively work to make their product better and better by targeting better social connection and better user experience. The other day someone invited me to connect (no, not my wife, like the picture depicts), and I was... Read more
This year your peers and industry experts will speak about how topics such as social networking, gaming, patterns, tagging, taxonomies, and a wide range of IA tools and techniques can help as users ‘experience information’. – April 10-14, 2008 (Miami, Florida USA)” – (About the Summit) I went to... Read more
Edward Tufte offers a critique of the iPhone’s interface design (includes video). Tags: [Edward Tufte, Tufte, iPhone, Partial Recall, Apple, interface design, GUI, interaction design, HCI] Read more
Today is World Usability Day. World Usability Day was formed “to ensure that the services and products important to life are easier to access and simpler to use.” I was fortunate enough to be able to make a brief presentation to my company about the importance of usability. I... Read more
I’m not a big fan of the page scroll, unless it is absolutely necessary. The reason I oppose it is that it hasn’t tested well with children. According to Nielsen, “Children rarely scrolled pages and mainly interacted with information that was visible above the fold.” Armed with that knowledge,... Read more
Today, Jakob Nielsen published an article on how to properly use tabs. He uses Yahoo! Finance as his case study. Of note is how Nielsen contrasts guidelines from Apple OSX and Windows Vista. Personally, I too prefer title-style capitalization. Tags: [usability, Jakob Nielsen, usability guidelines, user experience, ux, web... Read more
Forms guru Luke Wroblewski recently discussed the concept of primary and secondary actions in form design: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/PSactions.asp. After conducting some user testing, it seems as though button placement had more effect than using color to contrast primary and secondary actions. Although there was no clear winner, my vote would... Read more
Yesterday, the local UPA DC chapter hosted,”What I Learned at the Usability Conferences – 2007.” I was part of a panel that represented the following conferences: Information Architecture (IA) Summit March 22-26, 2007, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) Conference May 2007, San... Read more
The University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab is hosting a symposium on May 31 and June 1. Check out the event! Tags: [UMCP, HCI, Partial Recall, ontology, folksonomy, social networks, Jenny Preece, Read more
If you’ve never used a screen reader or seen one in action, the Yahoo! User Interface folks posted this worthwhile video for you to check out… Yahoo!’s Victor Tsaran is both an engineer and a blind computer-user whose interactions with his desktop applications and with the web are mediated... Read more
Is anyone going to the recap of the IA Summit 2007? Unfortunately, I will be unable to but I’d highly recommend going. Here’s the announcement: If you missed the IA Summit in Vegas this year, fear not! DCIA will be holding a redux on Saturday, May 12 at 9am.... Read more
Stephen Anderson offered an inspiring presentation from the IA Summit. [Runtime: 136 slides | Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed on your computer to watch this slideshow. To download it, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/ ] Tags: [adaptive, adaptive interface, interaction design, information architecture, IA... Read more
A closing plenary from Rashmi Sinha. Rashmi is the creator of SlideShare. [Runtime: 49 slides | Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed on your computer to watch this slideshow. To download it, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/ ] Tags: [Rashmi Sinha, SlideShare, User Experience, PowerPoint,... Read more
It’s been over a month since the IA Summit, and I’m only now getting a chance to write about the experience. I took notes from many of the sessions I attended, but I’ll try to link to available videos or slides when possible. An opening keynote: Joshua Prince-Ramus. I... Read more
A new storyboard template was released by Martin Hardee last week. This templates focuses on phone conversations. Click the image below to access the file. Conversation Mary/Pravin/Galina Tags: [Martin Hardee, Sun Microsystems, design, comics, design comics, storyboard, HCI, usability, task analysis, information architecture, Partial Recall] Read more
In a recent post I prematurely touted a template that could be used to storyboard user experiences using a computer-based product. Martin Hardee had provided slides depicting a specific scenario. However, I am pleased to pass along news that Martin has graciously offered 3 templates that user experience professionals... Read more
Other than Calvin and Hobbes, I’m not much of a comic guy. There’s been a number of contributors in the web design arena who have advocated using comics to communicate a user’s experience interacting with an information system (web or client). Typically, I think of the folks over at... Read more
I thought I’d pass this along since it may be of interest to you… HCIL Seminar Series Presents: Speaker: Martin Wattenberg, IBM Research, http://www.bewitched.com/research.html Where: 3258 AV Williams Bldg, University of Maryland , College Park When: Tuesday November 7th, 12:30pm Talk: The Social Life of Visualizations Abstract: Visualization is... Read more