Tags: [Blackboard, Partial Recall, usability, interaction design, information architecture, ui, ux, ixd, user experience]

Although I am a firm believer in the power of nonverbal communication, I would have liked the authors to include more indicators of positive responses. This attempt, however, has inspired me to come up with my own heuristic for “desirability.” Right now I’m also beginning to look at the article referenced recently by Victor Lombardi. More to come…

Tags: [heuristic, emotion, desirability, user experience, usability, Victor Lombardi, Partial Recall]

Today I stumbled across an email a colleague of mine sent out last July. He referred to a YouTube video that highlighted MS Vista’s speech recognition. All I can say is that while it performs admirably at times, quite a few times I found the video both painful and funny to watch (see below). It really confirms that the usability and user experience professions are here to stay.

Microsoft Vista Speech Recognition Tested – Perl Scripting

[Runtime: 10:33 | Please make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash installed on your computer to watch this video. To download it, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/]

– Hat Tip: Ari Weissman

Tags: [Vista, Windows Vista, voice recognition, user experience, usability, Microsoft, Partial Recall]

The other day someone invited me to connect (no, not my wife, like the picture depicts), and I was impressed with both the use of dynamic button names and the behavior of providing help text when I hover over one of the buttons. Notice that the button dynamically includes my wife’s name (click picture to view larger image). Also, note the hover text.

I like this method of providing contextual help, particularly because it explains what the resulting action will be when the user clicks the button.

Tags: [LinkedIn, web design, ui, information architecture, usability, user experience, Partial Recall]

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 last year’s summit and found it very informative. You might consider checking it out – it’s in Miami!

(hat tip: InfoDesign)

Tags: [iasummit2008, information architecture, Partial Recall, user experience, usability, interaction design]

Tags: [Edward Tufte, Tufte, iPhone, Partial Recall, Apple, interface design, GUI, interaction design, HCI]

Armed with that knowledge, I am curious to see how successful the following site is: http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go

It’s attraction is constant discovery and continual scroll. I wonder who the target audience is.

Tags: [Jakob Nielsen, Partial Recall, usability, scrolling, children, page scroll]

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 design, Partial Recall]

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 be for the left-align button placement with contrasting colors.

Tags: [Luke Wroblewski, web design, usability, interaction design, user experience, Partial Recall]

• 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 Jose, California, USA
• Society for Technical Communication (STC) Annual Conference
  May 13-16, 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Annual Conference
  June 11-15, 2007, Austin, Texas, USA
• University of Maryland HCIL Open House

Here are some of the notes I had prepared:

What I Learned at the IA Summit – 2007

Resources:

• IA Summit Conference Program (with links)
• Session Slides
• Photos
• nForm User Experience Trading Cards

Opening Keynote: Joshua Prince-Ramus

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/prince_ramus_joshua

Joshua is best known as the architect of the Seattle Central Library. In his keynote, Joshua outlined issues surrounding limitations of space, resources and differing business goals and provided a glimpse into how his firm pushes for the best solution given these constraints. He had presented a similar talk to TED in February 2006:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/view/id/49

Closing Plenary: Rashmi Sinha

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/sinha_rashmi

Rashmi is the creator of SlideShare. She discussed how her team bucked traditional usability methods to rapidly deploy a social web site product in beta mode. Her slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/rashmi/ia-summit-closing-plenery/

Creating the Adaptive Interface: Stephen Anderson

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/the_conversation_gets_interest

Stephen offered an inspiring presentation by arguing that the desirability of an application can be related to the adaptability of the interface. “More than removing unused menu options or collaborative filtering, this would include functionality that is revealed over time as well as interface elements that change based on usage.” His slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa/the-conversation-gets-interesting-creating-the-adaptive-interface/

Best Practices for Form Design: Luke Wroblewski

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/best_practices_for_form_design

Luke takes the seemingly insignificant “form” and argues that clearly presented information, interaction, and feedback can make all the difference when a user needs to communicate with a company (i.e., commerce, access, engagement). His slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/psykoreactor/best-practices-for-form-design/

Rich mapping and soft systems: new tools for creating conceptual models: Gene Smith and Matthew Milan

http://www.iasummit.org/proceedings/2007/rich_mapping_and_soft_systems

Gene and Matthew explain that Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a holistic problem solving framework that can be used to design and model interactions between organizations, people, environments, products and services. Identifying the CATWOE (Customers, Actors, Transformative Process, Worldview, Owners, Environmental Constraints) helps to add context to any project by articulating the “root definitions” of the problem. Their slides can be accessed from SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/gsmith/systems-thinking-rich-mapping-and-conceptual-models/

Tags: [usability, iasummit2007, CATWOE, Gene Smith, SlideShare, Rashmi Sinha, Joshua Prince-Ramis, UPA, user experience, Stephen Anderson, Partial Recall]