Imagine you wake up this morning and have a look at your company’s Facebook site; you find half a dozen users complaining about a very specific issue with your product. Should you jump into action and begin redeveloping the user experience? If not, what might you want to do instead? Let’s take a loo
We all know that interaction designers seek to make useful and usable products and services. We know that they incorporate user-centered design approaches in trying to achieve this. But what exactly are the basic ingredients of Interaction Design?1. Goal Oriented DesignWe’ve heard people argue that
If you want to generate a user research plan that gets read and is easy for people to agree on; you want to keep things simple. How simple? We think that you might be able to get away with a single page though you’ll need to pay careful attention to the wording to keep it that way. You can always cr
Phenomenology is an easy word to start saying but I always end up confused as to when to stop saying it. It’s a word that feels like it should go longer on the tongue than it should. Thankfully it’s a simple word to understand, if not say, and it’s the act of trying to study and describe consciousne
UX EcosystemsThe term ecosystem may have its origins in biology and the rich and complex interaction between animals, plants, natural resources and the environment, but this concept that nothing exists in isolation and free from the effects of context is a powerful for user experience designers. The
Gamification is where the world is heading. Despite the occasional academic cynic there’s plenty of venture capital hanging around to spent on gamification and it is guaranteed to be one of the big growth fields of the next decade. We’ve got an awesome course for those looking to get into gamificati
Design is a creative field; it might be an easy thing to forget when you are entering the millionth line of code in the day or spending hours in meetings, but from start-to-finish the design process rests on ideas and problem solutions. The process of generating ideas is referred to as Ideation, and
If you use the words “click here” for your links; you’re not alone. The only trouble is that you’re really not alone. The most popular destination in the world for “click here” is Adobe Acrobat’s Adobe Reader website. Want to test this wild claim? Google the words - click here.What’s Wrong with Clic
Before we begin talking to users; we need to know what we want from their responses. Normally, by the time we’ve started to talk about users – the development team and the business will have some ideas about what they want to do. You have to understand what they want to do in full before you can ask
It can be tricky when you write for users as opposed to writing to be read. You see, the ideal UX copy often isn’t exciting or entertaining – it’s incredibly brief and very informative and completely un-intrusive when viewed as part of the overall user experience. That means writing to a set of basi
Today we’re going to take a look at project management techniques and see how they can benefit your UX projects. We will look at some simple time management techniques and how they can help your creative team stay on track.Time Management and CreativesAuthor/Copyright holder: Unknown. Copyright term
The detachment between designers and users during the majority of projects is potentially damaging to user experience. The ability to empathise with users is an essential part of a UX designers make-up. Unfortunately, it would appear that detachment isn't the only reason much of designers' work fail
Yes, the ideal situation when you want to conduct a usability review is to use the services of a usability expert. But… that’s not always within budget or an option that can be put into play in the right timeframe to keep a product’s development on track.So, let’s take a look at how anyone can condu
A network is a collection of data where the entities within that data are related through the principles of connection and/or containment. Many simple networks can be easily represented visually – mind maps and concept maps, for example, are excellent tools for doing this.The US presidential candida
Albert Einstein said; “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” He could easily have been talking about the challenges of creating information visualizations for multivariate analysis.Multivariate analysis takes place when you have a data set with 4 or more dependent var
Imagine this situation; you decide that you want your house painted. You open up the phone book and call 5 decorators. When they arrive at your home – you examine their portfolios and then tell them that while you can see they are talented, they aren’t quite experienced enough to do the job but as a
With so much of our work now carried out on computers, there are endless possible distractions. Some of these we can't help, but there are also a lot we can control or at the very least nullify. For most people, if we were to ask what their number one distraction was, they would probably reply, "the
User experience and customer experience are inextricably linked and while UX is a vital component of CX; it’s not the only factor that leads to long-term satisfaction with a brand and its products. There are many ways to deliver better customer experiences but these four keys will help shape a memor
The GROW model is used by coaches to enable individuals to reach their objectives. As you will see while reading about this model, there’s a large overlap with the skills already used by UX designers. As a designer, it can be helpful for you to see the parallels between the two professions – as it a
Enterprise systems seem to be the last holdout against UX design. The feeling on the ground seems to be that if a user has to use a system then their experience when using that system is irrelevant. Frank Spillers, at Experience Dynamics, says that over 70% of enterprise projects fail because of a l
