Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (1907-1978) and his wife Bernice Alexandra “Ray” Eames (1912-1988) were multi-disciplinary American designers who contributed to modern architecture, furniture design, graphic design, fine art and film.About Charles EamesCharles was a rebellious designer and initially he att
People buy products that they like. They want them to solve their problems without introducing bigger problems. They want them to be easy to use as long as that ease of use doesn’t drag down performance. They want products that are fun to use. These needs drive the way that people shop and the succe
It’s not that easy, you say? What if it was that easy? Would you take the plunge? You see, many of us can start working in UX today. In fact, with a little forethought many of us can work in just about any job they want starting today (excluding the obvious roles which legally require certification)
There are two broad ways of looking at things: local focus vs. global focus. When we have a local focus we are concentrating on the component elements of something. And when we have a global focus we are looking at the whole, wider ranging picture, rather than fixating on the individual elements tha
If you’re in the process of setting up a UX team or you’re wondering why your investment in UX isn’t paying the dividends that you expected it to; then you’re not alone. There are several mistakes that business owners and project managers make when using UX teams and avoiding them can make all the d
Data-driven design, it sounds so reasonable doesn’t it? The idea that we should design based on information that we collect from our users is simply logical. Yet, in practice data-driven design is often poorly understood and even more poorly implemented. Much of this lays with the way that organizat
“A little learning is a dangerous thing.” Is the famous quote from Alexander Pope but many people don’t seem to know that this isn’t what Pope meant. In fact the whole quote is as follows; “A little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring.”What Pope meant was that w
It’s an important question. Can we measure the user experience and determine whether the design is good? Or are we championing a lost cause without knowing it? In order to be taken seriously as UX professionals, we need to be able to show that our work has meaning, and that means having something ta
We recently ran an article on how to get the most out of localizing a website. In that article we concentrated on the basics; the things that absolutely must be done for a localized website to have an impact. Today, we’d like to take a look at 5 more things that are, perhaps, a little less obvious b
The days of the job for life are long passed. That means most of us are going to look for new employers (or clients) a few times during our lives. In fact there’s a sense that 18-36 months is about the ideal time in a job today; so some folks are going to be looking for new design jobs a lot during
The designer used to be a famous self-centered personality behind a product, like Philippe Starck. But now, the designer is just one of the many faces behind a brand. Against a long established design star system, this dimming of the spotlight is a sign of the ever-increasing product complexities.If
The case for user experience is clear in all our minds. Better products should lead to happier customers and more of them and thus more revenue. But how much money should be invested in user experience design as part of a software or web development project? And how do we convince those holding the
User experience (UX) is very much about communicating, advocating and spreading. As UX practitioners, we spend a great amount of our time engaged in these types of activities. To help you learn and understand new buzzwords, I have written this article to introduce some of the words related to the Us
So you’ve decide to go it alone? Good for you. Freelance life is challenging but rewarding and there are several things you can do to increase your chances of succeeding. We’ve got five ideas that should help you start moving in the right direction:Create the Right WorkspaceYou may need to barricade
Regardless of which generation you are from, and which computers you have used, you have probably played video games at some point (Approximately 72% of U.S. households play video games, Entertainment Software Association ). And if you have spent hours on end playing them, your mum and/or dad have p
There are many ways to provide an excellent user experience but there are some tried and tested methods to do the opposite as well. It’s important not to fall into the trap of doing things because; “that’s the way they’ve always been done around here”. It’s a seductive position because it involves m
There has been a subtle change in the freelance world in the last few years. Traditionally, you had to find your clients via hard marketing. Then all of a sudden sites like Elance, Odesk, Freelancer, Guru, etc. sprang into life and you could find hundreds of leads for almost nothing. These sites are
User research and indeed, user tests, are a vital part of developing a great user experience. The problem is that for many UX professionals – there’s often not a lot of budget to conduct this research. This is particularly true in small start-ups. So how do you go about developing the perfect User E
Today, we’re going to look at a quick process for testing ideas before you start working on solutions.More Research!The first step in your process to test your ideas is the simplest of them all. Get on Google and see if there’s already a solution to the problem. You’d be amazed at the amount of wast
The world has changed for the better and project teams are often widely geographically dispersed. Here at the Interaction Design Foundation we work on a global basis; our writer is in Cambodia, our administrator is in Serbia, our management team is based in Denmark and so on… but remote working also
