ux4.com

Microsoft's vision for the upcoming years

2011-10-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

Work
Home
Healthcare
Communication
Transportation
Security

I would be interested to know what you think! Please tell me what you think and what you’d like to see in the technology of tomorrow.

“transparent wall” between two classrooms around the world
animated drawings, realtime conversation translations,
surface displays
electronic boarding cards
transparent displays
mini projectors
electronic newspaper
functional network connectivity

Former related articles:
From Sept. 2009: Visions - upcoming and current capabilities
From May 2009: Microsoft's "Home of the Future"
From March 2009: New upcoming ways to interact
From March 2009: Wearable Device

The relation of success, decisions and experiences.

2011-10-03T02:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about what thoughts are made of, what drives your creativity and your decisions?This following definition passed through my mind - It's still not the final one - but I think a first step:

Success is the result of proper decisions.

Proper decisions come from experiences.

Experience results from former decisions,

and that means ...

avoiding false decisions and improving of successful conclusion.

There are these proverbs like ...
"You have to learn from your mistakes"or"learning from the mistakes of others"
OK - that's absolutely not wrong - but failures are NOT prerequisites for success.

Let's be honest - is that surprising? - I think not - It's just the way like mother nature works ...
Evolution does NOT waste time or abide by / with failures,
flora and fauna is always building upon what worked, what was successful.
Shouldn't we too ?
Yes - One shouldn't change horses in midstream - but at the next good point / at the very next shallow bank we have to look what we can do better, improve or avoid.

[ these are just a few thoughts of a sleepless night :-) and or or the result of experience and observation :-) ]
What do you think?

Facebook's latest 'improvements'

2011-09-27T05:40:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but Facebook uncovered some major changes last week during their annual f8 conference.
Facebook opened a next chapter of ‘improvements’ this week. A number of complete new apps will allow Facebook users to enter almost everything they do into the social network — where they are, what they do, what book they're reading and what page they're on or what street they just driving through or what you currently eat (how healthy or balanced your diet is) - that is not very new but the way is different and the options to track these information - more graduated, easier to track and to observe.

The biggest modification, at least that's what I'm hearing / noticed so far, is the introduction of the TIMELINE which will replace a user’s profile with a timeline of events from ‘their Facebook history’ (status updates, photos and all the other things said and done).
Facebook has extensively worked as a kind of recommendation engine. Up to now we could see what kind of things our direct friends like or dislike, we could read their ideas and thoughts, where they have been through their pictures and albums and which places our friends were at. The new Facebook will work to make this process even much more observable, obvious and each tiny thing more public.The ‘heart’ of the new ‘improvements’ is the redesigned profile, which Facebook calls TIMELINE. Each status update, each connection, each ‘like’, each location we check in to support Facebook learn more about you, your network and people around you.Facebook has now taken all that data and presented it in TIMELINE, which allows users to scroll back through time. Checkout the instructions by Mashable (http://mashable.com/2011/09/22/how-to-facebook-timeline/#27139Youve-Done-It) !It's important to keep in mind that Facebook isn't showing our friends any information that they couldn't have already seen by scrolling back in our current profile view. A friend who isn't allowed to see your photos or wall posts now won't be able to see them in your forthcoming Timeline.And it's also important to keep in mind that all those pieces of information are grouped together over the years, it can paint a clearer picture you, our friends and your network.It's hard to upbraid Facebook at this point, though - These are all information we of our own accord entering and entered into the social network. We always should keep in mind what we freely like to tell others - we should consider very carefully what kind of informations we knowingly and willingly post on Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Xing or other networks.
For those who have posted regrettable things in the past, forgotten about them, and never deleted those posts or comments, you should be worried. It’s now incredibly easy for someone go back on your life and see what you have posted.
The good news is that Facebook does allow users to control what is displayed on the Timeline. As users scroll back, posts can be deleted from the Timeline or from Facebook altogether.

And the second big thing is Open Graph. Another significant change is a new class of Open Graph applications that let users share what they read, watch or listen to. According to Inside Facebook, "These news feed and Ticker stories will feature new “Listened”, “Watched”, and “Read” buttons Advertisers on Facebook’s Ads API or who work with the Direct Sales team will soon have the option to target users who’ve shared through these apps or clicked these buttons, letting them reach consumers of their content that might not have Liked a related Page." (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/09/22/what-f8-means-for-advertisers-the-ability-to-target-users-based-on-media-consumption/).
This feature interacts with each user's homepage that shows real-time updates. With the latest update to Facebook's Open Graph, users who interact with Facebook-integrated services like Spotify, Netflix, and games will now automatically show up in the mini-feed. That means users will no longer have to "like" something for it to appear in this feed. If you are playing a game, reading an article or listening to music it will appear in the mini-feed.
I am really not sure whether I should like it ...
Will these automatic updates help you become closer to your connections on Facebook?
Or will it create issues for employees who read news, articles, play games, watch tubes, presentations, recorded talks or movies or once in a while pastime things at work?
Yes as Advertiser I can use these new features – but is this a polite way to know more about my users?

Discussion - New direction for IAI

2011-08-30T03:12:00.000-07:00

The Board of Directors discussed the new direction for IAI. Andrea Resmini, Dan Klyn, Dorian Taylor, and Jeff Parks met recently to share with the community upcoming changes to the IAI that will benefit members and the discipline of Information Architecture globally.
The first of what we hope to become a regular podcast by the IAI board of directors is up and available for download and streaming.

Time of Podcast: 17 minutes 42 seconds

and please visit the IAI site: iainstitute.org news

Joy of use

2011-08-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but the best way to change people's behaviour is by making it joy to do it.
This means the product, application, service or or or is able to give exactly the right kind of service, pleasure and joy what the user is expecting from it. And it´s the joy of reaching my aims and the joy of doing so easily.
The information architecture is in charge of clarity of the information and features, lack of confusion, a short learning curve and the joy of finding.
The designing of the interaction is essential for a successful and overall satisfying experience. So the interaction design has to answer the questions of workflow, logic, clarity, and simplicity of the information.
Visual design is responsible for the clarity of the information and elements, simplicity of tools and features, pleasant or interesting appearance of the interface, the visual hierarchy, and the joy of look and feel.
Accessibility is a common term used to describe how easy it is for people to use applications or other objects. It is not to be mixed up with usability which is used to describe how easily an application, tool or object can be used by any type of user. One meaning of accessibility specifically focuses on people with disabilities: physical, psychological, learning, among others. Even though accessibility is not an element of its own, it is important to notice that accessibility also plays a role on the whole user experience to increase the likelihood of a wide-ranging user experience.
People tend to gravitate to something that is easier to use regardless of who it might have been designed for.
Find out more about that topic: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ux-design-planning

In this context I like to show you these projects ...

Find out more about ...
... that topic: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ux-design-planning
or about these projects ...
http://www.thefuntheory.com/

IA Summit 2011 in Denver Colorado

2011-04-03T17:58:00.000-07:00

Two workshop days and then three days with great talks offered an opportunity to bring people together who are up to now not yet well acquainted with one another. IA and UX professionals could exchange insights and share perspectives for designing better experiences across all perspectives of the virtual information space.

Something what rushed into my mind during the conference was: "Good UXwork and IAwork starts with honesty, asks tenacious maybe inconvenient questions, comes from collaboration and intensiv teamwork and from trusting your intuition."

Thanks to the organisation team, all volunteers in the back and front, all contributor and each one whose hard work made it possible and by the way to all the great speakers, each attendant and for each great conversation I had - I am not sure whether I can attend next year.

Below you will find the presentations ordered by days

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April 1^st (http://2011.iasummit.org/program/)

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More Than a Metaphor: Making Places with Information

Jorge Arango's portion
Andrew Hinton's portion
Andrea Resmini's portion
(Not found by yet - sorry)

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Design for the RUDES: The Value of Design Principles

Rob Fay, Joanna Hunt

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We Are All Content Strategists Now

Karen McGrane

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Democracy is a Design Problem: Ballot Design Studio

Jonathan Knoll, Dana Chisnell

(Not found by yet - sorry)

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Creating a Navigation System... For Your Career!

Shai Idelson

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The User Experience of Disruption

Russ Unger, Dan Willis

( If you have missed it - you have really missed it, it was full of experience and "disruption", in the best positive sence)

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Letting Go of Perfection: Developing IA Agility

Serena H. Rosenhan, Joanna Markel, Chris Farnum

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Upping Your Game: Five Things IAs Need To Talk About More

Leanna Gingras

(regarding reading list)

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Rethinking User Research for the Social Web

Dana Chisnell

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Create Successful Cross-Channel Experiences

Samantha Starmer

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UX Communities: Starting from the Beginning

Matthew Solle, Martin Belam, Joe Sokohl, Eric Reiss

(Not found by yet - sorry)

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Effect Mapping: A Better Way to Get Really Usable Results Out of IT Projects

Jonas Söderström

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Interfaces Are Made of Words

Carl Collins

(PDF)

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The Stories We Construct

Stephen P Anderson

(Not found by yet - sorry - http://www.slideshare.net/stephenpa )

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Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing: Good or Evil?

Kyle Soucy

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Posting Our Hearts Out: Understanding Online Self-Disclosure for Better Designs

Javier Velasco-Martin

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The Most Valuable UX Person in the World

Jared Spool

(Not found by yet - sorry - http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool )

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The art and craft of being elsewhere

Andrea Resmini

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April 2^nd (http://2011.iasummit.org/program/)

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The Reluctant Design Strategist: The Story of a UX Team of 1.5 Failing Forward

Megan Ellinger

(Not found by yet - sorry)

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Discussing Design: The Art of Critique

Adam Connor, Aaron Irizarry

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A Practical Guide to Measuring User Experience

Richard Dalton

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I'm Not Just Making This Up: The Value of Thinking Time in Experience Design

Tim Caynes

(Tim wrote a nice and very personal article about this event: http://www.foolproof.co.uk/thinking-about-summit/)

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We Love Change? Change is Scary!

Johanna Kollmann

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Lean IA: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business

Jeff Gothelf

( article on Smashing Magazine )

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Toilet Paper and Information Sharing: Designing Compelling Information Ecosystems

Justin Davis

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The User Experience Brief: The What and Why before the How

John Yesko

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I'm a UX Designer - and I'm an SEO: Working Together to Heal the Rift Between Customers and the Marketers Who Love Them

Jonathon Colman, Erin Hawk

( Jonathon D. Colman's Bookmarks on Delicious.com )

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Increase The Size Of Your Package In Just Four Weeks: Four Steps To Successful E-Commerce

Eric Reiss

( Not found by yet - sorry - http://www.slideshare.net/ericreiss )

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Beyond Digital: What IAs Need to Know about Service Design

Samantha Starmer, Priyanka Kakar, Jess McMullin, Andrea Resmini

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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EIA: Enterprise as a Strategy for Bulletproofing IA

Gregg Rugolo

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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The Journey to 'Yes' - Jeff's Part - Alla's Part

Jeff Parks, Alla Zollers

( Jeff's Part - I could not find by now - sorry )

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DIY Mobile Usability Testing

Belén Barros Pena and Bernard Tyers

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Numbers are Our Friends: Information Architects Make the Best Web Analysts

Lynne Polischuik, Julie Strothman

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Beyond User Research

Louis Rosenfeld

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April 3^rd (http://2011.iasummit.org/program/)

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Beyond the Polar Bear

Mike Atherton, Michael Smethurst

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Pig-Faced Orcs: Design Lessons from Old-School Role-playing Games

James Reffell

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Solving World Problems with UX

Olga Howard

( Not found by yet - sorry - http://www.slideshare.net/olgahow )

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From Flab to Fab! Design Secrets for Overweight Interfaces

Kim Bieler

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Content Strategy on a Shoestring Budget

Carrie Hane Dennison

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Practicing What We Preach: Usable and Effective Design Deliverables

Aviva W Rosenstein

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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Toward an Information Architecture Curriculum and Canon

Dan Klyn

( http://www.slideshare.net/danfnord )

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Your Brain On Graphics: Research-inspired Visual Design

Connie Malamed

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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Ideas & Innovation: Simple Premise - Small Starts

Adam Polansky

( Not found by yet - sorry http://www.slideshare.net/AdamtheIA )

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Discombobulation, Fire-Breathing Dragons and Wet Noodles: Creating Productive Workshops in Scary Situations

Beth Koloski

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How Valuable Is Your Work? Measuring the User Experience

Eduardo F Ortiz

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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On Why We Should NOT Focus On UX

Koen Claes

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Democratizing Data, Driving Social Change

Mekayla Ichneumon Beaver, Matthew Barry

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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On 'Shrink It and Pink It': Designing Experiences for Women

Jessica Ivins

( Not found by yet - sorry )

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Closing Plenary

Cennydd Bowles

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Workshops (http://2011.iasummit.org/program/)

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Career Workshop

Russ Unger, Amanda Schonfeld

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Nailing It Down: Detailing Design to Preserve the UX Vision

Joe Sokohl

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especially this list of workshop presentation isn't completed by now,

I'd be thankful for hints and tips to rount out

: : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : : - : :

Other Talks:

Talks that have taken place - but kann hardly remind on which day ...

A Case in Public Transport

Andrea Resmini

Developing Findability Standards

Ravi Mynampaty

Creating an Agile UX Manifesto

Ann McMeekin Carrier

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BTW ................................

... if anybody discovers presentation that I haven't found - please leave a comment

Update 4/4/2011 9:45am:

Quite a lot of the presentation are gathered on this listing pagehttp://www.slideshare.net/event/ia-summit-2011/slideshows

Update 4/4/2011 9:45pm:

and quite a lot of the presentations have now also the #ias11 tag

http://www.slideshare.net/tag/ias11

Update 8/30/2011 9:45pm:

Podcasts available

A few recorded sessions from the IA Summit in Denver now available

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ia-summit-podcasts/id461009025

Shopping Carts + Check-out ... ... ... ... ... There is often no big single problem, there are "just" a lot of little problems.

2011-01-14T05:57:00.000-08:00

Quite a lot of my projects starts with the request ...

Please improve our IA and UX - Improve navigation and homepage, and reduce the number of clicks required to access either product details, key content and the check-out.

Well, being a holistic person and fanatic, or call me a nut of findability, utility and usability ...

I made again and again the experience that clients often ask the wrong question - and it's our responsibility to find the real pain points.

In cases of e-commerce clients it's from time to time not the solution to change the navigation and homepage - but these both topics are most mentioned by clients.

Many clients view their responsibility from a top-down perspective - Can User find what they need from the homepage? Yes it's an important question, but this approach takes no notice of the fact that many visitors don't start from your homepage. Quite a lot of your customers will never visit your homepage. Efficient and high-perfomance search engines, social networks, blogs and or your own banner and commercials are linking your visitors to your shop. And these links rarely refer to your homepage.

Quite often I suggest my clients to look at the analytics first and then it's again and again the situation that we start prior to the site itself, improving the findability of the site and key pages, or to start with the "end", utility and usability of the shopping cart and checkout-process. This article will deal with the latter.

How can site designers and planners make the user experience of their checkout process more consistent, easy and enjoyable?

I have compiled what I consider to be some of the most important factors to consider when taking consumers through a checkout process.

User / Visitor Life-Cycle see further diagrams:

Walk a while in someone else's shoes: Exploring the Role of C...s

Customers are again and again frustrated when purchasing online, especially when they invest a lot of time and energy researching to find the wanted item, only to struggle when going through the checkout process. Sometimes their frustration and disappointment most often stem from a number of aspects, and other times it is influenced by tiny but important aspect.

Checkout Step Indicator / Breadcrumbs

Provide a step-progress-indicator throughout the entire checkout process to show your user where they are. One thing I hear frequently is that users like knowing where they are and how much further they have to go before completing their checkout process. Use headlines, subheadings and breadcrumb navigation - good headings and subheadings can help customers establish which page they are on and what the topic of the page they are viewing is. Breadcrumb navigation helps customers establish how deep they are within the site structure and process. And it shows what is available to view before and after the page users are on within the flow or process.

Give a clear indication of what to expect next. And at the end ensure the Confirmation/Thank You page provides customers with a time line of when they can expect their order to be fulfilled. It is also important to show your gratitude by thanking customers for their order. Customers often indicate they value sites that make an effort to show their appreciation.

Contact Information

If you offer a live help line, make sure contact information and a phone number are highly visible everywhere in the checkout process in best case visible above the fold and easy for customers to see. For those not wanting to call a Toll Free Number and wait on hold, Live chat is an excellent customer service feature. I’ve found it to be very effective for businesses with high value items such as high-end electronic etc..

Availability Of Products

Show stock and availability of products as early as possible within the checkout and order process. At best case the shop shows product inventory and item availability as early in the shopping and buying process as possible.

Price, Shipping Costs, Taxes

Provide the price of the item, shipping and tax cost as early in the process as possible.

Customers will very often hesitate to continue with the checkout process if they cannot determine how much it will cost to ship the item(s), especially in case of minor items when the shipping costs might be higher than the product and for bigger items that might be more expensive to ship or those that involve a freight charge.

You should provide a link to general shipping rates so that customers can estimate their final price, sooner, rather than later.

I have recognized that customers would definitely abandon the site if they did not have the total cost of their purchase before being asked to provide their credit card information. Companies, brands and shops also often lose quite a lot of trustworthiness and credibility when this occurs.

Shipping Options

Shipping options have positively impact on your shop. In 2009 the e-tailing group conducted the 5th Annual Cross-Channel Shopping Survey (http://www.e-tailing.com/content/?p=288) by examining in-depth cross-channel tactics on forty websites and visiting seventy-seven retail stores that enable buy online/pickup in-store along with other related customer conveniences including product look-up, marketing collateral and web integration.

A number of interesting findings were emphasized. These findings may lead to changes in the way retailers get products into consumers’ shopping carts, and ultimately into their homes - Buy online/pickup in-store - ship-to-store model – Packstation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation) - etc.

Checkout as a “Guest”

Allow users the opportunity to checkout as a “Guest”. Customers do not like being forced to register with the site in order to purchase an item. Initially, many of first time visitors are skeptical and doubtful.

I have spoken to several customers, they said they would simply go to another site or drive to a store to find the same item, simply because they are being asked to register. Many users associate registration with potentially receiving SPAM or junk mail. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a NO-GO combining your newsletter abo and your checkout process – but you have to do it clear, polite and obvious, and tell your customers and potential subscribers their benefits to order your newsletter. And tell him in advance how often you will send him your newsletter – perhaps you can offer him the opportunity to order just the next issue.

Familiar Image (Key Image)

Ensure the shopping cart page contains a clickable image of each product being purchased. In spite of the fact that most customers have more than likely seen the product in detail before adding it to their cart, it’s confidence-building and reassuring for the user to see the familiar product image. This increases user’s comfort level before starting the actual checkout process.

Maintain User’s Data

Retain customers’ previously entered information. Customers’ frustration levels increase enormously when the checkout process lose information the user entered within a previous step, simply because he clicked the browser’s back-button or even more when he clicked the site’s back-button.

Security Badges, Trust Certificates

Keep security badges, trust certificates and an updated SSL certificate in place so consumers can perceive your site is secure.

It is important to show to your users that they are buying from a secure store. That you and your shop make an effort to protect user’s privacy, personal information, billing information and any other private information shared during a transaction.

It is also necessary to have an updated SSL certificate so the appropriate “lock icon” appears in the lower right hand corner of shoppers’ browsers when they enter a secure section of your store or a secure checkout page.

Printer Friendly option

Allow users to print the summary by displaying a “printer friendly option”.

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Test different combinations of these above mentioned factors to see which ones produce the best results for your store and shopping cart. There are many more things that can be done to improve specific processes within any eCommerce store. These factors will help to ensure that customers have any easy, as well as enjoyable, purchasing experience.

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In connection with this topic I like pointing you to a former article about forms:

The form of forms … We need them, but also hate them

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Update - 2011 March 3rd:

Today I discovered a great study by Baymard Institute:

E-Commerce Checkout Usability - http://baymard.com/checkout-usability

Exploring the user's checkout experience - An original research study by Baymard Institut (Christian Holst, Jamie Applesee)

Prototyping and Wireframing - It's your choice which diagram tool supports your work best

2010-12-17T11:10:00.000-08:00

I do not know whether you know it, but there are more than one real good wireframe tool in the software orbit - and there aren't a best for every one.

As freelancer I have to gear myself and my work up for my individual clients, their business and their development procedures.

And I am forced to work with different tools. And I have owned several licenses for various wireframe tools to support my client as good as I can. But currently I just work with four tools.

Concept-Draw
Visio
Axure
Pencil and Paper (A tool that you should never forget or is not to be underestimated – by the way … “Do you know the stencil kits by UIstencils?” visit: http://www.uistencils.com/ )

In recent years the number of tools available to help us document our development process by wireframes has steady risen. And I will offer you a brief overview of a few wireframe tools.

Concept-Draw
Visio
Axure
Omnigraffle
Balsamiq
iRise
Lovely Charts
ProtoShare
Pencil Project
MockFlow
Gliffy

Wireframing is a crucial step in web design and development. It builds a groundwork which is easy and quick to understand – it builds the base for discussions, consideration and review and testing. It allows rapid prototyping either as paper prototyping or by the tool itself as clickable deliverable. And these sketches or designed drawings help to determine and discuss potential problems early in the process.

It can be invaluable and vital to have a visual representation of content, functions and hierarchy. If you have a small microsite or an other tiny web presentation it might or looks like negligible – but it will be helpful also in this cases.

Wireframes make it easier to communicate ideas, reduce scope problems and misinterpretations, cut down on project costs (due to fewer concept modifications and design revisions during later project steps), and enable greater upfront utility analysis, usability reviews and functionality survey.

Wireframes can be created in many ways with several tools depending upon one’s communication needs and budget. Most simply, pen and paper are key tools for creating web wireframes. No matter whether you use to draw fast-scribbled sketches on notebook paper, detailed ink drawing with stencils on graph paper, lineart or greybox drawings or on a napkin during the lunch break.

In addition some designers and developers are using Illustrator, Fireworks or PowerPoint to create wireframes. That’s also fine if you like it and it support you and your work – but as I mentioned there are so many different tools and diagram software apps available to support your best or as good as currently possible – I also haven’t still not found the “holy grail” :-)

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1. Concept-Draw (http://www.conceptdraw.com/products.php)
Concept-Draw is a software that runs on Mac and PC. And you can switch without any problem from one platform to the other. Concept-Draw is a diagramming software that lets you develop, communicate, and dynamically present your flowcharts, sitemaps and wireframes.

Don't let your first glance fool you. Concept-Draw is a lot easier to use than it looks. To get started, all you need to know are a few basic steps and terms.

ConceptDraw PRO has an extensive library that are ready to be used, but as so often these libraries are OK but not really that what you need for your daily work, but it’s very easy to create your own library with stencils and or patterns or masters.

You can use Concept-Draw as single software or within the Concept-Draw Office suite. And I’d suggest you to by the suite – Concept-Draw Office suite consists of the diagramming software, a mind mapping tool (ConceptDraw MindMap), and a project management tool (Concept-Draw PROJECT ).

ConceptDraw MindMap has a couple of options. You can start from a blank document or you can choose from one of the pre-loaded templates or you can select ‘Brainstorm’. A feature I really love.

The Brainstorm option is quite cool and would be a good tool to use within a project team meeting. You can determine the time limit by a stopwatch - this is a useful addition and saves someone having to be timekeeper.

Concept-Draw PROJECT offers the full set of features you need to plan, organize and manage a project, including task and resource management, reporting, and change control – this is not only interesting for project managers (to be in time and in budget is a team responsibility).

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2. Visio (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/) (http://office.microsoft.com/de-de/visio/)

Visio is the only one of the three tools I use which is available just on the Windows platform. It is one of the most popular and comprehensive prototyping tools. Visio is a lot easier to use than it looks, especially when you are already familiar with Microsoft Office. It’s pretty much the same like I’ve already wrote about Concept-Draw - to get started, all you need to know are a few basic steps and terms. I still think Visio is a great tool for quick mockups, much quicker than Axure and as quick as Concept-Draw, but it has limitations as the other too. I can’t count the number of wireframes and sitemaps I have develop with Visio – so I am very familiar with it – but it has its pros and cons.

Fortunately, there's a broad community around Visio with useful shapes.

My experience is it’s the most used diagram tool. It's an advanced software that enables you to create a wide range of diagrams.

There are a lot of compelling features in Visio especially in the latest version Visio 2010 that make it an excellent and versatile diagramming tool.

Compared to previous versions of Visio, the 2010 version just makes it easier to lay out a diagram with simpler drag and drop, automatic alignment and spacing, containers and a more powerful "preview" feature. Visio has been part of the Office suite for quite some time. The simple fact of Visio 2010 is that it works as seamlessly as ever with the other Office tools, and more easily integrates with an enterprise's data, information and tools than ever before. And that's good, because there's more enterprise data and information than ever before -- and visualizing it all can be a key role in the decision-making process. However when Office 2007 was released, Visio didn't get the new Ribbon bar interface. That has now been corrected in the 2010 release, giving Microsoft Office Visio 2010 the familiar Office look.

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3. Axure (http://www.axure.com/)

Axure works on PC and Mac. Axure allows you to construct wireframe models, document functional specifications, and generate prototypes. Axure is an excellent tool to create high-fidelity, complex mockups that require a lot of interaction. In a drag and drop environment, annotated wireframes are quickly and easily created. You should be prepared for two things if your site is very big or complex Axure might be confusing. But let us be honest that’s always the case regardless of whether you work with Axure or another diagram software – you should be / you have to work clearly and distinctly. And be prepared for a learning curve though, especially when implementing complex interactions. Fortunately, the program and the accompanying web site have a large number of walkthroughs and other tutorials.

The number of widgets that ships with Axure is surprisingly small or in other words it’s all too often too small. Fortunately, there's a strong community around Axure.

One thing I really like about Axure is that it supports me with the paper work. I am a person who thinks in pictures and structures not in words – so I am very thankful that Axure is on my side to do this work much easier and well structured. During the prototyping process, you can add notes and annotations to almost everything - pages, widgets, masters etc. - and generate a Word document with all the screenshots and specifications included – with just one click. Axure keeps your wireframe and prototype work well attuned to your paper work / documentation. The word document is of course highly configurable - that’s great on the one hand but on the other it’s all too often very tricky to get the result you are looking for.

Additionally, on Axure’s website you can find a number of videos that show how to use Axure. If you need to create high-fidelity, complex and programmable prototypes, Axure RP Pro is definitely worth checking out.

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Brief overview of other wireframe tools with short facts and prices (the prices are rounded).

1. Concept-Draw (http://www.conceptdraw.com/products.php)

Desktop App
PC / Mac
21 days trial version
$250 / 235 € (ConceptDraw Office $500 / 450 €)

2. Visio (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/) (http://office.microsoft.com/de-de/visio/)

Desktop App
PC only
60 day trial
Standard $ 250 / 329,00 € - Professional $ 560 / 699,00 € - Premium $ 1000 / 1.299,00 €
One of the most popular and comprehensive diagram software

3. Axure (http://www.axure.com/)

Desktop App
PC / Mac
30 days trial version
Premium version costs $ 590 ( with one year full support) for additional support 150 $ per year per year

4. Omnigraffle (http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnigraffle/)

Desktop App
Mac only and iPad
14 days trial version
Professional $ 200 / 135 € - Standard $ 100 / 70 €
Mac only and iPad
Import, export of Visio files is possible (but I’ve been never pleased about the result, it’s nothing for the everyday work but in case you need it it’s potential)

5. Balsamiq (http://www.balsamiq.com/)

Online App + Desktop App
Premium desktop version costs $ 80 Licenses are tied to people, not particular computers.
Real-time collaboration tool

6. iRise (http://www.irise.com/)

Desktop App
PC only
14 days trial version
$6,995 per seat

7. Lovely Charts (http://www.lovelycharts.com/)

Online App
100% free

8. ProtoShare (http://www.protoshare.com/)

Online App
30 days free trial
Standard $ 30 per month - Professional $ 50 per month
Collaborative online tool
Web-based prototyping tool

9. Pencil Project (http://pencil.evolus.vn/en-US/Home.aspx)

Browser App
PC / Mac
Completely free tool
Option to use it as Firefox addon

10. MockFlow (http://www.mockflow.com/)

Online App + Desktop App
Free basic pack ( limited options ) - Premium version $ 60 per year
Collaborate option real-time

11. Gliffy (http://www.gliffy.com/)

Online App
Free basic plan with no time limitations!
premium account $ 5 per month ( 5 user … $ 15 per month and other monthly subscription plans )

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In connection with this topic I like pointing you to a former article about forms:

Why and why not ... Wireframing

Sources of Creative and Design Thinking

2010-08-16T02:25:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, I'm a strong believer that well-wrought product either offline products or interactive products or or or, or what ever and Creative Thinking / Design Thinking in any way, shape or form can have a enormous impact on the world, the people and environment in terms of ... starting with utility, usability, and and ... (right) through to resources.

These are three different speeches of three very different people - since my last article "Walk a while in someone else's shoes: Exploring the Role of C...s" I thought about whether and how in which context I can show you the second speech. Dan Pink gives a brilliant presentation at TED about why rewards don’t work when it comes to generating creative solutions. Actually, rewards sometimes have the opposite effect: reducing creativity. It all comes down to autonomy, mastery and purpose. The first one is by John Cleese - I think we all know him as an great actor, comedian, writer and film produce. And the third one is a very inspiring video of Sir Ken Robinson talking about the way the nowadays education system undermines people’s creativity.

In advance I have to beg your pardon - each video is extreme "big" and it might take a little bit more of download time - Sorry for that - but on the other hand the sound and picture quality is of a high value. Enjoy the speeches.

1st __ Source of Creativity - John Cleese WCF __ (10:37min)

A more than a interesting and eye-opening speech on how to be more creative and more innovative. In summary ... use boundaries of space and time, create your own mood, your oasis of calm and zone of creativity.

What actual inspired me was to become aware once again of the fact that we have no predefined point where ideas come from. The only thing we can do to increase creativity is to create situations where creativity can ‘flow’.These are quality, gorgeous times and situations where you can think without break and or annoyance which are separate from your ordinary life. Interruptions are fatal to the creative thinking. And he stress that sometimes and all to often starting from scratch results in a better work product than the original. John Cleese's speech gives an inspiring valuable insight about the source of creativity at the World Creativity Forum in Belgium.I hope that more people will start to realize how important it is to create space in their lives. Switch off your phone. Go for a walk outside (Especially in the winter time nothing is better than cross-country skiing). Enjoy!

2nd __ Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation __ (18:37min)

Dan Pink explores the mystery of motivation. He starts with a fact that practitioner and social scientists know but most managers don’t: Common rewards aren’t always as effective as we think and expect.

3rd __ Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity? __ (20:04min)

Sir Ken Robinson is a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

In this context I like to quote a statement by Woody Allen:

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."

... And now ... I wish u all a nice, successful and creative day!

Walk a while in someone else's shoes: Exploring the Role of C...s

2010-08-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but that came through louder and clearer in the last couple of months and years is the need to reconcile what the involved parties of project wants – the Ps being the Providers, Principals, Producer (companies, enterprise, …) and what the Cs wants – the Consumer, the Customers, Casual - and Commercial User (individual person, users, …); and how we bring them together.

Throughout my work as town planner, IA and UX planner I saw again and again that agencies and departments most often planed for the Ps seldom for the Cs and sometimes for the ghost of something they called “the good design” (hunting awards or just compliments of their trade and profession) .

Sometimes and more and more I am fed up to stress that Design is not Art – Yes sometimes and in some cases the borders are blurred – Design intends to accomplish goals, have to satisfy a set of requirements and at the end it would be great if there is something like the joy of use.

And design thinking (DT) is a shared mind-set that uses the whole design-team’s awareness and methods for problem solving to meet participants’ needs in a technologically and commercially feasible and practical way. In other words, design thinking is not less than human-centered development.

It’s so much essential to bring people, to bring consumers into the strategic, creative and development process to creating things.

Bringing together the experiences, the needs and expectation of the Cs to help facilitate and create the fundament to comply and satisfy the requirements of the Ps.

Sometimes it’s a good thing helping the client to walk a few miles / a few moments with customers’ shoes – what I try to do is just, sort of, hold the mirror to my clients, and sort of go:”Hey come on, let’s see, what’s really going on.”

I am not the one who shows colorful, fancy org charts or even worse, some kind of gruesome powerpoint things all too often wow-charts.

We have to help our clients to step out of their position, out of their role and to see the world with consumer’s eyes. I don’t use the expression or naming user or customer because there is a world, there are situations before a person becomes a user and or customer. The range of the “Cs” is enormous.

C's role
C's situation
C's experience
C's preconception

I think we all know the proverbs : Missing the wood for the trees - and - In the law there are no small cases, only small lawyers. (There are no small parts, only small actors.). I quote these proverbs for several reasons – never miss the whole picture and don’t miss the details. Because the whole picture is drawn by tiny brushstrokes.

Van Gogh Self Portrait: (http://www.pbase.com/wolson40/image/108810865) and Van Gogh's Eye in detail: http://www.pbase.com/wolson40/image/108849297

Looking at the situation from the position of the real small person –out - as opposed to the traditional position of the organization – in – hopefully will make the Ps understand what is the over view from the outside – what is crucial, what is important, what helps and what is nice to have.

That sounds easy but it isn’t – it’s one of the hardest thing to do as a designer coming into someone else's domain and then help them see outside of the box. To leave his well known inside view and take a view from the outside. By the way it’s absolutely human that this frightens more or less every one. We have to keep in mind that we are hired because we should have the ability, the freedom and the power to do things different than the organization.

Putting each member and participant of the team (client-sided, agency-sided, …) in someone else's shoe is all one needs to best serve their desires.

And it might be also the understanding that it’s about tiny things that can make a huge amount of difference all too often – if just optimize this and other elements or you design the “huge overall relaunch / bead-to-bead remould” . And perhaps you realize that it is not always or in many cases needed to renew everything.

It is expected that you will listen to the organization and stakeholders and their wants, but most of the time I found they can only point to other already produced things and say "do something like that", regardless of how useful it is.

Change your view on things and help others to do the same and use it as an opportunity to create new possibilities. But there is always more … not only the in or out – what about the edge of thing and the horizon a more global view on the field of vision. Currently I am privately standing at such an edge of being and living – but that’s just a marginal note. Yes it is frightened, Yes there are all too often unknown and unfamiliar ways to go or fields to deal with but they are often a really interesting place to start new or different. So, looking wide, using your peripheral vision is a really exciting and sometimes thrilling place to look for chances and breaks.

We can draw so much from watching how people do things, handle something, how they act, … we just have to recognize it, realize what they do and why they do it in the way how they do it. That implies sometimes that we have to or should re-frame the ordinary and standard. And once again we are in the situation that it’s needed to put yourself in the position of the target person and to understand that intuition, utility and usability is no general or common thing.

Big or small, judging, understanding and taking in account of participant’s habits can require significant physical and mental effort.

But what also comes clearer and louder, as I said at the start of this article, is: Where do we have to start? How do we should start? What do I do to start? There is no standard way to start – it depends on – but there are several ways and tools to get into the various positions. But it’s not the task of one single person it’s the task of a team with a common design thinking and user experience planning http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ux-design-planning.

Various tools and methods:

AB Testing, Benchmark study, Click tracking, Cognitive walkthrough, Contextual inquiry, Card sorting (http://ux4dotcom.blogspot.com/2009/08/card-sorting.html), Diary study, Prototyping, Eye tracking, Expert review, Feedback form, Five second test, Focus groups, In-depth interview, Personas, Questionnaire, Repertory grid technique, Think-aloud protocol, Web analytics, Wizard of Oz and various creativity techniques (http://ux4dotcom.blogspot.com/search/label/analysis%20and%20creative%20technique).

Readability and Scanability of tablet devices

2010-07-05T03:56:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but since a few months I increasingly focus on mobile devices - and every thing is changing faster and faster - for instance Readability and Scanability of tablet devices:
useit.com/alertbox/ipad-kindle-reading

but on the other hand there are still behavior that doesn't change cause of various reasons. Users scan and read online still in an F-shaped pattern. The most users scan the first words and or sentences of lines and paragraphs to decide whether to read the rest or not.
The first word, the first sentence and first paragraph are the keys to make the user stay and to read further on.
The first elements should describe the following content, giving readers clues as to whether the rest of the content will interest them. The first two words of each line of enumerations, or the first two or three words of each paragraph should be the most information-carrying words.

Back to the future of interfaces - I have mentioned this topic by several former articles - these articles are still relevant and educational ...
user-behavior-of-mobile-devices-and
ux4dotcom=innovation

Why and why not ... Wireframing

2010-01-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

I do not know whether you know it, you can frequently find and read articles how to draw wireframes, hints about software tools to draw wireframes, but articles about the “why” are rarely to find.

I can’t count the number of wireframes I have drawn. And throughout various projects I saw pros and cons – sometimes again and again the same and from time to time new one.

Don’t get me wrong – I believe in the force of wireframes - I like wireframes and they are a powerful communication technique – but as much as I like, use and recommend them in the same way I am skeptical and unconvinced – in these moment I feel “A tremor in the Force”
The main problem is that “average” people don’t understand wireframes – why is that so?
The answer is short and easy – These people can’t read the drawing.
Already in my early years as architect and town-planer I had to realize and to except that third parties are not as familiar in reading and understanding of drawings as professionals are.

As architect I became conscious that even ground plans with measurements and furniture have been unable to give the “average” person a sense, feeling and or understanding of proportions and design. They are not as familiar in interpretation of drawings as we are. I deliberately used the expression familiar and not the word literate – because it has nothing to do with high education or knowledge but it has something to do with experience and thus guide us consequently to helpful instructions and support and furthermore user centered deliverables.
Drawings and sketches with its lines, frames, elements and symbols are just like each other language with its characters and letters.
This takes us back to the principles of the UX - the faculty of speech and communication depends on the experience of the individual.
But unfortunately we have had to recognize that the developer, for example IA “speaks” their own language.
What does that mean for us and to develop wireframes? Should we stop drawing wireframes?
Unequivocal - NO !

Hence it is of utmost importance to examine and pay attention very acutely to be able to identify the real bones of contention, communication and understanding, in turn to be able to intervene in a helpful and constructive manner to deal with and, if possible, to solve the conflict of smooth and hassle free communication.
We are always asking and being asked: what are the deliverables. Throughout my career as an IA, UX-planner and designer, as well as during my study of architecture and town planning, I have constantly asked myself following the questions:

What kind of project is it? What are the key points?
What should our steps and milestones be in the project?
What should our/my deliverables be?
How can we/I explain the main idea?

I have realized that if I do not answer these questions previous to creating a deliverable, I waste more time and deadlines slip.

The deliverables are not for us. The deliverables are a means of communication with several people: manager, decision maker, client, designer, front-end developers, back-end developers, etc. Sometimes I have the feeling we overlook this from time to time. After I think about the project I have to ask myself, where will my deliverables and other efforts fit within the process of design?
Wireframes are very useful and maybe one of the best deliverable for a project-internal and team-internal purposes especially within information architects, interaction designer and each team member who deals with planning and concept in detail. But already within the next level of colleagues we have to anticipate first problems regrettably – all too often I discovered and recognized more or less important and serious problems when visual designers or project managers try to read wireframes. And step by step within the further decision-making levels we have to expect further and more serious and problematic problems.

I still know a few agencies and designers work without wireframes either because they do an equivalent and related deliverable like page description diagram or by a text-document or they design directly a visual design.
Before I draw wireframes I often start to sketch similar and analogue drawings = Function sketches.
A function sketch helps me organize and simplify the elements and content within a website and is an essential tool in the development process- but in contrast to function sketches wireframes depend to some extent on a design and layout grid.
In opposite to a function sketch a wireframe is principally a visual representation of a layout but it shouldn’t represent the design.
The wireframe acts as a model and prototype that give you an idea about the placement of page features, such as header, footer, content, sidebars, and navigation.

A wireframe is a general outline for understanding the different high level components that go into making an interface - The successful creation and invention of digital products requires the appropriate blend of analyzing, planning and design of different components, characteristic and aspects …

Components like …
… Information
… Interaction
… Look and feel

Characteristic like …
… Structure
… Appearance
… Staging
… Activities

Aspects like …
… Content
… Aesthetic
… Behavior

These different components, characteristic and aspects influence and affect your interface in every detail and also in general. But each of the former enumerations mentioned one point which is hardly, almost not or just to a certain extent to meet by wireframes.
… Look and feel
… Appearance
… Aesthetic
The more the essential and main quality of your project is constituted by these facets you should prove whether wireframes are the best deliverable for your project.
This means that we have to be able to respond flexibly to project requirements and aims.

I should add, that wireframes are more than boxes and arrows and that this should not lead to a superficial documentation, but that it is very important to do more than scratch the “surface” and, particularly, to give team members a role in their specific fields.

If you ask me whether wireframes are good tools, I would answer, YES wireframes are powerful, effective and adaptable. But if you ask me “Are wireframes good for you and your project?” - My answer would be as so often – “It depends on!”
You should evaluate the use and utility of wireframes before you come to the decision whether or not to create wireframes and its quantity and quality / level of details. You should do this for the internal (designer, developer and project management) and external (decision makers, clients, etc.) use an purpose.

No matter whether you use to draw fast-scribbled sketches on napkins, notebook paper (http://www.uistencils.com/browser-sketch-pad.html ), detailed ink drawing with stencils (http://www.uistencils.com/iphone-stencil-kit.html - http://www.uistencils.com/website-stencil-kit.html ) on graph paper, lineart or greybox drawings or highly detailed illustrations with software or web applications (http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/tools-prototyping-wireframing ) you have to take into account who is your addressee and what is his experience and knowhow, what is your aim, what is the phase (early steps, etc.) and character ( new invention, improvement, etc.) of your project .

The function and purpose of wireframes and every other deliverable is no secret or shouldn’t be a secret. But again and again I have to recognize that a lot of agencies and colleagues act, develop and do what they do just because they did it already several times before.
As IAs, UX planner and UEs we have to develop several deliverables. These deliverables should give your team members, clients and decider an opportunity to take a look at the organization of single page and features but also of the whole website and allows them to make review, adjustments and corrections without problems before visual designer and or other developer waste time and efforts.
They can inspire the designer, resulting in a more fluid creative process and they should give the developer a clear picture of the elements they will need to code.
And by the way … May the Force be with you !

Two talks by Roger Martin - Design vs. Business

2009-12-10T12:28:00.000-08:00

In a global economy, a good design, with a high utility, usability with a high respect of user and customer experience and expectation, is becoming a critical competitive advantage. Trouble is, most business folks don't think like IA, UX, UE. IxD and design people and all to often also consulting by this folk / by us. User experience planning and user experience design powerful impact on business strategy will require a whole new way of thinking. Business can do a better job at innovating and advancing knowledge — if they include UX and design thinking.

When you have time and your interested on a more holistic view and great thinking you should listen and think about those two talks / videos:

the first one (Length: 1:18h) you can watch here or on youtube ...

and the second one (Length: 28:41min) you can watch on aiga.org ...
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/video-makethink-2009-martin

Help – How, When and what ...

2009-12-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

image-source: http://dilbert.com/

What is help? What do we recognize as helpful? What will user require and identify as help and as helpful – helpful in the best way of meaning – not advisable, educational in a negative way or character? In almost every case our / your help should appear like a good friend or guide not the “big teacher” – that’s the character and just one side of the dice – And there are several more.
You have to deliver ...

Content-relevant help
Work-process and context-sensitive help
User- and role-centric help
Understandable help
Friendly, respectful and polite help
...

You have to serve the accurate information to the particular people in a suitable way! Sounds familiar? I hope so – but all too often it’s not that way. To offer a content-sensitive help you have to ask what is the individual context and what will be the potential circumstances. And if you ask why you should make all these efforts of planning, researching, developing – It’s not because “we or you are so pleasant and kind” – No – it’s all about offering the accurate and needed support and help to the your consumer and customer in the right way. It will help the company decreasing and cutting support efforts, hotline calls and improve customer service.

You know there is no rule without an exception – that’s pretty much the same with this article. You know I’m putting always the user first – but not in this case.
When you are ask to develop a help system for an application, software or other product. The product is or is more or less final. The tasks and goals are final – hopefully they are – If not (don’t laugh – it’s sad but true, but there are still agencies and companies with products without real goals and real tasks, either because it’s a “me too product” or they lost it as a consequent of too many cooks or too much “democratic”.) you have to define the goals.

Start to ask ...

What are the overall goals and aims
What are the sub goals and aims?

And begin by defining the purpose and intention of the product and or service. Parallel to this you should note and understand the main and holistic purpose, the purpose of the stakeholders (company, department, …), the business principles and finally the expectation and needs of your various user and their needs, tasks and work processes.
Your help concepts should be designed around use cases, with tutorials for these cases.

What ...
... troubles
... efforts
... difficulties
are you, the supplier, clients, customer and users having or you can expect with the service and or product,
and what kind or amount of ...
... support
... assistance
... information
might be needed ?

And then you have to analyzing the use- and workflow:
... Describe users’ tasks as detailed as possible
... Create task scenarios
... Keep in mind that there are many sub tasks within the overall workflow
Do usability testings - Note the behavior and interaction of your participants - Your aim is understanding and observing how and why they act as they act – record …
... Problems
... Troubles
... Dead ends …
but also the points where you except problems but your participants hasn’t any.

Where can help be displayed?

At the cursor or pointer (minesweeping)
By Balloon Help
On the status bar
As a panel (content container) within the application window
In a separate, independent window

How does a user get help?

Static, permanent display
Display on system start up
Tooltips and hints on feature use
Keyboard shortcut
Menu selection
Tool selection
Audible help
Avatar
...

Avatars, balloon helps and wizards are good for rarely and seldom performed tasks, but are usually not good for teaching. Wizards are often annoying – I think we all can remember on Clippy by Microsoft Office – the annoying Clip.

Style and approach for giving help – from less recommended to much recommended:

Present total procedure and functions for user without demonstration or explanation and no content-situative and context-sensitive relation
Present total procedure and functions for user without demonstration or explanation, but concerning to the current sub task
Fundamentally present, without clarification, following steps at a specific state of work
Fundamentally present and describe successive steps at a specific state of work
Demonstrate without description successive steps at a specific state of work
Show and describe successive steps at a specific state of work
Point to and suggest consecutive steps, in relation to the individual state of work (work flow)
Point to, suggest and explain successive, following steps, in relation to the individual state of work (work flow)

Presenting more multifaceted and rich information in the context-sensitive help link will improve the utility, usability and costs of your service, product, site and application.

2nd to 4th day of the UXintensive - Washington DC

2009-11-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

I liked the informative, enlightening and creative atmosphere we had. It was so great to learn from and with this creative people.
The last day started with this video …

… well and what should I say – the some fun you can see in this video was the same fun we had again and again throughout the days and especially at the last day. ( by the way @ Andrew your heart is or should be on the left side :-)
We pass the three further days of the UXintensive. If I’m honest I had expect more and different issues and topics throughout the second and third day. But what I’ve heard were a positive affirmation to me and my work that I done in the last few years. I hoped that I would become acquainted with a new and or so far unknown tool or method. However, these issues and topics enable me to be aware and to recollect of these tools and methods in research and IA.
The whole days forced us to focus on the vital aspects of UX, the goal of designing a user interface and to do this by the methods of user centered design, to support our clients as good as possible and to increase the return of invest not by saying always “YES” and by doing every our clients want to, but rather by understanding the user’s and client’s expectation and improve the user's experience.
The results of our efforts of research and information architecture must end up in a product which is …

usable
effective
simple
clear
supportive
engaging
enjoyable
transparency

Whatever we develop it should be crafted to help the users reach information and offer them intuitive and efficient functionalities. We should put great emphasis on developing a powerful contextual environment around the content. I know it I mention it again and again – but we live in a world which is moving faster and faster and becomes more and more complex … that is one of several more reasons to pay a great attention on metadata. The metadata available in the content can be used to dynamically generate and offer content relevant information, features and links which can have great benefit for the user.
When I remind me on the topic of the second day and its topic research and all the things we did throughout the day …

Objectives & Planning
Selecting & creating methods
Collecting data
Analyzing data
Representing findings to colleagues, clients and stakeholders

… after all the main message I take with me of this day – is to mix, adapt and adjust the methods of research I know much more than I already do and did concerning on clients, timelines and situation.

The third day was about Information Architecture. What I really liked was that Kate focused her talk and topics on aspects of IA which be ignored, missed and overlooked all too often …

Metadata
Analysis of content, features and context
Behavior for searching and finding – And the requirements to support these ongoin
Cchange of behavior
Classification and categorization

Too many people still think that information architecture is just diagramming of sitemaps, sketching of mock-ups and function plans and finally drawing of wireframes. Thank you Kate for this valuable talk!
As I already mentioned the fourth day started with an inspiring tube. And I want to show Andrew my greatly respect that he was able to held this spirit on a high level to the very last minute of the day. He presented the elements of interaction design …

Making Models
Ideation
Design Principles
Refinement
Fixing Broken Products
Prototyping

My group and I, and it was pretty the same in every group, we had so much fun and we get so inspired that we developed so many extraordinary and unexpected ideas in these few hours.
I think it will take a few days until I’ll combine and figure out all the information I got – And I also need to get a few things straight.

Great workshop(s)
Great colleagues
… and all of this in a great city – Washington DC.

http://www.adaptivepath.com/events/2009/uxi/

1st short Review of the UXintensive Event in Washington DC

2009-11-02T16:38:00.000-08:00

I’ve been extremely excited to be attending to the Adaptive Path’s 2009 UX Intensive event in Washington DC, started today
We had a great first day with Henning Fischer. He pointed up that strategy planning is about saying „NO“– Sounds familiar? I hope so – but all too often we all have to go through the opposite. That’s pretty the same with statements “Our strategy is to be the best” – Being “the best” might be the target but it couldn’t never be a strategy. I’m firm believer that design processes will always fail to succeed unless they aren’t supported by a fundamental business strategy and a professional approach.

Henning mentioned again and again a quote by Eliel Saarinen (Architect) I’ve never heard before
“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.”
May you know it already - I am an architect and town planner and I never heard of Eliel Saarinen or this excellent statement – sad but true. I like the statement it's should be a leading view for architects of urban environments and virtual environments.

I’m looking forward to three further seminar days.

Why personas matter and how to utilise ...

2009-10-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but a lot of creative people and colleagues doesn’t like or work with personas. And several people say personas are just a trend or whim in the design industry and or design history.
I would like to make two points very clear …
… Personas are well known and used since decades
… Personas are powerful tools - but it isn’t a must for each project
The intention of a persona is to help you and the whole design team makes decisions about user guidance, utility, usability, design and appearance – personas can help you at quite a lot of levels of design and phases of your project.
Clear communication within the project and development team and between the developers and clients is a crucial factor in the development process - and it’s often the key to the success of any project.

No matter how you call the organization of data and knowledge of users and customers, without it the project team works with a collection of ideas and thoughts out of context and makes conclusions without a good basis. All too often these design conclusions are pure flukes.
Time and time again I recognized that individual team members, groups or whole teams do not know whether specific and multipart design decisions were limited to particular kinds of users, customers or their intentions, interests and goals.

I would like to emphasize that empathy is important and not to be underestimated. Empathy is something that has to happen within the person designing, but it’s not something you can make someone feel through generalization (Man or Women, knowledge, experience, preferences, boredom, likes and dislikes, needs, goals, etc.). Be that as it may, personas strength designers getting into the right mindset for design.

By providing and working with good methods and approaches, we can identify values, goals and main concerns that support and smooth the progress of decision making, not confine or restrict it.

I wrote in my article (UXP isn’t a one man show) on boxes and arrows that I firmly believe personas are a powerful method throughout the whole design process. Depending on personas we can formulate, discuss and prove scenarios – up from the very beginning of the project, during the project and as check or analysis at the end of the project.

By some examples I’ll show you where and how you can use personas during the development process.

>> Original image on boxes and arrows

Basics-strategy phase
During the basics-strategy phase you should develop our personas and afterwards they will support your deliverables and your decisions during your upcoming steps.
When evaluating, estimating and comparing the content, features and functions, you should use personas as judge and guideline. During the analysis and study of competitors you can check how the competitive sites, products and processes fulfill the expectation and needs of the same persons with the same roles.
The analysis of potentials and the concept model needs to concentrate on all the content and utility available by the product and or application, and must therefore demonstrate that it can assist and support all requirements of the individual user.
At this point I like to put emphasis on the fact that as long we work on a and with high-level documents the approach have to have more or less direct relationship to the personas

Concept and design phase
Personas have an effect on the design process, important criteria and exchange of ideas about concept and design by reminding team members and stakeholders of the users’ needs and requirements. And by these dialogue personas supports and improves from the very first step to the screen design and development in so many ways and levels.
If we link and connect personas to sitemaps and to flowcharts, it shows, on the one hand, how different areas of the information structure take care of the different user groups and, on the other hand, how user’s goals and needs correlate with information areas and their contacts and interaction.
Personas help IAs, UXPs, Interaction designers and screen designers to put themselves in users’ shoes and influence mockups, wireframes, screen structures and screen design.

Usability and Testing
Depending on the manner and method of your usability tests, you can use the scenarios, goals and needs described in the personas as starting point and basis. You can use personas as “imaginary participants” to make usability tests during early process phases.
Personas have the potential to be of assistance identifying a plan for recruiting participants in the usability test. You can incorporate the personas in the test plan by describing how you’ll represent each type of user in the test.

Presentation and Reports
Your presentations and reports can be structured, explained and exemplified by personas.

Final words …
To organize your research and development process you should have several ways and tools in your repertoire / your “tool-box”. As I said … it should be clear that personas are only one technique / procedure of organizing your researches - other methods include user profiles, user scenarios, mental models, and simple storytelling. Many design teams have their own way of organizing and summarizing their research data. It’s up to you and to them whether are personas are a good user-centered design tool for your task and project. It should be clear that personas aren’t suited to every situation (client, product, budget, timeline, etc.).

Personas aren’t the Holy Grail – but it’s one of the most powerful methods for user experience (UXD and UXP) and user centered design (UCD).

Why and how to use Personas - Comic by Brad Colbow

2009-10-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

As all of you know I'm a firm believer in Personas. Personas are a powerful tool for helping the whole project team to better understand the needs of their customers and users. Brad Colbow drew an awesome comic. In this comic, drawn exclusively for Think Vitamin, you'll learn more about Personas and how they'll revolutionize the way you design and build web sites.

How to Understand Your Users with Personas
> read more

Beyond advertising

2009-10-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

As I often said client, enterprises, media and entertainment companies and also agencies need to start moving beyond traditional advertising and information processes - they have to concentrate on becoming more consumer centric.
Significance of UCD, IA and UE (User centered utility and usability)
Beyond advertising and interesting study by IBM

Digital formats such as social media, online video, mobile communications, gaming
and advanced TV enable companies to simultaneously meet transactional and brand-building objectives. Four primary trends blur the boundaries between traditional brand advertising and direct marketing:

Consumer adoption of new distribution formats – Consumer behavior has changed forever: They are more digital-savvy, willing to provide personal information in return for perceived value, and increasingly ready for permissionbased advertising.
A shift in advertiser spend – Spending is moving from traditional advertising toward measurable, interactive marketing. Combined with spending contraction in the new economic environment, this requires smarter advertising, and doing more with less.
Digital migration of platforms – Traditional boundaries are fading, creating opportunities for innovative business models for content platforms.
Emergence of new capabilities – Gamechanging moves, by both new entrants and existing players, are driving new types of industry innovation, challenging existing business models and accelerating the pace of change.

Download the complete IBM Institute for Business Value study

The Art of Community - Now Available For Free

2009-10-08T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Art of Community by Jono Bacon - Now Available For Free Download

While the book is ready to download right now, the book is available to buy in print, on Kindle, and other electronic book formats and Jono Bacon would like to encourage you to buy a printed copy of the book for a few reasons:

Firstly, buying a copy sends a tremendous message to O’Reilly that they should continue to publish books (a) about community and (b) under a Creative Commons license.
Secondly, it will encourage O’Reilly to invest in a second edition of the book down the line, which will in turn mean that communities around the world will have a refreshed and updated edition that is available to them.
Thirdly, aside from the voting-with-your-feet side of things, it is just a really nice book to own in print. It is really well made, looks stunning and feels great to curl up with in a coffee shop or on the couch.

You can download the The Art of Community here:
http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/downloads/jonobacon-theartofcommunity-1ed.pdf

Jono Bacon is pleased to announce the general availability of The Art Of Community under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

With this license that the book is under you have the following freedoms with the entire content:

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work

…with a few requirements:

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Great presentation by Jonathan Jarvis

2009-10-07T01:38:00.000-07:00

His talk is called:
Learn How Design Can Make Complex Concepts Clear and Provide New Roles for Designers

http://max.adobe.com/online/session/356

> former articles related to this topic and author

User behavior of mobile devices and apps

2009-10-05T03:28:00.000-07:00

Lately I have carefully looked at my own and other observations (notes and tests), studies and researches of user behavior and goal, aims and purpose concerning their use of mobile devices, services and applications. Users often have very altered aims that they wish to achieve when using their mobile devices than on PCs. People use their mobile phones, devices and smartphones for very different things and needs when they are on their way.
And I would estimate that just 1% or less of users would use their mobile device to look at a web site if they have a larger monitor or more suitable interface available.

> more images

Evaluations on automotive, electronic and financial products and services sites on mobiles had shown as you would have thought no user wanted to use his mobile to research complex products, but they were keen to prove the value, price or rates of products when they are on the move. Often mobile users are just interested to look for / to search for a contact detail, which can take ages to find even when a site has been developed but not planned and designed for mobile use. The reason for this behavior is complex – a lot of the users just have mobile phones with small screens and bad connections and the majority of websites are developed just for PCs.

Furthermore I often observed that the users doesn’t select promptly and fast the first link that looked like it would take them to relevant information or get them to or closer to their aim, they carefully looked at and examined all the options on the page to decide which to choose. In other words this interaction behavior is influenced by fulfillment and optimization and less by satisfaction. This is the opposite of what we have to notice when we observe users’ behavior at PC interfaces.
This behavior reminds me what we examine 5 or more years ago when users browsed on PCs using dial up connections. Broadband has changed the way we do things. Even though the user had a fast connection, download speeds were not fast, too. On the one hand the reason was that these sites weren’t mobile optimized site. On the other hand the users were paying by byte. Devices like the iPhone, Palm Pre or the Nokia N900 have the opportunity to triumph over these problems – as long as you live and work in an area with good wireless coverage.

My attitude is that a firm or company looking to build their first mobile web site should identify and concentrate on a small number of user goals. And the mobile site should support and concentrate on doing this well. These firms and companies should keep in mind – sometimes less is more! Mobile applications should be smart and easy.

Signs are pointing to the fact that mobile marketing is getting closer. Technology and mobile devices are improving and the demand for mobile internet is increasing. More importantly, the mobile devices are one of the most effective channels of communication. It is now common to see young and old on the street grooved to their mobile phones and lost in their conversation. And teenagers move on the streets playing mobile games. In Europe, America and Asia, especially, where the main manner of communication is via the mobile, the mobile phone is a platform that is becoming increasingly interesting for marketers and brands.

> more images

The key is to support the user by making their lives much easier through suitable information, context, functions and features. Well – that’s not new – not new to us – we are familiar with UX – but it’s uncommon to our clients all too often – a lot to do – a lot to consult.
Mobile applications can’t be just a cloned desktop app. It should or have to improve user experience that is relevant to the brand goals and expectations, allow content and service personalization and remove barriers to access. This means that firms and companies will need to provide content and services that will help the user to save time, money or make their life easier and more interesting.
For some sites the goals of the user on the move are fairly obvious, for most sites they are not. In which case, research with the target audience to work out the goals to be supported is essential.
Advance improvements in mobile technology, applications and devices on the one hand and on the other reductions in the cost of data, devices, will expect to see more advances in communication, commerce and convenience.

Well, just as with other digital and communication channels, it is not just about the advancement of the technology - companies must understand how mobile strategies can suit into the total communication strategy of the company and to their users and customers.

If you going to develop an application for mobile use – you should take in consideration:
… Target groups and persons

Goals
Aims
Needs
Individual experiences
Knowledge
Age
Keenness and willingness

… Mobile device (of the particular user)

Hardware
Software
Screen Size and Resolution
Interaction Options
Touchscreen
Qwertz keyboard
Virtual keyboard
Motion Control
or as so often just a small keyboard ( 1-9,0,*,# )

… Locations and situation of use

Download and upload quality
Brightness, reflection
Circumstances
Environment

… Costs of use

Flat rate
Data plan
Prepaid plan

… Overall communication aim and strategy

And the mix of all relevant communication channels

we have to be aware of the UX planning and design process and work as a team – sometimes the X stand for eXperience and another time for eXpectation.

References:
… On Mobile User Behaviour Patterns - Milan Vojnovi´c - Microsoft Research
… Personal, Portable, Pedestrian – Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, Misa Matsuda

MS Surface at the new Hard Rock Cafe

2009-09-29T00:38:00.000-07:00

The new Hard Rock Cafe on the Las Vegas Strip draws people with the usual attractions, but is also debuting some new Microsoft technology.

Visions - upcoming and current capabilities

2009-09-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ... I intent to show my clients best and or new ways to improve their business and to spread their communication channels - There is so much more than PC, Mac and Laptop to use interactive services and applications ...

Quite a few of these features and function you’ll see in the videos are already possible to a certain degree.
If you’re interested - take a step into the future and explore how technology can improve the way you manage work and life - I'd like to help, support and to improve your business - because There is so much more than PC, Mac and Laptop to use interactive services and applications ...

overview:

retailing:

manufacturing:

Healthcare:

banking:

WIKITUDE Drive - AR Navigation:

Touch screen from behind ...
... allows the user to use buttons without to cover the areas they like to use - that's the reason why I prefer qwertz-keyboards currently - the second reason is it doesn't reduce the interface by the keyboard

and when you look at the next "future vison video" - "we are almost in the future" - look at your android or iphone or other smartphone by Nokia, DELL, Motorola, HTC and and and - quite a lot of these function are already on your device available:

Part 1:

Part 2:

BTW I already mentioned this one:

... OK - it's not very comfortable - but it already works !

And I think you all know this one by MINI:

Or this example by TOYOTA

HEY PEOPLE let's think big - there is so much to improve and to design ...
... we can support everyone in so many way - let's do it!
If you’re interested - take a step into the future and explore how technology can improve the way you manage work and life - Please contact me - I'd like to help, support and to improve your business - because There is so much more than PC, Mac and Laptop to use interactive services and applications ...

Finally, a look at the future: Where do you expect the communication to be in twenty years?

Former related articles:
Microsoft's "Home of the Future"
New upcoming ways to interact
Wearable Device

POI and pedestrian navigation apps for the iPhone 3GS

2009-09-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Bionic Eye visualizes Points of Interest located in the nearby environment - currently only for New York and Chicago. It also offers a kind of pedestrian navigation by an "Augmented Reality" feature - but it's only usable by the iPhone 3GS - as far as I know.

POI databases include

Fast Food
Restaurants
Coffees
Leisure
Accommodation
Subway stations

...............................................................

and here is another one app for London:

Capacitive Touchscreens from Atmel - maXTouch

2009-09-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

Atmel released its optimized, new maXTouch - a powerful, high-performance touchscreen solutions. maxTouch supports an unlimited number of unique simultaneous touches with a high video-quality screen refresh rate. It supports the development of full zoom, rotate, handwriting and shape recognition functionalities.
Take a look as I often said there is so much more than surface - I like surface but we all have to keep our mind open.

Video: Maxtouch - Werbevideo von Atmel (8:15)

New Search Opportunities

2009-09-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

FIRST: --- BING VISUAL SEARCH
Microsoft released a new visual search feature for Bing that displays search results in a grid-like image gallery format instead of the standard text links.

The new visual search feature is one of several Microsoft plans to tack on to its engine in the upcoming months. Check out the above video demonstration for a look at it in action or just hit the link below to try out Visual Search for yourself.

--------------

SECOND: --- GOOGLE FAST FLIP
Fast Flip is a new reading and search opportunity that brings together the best elements of print and online articles. Fast Flip allows you browsing sequentially through recent news, headlines and popular topics. As the name suggests, flipping through content is very fast, so you can quickly look through a lot of news until you find something interesting.
Fast Flip also personalizes the experience for you, depending on your choices you get more content from sources and topics that you seem to like.
Nice new Feature!

Ray Kurzweil - Talk about Singularity University

2009-08-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
Ray Kurzweil held a great speech at TED.

Please take the time for 8 minutes listen and reflect for yourself.
And if you have the time - read the interesting discussion - I greatly enjoy reading the comments. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ray_kurzweil_announces_singularity_university.html

And I found a more or less similar speech of the same topic by Ray Kurzweil

it's also just a few minutes long

Brainstorming

2009-08-26T23:38:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
This is the second part of a series about design, analysis and creative techniques.

Beforehand I would like to say a few words about Brainstorming. Brainstorming is long-established way to generate ideas and classic technique. On the one hand it's well-known on the other hand it's all too often misinterpreted.
Brainstorming, however valuable it is, will fail and will not succeed before it is put to action correctly and in a approved manner.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Brainstorming is a great technique for generating creative ideas. The aim is to come up with as many ideas as you can. Quantity is top, not quality is what you are should hunting for. Limiting or restraining the ideas concerning the number or content will cause people to start rating or holding back thoughts and opinions. When participants start to judge their ideas, they are using their inner critic and starting to put, what they think are, their 'best' ideas ahead.
Generally brainstorming is performed in groups, but you can do it also on your own. It's an excellent way to get lots of ideas and get everyone thinking, reflecting and involving and last but not least it's a good way to unite the team.
Over the years, I've joined and guided brainstorming sessions varying in size from just me [ :-) ], just two or three people up to about twenty and more participants. But I recommend you keep your group on a small side. The bigger your group is the higher is the risk that you get subgroups and the risk that you're getting lost in discussion. The participants should be relatively at ease with one another, and as you continue to brainstorm together over time, they'll become more comfortable throwing out off-the-wall ideas--which often generate the best results. No one and I really mean "no one" should take or have a guiding or leading role - neither he is the Creative Director, Project Manager, Head of Concept or or or nor the chief or client himself - Yes you should have a person who is collecting all the ideas on the wall - she or he can also take the role as anchor(wo)man maybe as mediator but never as referee.

METHOD _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Start by nominating one person who is in charge of collecting all of your ideas. You can note and save your thoughts by ...
... writing
... drawing and sketching
... pining and sticking
and furthermore by noting of ...
... relations
... links
... characters

EQUIPMENT _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

You need ...

Cards
Post-Its
Pen, Pencils and Markers

You can gather your ideas on ...

pin-boards and bulletin board
whiteboards
flip-boards
card-boards - huge card-boards - this card should be thin enough so you can roll it up and it should be thick enough to be robust and resistant (refer to your "environment" where you set up your brainstorming).
or just on the wall - large, poster-size sheets or "endless" sketching-paper (as we know it for architecture and town planning) along the walls of the room. This will keep all the ideas clearly visible.

The worst thing is - you stop noting your ideas just because you have no space to write.
Where can or should you set up your brainstorming - the answer is everywhere. You can do it in your ...
... office room
... meeting room
... etc.
But my experience is that it's a good start to leave your standard environment and to choose a different location a ...
... park around your corner (we often made our brainstorming at the riverbank of Frankfurt)
... store, depot or factory environment of your client
... auditorium or lecture hall of your city or at your university

It's often very good to leave your common location and also your common way to think and to behave.
Let me tell you a short about my most uncommon place there we made our brainstormings. Once ago we worked for a client and we had to come up with very creative ideas and solutions in a very very short time. We worked from December to January each week 70 hour per week and we took just for Christmas and New-Year a half day off - well - during this time we did our brainstorming more than once in the fitness center and sauna - it was very exhausting and sweating -
but it was an excellent way of clearing your head - And these brainstormings were very very effective.

How to do it ... _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

In a design environment brainstorming is an easy and useful creative technique to generate ideas and proposals. But it's just useful and effective if you keep in mind the following eight easy rules.

Gather your participants around your board or wall
Nominate an attentive person to note everything - this person should have a good spelling and handwriting
Write the topic and criteria across the top of your board, wall or card.
State your question and point at your issue clearly and markedly
Secure a common understanding for the session
Brainstorm - Generate and produce approaches, suggestions and ideas
Do not judge or criticize ideas.
Accept each idea and collect everything - do not judge anything in any way
Avoid discussing ideas as this slows down idea generation.

After your brainstorming session you should save all results as original as possible. Take photos and save your outcomes without revising or "clean" the sheets or walls
Then try to work out ...
... connections
... relationships
... implications
... links
... perhaps in a mind-map - I'm a firm believer in mind-maps.

After a longer rest or a day after you can start to clarify and conclude your brainstorming session. During your brainstorming your task was to generate as many ideas as possible and then once you have all your ideas, you have to refine, filter and deduce your results. You have to sharpen your mind and your results. To evaluate the results I put all the generated ideas into one of five categories:

Strong / Good: ideas that are generally strong, rich and or good
Poor / Bad: ideas that generally seem poor, weak and or bad
Lacking Clarity: ideas that need further explanation and clarification
Lack of Classification: ideas that probably useful for special content or features
Worth to Keep in Mind: ideas that neither bad nor useful at the current project phase

As I said - The aim is to come up with as many ideas as you can - Quantity is top, not Quality! During a brainstorming session of about 30 minutes you should easily generate 100 ideas. If you double the session time you won't double also the outcome.

Initial aid - Here are some tips to help you get started _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

To support the approach of the brainstorming session I can suggest you three methods:

Initial question
Ask your participants to deliver a clear focus to start the brainstorming

What do XYZ users want?
What would XYZ users support?
Which feature would be useful?
etc.

Word association
For example you can start with a word like "Sports Car" and use word association to come up with a list of ideas, such as "Speed", "Stylish", "Quick", "Smart" Then you could come up with another list starting with "Smart". I like to start with a noun and search for adjectives. And then to take one of your adjective and try to brainstorm nouns.

Let's take a walk (through)
Define a target and ask your participants to mention possible first steps. The result of this brainstorming is a decision tree. A decision tree shows decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, maybe also costs, consequences and utility.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Until now I gave my attention to brainstorming within a group session. Here are some practical tips to boost your effectiveness of your one-(wo)man brainstorming skills.
Start with step 3 - Write the topic and criteria across the top of your board, wall or card. When I do my personal brainstorming I like to do it by a sticky map. I try to separate and note down each particular factor, detail or trend on single post-its. If you find yourself running out of ideas, don't give up - very often it's a good thing to switch your "position". Ask yourself:

What would I need if I were a new customer? ... an experienced customer?
How would user XYZ solve this problem?
For what would user XYZ look for?

Try to gather at least 10 possible ideas or solutions, better 15 or more. Often the best ideas take more concentrated and extensive brainstorming - don't give up to early.
As you review your notes write down any ideas that occur to you. Don't censor or judge yourself at this point. Write down every idea, no matter how strange they are, accept each role and opinion you have. Remember yourself on rule 8 = Accept and collect each idea - do not judge anything in any way.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Last two suggestions:

Keep in mind that a problem, clearly defined, is already half solved.
Do not discuss or criticize ideas - do not judge anything in any way

Card Sorting

2009-08-03T00:54:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
This is the first part of a series about design techniques and analysis techniques.

The following article belongs to an upcoming series – A series on developing approaches to problem solutions with systematic use of creative techniques. I want to comply with this article and series to wishes and requests of friends and colleagues.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Card sorting is a categorization technique where users sort cards describing and giving their picture, their understanding and their mental picture of concepts, workflows and information and knowledge.

There are a number of benefits using card sorting - Card sorting is …

Quick and easy – It allows a lot of users to be involved
Simple – It’s a familiar and common behavior
Inexpensive – If we are honest and make a good job in general, the only added cost are the preparation efforts
Dependable method
Variable technique – to get to know the users

Whether you are designing a complex application, product or software it’s typical to be confronted by a very long list of potential content, functions and contextual topics to include and to arrange. The challenge is to structure these elements in a way that the product and system is useful, meaningful and easy to understand and to use.
Even complex applications can be easy to use … when the application fits the users’ mental picture / mental models. A good tool to see and to understand this “picture“ is card sorting.

It should be in mind, that a card sorting session doesn’t deliver a finished design, taxonomy or structure.

While this instrument might not supply you with a finished design or structure, it can help you solve many questions you will need to deal with throughout the whole project, particular during the first stages of the project. Card sorting creates an overall “idea” to structure your information, as well as an “idea” for navigation, content-appearance and possible taxonomy.

You can identify …

Labels
Cluster
Constellation
…

… and also their …

Relationships
Dependences
…

… in addition you can also record …

Significance
Value
Trends
Conflicts
…

What do the participants like to see?

Does the user want to see the content arranged by subject, tasks, process, and business? …
What is the individual picture and understanding?
Is it always and through out the whole application the same type of structure and arrangement?
Are the needs within the groups the same and corresponding? Does the participants discussed long and hard?
Are the needs of the different user groups comparable?
What is similar and what is different? … and how and why is it as it is.

METHODS _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

There are three principal methods …

Defined Categories – Users are requested to sort cards into defined Categories.
Dartboard– The dartboard is organized in three, or if it’s needed in more, circles. The users are requested to arrange cards into the circles. The inner circle represents the most critical, important or needed aspects and elements. The second circle represents the medium important content and functions. And the third circle, the outer one, should contain elements that are only used less often, by a few people or in a few circumstances, but they aren’t as important as those in the middle circle.
Open Table – The users are requested to arrange the cards into cluster that they consider are suitable and then they are asked to give the clusters descriptions or labelings*.

The second method can be enhanced by segments, like we all know by the dartboards. These segments are either an initial set of primary groups or just “open segments” without any labelling, in this case the participants are asked to give the segments a description/labelling. * By the way a description is often better than just a word, a defined labelling.

How to do it … _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

FIRST _____ I I I I I I I I I I I I
Selecting participants
The primary step in any card sorting study is to collect a list of topic (content, functions and contextual topics) that will becomes your cards. From my point of experience, I’ve found that it’s difficult to do card sorting with more than one hundred subjects. This list should be drawn from a clear focused segment / task.

Group of responsibility
Business processes
Topic area
Existing topic and matter
Potential content
Planned applications
Considered functions

Print each topic (content, functions and contextual topics) on a single white card. By the way according to my experience, it’s difficult to do card-sorting studies with more than about 100 topics, but it’s possible, more than 200 is often absolute maximum, but even this depends on the over all requirements and business. About one hour, or maximum two hours, is the most you can usually expect someone or group to spend. Please note – always better one more rest than one less! Although. All this depends on the discrepancies of business, topics and complexity and last but not least according to the user and your participants.

SECOND _____ II II II II II II II II II II II II
Select your participants.
They need to be representative of the target users depending on your application as well as on task and aims.
Card sorting may be performed individually or in groups. I suggest you to do it with groups. A benefit of group sorts is that they typically provide richer data than individual sorts – If you intent to work in groups the participants have to be homogeny.

A card sorting session should have at last four participants. If you have more than eight the group will becomes more difficult to manage. Ideally, all the participants can reach the cards on the table. Usually one or two persons should take charge of placing and moving the cards.

It’s not necessary to tell our participants they’ll be doing a card sorting. As an alternative, let them know they don’t need to prepare ahead of time; they should simply come as they are. Sometimes I went to the users and sometimes I asked them to come to us.

Users are asked to sort the cards into logical groupings using no more than a two-level hierarchy.
Workflow for the card sorting session:
· Sort the related cards into groups. It’s often helpful to note the reason and relationship (why, how, …) why this card belongs to the group on the card. If there is one card with no relationship to other cards this card doesn’t have to be grouped. If a card belongs in more than one group, the participants should use a blank card in a different color** to duplicate the card. If there is any new content, the participants should take a cards in a different color** to add the new content that the participants would like to see.
· Once the participants are finished, we should accompany them through a particular task. This helps verify and confirm the results.
· Performing the card sorting session by method one (Defined Categories) or two (open table) - the participants should place each “group” of cards into a small envelope. Label each small envelope with a name that describes the information it contains. Performing the card sorting session by method two (Dartboard) – the participants should save and summaries your results on a flip chart or take a picture with a camera.
· All related groups of small envelopes and any related individual cards should be placed into larger envelopes to create “categories.” Label each large envelope with a name that describes the information it contains.
· Place everything into a folder labeled with the topic of the card sorting session. This folder can contain individual cards, small envelopes, and large envelopes. Please be aware that we used a two-level sort for this particular session. With fewer cards (e.g., less than 40 or so), it may only be necessary to use a one-level sort.

THIRD _____ III III III III III III III III III III III III
A small survey at the end of the card sorting session provides the opportunity to obtain further information about the participants, users and their needs. While it’s important to keep this section brief, it’s nonetheless possible to ask questions like:
· What is Job role
· What are your responsibilities
· Time of experience in this job role
· How do you find information / workflow and methods
· What do you need most – and what least – content? Function?
· What other information or function do you like to have.
· Do you have any other feedback or suggestions?

FOURTH _____ IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV
The fourth step is to explore and study the results of your card sorting sessions and to develop a summary.
It’s often very enlightening to evaluate the results of card sorting sessions of diverse groups of participants. Especial if you discover conflicts like similarities in opposition to dissimilarities. These kinds of conflicts are very typical and it’s more likely to have these than to have not.
Again my analyzing steps depend on the amount of cards and complexity of the project. And well – I wouldn’t keep as a secret – it depends on time and budget of the project. Anyway the last step is always the same – I gather all the data on a spreadsheet. As a first step performing analysis I like to pin or tape the cards and their groups on a board or wall. Or you may be able to see patterns by simply laying them out on a table. But I suggest you to arrange them at a place where you can let them for hours, days or in best case for weeks. That’s the reason why I prefer the whiteboard or wall. To mark and or to arrange patterns and relationships you can use pencils, markers or also threads and tapes. Don’t forget to save your work frequently and regularly (Some time ago I had to face a blank wall and piled cards on my desk at a Monday morning in my office. And the reason was an over motivated cleaner).

EQUIPMENT _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

** Colors for the cards – I prefer to use …

White … for the original card sets
Grey … for duplications of a original content
Yellow … for new content

Further more you need …

Small envelopes
Large envelopes
Folder
Pencils and Markers

SUMMARY _____ : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
Remember that the summary often doesn’t result directly into a final taxonomy and it’s also not necessary to jump straight to taxonomy at this point. Your card sort results can be supplemented with additional user research and task analysis.

Regardless of the method you use, card sorting is an easy, inexpensive and variable technique for learning how your potential users view the relations and interaction among the different subjects. The resulting design should be one that allows your users to find the information they’re looking for quickly and easily – but that should be a topic for a upcoming article.

Significance of UCD, IA and UE (User centered utility and usability)

2009-07-29T01:07:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but initial integration of UCD and Usability Engineering, Design and Planning into the development process of applications from web applications to software to GUIs of hardware and other devices will affect the business, project and efforts in many ways.
UCD is an approach developing interactive system that focuses particularly on developing systems with a high utility and excellent usability.
Each product, each business possesses explicit goals that we can and should achieve.
There are a lot of benefits …
… UCD and Usability can improve:

Development efforts
Product and market qualities and revenue
Quality of work and increased productivity
Optimized return of invest
Satisfaction and loyalty of users, consumers and customers
Conversions of systems, processes and tasks
Employee productivity and efficiency (software, intranet and web apps)
…

… UCD and Usability can decrease:

Frustration, disappointment and irritations
Maintenance costs of processes, applications and software
Training and support costs
…

The coin of usability, utility and joy of use or joy of interact has to two sides. On the one side you see standards and principles based on common rules and conventions. On the other side are individual aspects based on A) groups, types, gender, … and B) tasks, goals, job, responsibility … that brings us to the main point THE INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE of each of people and of PARTICULAR SITUATIONS.

How can we concentrate on these experiences and situations?

User experience analysis can make a claim at any phase of a development and product cycle, but it’s most cost-effective and efficient to integrate UCD and UE during the early phases of any development process from the traditional development process to the agile development processes of software or any other application.

We have to understand and describe the client, customer, user and the business, the market and the opportunities. A good way to do this is by develop …

Personas
Storyboards
Work flows
Contentogram
…

As IAs and UEs we have to define …

Experience
Mental pictures
Interaction
Strategy
…

Initial integration of information architecture can or should be a strategic tool for steering product development.
Information architecture should be the framework and template for the experience the user gain by our interfaces.

From my point of view it’s very important that the interface fits the users’ individual and situational understanding during we plan and design the application and fill in the details.
The dynamic interplay of specific professional and cultural demands and the situation in which these occur determine the appearance that an interface with a particular function must have and for which that application needs to have a particular capacity.
Believe it or not but even complex applications can be easy to use … when the interface works how users expect it to – it fits the users’ mental picture / mental models.

If you or your company is interested in learning more about UCD, UE and IA, call me, read my article on boxes and arrows or check these hints:

Contextual Design. Defining Customer-Centered Systems by Hugh Beyer

The Humane Interface by Jef Raskin

Absolute “must have”: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug

The Elements of User Experience von Jesse J. Garrett

“criteria ” for UCD, UXD and UXP

2009-07-25T02:31:00.000-07:00

There has been various debates in the past few months and years about setting up a precise and exact “criteria ” for UCD, UXD and UXP all around the user experience. Well – here is a quite good approximation, interesting article by Fred Beecher: Nine Essential Characteristics of Good UX Designers

Explain things in plain words and sketches

2009-07-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

I really love these kinds of explanations. The real big benefit of giving form to a complex situations is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated.

FIRST a nice little video about social media. I think it’s good for clients/customers also because this video comes in an unbranded "presentation style" ...

If you like to know more about these video or if you're looking for a custom video - visit: http://www.commoncraft.com

SECOND a short and easy to understand story of the credit crisis:

If you like to get more information about this video and about the developers - please visit: http://crisisofcredit.com BTW - you can watch the 1st and 2nd part in one video :-)

Words vs. Communication

2009-07-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
everyone who knows me will know this sentence: "Words are unfit to communicate!"
Because words are just signs. They are just vehicles / carts to transport identities, values and meanings. But these characteristics aren't part of the word itself - because everyone of us has different experience and put this words into or out of different context, We have no fixed standards and interpretations to understand the word - Every person is different and has its very own typical unique interpretation and understanding.
There are always the sender and recipient. The sender has to code is thoughts, ideas and message into word and than the recipient will have to decode these words. And in best case both have the same "understanding" without any lack.
I always use the example "apple". If I say: "I bought an apple this morning!
What kind of apple was yours?
A green one? ... a red one? ... sweet? ... sour? ... Granny Smith? ... Cox's Orange? ... Golden Delicious? or was it a computer or phone? Or something else? You see there was "real" no communication!

If you are interested in communication or words - as much as I'm ...
... you should listen to Erin McKean ...
... view her awesome TED talk from 2007:

... and to Tom Wujec

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Erin McKean is one of an entire range of great speakers at the UXweek in San Francisco (September 15-18)

... I would be there but my budget is limited ;-) ... but I really believe it will be a great week / event!

More about Erin McKean - Read her books on words:

Check out her blogs: Verbatim, Dictionary Evangelist, Dress A Day
Explore new words at Wordnik.com

My new mobile device? The HTC Hero?

2009-07-18T05:46:00.000-07:00

HTC announces another Android handset, the HTC Hero

If you looking for a new smartphone, but felt that the HTC Dream and Magic didn't have the features you desired, the new Hero announced by HTC might just be the one for you.
What I like about the new HTC Hero ...
... is , according to HTC, "the first Android phone to ship with support for Adobe® Flash® Platform technology". What this means is that you can finally view most flash based content, such as streaming media, without the need for third-party applications.
... is , according to David Wadhwani, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit at Adobe, "the new HTC Hero represents a key milestone for Android and the Flash Platform. With close to 80 percent of all videos online delivered with Adobe Flash technology, consumers want to access rich Web content on-the-go."
... possesses the "Sense" GUI - Multitouch and two finger features
... possesses a Teflon coating and oleophobic surface

Here are the Hero's other specifications:
* HSPDA
* Quad band
* Wi-fi
* Bluetooth
* 3.2 inch, 320X480 resolution screen
* External USB port
* GPS with digital compass
* G-Sensor
* SD Card slot

Well - I like it!

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

Book - Search User Interfaces

2009-07-10T08:12:00.000-07:00

To make this book available to as many readers as possible, the author, with permission of Cambridge University Press, has placed the full text online free of charge. - - Search User Interfaces - -

"Search is an integral part of peoples' online lives; people turn to search engines for help with a wide range of needs and desires, from satisfying idle curiousity to finding life-saving health remedies, from learning about medieval art history to finding video game solutions and pop music lyrics. Web search engines are now the second most frequently used online computer application, after email. Not long ago, most software applications did not contain a search module. Today, search is fully integrated into operating systems and is viewed as an essential part of most information systems."

Or buy the book:

Understanding for and of social interacting, networking and computing

2009-07-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

We all have our own vision and understanding of collaborative working in information “worlds”.
A vision that involves collaboration …
… between various persons and departments,
… around different aims, tasks and interests,
… linking different forms of content, functions and context,
… around various forms of information from documents to projects,
but in the perspective of a framework designed / planned to have a high regard for business and IT requirements. Particularly in the case of enterprise worlds it’s a powerful and often unexplored topic.

Aren’t there again and again discussions via e-mail or chats during a rest with valuable ideas and thoughts? I won’t take them away – I won’t record them – but wouldn’t it be great to share the ideas and the knowledge? Let us benefit from the bottom up creativity and potentials. We should encourage and push invention, creativity and development by the sharing of knowledge and information resources. We should all have a sense for the critical pockets of knowledge and expertise contained by people or groups in the enterprise and network.

In this fast growing world we need more and more efficient ways collaborating and solving problems. And aren’t we spending too much time trying to track down the current experts on a certain topic within the enterprise or network?

A key factor in promoting innovation is creating a culture and infrastructure to strengthen and increase collaboration across limits of departments, working areas and throughout the whole enterprise.

Elements of social interacting, networking and computing, the common term for such technologies on the Internet is Web 2.0, and, in the enterprise setting, Enterprise 2.0, are already finding their way into a growing number of enterprises.
In a business environment, blogs, foren and discussion boards can help foster a culture of sharing capability and knowledge rather than just storing and gathering.

All these functions and tools can help users locate and link up with a widespread network of groups, departments and single specialists and experts on the one hand and on the other a system of knowledge pools and think tanks.

If you like I can help you and your companies explore the alternatives and realize the collaboration solution that is right for your organization’s goals and needs. And if you like to learn more about services and solutions you should check out the white paper of Microsoft - Social_Computing_in_the_Enterprise.pdf.

Social Computing resource

Great speaker at the UXweek09 in Frisco this September

2009-06-28T01:41:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to report that Dr. Temple Grandin will be a speaker at the UX Week 2009 September 15-18 in San Francisco.

Those people who know me, know me for being a practical person, not somebody up there in the clouds wishing further ideology to descend on businesses, but somebody who sees the real advantages for the persons in the improvement of interfaces, orientation systems and workplaces.
We have to know and we have to understand the people who should interact with our "world" - a world of information and function and so many individual circumstances and situations. - This world is growing rapidly - Sometimes I think too quick and sometimes too slow - but that's a different, another topic.
And by the way - And yes - Those who know me a little better, are aware of my psychological interest in behavior, cultures and so on of human being and animals -
My girl friend and I live together very closely with our animals: our dogs and horses live freely on our property. And it's quite interesting to study their social standards and behaviour - and to see parallels to human beings.

Everyone who knows me well will know that I strongly believe that responsibility means to have a look over the edge.
So I strongly recommend you to listen to Dr. Temple Grandin - She is really great!
And I also recommend the books of Dr. Temple Grandin to everyone developing user interfaces on a professional level or to whom who are interested in psychology .

english:

deutsch:

The form of forms … We need them, but also hate them

2009-06-25T06:28:00.001-07:00

I do not know whether you thought about it, but ...
When I think about rich websites, applications and interfaces – Aren’t they all ought to make live easier? Easier, more supportive, comfortable – providing a maximum of convenience and joy.
Well – and then are these boring forms – I think none of us falls in love with forms – but we need them.
I believe forms have to make our lives easier, not more difficult, as well. As design team, and I really think of the whole team graphical designers, projectmanagers, developers, IAs, and and and, we can or we should make our users' lives less hard and less difficult, just easy and as simple as possible, by thinking about the way people interact with our app, providing clear direction, and then putting the trouble of sorting out the details in the hands of the computers—not the users.
We've all heard and read about big usability mistakes time and time again: "Don't use images or flash for navigation," "Avoid using Java Script for links," and I certainly hope we're all considering those “good words” in our work. Yes - Often Java Script can help us and the user to develop supportive and helpful forms. And YES there are cases we can’t avoid or it’s recommended to use flash or images for navigation. But it shouldn’t be always our first step to do it that way.

Here are some basic rules you should know and you should deal with …
1. _ keep your form as easy and effortless as possible
2. _ be clear and stringent
3. _ be consistent in the way you use areas on the screen for help and for the main form flow
4. _ give the user enough room to type or give him room he needs
4.1. _ For instance – The length of zip-codes are almost the same for one country – If the user needs space for five or six letters why offer him an input field with space for twenty.
5. _ mark mandatory fields obviously and clearly
5.1. _ and before you do this – cut them down! - to make the form as short and smart as possible, I recommend a three-step evaluation of every element of the form.
5.1.1st _ Why is this a piece of data, answer, question valuable to us?
5.1.2nd _ Is this a data that is so important that it's worth denying users access to (whatever lies beyond the form) if they do not decide to offer it?
5.1.3rd _ Does the user need help to offer this data (we live in a mobile world – And do you have always the needed customer-numbers with you) – and then … :-)
6. _ provide descriptive labels for all of the form fields – does the user “understand” the expression/phrase – is it common to him
7. _ the computer, not the user, handle information formatting - e.g. telephone number - There are many ways these numbers can be represented:
___ 0049 1234 123 123
___ or
___ 0049.*1234.12.31.23
___ or
___ #49-1234-123-123
___ or
___ (*49) 01234 123123
___ or or or … the system has to accept every input !
8. _ use informative error messages
9. _ and at least show him what’s called to do – what are the next steps or just give him a feedback every thing is fine

Hmmm – you say that this is all common and well known? If it so – please – tell me why are so many forms – sign ins, log ins, newsletter registrations, order forms, … and and and … and finally tax forms often so bad as they are?

And one more last comment - More than every other case when we develop forms for financial, insurance or government - a Use-Lab is more then helpful …
A. _ how easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time?
A.1 _ absolute beginners?
A.2. _ experienced users – who know the former versions?
A.3. _ experienced users – who know the offline / paper version?
A.x. _ and further more users regarding your project
B. _ once users have understood / learned the app, structure and design, how quickly can they act with it or complete tasks?
C. _ How well to remind of - When an user revisit to the application after a period of not using it, how straightforwardly can he bring back his capacity?
D. _ Does your user act as like you have expected and planed it?
E. _ How many errors do users make or appears during the session?
F. _ How helpful were these errors? How pleased and satisfied were your user?

… and never the least - How pleasant is it to your users to use the interface? And how can we improve the pain-points?
There are many other important quality attributes. A key one is utility, which refers to the design's functionality: Does it do what users need? Does it fit to the user? Is he satisfied?
Oooh forms - I like them and I hate them :-)

Digital tables

2009-06-23T06:40:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
Interactive tables, walls or windows or terminals are various opportunities to surf through information and product worlds.
Such interfaces like Microsoft Surface allow interested people and buyers to gather or configure their products in a fascinating way. BMW, Mercedes Benz, AT&T and the Deutsche Telekom are one the first manufacturers and service providers using this technology commercially.

BMW:

AT&T:

MS Office Labs 2019:

If you have missed these blog posts ...
- Microsoft's "Home of the Future"
- Second generation Surface
...check it out!

How to show your ideas ...

2009-06-23T02:20:00.000-07:00

I know - I know this is nothing really new - but ...
One of the best presentations I've ever seen!

I think it's / it was fucking awesome

Visit YouTube to watch the video in HD quality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfS8waAVaVY

There is more than just Google - Spezify and Co.

2009-06-22T06:42:00.000-07:00

spezify.com

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
There is more than just Google in the World Wide Web. It is hard to imagine that we forget Google and start our search with a new search engine. Maybe you’ve read my post about bing.com by Microsoft ( http://ux4dotcom.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-search-engine-bingcom-by-ms.html ).

Since a few days there is the beta version of Spezify available. Spezify is a new search engine with a unique graphical interface.
Spezify is a visual search engine that collects search results, arranges them on a virtual desktop.
It collects search results from different sources (Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter, eBay, …) in different media formats (e.g. images, text, video, Twitter messages, Flickr images, quotes, wikipedia articles, ...), arranges them on a desktop and allows one to drag it around as an large collage.
It’s an interesting approach – it’s not the Holy Grail but it has the potential to be “more”.

Wolfram Alpha took also a new step in Ssearch engine industry. Wolframalpha.com is very different from Google and other search engines.
I have been searching on Wolframalpha.com since a few days, I am very much amazed with the way they are providing results. But over and over again I have been frustrated when I have start searching for other generalized keywords – sometimes the results were OK but more often not so much.

Wolframalpha.com

Google is always experimenting with new features aimed at improving the search experience ( google.com/experimental ).

I think you all know Google launched new search options and filters to view results in a new way.

From my point of view the most considerable improvement are the rich snippets.

If you are interested in other search engines – You’ll find a list at the end of this blog post.

Design the missing link

2009-06-18T09:05:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I read three interesting quotes:

The first one is by Antoine De Saint-Exupery:
“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

The second is by Peter Morville:
“The design of good houses requires an understanding of both the construction materials and the behavior of real humans.”

And the third is by Charles Eames:
“The details are not the details. They make the design.”

I know that every one of us heard the first sentence again and again during our live – but more often we fail – maybe it’s why because our client, the topic, the context or or or force us to do things we should do … or shouldn’t do.
During my years as an information architect and in the last few years as an experience planner, I’ve worked with lots of different development clients, agencies and teams. From big companies to small startups, the interactions between me, the one who is responsible for joy and success of use, and developers have been pretty consistent. We explored and run through what interactions and features are possible given our timeframe and resources. We talked about edge cases and clarify how specific interactions should work. We pondered on product strategy, information architecture, target audience, front-end technologies, and more. We also frequently encounter the same issue: the need to consider what’s not there.
The approach the team got there was constantly the similar. The team and I planed and designed to consider and reflect on user goals, business requirements, and technical considerations to create an application, device and interface and all the requirements which are often unseen and unconsidered stand in the back. In best case - these inventions and outcomes gets evaluated and finally documented. For the reason that I mainly work with fast-paced agencies, I often have to produce my documentation under extreme and tight timelines. This means there is not a lot of time for creating detailed design specifications.
This is very disappointing, because I firmly believe that a good documentation for the most projects is on the long term cheaper, smarter and last but not least quicker. I think that this is extremely important. For me this particular point is of special importance.
Nor is there a chance for me to provide prototypes or templates for every part of an application. Well – Yes – often it’s not necessary to define each and every part down to the smallest part of the app - like error messages and phrases – Yes – You’re right – BUT bad phrases and error messages can the reason for failed or ineffective services and applications. Supportive error messages are the first step toward getting troubled users and customers back on track. Keep text brief and easy to understand. Avoid confusing terms and unfamiliar language when helping users overcome crisis points.
So I turn over mock-ups and workflows - in the appearance of excel-sheets, stories or task diagrams - to the development team. What I commonly get back is a major part of the design / of the character and or nature of the application.
By major part of the design I mean that all of the content, context, features, and functions are planned, and they are ready to transfer these elements into visual design. Well – and then … what’s the missing link / the missing item?
What’s missing is what’s undiscovered, unmentioned, and hidden: position, arrangement, appearance and - ehmm - what was that again? – ah Yes … and the whitespace.
The visual designers and the development teams are in charge for putting content, functions and interactive elements into a product. Blank space / whitespace is neither content nor functions. Therefore, it is not a request, demand and or requirement. For a visual designer, however, it’s often just as significant and essential as the areas for content and functions.
Visual designers use a lot of time arranging whitespace to allow effective scanning of elements. I also use a lot of time optimizing and improving alignment and padding to establish a user interface with well-designed utility and usability. I make use of both of these principles of arrangement and classification to lead the user through the content and functions on a page or a form. I use these principles to communicate what’s most important, what’s related, and what needs attention. For designers, these are key requirements of effective communication – and that’s proved.
I would be so pleased to see more developers bring the skills and craft they apply to the construction of the visible to the construction of the invisible: padding and alignment. Once they learn to look for these things in a design specification or mock-up, they’ll have a better sense of the designer’s intent. A shared understanding of what’s being built - whether visible or invisible—goes a long way toward making products that our users can understand. And it’s necessary that we all get a common understanding of the relationship of expectation, experience, knowledge, scanability and findability.

What the heck is the nature of UI design?

2009-06-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

In this article I will offer an answer and then I will take a look at authority, power and weight of UXP on multimedia projects relating on the teams and how it could or should refer to for guidance in their work. I hope my answers to these questions will be helpful as well as provocative enough to drive some reactions and feedbacks from readers.
Is it just science, art or a business approach or is it a mixture / combination?
Is the major focus on science? Many developers adopt a scientific approach or perspective; they base their work and decisions from sciences such as cognitive knowledge, psychology and social sciences. Science allows making dependable conclusion and hypothesis. Out of my experience I have to say that such a lot of my decisions don’t found on traditional science a lot of them were based on "conventional wisdom" again and again. Science and knowledge of well-known and usual user behavior can tell designer quite a about UI design. But it can’t tell enough about design, character and appearance of the UI and the whole application to the strategists, planners and designers. Does this mean that science is just good for the “backbone” of a product but not so good for practical work? Not quite, in my opinion. I nonetheless firmly believe that also visual designers and every developer must have basic knowledge of how humans process, structure, and behavior.

Some designers, mainly web designers, believe and or consider design as an art. These designers consider themselves to be artists who perform great “wonders” and “miracles”, they don't ask users how they should design, arrange or organize. As a substitute, they follow their own inspiration and muse. Unfortunately, the consequences and outcomes are not always appreciated by users and customers or either in worse case by clients and business. This non-empirical approach has even been the source of many controversies between designers and usability people and other team members in the past. On the contrary to the more "structured and ordered" approach of IAs, UEs and never the less XPs, the "art" approach is somewhat "spontaneous and impetuous" and personal – which is its strength and its weakness at the same time. For myself, I have great sympathy for the scientific approach and for the "art" as well. Because I doubt that terrific designs can be the product of democratic approximation. Nevertheless, with the exception of some creative web pages, business services and applications are far from being works of art. Like any other product they are designed to be used and to fulfill particular aims and goals. Ease of use, efficiency, and more or less often fun of use are the focus, and these are quite different goals. And these goals aren’t the same goal for the same client and product because there are diverse customers and users.

And what about the focus on business? Consumers are looking beyond branding messages for experiences that live up to the hype. A design approach depending on user experience makes sure that user needs are clearly represented in a project. This guiding force increases team efficiency and reduces risk.

I want to outline four key elements to support business in the design process.
Element 1 - Increased profits - The better the user experience offered by a product, the more users will choose to use it, and buy it, over the competition.
Element 2 - Better user and customer trust and fidelity - With the correct and approved user experience, customers become loyal - they stick with the brand and they tell their friends. This reduces customer acquisition costs dramatically.
Element 3 - Reduced customer service costs - If the product is easy to use, less people will skip the communication channel or need to call you about how to use something. Customer service and support calls are expensive to deal with, and the decrease of calls can be a big cost saver. Migrating customer service from call centre to web is another key cost-cutting strategy for many businesses. But customers will only move online if they find the service easy and convenient. The utility and the usability have to meet the user experience and expectations.
Element 4 - Decreased project costs and timescales - Costumer and User focused design involves iterative development, user research and usability testing - all of which take time and money. So how can adding these to a project save you money? Well on the short term we have to have more work to do – very soon you all will recognize the overall reduce of costs and efforts for the whole project and long term.

It builds pleasure, clarity and consensus within stakeholder groups. By bringing in facts about user behaviors and needs, you can focus stakeholders on an objective goal: joy of use of the individual customer and their satisfaction. This means less confusion, misunderstandings, fewer tacking and jibing during the surfing through the site, stronger management support and less time wasted.
It decreases expensive change requests.

Conclusion
Understanding the needs of users and integration of this knowledge is one of the most important success aspects for any multimedia project. Often but not always personas are good tool to get and keep a common understanding in the project in the whole team through the whole project flow. Personas allow identifying and communicating the goals, aims, needs, expectation, experience and the understanding of different users and groups efficiently and effectively. Personas are a useful tool to use throughout the project, from decision-making upon the functionality, content and context trough the evaluating during the project to testing the end product. In combination with other design tools and techniques, such as task analysis and usability testing, personas will put us in good state to deliver a functional product.
To sum up, I have much sympathy for the science and art approaches; I believe that both are useful suppliers to our work. But our daily work has much more to do with the work of engineers – don’t get me wrong – just because why I’m an engineer in architecture and town planning. Actually, I'm always trying to get this fact straight in my mind so that my feet remain firmly on the ground and I don't start acting like an artist.
A year ago I raised this topic with a different perspective: http://boxesandarrows.com/view/ux-design-planning

New search engine - Bing.com by MS

2009-06-04T07:06:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
In the last few years we have seen various search engines come and go. The last one I remember on is Cuil. Last year, Cuil made its way on the web. As with it goes rather with everything online, as soon as some kind of new service application or technology gets released, the initial spontaneous reaction from the community was to make the obvious comparisons between the new one and the familiar applications. Not only was Cuil not a Google killer, it could hardly compare with some of the second-tier search engines on the market. In the end, Cuil got a ton of great PR that only reinforced something most of us knew: Google was still a very strong search engine and very tough to beat. The other big (and obvious) players are MSN, Yahoo and Ask.com and maybe perhaps AOL, for the still existing AOL followers and users. In the US and Canada, Yellow Pages and in Germany T-Mobile is also a very big mentionable player.

And we all recognized the several improvements, search and filter tools, on Google during the last few months.

This leads to the question: What will it take to topple Google?

During the first dot com increase in the mid-'90s, it was an endless story, every day a further article on the "search engine wars." At the time, both Yahoo and MSN were battling it out, while AOL was losing traction and Google was just coming on to the scene.

Best-selling business book author and marketing expert Seth Godin had an excellent blog post titled The Next Google where he said:
"Bing, of course, stands for But It's Not Google. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it is trying to be the next Google. And the challenge for Microsoft is that there already is a next Google. It's called Google. Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent. In times of change, the rule is this: Don't try to be the 'next.' Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new."

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch took a different approach in his blog post titled Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit:
"Whether Microsoft ultimately succeeds or not in 'winning' the search war, the competition is very good for the rest of the Internet. Google needs to be pushed to invent useful new features. And search marketing competition will ensure that Google doesn't get too filled up or tired. We don't need Microsoft to win, but we do need to avoid a world with just one search engine that matters. Maybe Microsoft can win that lesser war, at least.

As if that weren't enough excitement, two other search engines recently came online as well. WolframAlpha ( http://www.wolframalpha.com ) bills itself as a "computational knowledge engine" and acts as an amazing place to find answers to questions that require more calculation-like answers (e.g. - how far is Montreal from Copenhagen?), and Topsy ( http://www.topsy.com ) - which is more of a social Web search engine that is able to list and rank conversations from places like Twitter and Digg.

What do consumers really want when it comes to search? Finally, we all want relevant results from a reliable provider. As the game changes (and it always does), it's going to be interesting to see who the real Google Killer is, or we'll see if Seth Godin is right and Google eventually eats itself.

I particularly enjoyed the map search of Bing and its options to get a different view of areas and maps.

At least – a short list of search engines you should not miss:
http://www.viewzi.com
http://www.ujiko.com
http://amaznode.fladdict.net

A comprehensive list of search engines you can find on About.com by Wendy Boswell, published on About.com (http://www.about.com )

1. All-Purpose Search Engines
2. Blog Search Engines
3. Book Search Engines
4. Business Search Engines
5. Forum Search Engines
6. Game Search Engines
7. Human-Powered Search Engines
8. Image Search Engines
9. International Search Engines
10. Invisible Web Search Engines
11. Job Search Engines
12. Legal and Law Enforcement Search Engines
13. Map Search Engines
14. Medical Search Engines
15. Metasearch Engines
16. Multimedia Search Engines
17. Music Lyric Search Engines
18. News Search Engines
19. People Search Engines
20. Price Search Engines
21. Question and Answer Search Engines
22. Real Estate and Property Search Engines
23. Reference Search Engines
24. Social Search Engines
25. Torrent Search Engines

Project Natal - 2009 Microsoft - take a look

2009-06-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

We’ve been hearing rumors about Microsoft’s plans to enter the Wiimote’s territory with a nunchuck, controllerrang or Power Glove-like paddle for ages now.

Take a look at Project Natal's current dashboard and user interface

We should remember that games are also often provide us the keys to new and different possibilities, projects and applications. This creates new technical requirements, which, once applied to new products, open up yet more opportunities.

Thoughts about good design and good business

2009-06-01T16:16:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
Design is an approach for displaying and organizing arranging content and functions in such a way as best to make a specific idea real. One thing that media products and sports have in common is how many different abilities and proficiencies are required.
There are individual performing decathletes that have so pretty much abilities in just one single person. But to find a creative person with so deep and broad talents is hardly ever – but we often meet persons who tell us he is the new Daley Thompson or she is “Marie Collonvillé”.
But most inventions and creations are the result of work by many individual experts of different people. Last but not least there is no sport which is a one-man-show. There are always persons behind and beside. There are specific skilled team-players on the team needed.
They all have to work as one. I strongly believe in the sentence: “There is no I in the word team!” … and I also really believe there is no “I” in the meaning or spirit of “team”
It takes a lot of collaboration to keep everyone’s effort in sync. And we should always be aware of the question: “Are we all playing the same game and run in the same direction?” There are always various ways, strategies and procedures to make the touchdown. To get us into the position having these various opportunities we need a strong and powerful quarterback. And on each position we need great professionals.
Each team member should have the holistic picture of the strategy (Did I mentioned you need or should have a strategy – for small applications like microsites it might be unwritten and just a common understanding or agreement - but for complex applications like portal pages, knowledge management products and or intranets it have to be a written and signed document ).
Such a design strategy is not just about business factors. It’s about a holistic, multi-faceted approach to clients’ challenges that covers business, users, markets, technology, content and context on different levels. The value of design strategy is showing how everything is connected to everything. The strategy is always one important part of the “red thread” – it’s often the first part, but it’s just the first step. TBC :-)

SoftwareOverview for IAs, UEs, XPs and other creative people ;-)

2009-05-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

Arcturus Media Solutions Group has launched IAApps.com - An online source for information architecture, usability testing, user experience design, and prototyping software.

IAapps - Directory of Usability, Information Architecture, and User Experience Design Software - http://iaapps.com/

This online resource provides a quite good overview to software that hopefully makes work easier, more effective and more enjoyable.
Now all that's missing are detailed comments, reviews, experiences and explanations of experts.

IA conference 2009 – Web Analytics and User Experience / WA + IA

2009-05-18T07:48:00.000-07:00

I do not know whether you know it, but ...
we had a fantastic and informational weekend in Hamburg

During the whole weekend we had a great spirit - Motivated and inspired speakers and in the majority great talks have increased a general and competent and expert atmosphere.

One of the key speakers was Louis Rosenfeld ...
Lou made an outstanding speech..
He requested for web analysts and user experience people to work more closely together. The consequence would be solid basis for identifying the right design questions, and the power of surprise and vision brought to data.
On the one hand there are the web analysis people. Analysts are often considered to be left-brained and data-driven, unconcerned with the 'big picture', or with the possible benefits of the unexpected. And on the other hand there are “we” – I often here that UX people are just right-brained and unconcerned with anything outside the scope of our plans, wireframes and designs.
Lou Rosenfeld argues that this ought to change, and he's someone who is in a good position to know.

What vs Why
Analytics data gives us plenty of What — how many people visited a site, how many white papers got downloaded, how many service requests got sent in. User experience data gives us the Why — why people failed to buy a product at the order step, why service requests spike on Tuesdays, why some white papers are downloaded so much more than the others.

Obviously, What is useless without Why, and vice versa. To put it another way, looking carefully at data should suggest the in-depth questions that need to be solved so that any organization can meet its goals.

Working Together
Combining What with Why is not easy, and it's not often done. But players like Amazon, eBay and other organizations that live or die by the Web have established that it works. For the rest of us, how can we work more closely together? Lou offered a few suggestions:

UX people should get a little more comfortable with numbers. You don't need to know what a chi-square test is.. Leave that to people who really love doing them. But understanding basic numbers like conversion rates, unique visitors versus traffic and purchase funnels is easier than it looks and is really, really helpful.

Analytics people should get a little more comfortable with creativity. It's not just that research shows accidents, mistakes and playfulness often lead to breakthroughs. It's that creative techniques such as storytelling are really persuasive. If there's a compelling point in the data, turn it into a story and tell it — that Sally seems to love shopping Thursdays at lunch, for instance. That will make non-experts and creative types understand the significance of the numbers and work to find out why.

Marrying Web Analytics and User Experience

View more presentations from Louis Rosenfeld.

To find out more about Lou, visit his web site: louisrosenfeld.com

Google reloaded! New search options

2009-05-14T23:46:00.000-07:00

Google's Search options let you segment, filter and sort your search results, discover more and related things. You can generate different views of your results page to more easily and quickly find what you need.
more: http://www.google.com...websearch...

Microsoft's "Home of the Future"

2009-05-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

Every innovator has a vision for the home of the future and for Microsoft it involves being able to interact with your house through voice and touch. But how can technology firms still innovate during a global downturn?

Source: news.bbc.co.uk > Microsoft's Mundie on innovation

TED Talks Anand Agarawala presented BumpTop

2009-05-14T00:18:00.001-07:00

TED Talks Anand Agarawala presented BumpTop, a user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3-D extreme, transforming file navigation into a freewheeling playground of crumpled documents and clipping-covered walls. I know - I know it's not new - but it has become current again by the recent revision of the BumpTop - Current: 1.02 build 2859, April 17th 2009

Original URL
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/anand_agarawala_demos_his_bumptop_desktop.html

I greatly enjoyed the presentation and the interface, but found myself unconvinced, thinking, "Yes, it's fun… but would it improve computer usage? Would we work better, faster, more comfortably?… and significantly so?"
For example, though it's cute, I'm really struggling to think of a time when I would need to "bump" files, punting them off in random directions. Also, hanging things from the 3D "walls" isn't really a significant improvement: it's a 3D-effect on a 2D display with the same effective dimensions.
Anyway, I wonder: how much of the working day is actually spent at the desktop? Most of us spend our time in applications.

I do think that eventually when computers evolve with multi-touch-sensitive screens like the iPhone, some elements of this interface would be / will be useful.

I actually think that 3D-simulating interfaces will improve a lot the HCI in the future.. However, when it comes to organizing and sorting information, a more 2D-ish interface might very well be superior, as I think it has the ability to condense and simplify information, and make it easier to manage / handle.

Second generation Surface coming

2009-05-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

A second generation of Microsoft's Surface computing device is two to three years away, the South by SouthWest Festival has heard.
Read the whole story on BBC = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7945154.stm

Presentation Editor - new and different

2009-05-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

http://prezi.com/

Prezi allows anyone who can sketch an idea on a napkin to create and perform stunning non-linear presentations with relations, zooming into details, and adjusting to the time left without the need to skip slides. You can create zooming maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings, and more.
It's a free online tool that calls itself the "zooming editor for stunning presentations."
http://prezi.com/showcase/

http://prezi.com/966/view/#1284

Mobile Trends 2009

2009-05-11T06:03:00.000-07:00

Fjord 09 Mobile Trends

View more presentations from Prashant Agarwal.

Interesting presentation by Prashant Agarwal
From the 'Android invasion' to the 'War for the world': Fjord presents 9 mobile trends for 09. This report focuses on technologies and behaviors that have been building up over the last few years and are going to break through to the mainstream in 2009.

Take-away version:
09_Fjord_trends_for_2009.pdf 2.53 MB

Interaction09 conference videos now online

2009-05-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

Most of the talks of the Interaction09 conference, that took place this February in Vancouver, Canada, are now available online VIMEO

Jon Kolko - Design synthesis
Interaction design research activities produce an enormous quantity of raw data, which must be systematically and rigorously analyzed in order to extract meaning and insight. Unfortunately, these methods of analysis are poorly documented and rarely taught. As a result, raw design research data is inappropriately positioned as insight, and the value of research activities is marginalized. Interaction design synthesis methods can be taught, and when selectively applied, visual, diagrammatic synthesis techniques can be completed relatively quickly. This talk will introduce various methods of Synthesis as ways to translate research into meaningful insights.

Marc Rettig - How to change complicated stuff
In the midst of a global conversation about change, many designers are pondering their own impact in the world. How does our experience in software interfaces, web sites, and physical products prepare us to address the profound issues humanity is facing? These issues involve many complex systems, systems too big to fit into the scope of any single company or institution. Design methods are potent at large scale and scope, but what does it take to be effective as a practitioner, as a team, as a company? What is it like to actually achieve a meaningful, sustainable, positive difference in life?

Finally, I recommend that you pay particular attention to the talk of Luke Wroblewski ...
Luke Wroblewski - Parti and the design sandwich

In architecture, parti refers to the underlying concept of a building. Will it be a public structure that provides safety or a commercial building focused on customer up-selling? Design principles are the guiding light for any parti. They articulate the fundamental goals that all decisions can be measured against and thereby keep the pieces of a project moving toward an integrated whole. But design principles are not enough. Every design consideration has a set of opportunities and limitations that can either add to or detract from the parti. This combination of design principles at the top and design considerations at the bottom allows interaction designers to fill in the middle with meaningful structures that enable people and organizations to interact, communicate, and get things done. In this talk, Luke Wroblewski will illustrate how the World's most accessed Web page, yahoo.com, was redesigned with a parti and the design sandwich.

The Journal of Information Architecture Issue 1, Volume 1 is out

2009-05-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Journal of Information Architecture inaugural Spring 2009 Issue, Issue 1, Volume 1, is now available online at http://journalofia.org/.

Table of Contents

Dorte Madsen
Editorial: Shall We Dance? Download Shall We Dance? in PDF format

Gianluca Brugnoli
Connecting the Dots of User Experience Download in PDF format

Helena Francke
Towards an Architectural Document Analysis PDF

Andrew Hinton
The Machineries of Context PDF

James Kalbach
On Uncertainty in Information Architecture PDF

New and different - Video Experiences

2009-04-29T02:35:00.001-07:00

For a moment I thought, well I've seen this about ten times already, but its a nice and catchy song so I played it again anyway. Honda has worked with Vimeo to create a full page takeover insync with the video.

Check this out > Honda Let It Shine TVC

The Making of of "Let it Shine" Honda Insight

By the way - there are so many things we can do increasing the experience and appearance of video on the PC, mobile app or urban live - have u seen :

the Warrio Land YouTube Experience

"in men we trust"

What is so frightened to designers to use grids, patterns ...

2009-04-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

What the heck is so frightened to designers to use grids, patterns, modules and elements (components) or frameworks?
I hold a degree in architecture and town planning. And as an architect I never heard the critic “architecture is boring and uncreative just because we use grids, patterns, modules and elements (components) and frameworks.” – Yes sometimes it’s true, some buildings have basements, have walls and roofs – but have no architecture, … no character, no … what ever! These building are just buildings, just house – a lot of people have to live and work in such houses.
In these cases the tool (grid, software or the pencil) isn’t the culprit. The guilty person is the one who “designed” or developed this piece of bricks and concrete. He couldn’t handle his tools.
Over and over again our client thinks he has the final briefing in his hands. Often he can tell us WHAT he likes to get - But not WHY.
Even when you know the why and what - Marking out or classifying how or where to start can be the most difficult step in the entire process.

Overall aim and ensuing strategy
Following particular media aims and strategies
Supportive content and features
Mood and character

Even when you suppose and believe you've got it all sussed out, how can you be sure you're not missing something critical or elemental? How can you be sure you're truly meeting user needs while you're busy supporting business goals? Confused? What is the topic of this post? It’s about grids, patterns, modules and elements (components) and frameworks, their relationship regarding to the other design aspects – starting from the overall process of the whole project down to the tiniest design part and icon.
I’m a firm believer that it’s more than helpful to have patterns, modules and elements (components) or frameworks during and in the process. Again and again I’ve met and meet designers and agencies who are afraid of this kind of structures. There is no reason to be afraid. If you have such a framework and if you know it well – you can use it as a parachute.
The task of converting a high-level understanding of a project's purpose into an appearance with high-level utility and excellent usability can be a tough job. You can use your project-framework just like as a checklist.

What are the principles and characters?
Is it stringent and clear?
Can the user make out his path to completion, to reach his aim?
Does he get a good feeling about his progressive disclosure during his session?
Does he discover and understand opportunities and dependencies?

To reach these goals we need to be stringent and clear! From the first pitch, a unique and adequate over-all strategy, to the last run and base, the tiniest icon or border. Determining where and how to kick off the project is in the most cases easier said than done, and even when we suppose we've got it all exposed and reflected, how can we be sure we're not failing to notice something critical without such a checklist?
Managers and consultants – they often firmly believe knowing every part and aspect of needs and aspects relating to participants, circumstances, media channels and quite a few points more. How can they be so sure they’re meeting user needs in actual fact while they're busy supporting business goals?
We should always be keen on developing very usable and self-evident interfaces for websites, software, applications and any other kind of interaction works and use-cases within the app. Our part should be creating media and products thus our users can be effective and successful. That’s the little angel on our one shoulder on the other one there is the little devil.
This devil tells us to invent innovative and exciting interactions to overwhelm our users, make waves in the market and or to win an award. This devil doesn’t have to be our opponent. Often it’s our partner or friend. He forces us to create innovative, original, and exciting interactions. Which one comes first is often a circumstance of who's leading the process or who has the better standing. Good design is not only interface, or look and feel, or technology, or hardware, or how it works. It is every detail, like the structure, the labelling, and the border of a button or a little icon. Finally, it is the sum of every element. It’s every brick of the “building”. In every kind of process we should act in a team but in the process of UXD it is absolutely essential that we have to think parallel, with the same focus. We have to act in a team, although every team member is a kind of lawyer: lawyer of budget, of the client, of utility, of usability, of look and feel, of brand and finally of the user himself. At the end of the project, our users are the final judges.

Concept and design patterns can be great tools and should hold a permanent place in every application, but they have limitations, and we should these restrictions. Design patterns offer guidelines for the solution of very specific problems. What they don't do is tell how those problems relate to and affect other problems. We all know various useful and well-known patterns. Patterns for huge applications, single pages and standard functions – like the steering wheel of a car (we move it to the left – we’ll drive to the left), previous and next button (click on the left button leads us to the previous content and vice versa) and OK and Cancel … hmmm … STOP … which one should be on the left and which one on the right? … A PC-users will expect OK on the left – A MAC-user will expect the OK button on the right. You see - that’s an “it depends on” story … and an extra story for the future. … Back to my topic! Let us have a look at SERPs and at the already mentioned previous and next buttons. In addition to these buttons - if we have more than 10 results we’ll find pagination pattern on the SERP. And we all know these lists of numbered links. By the way … If u’re interested why Google choose to put only 10 search results on their SERP – check out this talk:

This look pagination interaction is copied by so many others. Does that say it’s a well-learned solution? YES! Does that say it’s a familiar solution? YES! Does that say it’s best practice for each search result page? NO! Let’s have look at Google.com – We all know this appearance … But, why does Google's pagination offer links to just a few neighbored pages by default, and not more? Third, how does it fit into the search behavior of the individual user? … Is it still useful for pictures? Yes – Google has improved their image search by several nice search options …

but … is that really the way we (“visual people”) are on the hunt to find pictures? NO – Do you know Cooliris?

Cooliris (formerly PicLens) transforms your SERP into a 3D Wall for searching, viewing and “interest” or in other words involvement.
To answer these questions, we can't look only at the pagination design. We have to ask, check, learn – to look at the …

Task
Circumstances
Target Groups
Target Users
Aim of the user
Client
Aim of the client
Technical framework
Search system
etc.

We shouldn’t trust blind to design patterns for the solutions to all our design ills. Even if we think we know the “disease” well. We have to look at the whole user experience design always and again and again.
As I already said a firmly believe in pattern – but I've said it before – you remember there is often the angel and the devil on our shoulder. The good and evil appear of patterns as two sides of the same coin.
Before you start yelling now either “This is something I have said all along!” or “Repetition is monotonous and boring” or “Standards are the death of innovation!” , however, remember that frameworks and structures can also offer insight how to take things up a notch.
As long as you know the advantages and disadvantages, the pros and cons of tools, process workflows and sequences you can deal and use them for your benefits. Or keep them in mind to save them for a rainy day (problem, project, …) And therein lies your opportunity use pattern when you need them – and put them aside when you don’t need them. But if you don’t know them you’re unable to do so.
These methods that led you to the concept, the blueprint of more or less regular solutions, can also lead to others, much more persuasive solutions. Put this is a matter of approach, method and technique at the center of your decision-making process and you give yourself the ability to design incredible things that still work well for users.

UE – roles and structures – and the iterative evaluation processes

2009-04-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

In this post I’ll call attention to one, of various, way to define some organizational roles relevant to UE and the iterative development.
I would like to appoint these roles to appropriate people and organize them into the overall structure of a development process.
I’ve described one possible development process in my first article on Boxes and Arrows – Here are the links to the article "UX Design-Planning isn’t an one-man-show" and this is the link to a high resolution gif of a possible UXD schedule.

What I'll describe in this article is not the only way to do this, but it is one useful way that has been successful in my experience.
A role is a set of particular and precise responsibilities. Bear in mind in the following article that roles are abstract and as such do necessarily keep up a correspondence to individual people and characters. That is, one person can take on more than one role within a given project and also across projects. And more than one person can share a role, within and/or across projects.

At least four major roles with responsibility for different aspects of the usability, usefulness and practical acceptance in a product and application development process should be distinguished:
… Planning role
… Visual design role
… Developing role
… User role

Very briefly, the planning role takes responsibility for requirements analysis and usability evaluation tasks. A person playing this role should have acquired the skills necessary for these tasks through a combination of an advanced degree program in a related field and on-the-job experience. In the case you ask me which of both are more important I firmly believe it’s the second one. The degree is just the groundwork, the base - but the on-the-job experiences are the bricks to build the usability building. This role takes account of …
… User profiles
… Contextual task analysis
… Usability goal setting
… UX design for the application
… UX framework for the UI
… Iterative conceptual model evaluation
… Iterative screen design standards evaluation (heuristical evaluation)
… Iterative detailed user interface design evaluation
… User Feedback

The visual design role primarily performs design jobs and requires a skill set relevant to that responsibility. My experience is that this role does not necessarily require any academic degrees related to usability or design. The person playing this role might or should have acquired the necessary skills primarily through on-the-job experience and on-the-job training. This role takes account of …
… General design principles
… Platform capabilities and constraints
… Conceptual model design and mock-ups
… Screen design standards
… Prototyping
... UI visual framework
… Style Guide

The developer role is primarily responsible for the implementation for the UI. The only task this role takes responsibility for are …
… conceptual model mock-up
… screen design standard prototyping (coding and implementation)
The main responsibility of this role are tasks from the aoverall development methodology, including …
… prototype development
… UI technical architecture desi9gn
… UI development and coding
… UI technical framework

Finally, another important role relevant to implementation the usability process is that of the user. The user role does not bear primary responsibility for any usability process part, but it’s important to note those task in which participating of users is crucial. Please keep in mind “The final judge of success or failure is the individual user!”
These include …
… user profiles
… contextual task analysis
… usability goal setting
… iterative conceptual model evaluation
… iterative screen design standard evaluation
… iterative detailed user interface design evaluation
… user feedback

Many authors and practitioners believe passionately in participatory analysis and participatory design in which users play primary, active roles in requirements analysis and design tasks. I firmly believe that involving the user into the project and each step and detail, to know what the individual user may think, know or feel, to know as much as possible about his likes and dislikes, helps us a lot and often it decides about success and failure.
How roles are assigned and organized can have a profound impact an the overall success of the whole UE process in developing usable products and applications.

What's Happening ...

2009-04-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Right now, its all happening: bands streaming, friends twittering, couples flirting. See more Now at Sprint.com/nownetwork

Gestural Entertainment Center

2009-04-15T03:13:00.001-07:00

Conference Phone Concept by Kicker Studio (San Francisco CA)

2009-04-15T00:40:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has worked in a corporate environment has one day laughed at the super-expensive conference phone that sucks *and* costs a bomb. Kickerstudio has been working on that concept to change that hard reality. It tries to solve the most common issues and here's their (partial) list:

Synchronizes with calendars and contacts for one-tap dialing
Quickly see who's talking on a signal and who wants to speak
"Hand Raising" to indicate a desire to speak
Recording and marking of calls
Multi-line dialing
Adjusting individual lines for the best overall conference signal quality

I like how easy it is to dial everyone in, thanks to the pre-recorded contact info (with photo ID, see in the full post). Now let's hope that that will turn into a product. More info at kickerstudios.com.

Web Trend Map 4 - Final Beta

2009-04-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Hi friends,
Since a very long time ago my browser-startpage is the web trends startpage

Information Architects has released the final beta for the fourth iteration of its awesome Web Trends Map series.

flickr

This is once again a great visualization of current Internet trends, and how companies and individuals fit into it.

The Web Trend Map is a yearly publication by iA Inc. It maps the 333 most influential Web domains and the 111 most influential internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map. Domains are carefully selected by the iA research team through dialogue with map enthusiasts. Each domain is evaluated based on traffic, revenue, age and the company that owns it. The iA design team assigns these selected domains to individual stations on the Tokyo Metro map in ways that complement the characters of each.

Oh, and in case you like it and you want to buy a printed version, they’re only making and selling 1,000 of them, so be quick.
http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-4-final-beta/

Future practice interview of Kristina Halvorson and Louis Rosenfeld

2009-04-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

Great talk about what content strategy is. Content strategy plans for the creation, delivery, and maintenance of content.
Read the whole interview > www.rosenfeldmedia.com

Study of Visual Aesthetics in HCI

2009-04-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

The Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz Center for Informatics published a interesting study of visual aesthetics in human-computer interaction.
Topics:

The role of visual aesthetics in creating initial familiarity
The effect of brand on the perception of web-sites aesthetics
The beauty dilemma
If it is beautiful, we should trust it: Practical implications of studying the relation of appeal to distrust in web sites
Software aesthetics: from text and diagrams to interactive spaces
Product aesthetics
Bridging the arts and sciences: A framework for the psychology of aesthetics
Five things I believe about the aesthetics of interaction design
Visual aesthetics and the user experience
The relationship between beauty and perceived usability is wholly mediated by goodness
On the impossibility of avoiding aesthetics in human-computer interaction
Visual aesthetics and task performance
The impact of prototypicality during first impressions: towards a better understanding of affective and cognitive components during aesthetic Perception
Towards a theory of design quality judgement (including aesthetics)
Aesthetics of Mundane Interactions

This study gives a quite good explanation of these topics - short and crisp - a useful study to gain access ... read the PDF

Mercedes-Benz “Narnia”. The Making Of

2009-04-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Mercedes-Benz “Narnia”. The Making Of - Microsite

UX at Las Vegas casinos [Natasha Schull | Gel 2008]

2009-03-31T06:42:00.000-07:00

You all know I'm firm believer that UX planning and design is helpful in every part of our live and projects. And that we should pay attention to our customers, users, ... - their likes, dislikes, moods and patterns. That every person is in possession of different roles in different circumstances. And there is more than just the "one" work field we often aware of ...
Please watch Natasha Schull's speech from Gel 2008.
Anyone who does customer-centered work should give this talk some thought. What's more important, the ends or the means? You may be the greatest user researcher in the world, but what if you're asked to apply those skills to an end you don't believe in?
She's based at MIT and studies the "gaming industry" - specifically, the companies that design slot machines for use in Las Vegas, among other places.

Natasha Schüll at Gel 2008 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

New upcoming ways to interact

2009-03-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

Paradigm busting interfaces are bringing new life into computing and entertainment, enabling people to interact with digital tools in more natural and intuitive ways – with Intention and Motion as the key platforms for communication – harnessing the explosion of the emerging digital experience that is changing our lives.
Check this out - Microsoft Sustainability:

Adaptive Path is working on Aurora, a concept video exploring one possible future user experience for the Web, as part of the Mozilla Labs concept series.
Part 1:

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part 2:

Aurora (Part 2) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part3:

Aurora (Part 3) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

Part4:

Aurora (Part 4) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.

OK - it's still long way to GUI like Minority Report:

or like assistants as we had in Time Machine:

The back of the napkin

2009-03-19T08:07:00.001-07:00

It is safe to say - it is one of the smallest book of its size, I bought for a long long time.
But so small it is relating to its size so big and great it's relating to its power and quality.

I really hope a lot of young (and older) designers will really read it and heed it.

BTW - Did I already mention that I am a firm believer that words are unfit to communicate.
I always use the example "apple". If I say: "I bought an apple this morning!
What kind of apple was yours?
A green one? ... a red one? ... sweet? ... sour? ... Granny Smith? ... Cox's Orange? ... Golden Delicious? or was it a computer or phone? Or something else? You see there was no communication!

Or do you remember the story of southwest airlines?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines#History

The book is really getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere and business circles and I want to share with you a video on the topic of using visuals to understand / to describe the world.

wearable device - Great talk from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT

2009-03-18T09:40:00.000-07:00

MIT's Pattie Maes showed we're quite a bit closer to usable, wearable tech than we maybe realized. "Sixth Sense" merges a projected gesture-driven interface with image recognition and a connection to the Internet, or potentially, the semantic web to create an augmented day-to-day experience that brought TED audience members to their feet.
I think a great talk - Get an eyeful of this! It will take just about 8 minutes.

About this talk
This demo -- from Pattie Maes' lab at MIT, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry -- was the buzz of TED. It's a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine "Minority Report" and then some.

.

Tim Berners-Lee ... Raw Data Now ...

2009-03-17T00:45:00.000-07:00

Talks Tim Berners-Lee: The next Web of open, linked data

I love how excited he gets. He's a revolutionary … but …

but - Not sure I want linked each data. I mean for many technical things that'd be great …
medicine = hell YES, technology of course, even art, but …
I don't want to have everything I, or "you" do on the web linked together, so some corporate computer program can follow me around and try to predict and direct my behavior.

Don't get me wrong - I really like his maxim - but is this also the right approach to reach the target?

What do you think? Raw Data Now! Raw Data Now?

Urban Daddy -

2009-03-13T08:46:00.000-07:00

Great tool that allows users to choose their mood and find the right spot for a meal or drink in New York or Chicago.

http://thefind.urbandaddy.com/

Google I/O '08 Keynote: Imagination, Immediacy, and Innovation…

2009-03-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

Google I/O '08 Keynote: Imagination, Immediacy, and Innovation… and a little glimpse under the hood at Google

Marissa Mayer has been with Google for 9 years, helping to build Google into one of the world's most popular web services. As the VP of Search and User Experience, her team is behind some of Google's most popular and successful products including core web search, images, news, books, maps, iGoogle, toolbar, desktop, and health. This talk is a glimpse from inside the trenches of how Google builds products (including practical insights on how to build the best products), how to prioritize your efforts especially under resource constraints, and how to think about strategy.

BTW - an anecdote (5:00 - 5:45)
Q: "what inspired the plain, blank homepage?"
A: "We didn't have a webmaster and I don't do HTML! That's why Google is blank!"
:-) nice!

UX design planning isn't an one-man show

2009-03-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

"Suppliers sell. Customers buy. Various people discuss UX, but don't really identify what it is. Agencies search for ways to offer this line of work to clients and seek best practices to develop UX." I posted my ideas about the process of planning and designing for User Experience Design-Planning (UXD-P) as Expectation Design. The article appeared in the May 2008 edtion of Boxes and Arrows.

Comcast: "sing …

2009-03-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

For a series of four spots, Nexus Productions' Oscar-nominated directing duo Smith & Foulkes built a campy world brimming with detail and color for Comcast and agency Goodby, Silverstein and Partners.
I recommend to use the HQ - Button - great difference !!!

I will start blogging soon!

2009-03-01T06:33:00.000-08:00

Every beginning is difficult. In the near future I will post article and story about user experience planning (UX), interaction design (IxD) and information architecture (IA).