User Experience and Interaction Design

2009-04-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

What the hell is a UX Designer, anyway?

here is a brilliant defenition by Connie Seidel
One who is a user advocate but understands the user's happiness isn't the ultimate goal in and of itself. One who is passionate about good design, but knows when enough is enough and too much is too much. One who can code if necessary to prove a point or concept, but is great at getting brilliant developers to do it for him/her based on a well communicated concept. One who cares enough to go back over the screens yet again... just making sure. One who understands QA and what a truly good, testable requirement is and can write one or teach another how to. One who is just as passionate about business... the needs, the budget, the limitations, the goals, as they are about the user. Like Scott Meier's slide show reference (brilliant Scott, thanks), we're about the sweet spot between the businesses needs and strategy, and the user's needs and goals. I love that spot. I live for that spot. I want to teach everyone that works with me the value of that spot. But I have to be a generalist to do that. And the better generalist and more passionate spokesperson for the user AND the business I become, the closer I feel I come to the grail... the establishment of all of the disciplines, talent, arts, and skills you've all mentioned here, as a true, end to end project life cycle and business and IT culture!

2009-02-01T08:53:00.000-08:00

A Beutiful Video Textual-Visual presentation from DR Wech, about, well, couple of things - text in the digital age, web 2.0 (as in the decoupling of form and content, and about the new age of man-machine relationaships. YouTube - The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)

If you have an extra hour:
A very interesting anthropological study of Youtube, online community, human nature and motivations .
Kinda long, (55 minutes), and a little slow at points, but worth the investment.

oh, yes, and maybe the best of them all, the ever classic Information R/evolution

Enjoy

gridr buildrrr

2009-01-28T05:58:00.000-08:00

Dead simple grid tool. Awsome.gridr buildrrr

How to Convert a PSD to XHTML - NETTUTS

2009-01-18T23:00:00.000-08:00

From PSD to a working web site in less than an hour. (A good demonstration of separating the markup from the styling, and a demonstrating usage of FF's developer toolbar to create the CSS on the fly.How to Convert a PSD to XHTML - NETTUTS: "How to Convert a PSD to XHTML"

CSS-Only, Table-less Forms :: Code Samples :: Jeff Howden :: JeffHowden.com

2009-01-05T23:22:00.000-08:00

Beutifull tabel-less form

CSS-Only, Table-less Forms :: Code Samples :: Jeff Howden :: JeffHowden.com

The CogTool Project

2008-06-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

The CogTool Project: "CogTool is an application to assist in the creation of design mockups and the calculation of predictions of skilled performance time for tasks on those designs"

Drag and Drop Parent - Yahoo! Design Pattern Library

2008-03-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

I like the way Yahoo's Design Pattern Library use "Interesting Moments"Drag and Drop Parent - Yahoo! Design Pattern Library: "The following interesting moments can be important during a drag and drop interaction. A good solution will consider each of these moments below (a specific drag and drop pattern may choose to ignore some of them.)"

Example Style Guide

2008-01-28T14:53:00.000-08:00

Example Style Guide: "The following document is a style guide for producing content for the [client] Web site. This document outlines basic principles for adding content to the site, defines the basic style sheet classes available to content managers and how they should be used, and defines principles, guidelines, and best practices for content."

A Confirmation E-mail Is a Terrible Thing to Waste - ClickZ

2008-01-20T03:32:00.000-08:00

A Confirmation E-mail Is a Terrible Thing to Waste - ClickZ: "A Confirmation E-mail Is a Terrible Thing to Waste"

RobotReplay - The Next Generation of Web Analytics

2007-12-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

RobotReplay - The Next Generation of Web Analytics: "Where Are Your Visitors Going?
RobotReplay lets you record and watch your website visitors in action. View recorded sessions of every mouse movement, click and keystroke"

Endeca Search, Information Access, and Guided Navigation Solutions

2007-12-16T01:11:00.000-08:00

Faceted Navigation (Filter MAtrix) Endeca Search, Information Access, and Guided Navigation Solutions

Well-formed data | Elastic lists | Nobel prize winners demo

2007-12-16T00:31:00.000-08:00

Elastic Lists principle for browsing multi-faceted data structures.
Well-formed data | Elastic lists demo

Understanding Search Usability

2007-12-10T02:28:00.000-08:00

Understanding Search Usability: "The term 'search usability' is widely misunderstood throughout a variety of industries: Web design/development, search engine marketing (SEM), online advertising, information sciences, human-computer interface (HCI), and usability industries. Even the term 'usability' is misunderstood by search professionals. "

Songza - The music search engine & internet jukebox. Listen. Now.

2007-12-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

Interesting comaprison:
Songza - The music search engine & internet jukebox. Listen. Now.: "Songza lets you listen to any song or band"

VS

Seeqpod playable search

Building your very own web2.0 layout | mentalized

2007-12-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Funny :)
Building your very own web2.0 layout mentalized: "Building your very own web2.0 layout"

Data Tables and Cascading Style Sheets Gallery

2007-12-06T12:33:00.000-08:00

Data Tables and Cascading Style Sheets Gallery: "CSS Table Gallery"
Was looking for some Table design, came across this. very nice. Like CSS Zen Garden, but for tables.

BrowserCam : Screen capture and Remote Access service for cross platform compatibility testing and HTML design quality assurance.

2007-10-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

BrowserCam : Screen capture and Remote Access service for cross platform compatibility testing and HTML design quality assurance.: "Instantly See Your Pages in Any Browser on Any Operating System "

10 colour contrast checking tools to improve the accessibility of your design | 456 Berea Street

2007-10-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

10 colour contrast checking tools to improve the accessibility of your design | 456 Berea Street: "10 colour contrast checking tools to improve the accessibility of your design"

HTML Playground, html, css reference by example

2007-10-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

HTML Playground, html, css reference by example: "htmlPlayground XHTML+CSS REFERENCE BY EXAMPLE 0.4 BETA"

Increasing conversion rate: your tips

2007-10-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

Increasing conversion rate: your tips: "Increasing conversion rate: your tips"

LukeW: Web Application Form Design

2007-10-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

LukeW: Web Application Form Design: "Web Application Form Design"

YAML Builder | A tool for visual layout development of YAML based CSS layouts

2007-09-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

YAML Builder | A tool for visual layout development of YAML based CSS layouts:
Suave, what can I say, and might come in handy

Fade Out Bottom

2007-09-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Fade Out Bottom: "This is a cool effect where the bottom of the page seems to fade out."

Ajax Digest // Non-notorious CSS templates for websites

2007-09-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

Ajax Digest // Non-notorious CSS templates for websites: "Non-notorious CSS templates for websites The only place you should visit for free website templates and layouts"

SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards

2007-09-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards: "Over 200 Web 2.0 Sites in 41 Categories Rated, Ranked and Awarded"

45 Best Freeware Design Programs

2007-09-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

45 Best Freeware Design Programs

85+ Free Killer Resources Every Designer Should Know

2007-09-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

85+ Free Killer Resources Every Designer Should Know

10 Must Have Online Office Apps

2007-09-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

10 Must Have Online Office Apps: "10 Must Have Online Office Apps"

Apogee - Articles - Cognitive Walkthrough and Heuristic Evaluation in the Contemporary Design Process

2007-08-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

Apogee - Articles - Cognitive Walkthrough and Heuristic Evaluation in the Contemporary Design Process: "The craft of User Experience Design involves many different expertise working together. Some of us work in small teams with generalist backgrounds, others with larger teams of specialists. Regardless of team structure, some age-old usability methods can still help enhance your contemporary Interaction Design work."

The Intranet Maturity Framework - Welcome to the Intranet Maturity Fram...

2007-07-30T23:18:00.000-07:00

The Intranet Maturity Framework - Welcome to the Intranet Maturity Fram...: "The Intranet Maturity FrameworkTM

* Stage 1: Communication & Information-Sharing Intranets
* Stage 2: Self-Service Intranets
* Stage 3: Collaboration-Driven Intranets
* Stage 4: Enterprise Information Portals
* Stage 5: Digital Dashboards
* Stage 6: The Consolidated Workplace Interface"

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

2007-07-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible."

XMLHttpRequest Usability Guidelines - Baekdal.com

2007-07-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

XMLHttpRequest Usability Guidelines - Baekdal.com: "Writing 'usability' takes 1.8 seconds for the average person, but since live-search interrupted this it now takes 4-10 seconds"

Mental Workload for Paged and Scrolled Documents- Standards Schmandards

2007-07-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

Mental Workload for Paged and Scrolled Documents- Standards Schmandards: "# onsumption of information is more efficient when information is presented on paper compared to presenting the information on a computer screen.
# Consumption of information generates less mental workload when the page layout is adapted to fit the screen."

Color + Design Blog / Color Inspiration from the Masters of Painting by COLOURlovers

2007-07-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

Need a color pallet? Why not rely on the masters? Color pallets according to some famous art pieces
Color + Design Blog / Color Inspiration from the Masters of Painting by COLOURlovers

The Usability Methods Toolbox - Usability Methods Toolbox Contextual Design Heuristic Evaluation Inspection Inquiry usable engineering

2007-06-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

The Usability Methods Toolbox - Usability Methods Toolbox Contextual Design Heuristic Evaluation Inspection Inquiry usable engineering

Usability Institute- Learnability Gallery

2007-05-30T04:54:00.000-07:00

Usability Institute- Learnability Gallery: "A visual library of learnability techniques, patterns (to use the current parlance)"

Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Symposium: Interaction Design (IxD) for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) » SlideShare

2007-05-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Symposium: Interaction Design (IxD) for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) » SlideShare: "Interaction Design Association (IxDA) Symposium: Interaction Design (IxD) for Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)"

Ideacodes Strategic Web Design San Francisco

2007-05-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

Ideacodes Strategic Web Design San Francisco: "Design is Strategy

Ideacodes is an award-winning strategic web design and consulting firm in San FranciscoDesign is Strategy

Ideacodes is an award-winning strategic web design and consulting firm in San Francisco"

35 Designers x 5 Questions | Smashing Magazine

2007-05-10T02:30:00.000-07:00

35 Designers x 5 Questions | Smashing Magazine: "35 Designers x 5 Questions"

adaptive path » downloads for designing the complete user experience

2007-05-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

adaptive path » downloads for designing the complete user experience: "Workshop Assets

Below you can find the tools, deliverables, and documentation templates used in Adaptive Path's workshops. Let us know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions. Enjoy!"

3spots: TagClouds Obervations, font sizes and colors

2007-05-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

3spots: TagClouds Obervations, font sizes and colors: "TagClouds Obervations, font sizes and colors"

Tools

2007-04-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

Tools: "The Information Architecture Institute's Tools project aims to disseminate new IA tools from the community in order to learn from each other"

www.welie.com -- patterns in Interaction Design

2007-04-24T23:09:00.000-07:00

www.welie.com -- patterns in Interaction Design
a good collection of IA design patterns

Interaction-Design.org - A site about HCI, Usability, UI Design, User Experience, Information Architecture and more..

2007-04-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

Interaction-Design.org - A site about HCI, Usability, UI Design, User Experience, Information Architecture and more..: "free, open-content, peer-reviewed Encyclopedia covering terms from the disciplines of Interaction Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Design, Human Factors, Usability, Information Architecture, and related fields."

The long road to simple: creating, debating, and iterating "Add an event" - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals)

2007-04-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

The long road to simple: creating, debating, and iterating "Add an event" - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals): "The long road to simple: creating, debating, and iterating “Add an event”"

About section page template

2007-04-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

About section page template: "he Usability Toolkit is a collection of forms, checklists and other useful documents for conducting usability tests and user interviews."

Keyboard shortcuts - Visio - Microsoft Office Online

2007-04-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

User centered design - NOT Keyboard shortcuts - Visio - Microsoft Office Online: "Keyboard shortcuts"

Shortcuts should be categorized and listed by the actions they perorm, not by the key to press.
Use-story (That should have been used): user finds she is repeatadly "sending to back". can;t find the shortcut key. Turns to the Help file. look for Object > Send to Back. Finds under "Object > Order On Page

Adwords and Adsense tools directory

2007-04-17T23:26:00.000-07:00

Adwords and Adsense tools directory: "Categorized SEM, SEO, Publisher & Affiliate Tools, Solutions and Web-based Services"

[BEEP]: My IA Summit presentation "StUX - integrating IA deliverables in a software development methodology"

2007-04-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

[BEEP]: My IA Summit presentation "StUX - integrating IA deliverables in a software development methodology": "A blog by User Experience (UX) / User Centered Design (UCD) practitioner and Big Information Architect (IA) Peter Boersma."

User Interface Design Patterns: Introduction

2007-04-12T07:14:00.000-07:00

User Interface Design Patterns: Introduction: "This collection consists of user interface design patterns (interaction patterns) that seems to be recuring problems when trying to make design based on the user’s goals."

Census Bureau: Usability Lab

2007-03-20T06:05:00.000-07:00

Census Bureau: Usability Lab: "Usability Methods"

Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams - Wireframes, Site Maps, Story boards, Use Cases, etc.

2007-03-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams - Wireframes, Site Maps, Story boards, Use Cases, etc.: "Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams "

Dan Brown's Greenonions.com

2007-01-29T02:31:00.000-08:00

Dan Brown's Greenonions.com > visio tips

2007-01-15T01:51:00.000-08:00

Demystifying Usability : Is Usability a Public Relations problem?: "Is Usability a Public Relations problem?"

A positive and sustained User Experience is the ultimate public relations

Scroll down to middle of page for an Interesting Line up of User Experience Offenders (flogged in cyberspace)

2006-12-28T20:23:00.000-08:00

The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines - Stanford University: "Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility"

2006-12-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams - Wireframes, Site Maps, Story boards, Use Cases, etc.: "Information Architecture Deliverables and Diagrams 12/2002
Examples of Wireframes, Site Maps, Story boards, Use Cases, Paper Prototypes "

2006-12-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

Feng-GUI - Feng Shui for Graphic User Interfaces: "Simulates human visual attention and creates areas of attention heatmap. "

2006-12-15T06:55:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Yuen (2006)

Five ways to identify intranet usability issues

2006-12-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Five ways to identify intranet usability issues:

This article provides five techniques to identify likely usability problems in your intranet. Some techniques provide indications about where the main problems lie, others provide concrete evidence. Each technique can be used alone, or in combination to give you a rich picture of usability issues.

2006-12-13T11:13:00.000-08:00

Real Wireframes Get Real Results - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design: "Real Wireframes Get Real Results"
"Just because project teams understand the purpose of wireframes, that doesn’t mean everyone will. Similar to listening to someone sing out loud to his iPod: we only hear the singing, while the person hears the whole orchestra"

Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design

2006-12-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

Usability News - 4.2 2002 -- Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design:

Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design

User Expectations in e-commerce

2006-12-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

Usability News - 4.1 2002 -- Examining User Expectations for the Location of Common E-Commerce Web Objects:

Examining User Expectations for the Location of Common E-Commerce Web Objects

2006-12-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

Research Question 1: How do practitioners describe usability problems?
Research Question 2: Is there an evaluator effect in usability testing?
Research Question 3: How can we assess the content of UPDs?
+ Evaluator effect on problem detection in heuristic evaluation -
pdf

2006-12-03T07:04:00.000-08:00

A List Apart: Articles: What’s the Problem?: "What’s the Problem?"
"Poor understanding of target user needs or our client’s vision, ineffective use of limited resources, misguided emphasis on the wrong design priorities, over-emphasis on pet technologies — all will contribute to a failed, late, inappropriate or too-expensive website. Experience can teach us how to avoid pitfalls, but the greatest lesson can be learned by the least experienced: the earlier that purpose and goals are clearly defined and recorded, the more easily problems are identified and solved, the easier it is to stay focused, and the better the result is for everyone. "

2006-12-03T03:34:00.000-08:00

Some usability issues, but atill, a very nice user experiencecoolcapitals.com | Amsterdam, Antwerp, Vienna, Zurich

2006-11-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

Back to basics: User experience design - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "User experience design
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

2006-11-25T10:19:00.000-08:00

Joel on Software: "Choices = Headaches"
An interesting article about the "stop" button in Vista

2006-11-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

Usability News - 5.1 2003 -- Paging vs. Scrolling:: "The Impact of Paging vs. Scrolling on Reading Online Text Passages"

2006-11-20T23:18:00.000-08:00

YouTube - Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II: "Toriton Plus: Water Surface as Music Controller II"

2006-11-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

Don Norman's jnd.org / Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful: "Human-Centered Design Considered Harmful"

2006-11-20T00:41:00.000-08:00

Conference details - ASIS&T 2006 Information Architecture Summit: "IA Summit 2006: Main Conference detailsIA Summit 2006: Main Conference details"

2006-11-19T06:07:00.000-08:00

Steve Krause : Blog: Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders: "Pandora and Last.fm: Nature vs. Nurture in Music Recommenders"

2006-11-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

intranet-user-experience : Intranet User Experience: "Intranet User Experience Group"

2006-11-16T04:38:00.000-08:00

Perfecting Your Personas: "Personas represent behavior patterns, not job descriptions "

2006-11-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Identity: "This site is intended to help provide useful background and technical resources for people interested in OpenID and Identity 2.0 Technologies."

2006-10-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

UXmatters :: Insights and inspirations for the user experience community

2006-10-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Flight Patterns

2006-09-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

IBM Ease of Use - User-Centered Design: "User-Centered Design

User-Centered Design is a well established process that has been widely adopted by many organizations to deliver products that meet users' expectations. IBM has regularly enhanced this process, which has now been consolidated within the broader framework of User Engineering. For completeness, the key information on User-Centered Design is retained for reference."

2006-09-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines

2006-08-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design: "Icons that are difficult to tell apart can lead to disastrous consequences"

2006-07-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype: "BumpTop aims to enrich the desktop metaphor with expressive, lightweight techniques found in the real world. "
YouTube - BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype:

2006-05-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

The Web Content Style Guide: Designing for the Web: Part 1: The Web is about publishing: "The Web Content Style Guide: Excerpt
Designing for the Web: Part 1"

2006-05-04T02:37:00.000-07:00

disambiguity An Experiance Designer's blog. some interesting readings

2006-04-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

A very elegant shool site. Done right.Baylor School: Academics ? Our Mission of Excellence

2006-03-27T01:07:00.000-08:00

Axure RP - Axure Software Solutions - Home - wireframe, prototype, functional specification: "Axure RP Pro 4 enhances specification and prototype generation, enables richer prototyping, improves usabilit"

2006-03-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

Web Site Structuring: "Anatomy and Deployment of Links "

2006-03-06T03:20:00.000-08:00

Gnod - The global network of dreams: "You might call it a search-engine to find things you don't know about."

Simple and charming. If you like the idea, you might want to try (and compare to) liveplasma discovery engine.

2006-03-06T03:05:00.000-08:00

Pandora: "Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?

a sleek user experiance. straight forward, easy and sexy.

2006-03-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

Inference Group: Dasher Project: How does Dasher work?: "Dasher is a zooming interface. You point where you want to go, and the display zooms in wherever you point. The world into which you are zooming is painted with letters, so that any point you zoom in on corresponds to a piece of text"

2006-02-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

the content is not as interesting as the interface is briliant for visualizing data. "a portrait of romantic breakups collected from blogs..."

The Dumpster: A Visualization of Romantic Breakups for 2005

2006-02-08T00:22:00.000-08:00

Research at Microsoft: Human-Computer Interaction
Research Areas: "We are looking at new ways to navigate and make use of information spaces. We are also creating new metaphors for the user interface that consider how our minds work to make sense of a physical space"

2006-01-03T06:02:00.000-08:00

Userscripts.org: Blogger del.icio.us publishing and post categorizing helper: "Adds a tags field for Blogger posts and helps keep your notes in sync with your Del.icio.us categories according to the tags you use"

ebay recieves new IA through the use of RUMM

2006-01-01T08:10:00.000-08:00

what's RUMM? read about it in Uzanto Cunsulting preso here

Why Can’t I Find My Files?

2005-12-29T05:42:00.000-08:00

Two papers on the subject of file retrieval:
Finding and Reminding: File Organization from the Desktop by Deborah Barreau and Bonnie A. Nardi and
Why Can’t I Find My Files? New Methods for Automating Attribute Assignment (PDF),
by Craig A. N. Soules and Gregory R. Ganger.
The first paper summarizes
and synthesizes two independent studies of the ways users organize
files on their computers. The second discusses approaches to
automatically assign attributes – metadata that describes a file – to
files.

2005-12-29T04:00:00.000-08:00

Getting My Bearings: Enterprise Information Architecture in Context: "Enterprise Information Architecture in Context"

2005-12-29T03:41:00.000-08:00

LukeW: Blog Interface Design 2.0

2005-12-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

A Unified Field Theory of Design: "Information Interaction Design:
A Unified Field Theory of Design"
ON top of the content, notice hte interesting little navigation bar at the top of the page. the progress indicator might have been done a little more prominent.

2005-12-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

an article about the future of information-interfaceIEEE Spectrum: Interface Lift: "What is sure is that someday our great-grandchildren will look back and laugh at the unsophisticated ways we accessed and navigated data."

2005-12-24T10:32:00.000-08:00

searching? try grokker. good clustering, two way interface, smart ways to narrow the results. Grokker - Enterprise Search Management: "Grokker provides research-intensive organizations with a better way to retrieve, explore and leverage their information assets."

2005-12-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

Simple Tricks for More Usable Forms: "Simple Tricks for More Usable Forms"
although a technical doc, still a good reminder of simple ideas and visual clues for better forms usability