May 2010
10 posts
1 tag
Commander's Intent
There is a wonderful section in the book “Made to Stick” that applies 100% to interaction design. It is the section on what is called “Commander’s Intent”.
The book describes Commander’s Intent as a tactic the U.S Army uses to prioritize decision making. As you might imagine, it’s impossible to devise and communicate a strategy at the start of a...
1 tag
Never Stop Looking Ahead
“Ultimately, my job as a designer is to look into the future. Its not to use any frame of reference that exists, really. My job is about what is going to happen, not what has happened.” - Marc Newson For most of us, the majority of our work involves refining, updating and improving existing systems. However, we must never forget that our job is fundamentally about shaping and...
2 tags
Teach Your Users Well
In the Usage Lifecycle, the transition between First Time Use and Ongoing/Passionate Use can often be narrowed down to one crucial element: education.
Here is a familiar scenario that all of us have experienced to some degree or another:
You sign up for the latest social network/web app/photo-sharing site and are thrown into yet another system, which may or may not include some copy about how...
3 tags
Cohort Analysis - Measuring Engagement over time
In a recent post I recommended watching the startups for insights into UX. One example of a useful UX technique that came out of the startup space is the cohort analysis.
A cohort analysis is a tool that helps measure user engagement over time. It helps UX designers know whether user engagement is actually getting better over time or is only appearing to improve because of growth.
A cohort...
1 tag
Forgiveness
“To err is human; to forgive, divine” - Alexander Pope
Traditionally, as designers, we would interpret this to mean our users will always make mistakes and when we “forgive” them (help them get back on their way) we are exhibiting the divine. However, I would argue that we, the designers and developers, need to ask forgiveness from our users.
Humans are inherently...
1 tag
Is the term "UX" being marginalized?
The term “UX” is becoming like duct tape. People are sticking it everywhere. Take, for example, the UX-related jobs titles people are using these days, essentially a concatenation of UX on the front of an existing thing: UX designer (a term I’ve used), UX architect, UX consultant, UX researcher. The other day I even saw UX web developer. (I have no idea what this means).
But...
3 tags
Control
A couple weeks ago I wrote about how creating something simple is not that simple at all. One of the things that makes this so difficult is the ever increasing demand to add more features, more settings, or more controls. While all these things are intended to make it easier on the user, it actually serves to create a state of discomfort and even momentary confusion and anxiety. The more things...
2 tags
Watch the Startups
If you want to find the most innovative UX practitioners, watch the startups. Startups are startup companies, newly-formed businesses made up of small teams moving extremely quickly to take advantage of an opportunity they see in the market.
Many of the innovative ways I’m seeing of gathering feedback, testing designs, rapidly evaluating customer satisfaction, and measuring customer...
2 tags
Experience Precedes Branding
Do we all love the Nike logo because it’s inherently a great logo or do we love it because we’ve had good experiences with Nike shoes? How about the FedEx logo? The Apple logo? Chanel No. 5?
Conventional wisdom, or a trip to Times Square, might convince us that logos and imagery change the way we think about companies. After all corporations spend billions of dollars a year sending messages our...
2 tags
Design Involves Compromise
“Design almost invariably involves compromise…. Rarely can the designer simply optimise one requirement without suffering losses elsewhere…. There are no established methods for deciding just how good or bad solutions are, and still the best test of most design is to wait and see how well it works in practice. Design solutions can never be perfect and are often more easily criticised than...
