Karen Bachmann

Caroline Jarrett’s article “Putting the “Long” into Longitudinal: UX Lessons from Survey Research” shares three insights for UX from the European Survey Research Association conference in July 2011: Try Asking Less, But More Often and Earlier. If you want to learn about users’ engagement with your product over a longer-term experience, might you try asking […]

When considering the challenges of designing over time and designing for context, emotion is essential to address these issues. Emotional reactions can reach deeper than intellectual experiences often do and those impressions may last longer. We may not remember the particulars details of certain experiences, but we often remember our reactions to them, how they […]

“Critique is a life skill, not a design skill,” Adam Connor asserted in his presentation “Discussing Design: The Art of Critique” at the Big (D)esign Conference. His session as well as the critique activities in Dana Chisnell and Jonathan Knoll’s workshop “Design and Critique for Challenging Problems” made me realize how misunderstood and unpracticed this skill […]

I attended the Big (D)esign Conference last week, and as with UPA 2011, I was inspired and challenged by the opening keynote, Transformational Space: The Power of Place. Gwen Harmon, Director of Governmental and Community Affairs for the National Civil Rights Museum, (NCRM) talked about the museum and plans for renovation to create a greater impact on […]

At UPA 2011, Michael Rawlins, Lori Hawkins, and Jeff Sauro presented about Keystroke Level Modeling (KLM), a tool for estimating the actual movements and the time to perform each step that a particular UI design requires for users to complete a given task. KLM offers a way to analyze the time on task required by a design […]

The last session I attended at UPA 2011 Chauncey Wilson’s “Brainstorming and Beyond: Ideation, Innovation, and Insight.”  The slides from his presentation aren’t yet available online (I’ll update this post with the link when available), but I’m including an earlier version that he presented with Amy Cueva. In the session he shares a number of […]

Last week, I attended UPA 2011. The theme this year was Designing for Social Change. The opening keynote speaker Paul Adams, Global Brand Experience Manager at Facebook, shared his research (an earlier version of his presentation available on Slideshare) into social networks. Among the many insights of the presentation, his research showed that the change […]

My previous post on MyPlate demonstrated my interest in infographics and the user experience they offer. Some are definitely richer, more successful, and more compelling than others. Joe Chernov shares how designers rate success in “16 Experts Answer, “What makes a great infographic?” In addition to the good points these experts note, great infographics can […]

The US Department of Agriculture announced yesterday a new icon to replace the food pyramid that has been the image for nutrition in the US for almost two decades. MyPlate provides a more usable image that matches the real-world use for this information. It provides “an uncomplicated symbol to help remind people to think about their […]

May is National Inventors’ Month. Established in 1998, this celebration of inventors and their contributions to the world had been celebrated in August until this year. The sponsors of the event – Inventors Digest, the Academy of Applied Science, and the United Inventors Association of the USA – decided that May would better coincide with the National Inventors Hall of […]

Last week, I followed, nearly real time via Twitter, how Sean Power successfully recovered his stolen laptop. The full story is available, but here are a few excerpted tweets from @SeanPower on 13 May 2011: If you’re getting up to speed: Laptop was taken 4 days ago, but I had to fly to Canada the […]

Sliced bread is the innovation by which all innovations are measured:  “the best thing since sliced bread.” That phrase spawns the question: “What was the best thing before sliced bread?” Attempts to answer that question range from humorous to contemplative. I recently discovered another possible answer: User research! “Slice of Life” in the April 2011 […]