Posts Tagged ‘Design’

Jared Spool shares good advice for design teams in his recent post “Putting An End To An Opinion War”. He observes that “Opinion wars kill design projects.” He shares two key ways to end an opinion war: using data to take decisions out of the realm of opinion appointing a final arbitrator These valuable tools […]

Someone at Google Android must be reading my blog.  Seriously though, Google just announced a website focused on aiding developers in the creation of smartphone applications for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).  The website will focus on features, design suggestions and approaches to different issues in Android  application development. This website will augment the current […]

One of the areas where the iPhone/iPad has trumped the Android platform is in the area of good UI design standards.  Apple has an entire website devoted to human interface guidelines for the iOS platform.  I would not be the only Android developer who has relied on the Apple guidelines in the development of a […]

No organization builds a SharePoint environment with the goal of creating a poor user experience. Yet, many organizations do not plan for, adopt and design for an intuitive, user-friendly SharePoint environment. So, why does this happen? It often stems from not understanding the business case behind user experience design and the value it will bring […]

Last weekend, I virtually attended BlizzCon 2011, a conference hosted by Blizzard Entertainment, the game developer behind Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. A major focus of this annual conference is to provide insights and generate excitement about upcoming content planned for each franchise, but it is also a celebration of gamers, by gamers, and for gamers. […]

In UI design communication: General approaches and tips for Axure, I discussed the kind of content to include in a UI design specification and showed how to customize the information you annotate in Axure. This post discusses customizing the final specification. While this post describes using Axure to create a specification, the underlying organizational principles […]

I attended Barcamp Tampa Bay 2011 this past Saturday. Among many excellent sessions, two on user experience and design generated great interest. Justin Davis presented “5 User Experience Basics Everyone Should Know” to an overflowing room: People expect online interactions to follow social rules. Successful interactions provide appropriate feedback and engagement with a appropriately conversational tone.  (A […]

In my last post, I discussed the value of design documentation. In this post, I share some practical tips on writing design documentation. The first part outlines general approaches. The second describes customizing annotations in Axure. Approaches to communication In my presentation on communicating design, I talk about four types of design documentation: Walkthrough presentation […]

I have recently read a number of blog posts, articles, and commentary arguing that design documentation is no longer needed as UI prototyping tools become more sophisticated and commonly used. While I agree that eliminating a 250-page design document can be a positive result, it’s not that documentation is inherently bad or unnecessary. The problem is […]

As I flipped through my idea notebook recently, Musicovery’s mood pad jumped out at me as a particularly fun and inspiring UI. Breaking with more conventional controls for web radio, the site creators realized that most people listen to music according to  their mood. They developed the mood pad to allow you to select music […]

Last week I got the chance to speak at the St. Louis Day of .Net Conference for the 3rd year in a row. I love coming and speaking at this conference because I’m always amazed at the attendees interest in User Experience. It’s a welcome sight to see at a developer based conference. I’d like […]

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 […]