Contents tagged with user experience
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Magic, Mind-Controlled Interfaces and What Makes an Experience Architect
Rick Barraza returns to Pixel8 to discuss magic, storytelling, mind control interfaces and even a little development! According to Rick, true experience design mixes elements you may not automatically attribute to software design. Using these unexpected elements along with the tried-and-true principals of user interface design, usability and information design help you craft polished experiences.
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7 Dos and Don'ts in Getting Started in User Centered Design
This week’s Pixel8 episode continues the series of user experience fundamentals with Dr. Tobias Komischke Director of User Experience at Infragistics. Tobias shares seven user-centered design concepts and the associated “dos” and “don’ts” with each point.
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History of User Experience
The dawn of user experience is a contestable topic. Some UX thought leaders place the discipline’s origin surrounding the emergence of user centered design in the 1980’s, while others see the the beginning coming even earlier. This week’s guest is Dr. Tobias Komischke Director of User Experience at Infragistics. Dr. Komischke details why he sees UX originating in the context of World War II where interacting with technical systems became a matter of life and death.
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The Value of Web Forms and Design Constraints
Senior Principal of Product Ideation and Design at Yahoo! Inc. and founder of LukeW Interface Designs Luke Wroblewski joins us to discuss how adding elements of constraint helps shape the design process. Luke also spends some time discussing the often-understated value of the HTML web form.
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Developer’s Guide to User Experience Design
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Hide Your Corporate Underpants - Using Personas in UX Design
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5 Ways to Know If Your Software Sucks
<p><a href="http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/sucks" mce_href="http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/sucks"><img src="http://download.infragistics.com/users/pixel8/images/pixel8podcast.png" mce_src="http://download.infragistics.com/users/pixel8/images/pixel8podcast.png" width="276" border="0" height="118"></a></p>
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<p><a href="http://suckbusters.com/">David Platt</a> is an author, speaker and developer who wants you to recognize that there is a problem in software interface design. Fear not - David is not alone. Computer World recently reported that "<a href="http://www.cw.com.hk/article.php?type=article&id_article=1617">the majority of end users (60 percent) find enterprise applications somewhat difficult, very difficult or almost impossible to use, hampering employee productivity</a>." Yes – there’s sucky software out there and it just might be in your source code repository!</p> <h3>Does Your Software Suck?</h3> <p>I am sure David may have 5 or 10 or perhaps 20 ways you can know if your software sucks, but the following are 5 ways I gleaned from our conversation:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Did you design from the toolkit outward or the user inward?</strong> Perhaps you are a .NET or Ruby or Java wizard, but does your proficiency in these platforms punish end-users? There are dozens of features in any platform that if not managed carefully can result in frustrating user experiences.<br><br></li> <li><strong>Are colors, motion and other visual elements used "just because"?</strong> Designers like to design and coders like to code. Professionals are drawn to their practice often because a sense of passion and desire for a creative outlet. This can be a problem though when software features bells and whistles where elegance and proactive design is more appropriate.<br><br></li> <li><strong>Does the user have to memorize dozens of menu hierarchies or key commands?</strong> Balance is always a problem in user interface design. How do you accommodate newbies without frustrating the power-users? No one said there are easy answers, but with a little thought many features can become apparent at just the time of necessity.<br><br></li> <li><strong>Do you use your final product to test out new design paradigms?</strong> This may seem silly, because people don’t think of what they do in these terms. Often a new feature is included a new build that passed QA and got the nod from the three other developers in the room – all to prove to be too confusing or simply out-of-place to end users. <br><br></li> <li><strong>Do users have to think about using your program?</strong> When someone is using your software, if they spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about how to use the software rather than the problem the software is hoping to solve – then your software sucks.</li> </ol> <h3>What Should We Do?</h3> <p>David’s advice is provocative. Instead of gunning off a list of do’s and don’ts David suggests the following remedy to sucky software:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Allow software engineering to split off from computer science in formal education.</strong> Software engineering is much more than high performance algorithms and compiler design. Areas of specialty like user interface design and user experience require a different need of focus all the while being in a close-knit relationship with the discipline as a whole.<br><br></li> <li><strong>Software engineering needs specialization.</strong> As hinted above no-one in this day and age can claim to be an expert general practitioner programmer. There is simply too much to know. When "back-end" folks aren’t expected to produce the front-end – then we’ve made significant strides.</li> </ul> <h3>Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.codeplex.com/familyshow">Family.Show</a></li> <li><a href="http://uie.com/">User Interface Engineering</a></li> </ul> <h3>Books</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Software-Sucks-What-About/dp/0321466756/">Why Software Sucks... and What You Can Do About It</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Computer-Products-Information-Appliances/dp/0262640414/">The Invisible Computer: Why Good Products Can Fail, the Personal Computer Is So Complex, and Information Appliances Are the Solution</a></li> </ul> <p><em>My favorite quote from David is when he uses "reptilian midbrain" in a user interface explanation without breaking a sweat! ;)</em></p> <h3>Progress in User Interaction Design</h3> <p>While producing this show I found an interesting post on <a href="http://techcrunch.com/">TechCrunch</a>, <a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/29/microsoft-researchers-get-fancy-with-a-sphere-display/">Microsoft Researchers Get Fancy with a Sphere Display</a>. Here is a video of the demonstration.</p> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V3HGfIy_zCI&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V3HGfIy_zCI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="344"></object> <p>The "surface" appliances seem to be forging closer to the idea of having software that just works.</p> <p><a href="http://popularmechanics.com/">Popular Mechanics</a> did a spot on the surface table. In this video you see how wireless devices interface with each other using the surface table as an intermediary. The best part? You can take a picture on your digital camera and load it on your cell phone: no cables, no syncing and no hassle!</p> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kr1O917o4jI&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kr1O917o4jI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object> <p>The last video I have for you’re here is of the TouchWall. What I like best about this video is how they spend time explaining how the technology works.</p> <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YPrfqdl55D0&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YPrfqdl55D0&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></object> <p><a href="http://www.dotnetkicks.com/kick/?url=http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/sucks"><img src="http://www.dotnetkicks.com/Services/Images/KickItImageGenerator.ashx?url=http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/sucks" alt="kick it on DotNetKicks.com" border="0"></a></p>
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Smart People, Cool Clients & Surface at MIX
The saying, "the content isn’t what’s important at a conference – it’s the people" is approaching hallmark cliché status. The thing is with stereotypes, generalizations and clichés – they exist for a reason.
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The Secret to Great User Experiences
Today is a landmark day. I am uploading the 50th episode of the Polymorphic Podcast all the while I get to announce the beginning of our new podcast series at Infragistics, pixel8!