Once you have created an interface, you need to test it, and this is known as usability testing. How do you do that? Well, it’s easier than you may think. First, let’s define what we mean by the term “usability…
Tag: UX
Apple, Technology, UX Articles
When the exceptional becomes commonplace, Apple is in deep trouble
I, like many other tech fanboys, was glued to my computer screen early this month during Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference keynote. What new products or software would be revealed? Would the rumored iWatch be shown? Was Apple going to…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: Creating and using personas
When I discuss the word persona with people, I get a lot of blank stares and tilted heads. The film buffs I know respond with, “The Bergman film?” and the rest of them just shake their head when I ask…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: On Information Architecture
When you read about user experience and the UX design process, you will inevitably see a lot of discussion about Information Architecture. What is Information Architecture? Simply put, Information Architecture is the art and science or organizing and labeling data…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: Typical UX jobs and roles
While UX is still a fairly “young” discipline compared to other occupations, there are some fairly consistent standards as to roles and responsibilities. Here are some typical (and not so typical) jobs that you will find out there, with some…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: Stakeholders and you!
In any design project, you are going to have one or more stakeholders. These are the people who sponsored the project, and/or are the product managers responsible for the product being design, and/or are VPs responsible for a particular division……
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: On working with developers and project managers
No man is an island – to be an effective UX professional you need to work and partner with people with different backgrounds, skills, and priorities. If you don’t build solid relationships with the many people responsible for executing the…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: A few words on Content Strategy and Service Design
User experience design is a pretty broad discipline, with many different areas of focus you can align your career to. There’s information architecture, user research, usability testing, requirements modeling, wireframing, prototyping… each with a different focus, approach and outcome. I…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: The User Centered Design Process
One of the things I get asked a lot by people interested in user experience design is “How do you do what you do?” The sometimes want specifics, but often the question is broad… what is your process? So, let’s…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What are the “open problems” in UX design?
An "open problem" is a question without a known solution, and the interesting thing about user experience design is that we don't have a lot of open problems or questions, it's that we often have TOO MANY ANSWERS. A couple…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: A (brief) history of user experience
What we now call “user experience design” began a lot longer ago than many people realize. In fact, you can trace UX design WAY, WAY back… all the way to when humans created the first tools. A tool in its…
UX 101, UX Articles
#UX101: What is UX, anyway?
I am writing my new book UX 101 the same way that two of my literary idols, Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens, did: in serial, one chapter at a time. I hope to post a new segment every week…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
When creating web and mobile application UIs, what is better: "Flat Design" or "Skeuomorphic Design"?
It depends. Yes, I know, that's a cop-out, but not really… There are benefits and drawbacks to both, and what your are designing and who you are designing for is just as important as the design "style" ("Flat" or "skeuomorphic")…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
Should companies with in-house UX teams evaluate their own work or engage external UX consultants to do so?
Bringing in an external consultant to evaluate a team's work is a BAD idea, for several reasons. First off, the consultant can be the best UX professional in the world who makes the most cogent points possible… but he or…
My Quora answers, UX 101, UX Articles
What are best practices for participatory design sessions?
Participatory design is a great way to have an engaging conversation with users about a particular task or situation. The main thing to remember about participatory design is this obvious point: Users aren't designers. During the design session they are…
My Quora answers, UX Articles
What is the next frontier in mobile UX/UI design?
Three things that are going to be a big focus for mobile UX/UI designers in the years to come: Voice Interaction: Accessing information from your mobile device or the cloud through speech is here now, but we "turn it on"…