[IxDA Discuss] Zoomii: Google Maps -like interaction in a bookstore
I just stumbled upon something pretty impressing: Zoomii's bookstore uses a Google Maps -like interaction design pattern to display Amazon's books in an impossibly big bookshelf that can be zoomed in and out. You can fly to any shelf and pick a book. It works inside a browser without plugins. It's made by an individual called Chris Thiessen and funded by his spouse. It's his attempt to bring online as much of the real bookstore experience as possible. To me his early attempt qualifies as indistinguishable from magic. http://zoomii.com/ What do you think? - Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] In this island, everything happens for a reason. - John Locke, LOST Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Omnigraffle IA stencils
Christian Crumlish kirjoitti 1.6.2008 kello 4:30: For those interested, the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library has just released a set of wireframe stencils in OmniGraffle, Visio (XML), PDF, PNG, and SVG formats (thanks to Graffle wizard Lucas Pettinati): http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/wireframes/ This is a fantastic stencil set. Thank you for the tip! Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] In this island, everything happens for a reason. - John Locke, LOST Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] What do you think: Is participating in a poll social networking?
Tom Dell'Aringa kirjoitti 28.5.2008 kello 22:09: If you had a social network that had all the typical features, friends, photos, chat, etc., and it also had polls, would you consider polls as part of that social network? My initial thought is no because there's no real interaction between people - but it is something that a group of people participate in, even though they simply cast a vote. Thoughts? Participating in this poll is social networking to me. Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] In this island, everything happens for a reason. - John Locke, LOST Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Raising awareness for Interaction Design in a corporate IT company
R. Groot kirjoitti 20.4.2008 kello 15:29: Dear all, my question is simple in its former but probably less so in its answer. Therefore I would like to ask you all for input on the following: -- How to start creating an awareness of the need for Interaction (/user experience) design in a corporate IT consultancy/developer/implementor company? Hi Rein, Your own approach - what works and what doesn't: http://www.cooper.com/insights/journal_of_design/articles/ten_ways_to_kill_good_design.html How to make a business case for usability: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi-first-study.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html How to measure user experience in a release: http://timiti.blogspot.com/2008/03/user-experience-metrics.html There is so much you can measure: http://chrisharrison.net/projects/progressbars/ http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/apme/optimizations/ When talking about user experience, there are many things that are indeed hard to measure but are still very real and worth money. Did your boss really need the V8? Why? How much more did he pay for it? Does he/she know that Audi and Skoda are generally made of same VW components? People aren't rational - people rationalize. That's so obvious when we're talking about sales and marketing. Hence, try to make it equally obvious when you're talking about design. How much does it cost to not do it? Good luck! - Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to design a useful FAQs page?
tank6b kirjoitti 11.4.2008 kello 12:05: Hi All, We are in the process of redesign/redo/relaunch our main website grin.com, and I'll want to have something useful for our FAQ pages to decrease our support phone calls. I guess if you have a great FAQ pages the customers don't call you too much. Hi Jose, After you've come up with the final FAQ, it's a good idea to re- evaluate your web pages against it. If people ask something frequently, put a vector to the knowledge right in the front page. There's often no need to state the question, just provide a link to the page that contains the answer. This doesn't replace the FAQ, but it adds another layer of good service to the visitors. The first 80 percent of customer calls can be eliminated if you know what your customers want to know. The next 80 percent can be eliminated with the FAQ. The next 80 percent can be reduced if you repeat the most frequent answers just next to the phone number. Ideally, you don't need the FAQ page(s). But in reality you of course do, because many people expect you to have them. Good luck! - Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Spatial reasoning and spatial memory
Hi Morten, If you have time to look through a slightly wider scope, I'd recommend chapter Down the Rabbit Hole from Steven Pinker's Stuff of Thought. It talks about how the human mind reasons about space, time and causation, among many other things. The book uses language as a window to human nature. In this speech he explains why such approach can be a good idea: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/164 Also, his older book How the Mind Works is an eye-opener. Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Morten Hjerde kirjoitti 9.4.2008 kello 13:47: I'm currently thinking a lot about spatial reasoning and spatial memory related to small screens. There is a lot of work done on spatial reasoning by the Gestalt psychologists. I'm familiar with the gestalt principles (the little education I have is in typography). But I haven't found much on spatial memory. I found an article by Gabriel White in *Interactions* about the MotoFone with some discussion on spatial and gestural memory. Does anyone know about additional resources or research on spatial memory? -- Morten Hjerde http://sender11.typepad.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Gathering requirements (was: NN/g IxD immersion course)
Kim Bieler kirjoitti 10.3.2008 kello 23:44: I'm particularly interested in the gathering requirements portion, since I desperately need some clues about interviewing and research. Disclaimer: This is not an opinion against the course, but an opinion against the gathering metaphor. The requirements aren't out there just to collect in a bag. The requirements are the interim result of an interaction designer's thought process, not its starting point. 1. Current human behavior -- Observation, discussion, reading, using 2. Goals -- Analysis of the current behavior 3. Future human behavior -- Inventing, design, scenarios, analysis 4. Product/service requirements -- The first set, for IxD and engineering 5. Framework -- A generic representation of the solution 6. Details -- A detailed representation of the solution 7. Technical requirements -- The final set, for engineering and coders My point is that there are many steps of actual design, before I have a sheet of developer-friendly functional requirements to offer, and in my opinion the metaphor gathering is a very inaccurate word to describe these these steps. You won't invent email just by observing snail mail users. There has to be a heureka moment somewhere to fill that gap, and I almost always have it at around step #3 - before the requirements. I find it silly to think that the requirements were there to collect like flowers from weeds. Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] User stories vs. user personas
Hi Oliver, Manish Pillewar kirjoitti 26.2.2008 kello 12:33: The persona: A close representative of the user Indeed. Here's how I've been taught to use them: A persona describes CURRENT behavior, with the CURRENT product or service or its nearest equivalent. Understanding and accepting how things are is essential to make rational judgments about how things should be. A persona is an excellent tool (among others) for this purpose. The persona also describes human motivations, beliefs, desires and goals (etc.), which bring insight into why people behave like they do. This part is hard to explain (= easy to misunderstand) through an email, but About Face 3, pages 88 to 97, gives you more information. The User Story: What the persona would do to complete a specific task Stories or scenarios describe how people are expected to behave in the FUTURE, with the NEW product or service. Also great tool interaction design and engineering. How to use these tools together? When you've finished with a user story, compare it to the persona's current behavior, motivations, beliefs, desires and goals. Does the story describe a solution that improves the current situation and is compatible with human goals as described in the persona? Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Reductionism
sajid saiyed kirjoitti 21.2.2008 kello 21:56: I was trying to relate this to what we do with complex information. We also follow the scientists way by breaking down the information into parts (reductionism) and then build correlations of these parts to each other and (try to) present the user a organized system. Talking about GDD: we've noticed that the first phases (research, modeling) are good for expanding our view about the problem domain: We need to figure out, which are the cards that need sorting. This part of the process feels like the opposite of reductionism, as the amount of information, viewpoints and insights (the whole domain) seems to expand. But during requirements, framework and design, as the cards reveal themselves, the process feels a little like what you wrote above. It's about determining which goals can be achieved, which problems are blocking the way, how to break the problems into parts, and how to organize their solutions into blueprints. Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä palvelumuotoilija / Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Adding Depth to Skills
Brian Hoffman kirjoitti 18.12.2007 kello 18:35: Given that, what resources can any of you recommend for the following fields? These could be books, websites, conferences, user/professional organizations (such as IxDA), or other things. * Other related areas Cooper's Communicating Design course has been extremely helpful, because it helps you to sell your design to the stakeholders and developers - no matter what hat you wore or will wear to come up with the design. Their document templates are worth the price alone. I'd also recommend Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works (1999). It gives you insight to both design and communication; both mental models and presentation models. If you like that book, continue to Blank Slate and Stuff of Thought by the same author. The first book Marks out the territory on which the coming century's debate about human nature will be held. (Quote by Oliver Morton, The New Yorker - which I agree with - so read the books in that order, if you want to study breadth-first :) Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Three kinds of design
Alan Wexelblat kirjoitti 15.12.2007 kello 0:27: I've been thinking on this for a while and I admit the idea's still only half-baked. Your ideas and observations reflect with mine. But I think there's #0, which is where every designer begins: getting away from what me or you personally thinks is cool. That's a sticky problem. We are hard-wired to like the things we've worked so hard for, like your grandpa, and the grandpa before that... To the list: 1. Core design. This is the good stuff that we all want to be doing, Good stuff from the end user's point of view, right? There is the stuff that should be in the design, and I think it's absolute what should be there - theoretically at least - more advanced design methods are making us sharper at identifying, which form, information and behavior helps the users and customers to achieve their goals better than what they had before, and what the competition offers. 2. Demo design. This is particularly prevalent in enterprise software or situations where the customer (person who writes the check) Almost every product/service goes through some layer of enterprise or financial management, or a bank, unless the entrepreneur has deep pockets her-/himself. This means that some part of the design must be especially comfortable to inform to the stakeholders, and none of it should be especially uncomfortable to inform to the stakeholders. -- A demonstration is required but it's not sufficient. Design communication is a tough topic in itself. 3. Checklist or me too design. This could be thought as the design of how to make the final product/ service comfortable to sell. The salespeople have to establish a business relationship with every customer, and they can have one to one hundred (?) relationships per day. Feature lists are a good shortcut for negotiation. Quite often a customer doesn't have time or money to make a truly rational choice. Therefore, we must design the product to feel good to sell and buy. Does it matter if the purchase decision is irrational, if they end up with your design, which hopefully helps them to achieve their goals better than the alternatives? Checklist or me too considerations are required but not sufficient. But you've probably identified a need for a design/ prediction process, which isn't limited to what you mentioned. Is there another major category I'm missing that you find sucks up significant design cycles on your projects? It's really hard to not like your own experience with your own design, and that's what I'd add to the list. It does suck up a lot of design cycles. So, #0 No self-referential design #1 Design for the users #2 Design for the stakeholders #3 Design for the salespeople and the buyers Number three has 2 groups. If you bow to the sales force, you have to bend over to the buyers, and vice versa. In the end they have to agree on the same price, so there is a design target - the value of the exchange. (Beliefs * Desires) = Value? Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Define the User Centered Design process
Robert Hoekman, Jr. kirjoitti 28.11.2007 kello 3:52: So tell me, dear IxDA cohorts: what exactly is UCD? That's really hard to say. I'm not a UCD proponent even, because in addition to user happiness, the technical feasibility and business viability are almost always equally essential. Users are important, but even they aren't the center of the world. There are those other issues. I don't like xCD, whatever the x. Designing for behavior has been so rare in the past, that most digital stuff behave like computers and expect human beings to adapt. But it doesn't mean that the users should take the whole stage. There are other factors too, and asking which of those is more important is like asking which is more important: breathing or eating. But ISO 13407 is a standard for Human-centred design processes for interactive system. Maybe there's something that we could use to define UCD/HCD, if it helps our cause: http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/r_international.htm#13407 Personally I think that Cooper's Goal-Directed Design captures the feasibility and viability aspects well. The design is directed by goals, not centered at them. And not only user goals, but those others too. But I give at least 3/4 of my time to think about the users. The architect next room is responsible for the feasibility and the coders are responsible for building it bug-free. Thinking about business-related design, such as organizational processes or material/information flow design (when applicable) is all part of the behavior of the new solution. I hesitate to call that user- centered. User-directed, maybe. But goal-directed feels better. Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA's Annual Board Meeting
dave malouf kirjoitti 13.11.2007 kello 18:12: Evangelizing the discipline has always been a core mission of the organization for sure. Petteri, do you have any suggestions on how we can do this? It is a really hard piece to knock out of the park considering some of the more tactical things we are working on. Fair question - I've thought this since yesterday and three things come into mind. (Don't ask what to association can do for you, ask what you can ...) 1) Expand and polish the Wikipedia entries (as you mentioned earlier, didn't you?). This is mainly a community effort, but the association can encourage and remind us to do so. These articles can be improved, IMHO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interaction_design, which should be linked to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_research http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenario_%28computing%29 ... / Framework Definition (doesn't exist or isn't linked) ... / Design Refinement ... / Development Support (I guess someone should discuss about the IA and semantics of those terms/articles, but I'm not going to contribute to that part of the effort. I don't care if a paper prototype is a paper, a prototype or both. Just gimme the URL.) Putting semantics and IA aside, I think that #1: fixing Wikipedia entries would help our cause during year 2008. Using Wikipedia can hardly do harm for the cause, and anybody in this list can fix an entry without asking for permission. If you write something that is useful for developers and journalists, they'll Google it out and share with their colleagues. 2) We need to talk about IxD in some popular podcasts. If anybody is friends with Leo Laporte or John C., find an opportunity to get into their shows. Seriously. Your mother-in-law maybe doesn't listen to TWiT.tv, but hundreds of thousands of geeks and tech journalists do. 3) Is there a trivial way to track how we are doing with Wikipedia? For example, can we somehow make a page that displays the latest entries _which have something to do with IxD_ ? Maybe the smart masses who can code, could solve this for the rest of us?-) Thanks, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxDA's Annual Board Meeting
Robert Reimann kirjoitti 10.11.2007 kello 20:58: * Our next retreat will be in November 2007—the end of this month. We're writing now to share our plans and get your input. A question-built-in-a-rant follows, I don't know if this should be in the agenda for IxDA (what do you think?) ... but many developers and most of the media still don't know what designing for behavior is. They don't even know that 1) such craft is necessary or 2) it exists. Inter... what?! They understand what they can look and/or feel (= atoms, pixels, sometimes code), but they don't know that for digital products that's not the whole story. Hopefully during year 2008, if some company introduces a product that has behaves exceptionally well, at least some journalists would mention (explicitly) that the product behaves exceptionally well; not (only) its form, its marketing, its hype, the lookfeel, ease of use, feature set, fanboy crowd, revolutionary GUI, platforms or business alliances, but the _behavior_ of the product is exceptionally good. Polite, considerate, fudgable, empowering and so on. Really, if you look back to 2007, has there been any mainstream stories in the mainstream media that would mention good behavior as the main driver for why a product or a service has made a difference? Best, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] How to handle clients...
Björn Simonson kirjoitti 7.11.2007 kello 13:09: My problem is that the boss is in a position to veto pretty much everything and/or the project manger is not strong enough to stand up to his boss in these matters. So even if I get the project group to agree that we can't change the structure to accommodate the boss' suggestion (which shouldn't be a problem) I'm not sure that they can convince the boss. Instead of arguing over the design, argue over scenarios. You probably have created believable scenarios (previously approved) where some believable actors (also previously approved) perform their tasks to achieve their goals (previously approved, right ?--). You can try to come up with a scenario that supports the stakeholder's design choice. If you can, his/her design choice was right. But if you can't come up with such scenario, or it sounds ridiculous, you can still bring your findings to the table and ask for goals/achievements/ scenarios from the stakeholder. That sounds good to me, but what problem does it solve for the user? What kind of user? Aim for single individual to avoid ambiguity. Don't make him/her a designer that solves the problem, but try to squeeze out the problem he/she wants to be solved. Your personal goal is to get his trust. If you solve your stakeholders' goals, they won't question your design in every turn. You've got to ignore the designer, including yourself and the stakeholder and focus the argument on the users/actors/personas, or whatever you use in your projects. Here's a good article about that by Chris Noessel: http://www.cooper.com/insights/journal_of_design/articles/ignore_that_designer_behind_th.html (Your situation is exactly why we always try to split the design project in at least two parts: first agree on the problem (or goals), then agree on the solution (or design). In a two-month project that would be approximately 1+1 months of calendar time ~ two meetings with important stakeholders.) Hope this helps, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer iXDesign / +358505050123 / [EMAIL PROTECTED] Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated. - Tim Peters *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
