Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Ford, HenryHR Giger On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com wrote: On Feb 17, 2009, at 5:09 PM, dave malouf wrote: But in general, your list is my list. If you're going to use software technology examples, considering we are still in early stages of that tech, we should acknowledge that most of the great interaction designers up until now haven't been designers at all. They've been engineers. It's going to be like that for some time. In Dan's list, more than half of those people were engineers first, and would probably call themselves engineers still, not designers. Mike Schuster? Thomas Knoll? Those two basically made Illustrator and Photoshop happen. Mark Hamburg? Definitely up there. The engineering team on Mac System 7? Better toss in Andy Hertzfeld into the mix as well. Then there's the guys behind things like AutoCAD. The engineers behind Alias, Wavefront, and SoftImage, cutting edge 3D which is one of the most difficult interface and interaction problems you've got in all of software design. The original PageMaker team! Which if you can travel back to 1986 was about as cutting edge and genre defining as it gets in this field considering what they created, how they did on a 9 black and white screen with 640x480 pixel resolution, and with what computing horsepower they had at the time. Could easily go on and on in this fashion. Designers like a Rand, Eames or a Dreyfuss type -- if you are trying to make parallels to this field -- are probably just getting out of high school at this very moment, if they've even gotten out of junior high. Until they come along, should give the engineers who made all of this happen the credit they are due for being great designers as well. And there have been plenty of great ones. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 3D has come along way since ray dream designer and specualr indiniD. I think 3DS max has the 'best' ux going on these days even though it is PC only. I agree, the clone wars were minimal when bryce and metacreations were making the wow UI's. Autodesk kills it. Their products are real tools that meet real needs. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 12:01 AM, Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.comwrote: Ford, HenryHR Giger On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com wrote: On Feb 17, 2009, at 5:09 PM, dave malouf wrote: But in general, your list is my list. If you're going to use software technology examples, considering we are still in early stages of that tech, we should acknowledge that most of the great interaction designers up until now haven't been designers at all. They've been engineers. It's going to be like that for some time. In Dan's list, more than half of those people were engineers first, and would probably call themselves engineers still, not designers. Mike Schuster? Thomas Knoll? Those two basically made Illustrator and Photoshop happen. Mark Hamburg? Definitely up there. The engineering team on Mac System 7? Better toss in Andy Hertzfeld into the mix as well. Then there's the guys behind things like AutoCAD. The engineers behind Alias, Wavefront, and SoftImage, cutting edge 3D which is one of the most difficult interface and interaction problems you've got in all of software design. The original PageMaker team! Which if you can travel back to 1986 was about as cutting edge and genre defining as it gets in this field considering what they created, how they did on a 9 black and white screen with 640x480 pixel resolution, and with what computing horsepower they had at the time. Could easily go on and on in this fashion. Designers like a Rand, Eames or a Dreyfuss type -- if you are trying to make parallels to this field -- are probably just getting out of high school at this very moment, if they've even gotten out of junior high. Until they come along, should give the engineers who made all of this happen the credit they are due for being great designers as well. And there have been plenty of great ones. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Angel, After Andrei's post I thought of Kai's Power Tools as well. Kai Krause was the guy's name. Along with Phil Clemenger a little later on. Steve 2009/2/18 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Correction: Phil Clevenger was the other guy's name. 2009/2/18 Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com Angel, After Andrei's post I thought of Kai's Power Tools as well. Kai Krause was the guy's name. Along with Phil Clemenger a little later on. Steve 2009/2/18 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Hey Steve, Yea, I just looked him up. I have pleasant memories of the people the time and how that was all introduced to me. I started my professional career path' on mac 7.5.3, illustrator 7 photoshop 4. It has been interesting to see how things have synthesized over the years. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 12:22 AM, Steve Baty steveb...@gmail.com wrote: Angel, After Andrei's post I thought of Kai's Power Tools as well. Kai Krause was the guy's name. Along with Phil Clemenger a little later on. Steve 2009/2/18 Angel Marquez angel.marq...@gmail.com That metatools guy that did kai's power goo. Those interfaces were amazing on mac os 7.5.3 -- Steve 'Doc' Baty | Principal | Meld Consulting | P: +61 417 061 292 | E: steveb...@meld.com.au | Twitter: docbaty | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaty Blog: http://meld.com.au/blog Contributor: Johnny Holland - johnnyholland.org Contributor: UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com UX Australia: 25-27 August, http://uxaustralia.com.au UX Book Club: http://uxbookclub.org/ - Read, discuss, connect. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Kai Krause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
Thanks for your reply Dave! I'm not really sure what to assume about my background. I have looked at some programs and the relevance of my degree seems to span from I'm already there and I don't know anything, and in between I haven't found much. For me the obvious choice is to seek out the training I lack: the design training that you get in ID. Catch-up classes isn't a problem for me, but I don't see that presented as an option. (Just to have it mentioned: I mostly look at European universities, since that's where I live.) But putting my own pursuits to the side: Isn't this an area where things can improve? Defining IxD, what skill set and knowledge the Ix designer should have seems to be a recurring theme in the discussions here. To find good answers to this I think exploring and getting ideas from other disciplines essential. I think it makes sence then to facilitate for this. Why not start something in academia. - Eirik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38841 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] CAPTCHAs and conversion rates
Thanks everyone for their input. Really helpful! I'm a little unconvinced but the statement In general, if you're being attached by spam, using a captcha is a good idea It's not that clear cut - captchas have costs and benefits. It makes sense to at least start by trying the approaches that are invisible to the user (i.e. honey pots etc). If the spam problem still proves too great, then resort to captcha as a backup, rather than as a first response. Interesting to see that in the sampa.com case study, Marcelo said their conversion rate went from about 10% to 10.9% conversion. (i.e. removing the captcha meant that almost one extra person per hundred completed the activity). This isn't insubstantial, but I'd expected it to be higher than that, since personally I always struggle with captchas. As Jeff said, the other thing to consider is that they aren't a uniform commodity, some are easier than others; while also user journeys can vary wildly. If a user spends 10 minutes signing up to a service that's highly important to them, a simple captcha isn't going to deter you much. But for a 3 second transient interaction (like a quick comment or thumbs up), a tricky captcha is going to feel inappropriately heavyweight. I'd really hoped to discover a large scale quant study on this... Anyone? Harry www.90percentofeverything.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] CAPTCHAs and conversion rates
Thanks everyone for their input. Really helpful! I'm a little unconvinced but the statement In general, if you're being attached by spam, using a captcha is a good idea captchas have costs and benefits. It's not that clear cut. It makes sense to at least start by trying the approaches that are invisible to the user. If the spam problem still proves too great, then resort to captcha as a backup, rather than as a first response. Interesting to see that in the sampa.com case study, Marcelo said their conversion rate went from about 10% to 10.9% conversion. (i.e. removing the captcha meant that almost one extra person per hundred completed the activity). This isn't insubstantial, but I'd expected it to be higher than that, since personally I always struggle with captchas. As Jeff said, the other thing to consider is that they aren't a uniform commodity, some are easier than others; while also user journeys can vary wildly. If a user spends 10 minutes signing up to a service that's highly important to them, a simple captcha isn't going to deter them much. But for a 3 second transient interaction (like a quick comment or thumbs up), a tricky captcha is going to feel inappropriately heavyweight. I'd really hoped to discover a large scale quant study on this... Looks like there's nothing publicly available? Harry -- www.90percentofeverything.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Terms Every IxD Should Know
It would be nicer to add a list of vocabulary as non-ux but related items? And better, put them into different boxes, :) Regards, Jarod On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Dan Saffer d...@odannyboy.com wrote: At I09, there were a lot of calls for a vocabulary we can all understand, no matter what medium we're working in. As part of my crowdsource the book effort, I'd like to include these terms in the second edition of Designing for Interaction I'm currently working on. Here's the list I have. What else should be on here? 5-way Actuator Adaptation Affordance Agile Button Comparator Conditional Constraint Customization Deliverable Dial Direct Manipulation Drop-Down Menu Eye tracking Feedback Feedforward Indirect Manipulation Input Hover Jog Dial Latch Metadata Mockup Mode Output Persona Personalization Pixel-Perfect Prototype Sensor Service Slider Stakeholder State Switch Toggle Usability Testing Use Case Waterfall Widget Window Wireframe Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Do we already need a 'hall of fame'? Do we really need a 'hall of fame'? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] CAPTCHAs and conversion rates
On 17 Feb 2009, at 09:01, Mark B. wrote: A response from Luis von Ahn of reCAPTCHA: Some of our big customers have done A/B tests that show that using reCAPTCHA does not change conversion rates for them. In general, if [snip] Of course folk visiting big customers may be willing to expend more effort than when they visit other sites. I know I've struggled through CAPTCHA's for Google/Yahoo coz I _needed_ a bit of functionality. Other sites I just skipped out the third time I got it wrong because I'm doing competitive shopping and the three other stores I'm looking at don't ask me to jump through that particular hoop... It's a barrier that doesn't help the user. It just helps the site. That tells me I should be trying to remove it when ever I can. Cheers, Adrian Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preparing a presentation on Fireworks
Julie - Might be worth checking the find and replace tool, you can actually find a specific typeface and size and replace it with a different typeface, style and size. It's still not perfect but it does the job! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38092 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
Erik, One option is to do a Masters in Human-Computer Interaction, which has slightly more emphasis in psychology, with a sprinkling of design, anthropology, systems thinking, etc. I'm currently enrolled as a Masters student at University College London for their Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics program (http://www.uclic.ucl.ac.uk/), and they do generate quite a fair number of practitioners in the field for the UK, since being around since 1967. I am quite confident of the program, myself coming from a Computer Engineering background, and having worked in the telecoms field doing software and web development. While I admit that good design is practiced, there are things you can learn in class to speed up that transition. Boon Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Hi all, Currently our UX team are PC-based and use Visio. I would like to move back to Mac and start using Omnigraffle again. I have been asked to write a business case for switching. Does anyone have an suggestions or experience of writing such a case? Thanks, Nik Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
If you all can stand a bit of sw dev talk, here is an excerpt from Embedded Muse, a newsletter for embedded programming. The topic CS education and embedded software: It's certainly true that universities could do more to teach good software design and process (or even good coding practices for that matter). While we wouldn't want to turn them into technical colleges, universities should probably shift the balance between the broad theoretical and the practical more towards the latter. Some programs offer courses in software engineering, but students have to seek them out. However, companies share a lot of the blame here and aren't really in a position to criticize academia. In almost every interview I've had, I've been asked to write (or read) code. I can't recall the last time I was asked anything significant about software design. On the job the focus is often the same - producing code rather than designing first. This is analogous to a mechanical engineer grabbing a chunk of metal and heading out to the machine shop to cut a part. No one in their right mind would think that's a reasonable design process. I'm not sure how to change this prevailing view of software development. Perhaps the problem is a lack of understanding of software development among managers. Often it's perpetuated by EE's who know how to code (sort of) but not how to design. I often feel like I am swimming upstream in advocating for design before coding. I try to seek jobs with companies that seem to recognize the value of proper software design and hope I can prove it with results. What I see now, and didn't think of until recently (after Interaction'09), is how design isn't just thought, but also have to be practiced. The talk about design in software is mostly results, I can hardly imagine that the creative process is thought of. What is also lacking is presentation: No wonder the managers don't appreciate design if you don't know how to present it. If CS wants to improve on design they should look outside their own departement. Maybe it should also realise that design isn't for everyone: Many of my colleagues is happy with coding and don't care too much of design. They should understand it, but they don't have to do it. Just to turn the problem around: What is it that someone with a pure design background should know, but doesn't, in order to be a good interaction designer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38841 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
As an aside, it would be interesting to have Mac devotees list the negative aspects of the Mac or a person who uses both the PC and Mac highlight the differences. I use both a Mac and PC, everyday, and find the single menu on the Mac antiquated (it fits the philosopy of the original Mac and has not really evolved). The Mac toolbar with all the apps can get really cluttered if you are a software junkie - the icons are nice, but it is hard to pick them out. I like the dialogs in Windows that allow you to resize from more than one corner. The Mac seems to connect to networks more easily than my Windows PC where I often have to do some tweaking. Some of the apps are more elegant like the one that creates separate workspaces (but that isn't new, Xerox used the same ideas in its Room tool on Windows 3.1). I admit to liking some of the small animation touches on the Mac. Has there been a shoot-out lately using the same tool and two people trained to equal levels? There is a technique called a User Interface Race suggested by Ben Shneiderman in the early Brenda Laurel anthology from the late 1980s that might be fun. Chauncey On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Nik Lazell nik.laz...@realadventure.co.ukwrote: Hi all, Currently our UX team are PC-based and use Visio. I would like to move back to Mac and start using Omnigraffle again. I have been asked to write a business case for switching. Does anyone have an suggestions or experience of writing such a case? Thanks, Nik Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Somewhere, somehow, you have to highlight the efficiencies of Omnigraffle over Visio, and show that it costs the company money. If you're working for a consultancy, that's going to make it even harder because usually they bill that back to the client. I recently worked for a company that was totally committed to the PC world, and the ENTIRE UX team were Macheads. Personally, I live in both worlds, and I don't see as much of a difference between Visio and Omnigraffle, and actually have work for clients stored in both formats (I run Parallels). I prefer to do work on the Mac, but it's not as much as a dealbreaker for me to work in Visio. As people experienced in software usability, and we should have to experience multiple platforms and be agnostic. But that's just my opinion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38871 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Nik, A couple thoughts: How much do you have to share files with other members of your team? Do your developers read the Visio files or can they work from PDFs? If collaboration is important, the latest version of Graffle does open Visio files nicely. For the documentation consulting side of our business, we usually recommend the Adobe suite. The learning curve is steeper, but you'll get more power in the long-run. Using CS4 to create reusable wireframing and design components, our company has saved our clients thousands of dollars just by being more efficient in producing deliverables. And CS4 is cross-platform. The tougher business case may not be the application you use for your artifacts, but instead for supporting the Mac and hooking it up to the existing infrastructure. (I don't need replies telling me this is easy. I know it's easy. I'm just saying it may be a tougher case to make to the Powers That Be.) -- Dan On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Nik Lazell nik.laz...@realadventure.co.ukwrote: Hi all, Currently our UX team are PC-based and use Visio. I would like to move back to Mac and start using Omnigraffle again. I have been asked to write a business case for switching. Does anyone have an suggestions or experience of writing such a case? Thanks, Nik Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Dan Brown, Principal • (301) 801-4850 EightShapes, LLC • eightshapes.com Also at: communicatingdesign.com • greenonions.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] html forms and autosaving
Good evening everyone! I've been asked to write a letter of recommendation on topapply.com Usually, they have very lenghty forms, as you might imagine. Mine had 5-6 textboxes, as well as other elements. I hit Save for Later and the form resets.Only the first textbox remained filled. I hit Back, but no, redirection was in place... somehow, my browser didn't save the fields. So my question is... how does one avoid this? Are there any already implemented (preferably open-source) solutions out there? An out-of-the-box standard thing to autosave everything... wouldn't that be nice? Autosaving comes to mind, but then again is that enough? How can we change the user's perception about this. I know that in my case, even when I write inside Wordpress (which has a strong autosave feature), I still hit the save button way too often, and feel a pressing need to open an OS editor. Any thoughts? -- http://nomorestories.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
I don't think anybody knows who any of the below mentioned men are, East of the Sacramento River. Physical architecture has been around and celebrated as a celebrity- worship-worthy vocation, for thousands of years. *Everybody* in a given region also sees buildings, whereas not everybody uses most pieces of software. Software design has only been a vocation for a couple of decades. My family in Oklahoma still give me blank stares when I explain what I do- and so despite no longer being employed by Yahoo!, I still just blurt out oh, I make Yahoo!, and that's pretty much the only thing that will prompt the raised-eyebrow-nod of comprehension. So they either then get that I work on teh internets w/o any further drill- down clarification (which they wouldn't know what to do with anyway), or they think I'm a hooker- and either, I'm fine with, so long as they quit asking. Raymond Loewy and Yves Behar I also think are only design-community and design-conscious community celebrities... known only among the Prada-wearing or New-Balance sneakers w/ free software-shirt wearing geeks out there. Challenge (perhaps?) for our own community: surfacing and celebrating the women mavericks among us, and lessening the sausage-party-ness of design celebrity. I know the biggest contributor to this problem is that there just aren't that many chicks in the field to begin with... but in a big long list, it does seem un-fit for no estrogen to preside. :D n On Feb 17, 2009, at 2:59 PM, Joel Eden wrote: The Woz is going to be on the next season of Dancing with the Stars...does that count? :-) Joel On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Weston Thompson westo...@gmail.com wrote: Possible exceptions you missed: - Steve Jobs - Jeff Bezos - Sergei Brin - Larry page Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Long / Large forms
I am using emailmeform.com to create my forms and so far I am satisfied with it. They are mostly for online forms ( forms will send emails when filled up and submitted ) but it can also be used for offline forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38763 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Terms Every IxD Should Know
I can't resist. Hub and Spoke hasn't been mentioned... That will get a whole room going in circles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38736 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preparing a presentation on Fireworks
I've been testing a few different prototyping tools including Fireworks CS4. There are a couple of online tutorials at Adobe - the one I remember was with David Hogue from Fluid (dude, where's my hop up!?). It seems like the real power comes with the ability to simulate rich interactions. Clickable .PDF's can be made with Omnigraffle. I recently gave Protoshare and Axure a test drive. The ability to quickly simulate mouse events was *very* easy in Axure, easier than Fireworks. Fireworks definitely allows more flexibility in drawing, but tool switching and general navigation slowed things down. I'm interested to catch this presentation when it is posted. Cheers, Chris Christopher Rivard http://www.chrisrivard.com/ http://twitter.com/clearwired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38092 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
If you take the view that the simplest form of interaction is reading the written word..(tenuous?) then I'd submit Nevil Brody Personal hero of mine;) John Morse Information Architect Professional Services Group UPA,Prince 2, ISEB IT Architect, AIIM, MBCS Eduserv innovative technology services john.mo...@eduserv.org.uk tel: +44 (0)1225 474395 mob: +44 (0)7500 069524 fax: +44 (0)1225 474374 http://www.eduserv.org.uk -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of mike myles Sent: 17 February 2009 14:01 To: disc...@ixda.org Subject: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats? Many of the great architects industrial designers are known to the general public. To name a few (in no particular order): Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Antoni Gaudí, Frank Gehry, Raymond Loewy, Henry Dreyfuss, Charles and Ray Eames... Who do we feel are the greats of IxD? And to follow... Why are designers of great software less well known than designers of real world objects? Is that a problem? Is there something we could/should be doing to change that? Or is there simply no software equivalent yet to Falling Water or the Coke bottle? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Hi Nik, I am a huge Mac fan and Mac laptops are a great machines to use - especially for guerrilla testing using Silverback, giving presentations using Keynote and general day to day work. However, I feel that Visio is a far more powerful tool for producing UX deliverables. I love Omnigraffle, but I feel that Visio has a broader set of features and stencils for IA/UX deliverables. Cheers! Alex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38871 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] [Event] IxDA Dublin, Ireland: February Meeting %u2013 Mon 16th, 6:30 - 8:30pm
Hi Seamus, I was in the Bill Caemmerer talk last Monday. I was just wondering, are the slideshows somewhere online? Other people from my company couldn't go and they asked me. Thanks, Cristina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38617 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Dan, Thanks for your reply. The creative team all use macs hooked up to the network so incorporating it into our infrastructure isn't a problem. Only the UX team will use the Visio/Omnigraffle files, so whilst compatibility is important it's only really us opening previous revisions of wireframes. I also love being able to create clickable PDF's as quickly as Omnigraffle allows. Wireframes are often shown to the client and providing them with a PDF and a suggested journey very often perfectly illustrates the concept we're trying to get across. The other reason for going mac based is productivity; I've been using the Polypage jQuery plugin (http://code.new-bamboo.co.uk/polypage/) to create interactive wireframes that sometimes then continue as a foundation for the actual build templates (ex-developer!). I'd like to build these in TextMate (mac) as it's far quicker with textMate 'bundles'. I'd also like us to start using Silverback for quick user-testing sessions rather than setting up Morae. Whilst not as comprehensive as Morae it will allow us to quickly and simply get people in, run the session, then export and evaluate the results. Thanks, Nik From: Dan Brown [mailto:brownor...@gmail.com] Sent: 18 February 2009 12:03 To: Nik Lazell Cc: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac Nik, A couple thoughts: How much do you have to share files with other members of your team? Do your developers read the Visio files or can they work from PDFs? If collaboration is important, the latest version of Graffle does open Visio files nicely. For the documentation consulting side of our business, we usually recommend the Adobe suite. The learning curve is steeper, but you'll get more power in the long-run. Using CS4 to create reusable wireframing and design components, our company has saved our clients thousands of dollars just by being more efficient in producing deliverables. And CS4 is cross-platform. The tougher business case may not be the application you use for your artifacts, but instead for supporting the Mac and hooking it up to the existing infrastructure. (I don't need replies telling me this is easy. I know it's easy. I'm just saying it may be a tougher case to make to the Powers That Be.) -- Dan ___ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
You may not think of Linus Torvalds as an interaction designer, but he is sort of a rock star in the software and open source community. And if you think of Linux as a product for scientists, engineers, sys admins, and programmers, he really has made it user friendly by sticking to interfaces that is already understood and accepted. Even better, by making it open source the user is included in the design process. Looking at the quality and richness of some open source software, the whole consept of open source software is in my view a beautiful systems. I don't see Linux as universally user friendly, but that wasn't the original goal. The ills about Linux is not understanding how it is not ready for the consumer market, or seriously underestimating the efforts to do so (or is that just indicating the quality of commercial software?). That said, things are improving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
I would say it's most important to not think about people based on whether their profession was IxD or not - given that the term and title have only been around for less than a decade, yet people have been 'doing' just that for a bit longer. Leonardo Di Vinci was certainly not an industrial designer or an anatomist, yet that is exactly what he was because that is exactly what he 'did' - just as Englebart could not possibly have been an IxDer because the title didn't exist, yet he is exactly that because that is what he 'did' - we need to throw titles out the window and focus on what great contributors DO/DID - not what their title was. :-) Though Linux is universally understood by lay persons and designers and the worst possible IxD of all time, it is completely relative to the audience so - for the intended audience, was linux really good IxD? Depends on who you ask - but i think intentionality is key here - did Torvald give a rats ass about IxD, interface, and use goals, needs, activities when he set to work on it? Would he have been just as happy if the interaction model was command line - and all that GUI stuff was just for fun - or because X-Windows had it? Not sure. ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com http://blog.semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill On Feb 18, 2009, at 5:08 AM, Eirik Midttun wrote: You may not think of Linus Torvalds as an interaction designer, but he is sort of a rock star in the software and open source community. And if you think of Linux as a product for scientists, engineers, sys admins, and programmers, he really has made it user friendly by sticking to interfaces that is already understood and accepted. Even better, by making it open source the user is included in the design process. Looking at the quality and richness of some open source software, the whole consept of open source software is in my view a beautiful systems. I don't see Linux as universally user friendly, but that wasn't the original goal. The ills about Linux is not understanding how it is not ready for the consumer market, or seriously underestimating the efforts to do so (or is that just indicating the quality of commercial software?). That said, things are improving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
I love these exercises. They are the IxD equivalent of fantasy dinner parties. To the excellent lists below, I would add: Peter Checkland, who developed and promoted Soft System Methodology Bruce Mau, for his Massive Change project John Ive, because his products delight and mesmerize me even though I do not own any marianne mswe...@speakeasy.net -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Fahey Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 8:52 PM To: IXDA list Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats? On Feb 17, 2009, at 6:45 PM, Dan Saffer wrote: I humbly submit (in order of appearance): Vannevar Bush Ivan Sutherland Doug Engelbart Bob Taylor Alan Kay Larry Tesler Tim Mott Mitch Kapor Jef Raskin Bill Atkinson Shigeru Miyamoto Marc Andreessen Jeff Hawkins Will Wright My criteria was a lasting contribution via products to the shared language of interaction design that has informed and inspired current generations of designers (knowingly or unknowingly). I appreciate Dan's focus on *people who have designed things*, rather than the many people who have *said interesting things about interaction design* or *run interaction design companies*. In that vein, I continue: Immediate predecessors and still-contemporaries I'm sure Dan merely overlooked: - Hugh Dubberly - Tim Berners-Lee - Jaron Lanier - Ted Nelson - Terry Winograd - Herbert Simon - Claude Shannon - Marvin Minsky - Sid Meier Some old school people who shaped our deepest thinking about interaction: - Alexander Graham Bell - Thomas Edison - Charles Babbage Ada Lovelace (it's interesting to observe that we often call truly great design invention) Some bad modernist influences (I love these idealistic crazies, and they're widely emulated, but they're not good designers to emulate IMHO!) - Le Corbusier - Buckminster Fuller I also think that some of the most resonant interaction design concepts that many of us think of every day, perhaps subconsciously, were invented by creators of fictional worlds: - Gene Roddenberry - Stanley Kubrick - Philip K Dick - Neal Stephenson - William Gibson Cheers, -Cf Christopher Fahey Behavior biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com me: http://www.graphpaper.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD blog aggregator site - are you interested in contributing?
I actually like that idea.. rather than an aggregator, which doesn't help you filter, we could have a Design is Kinky or K10K type site for UX/IxD. A curated aggregator as it were... or is there already a site like this that i'm forgetting? On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 6:36 PM, J. Ambrose Little ambr...@aspalliance.com wrote: I think it can't hurt to provide another way to discover UX resources/blogs, so I added mine to the spreadsheet. ... In a similar vein, I registered and setup goodexperiencedesign.com not too long ago. Right now it's just one of my blogs for talking about good (or bad) experiences and, as much as I am able to provide such insight, what can contribute to or improve them from an intentional/design perspective. Not a novel idea, of course, but I wanted a channel to express that sort of thing. The reason I mention it is that I think it would be better as a group effort, so if you've been meaning to set up a blog for talking about such things but haven't gotten around to it and would be interested in an open group blog format, I'd be very glad to repurpose it for multiple authors. It'd certainly be a better resource with more brains involved.. if anyone out there still doesn't have a blog for this. ;-) Not quite the same as an aggregate feed, but it's open for anyone who wants to join in. Just ping me off list if you're interested. -ambrose -- Matt Nish-Lapidus -- personal: mat...@gmail.com twitter: emenel Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
On 18 Feb 2009, at 00:50, Eirik Midttun wrote: [snip] Catch-up classes isn't a problem for me, but I don't see that presented as an option. [snip] Could well be worth asking even if there's nothing obvious presented. In the dim and distant past when I was in academia folk were more than willing to suggestion options to folk (this was in the UK - elsewhere YMMV I guess.) Adrian Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD blog aggregator site - are you interested in contributing?
Harry, I'll throw in my yea vote. I haven't seen anything like this. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38802 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
On Feb 18, 2009, at 2:25 AM, Nik Lazell wrote: Currently our UX team are PC-based and use Visio. I would like to move back to Mac and start using Omnigraffle again. There is no reason to switch to a Mac if your only goal is to use Omnigraffle. That's like asking your spouse that you' prefer to drive an M5 over a Toyota Corolla because you like where the way cup holders are positioned in the Beemer. The biggest reason to switch to a Mac for your design team is mostly because the development environment for web things is slightly easier to configure and setup over Windows for prototyping and build environments, and these days, even that's become less of an issue. Macs have become great for small businesses in that a lot of the apps you need (calendar, mail, browsers) come with the OS or can be bought and setup to work collaboratively on the cheap, while you also still have access to great production tools like Adobe CS. The machines are slightly more expensive, but are better integrated with their hardware and work together in small environments. If, however, you work in a large corporation where IT is still king and they prefer Windows, then there's no real cost difference you're going to be able to lay out there that makes your case. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD blog aggregator site - are you interested in contributing?
I'd throw in a YES too and strongly dispute the waste of time proposition. Planet sites serve a variety of purposes for different audiences. Two of my favorites are:http://planet.socialmediaresearch.org/ http://planet.mozilla.org I would encourage folks submitting RSS to use a targeted category feed if their content varies across topics. The UX Digg notion is a nice one and can sit on top of a planet system. Drupal, tricked out with a number of popular mods, can serve this function very well. -Andy My personal planet: http://friendfeed.com/andyed On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 9:36 AM, Mary Specht mspe...@gannett.com wrote: Harry, I'll throw in my yea vote. I haven't seen anything like this. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Hi Jennifer, Thanks very much that kind of structure is fantastically helpful! -Nik From: jennifer.r.vign...@jpmorgan.com [mailto:jennifer.r.vign...@jpmorgan.com] Sent: 18 February 2009 15:08 To: Nik Lazell Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac Hi Nik: I would make sure to at least cover the following: 1. Any cost-effectiveness that would come from: * lessen the learning curve if the people who work there and are likely to be hired in the future would be Mac users more than PC users (my background was all Mac for year before I learned the PC) * Ability to work and network from home made easier if the home machine is a Mac and the work machine is a Mac * lessen the cost of software if you currently need to purchase something for each platform. * What does Omnigraffle provide that Visio does not? * If it had a cross-application ability (can open or edit in Visio, that seems to be a huge plus). * does it have reporting features or other valuable features that facilitate communicating with the business? * Which is more prevalent in the industry? Stats on this can be compelling. * Is there a preferences among the great minds' currently on the list for discussion? * Which one makes it possible for you to work faster? * Why? Always play devil's advocate with yourself. Jennifer Jennifer Vignone User Experience Design CIO Technology 245 Park Avenue, 10th Floor New York, NY 10167 212-648-0827 jennifer.r.vign...@jpmorgan.com Hi all, Currently our UX team are PC-based and use Visio. I would like to move back to Mac and start using Omnigraffle again. I have been asked to write a business case for switching. Does anyone have an suggestions or experience of writing such a case? Thanks, Nik Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 1:39 AM, Ferran Alvarez wrote: Do we already need a 'hall of fame'? Do we really need a 'hall of fame'? Yes and yes. We should recognize and understand the history of our field and celebrate those who created the interaction design paradigms like cut and paste that all of us use. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
First of all I have no love for Microsoft. I once relied heavily on Visio but I find Graffle satisfies 95% of what I need to do. I also have an understanding that MS is the necessary bitter pill that comes with this business. So putting that aside... When we started up our business a couple of years ago we had that same conversation about where to invest our dollars figuring we were on a strict budget. We had to look at what apps we were going to use daily, and costs pertaining to hardware, networking, upgrades and ongoing support. We saw that the MAC with parallels gave us the best of both worlds (MAC OS XP) without additional hardware investment of buying PCs and MacBooks. In regards to apps and functionality there's very little difference between the two (putting the usability debate of the OS aside). I find the performance on the MAC (running Parallels) much more efficient than the PCs we tested. Running the dual platform gave us the ability to cross-browser/platform test our projects without additional machines. I also found that technical support for the MAC so much better than most of my experiences with PCs. And the learnability of the MAC was also very easy when compared to that of Vista. I've also found most of my contractors also using MACs. And rarely do I give documentation source files to my clients (I usually PDF everything). So compatibility isn't an issue. So we have now 7 MACS with XP and one token PC running VIsta (for dev testing purposes only). Right now we are looking at putting together our own MAC OS server to run our email etc internally. So far we've been fine. Charles Looking towards a 100% Microsoft free world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38871 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 17, 2009, at 11:35 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: If you're going to use software technology examples, considering we are still in early stages of that tech, we should acknowledge that most of the great interaction designers up until now haven't been designers at all. They've been engineers. It's going to be like that for some time. In Dan's list, more than half of those people were engineers first, and would probably call themselves engineers still, not designers. I would submit that they called themselves and what they were doing are different things. At the time they were working, there was no formal discipline of interaction design. Yes, many of them relied on good engineering to make what they did possible, and in some cases they had to build that themselves. But designers still do this all the time. I build prototypes in code and electronics, but I don't call myself a coder or electrical engineer. We shouldn't confuse title with role, or tools with purpose and methology and especially not in our early history. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Using qualifying questions to create a semi-walled garden?
Hi Anthony, Does Marketing think that a potential customer in Zip Code X doesn't know anyone in Zip Code Y? Sounds to me as though they are dead-set on preventing prospects from recommending products to one another. Of course they aren't, but that is one potentially significant effect of the pre-qualification they are proposing. Are they concerned that prospects might fall prey to the grass is always greener syndrome and not buy A because B looks cooler and they can't have it? Sounds like an opportunity to ask Cooper Design's critique question, Why is that great? (or whatever their question was along those lines) Peace, Doug Anderson Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN Opinions expressed are necessarily mine, not necessarily those of the Mayo Foundation. Original message: Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:43:14 -0800 From: Anthony Hempell ahemp...@telus.net Subject: Using qualifying questions to create a semi-walled garden? To: Forum Interaction Design Ixda disc...@ixda.org Working on a marketing site for a consumer electronics service. Some customers can get product A; some can get product B; some can get both (due to geographic and technical limitations). There is no clear-cut single qualifying question, but probably 95% accuracy by postal code (zip code). Marketing is pushing for a qualifying question up front that will determine which product you are shown (i.e, you will not be shown the other product). We are pushing for an open site that will promote both products, and give the users the ability to choose, and do qualifying as the first step in ordering. The qualifying info may or may not be able to be stored in a persistent cookie; so the UX might be really awful if you come back and the site keeps asking you where you're from (plus other possible questions). Besides the argument of user control over system control, can you think of any other angles to try and sell this to the marketing folks? I'm certain that it will adversely affect the sales of both products if users have to continuously qualify themselves during the research and decision process. They are quite fixated on performing as much pre-qual up front. thanks Anthony Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
This is an interesting exercise. I think that moving forward we should actually look at those people who have either moved their conscious understanding of what they do to interaction design, or who currently understand what they do as interaction design. Why do I say this. I might have invented in the past the most amazing interactive systems. BUT did they really practice interaction design, understand the success of that system as good interaction design? Maybe? maybe not? Can they now articulate using interaction design language what it was that made it successful in terms of interaction design? To me this is important. When Eames and Rand talk about their design, they talk about it as designers and understand the language of design around what they are doing. Maybe Verplank, Moggridge, Tog, and some others fit this bit, but many of the engineers that were mentioned, I doubt they do and I would suggest that we do need to understand the difference between engineering interactive systems and designing interactions. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Folk, Recently, a group of leaders from various US design organizations came together to discuss the question of a US National design policy. This summit meeting resulted in 10 design policy recommendations, which can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/policy-proposals.html (The full report on the summit meeting can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/summit-report.html) After the summit meeting, the leaders of this initiative contacted IxDA to ask for our participation and endorsement. In turn, the Board has asked me to reach out to you--the community--to help us decide how (or if) IxDA should participate. The Board finds much to support in the 10 policy initiatives. In particular, the spirit of optimistic patriotism is welcome, and we certainly support the efforts of those who are motivated by that spirit. That said, the 10 policy proposals include some items that the Board strongly disagreed with as well. The Board finds itself similarly split on whether or not the very idea of design organizations partnering with government is a good idea. What do you think? Should IxDA get involved? Are there specific initiatives that YOU would like to support by working alongside your IxDA peers? Are there alternative ways you would like to see IxDA proceed? For quick reference, here are the the 10 recommendations: 1. Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government. 2. Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications. 3. Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings. 4. Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design. 5. Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles. 6. Commission a report to measure and document designs contribution to the U.S. economy. 7. Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation. 8. Establish national grants for basic design research. 9. Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers. 10. Encourage direct government investment in design innovation. What do you think? How do you see IxDA's role relating to this? Thanks, Josh Seiden Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
BTW- I haven't seen Joy Mountford or any other women mentioned... and I know there were a couple of other ladies in the 'ol-skool PARC and Apple UI teams. We've got lots of men and Americans, women? Intl? n On Feb 18, 2009, at 7:22 AM, Dan Saffer wrote: On Feb 18, 2009, at 1:39 AM, Ferran Alvarez wrote: Do we already need a 'hall of fame'? Do we really need a 'hall of fame'? Yes and yes. We should recognize and understand the history of our field and celebrate those who created the interaction design paradigms like cut and paste that all of us use. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD blog aggregator site - are you interested in contributing?
The reason I voted waste of time is not hap-hazzard. It is based in my experience. I got way too much redundancy between my own feed agregation and by having feed aggregators out there. I get this still here and there, but often now I use the redundancy as a sorta ad hoc digg effect. But with planet systems, the redundancy was just way too annoying. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38802 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] UIs for Image Comparison
I'm looking for examples of applications that support the task of comparing images, specifically multiple perspectives of the same object. For example simultaneously comparing before and after photos, or looking at an object from different angles at the same time. I am particularly interested in examples where the user can apply a tool or effect to multiple images simultaneously. Thanks in advance. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 8:05 AM, Nina Eleanor Alter wrote: BTW- I haven't seen Joy Mountford or any other women mentioned... and I know there were a couple of other ladies in the 'ol-skool PARC and Apple UI teams. We've got lots of men and Americans, women? Intl? When I made my list, this was the first thing I thought of too, and Joy Mountford was one woman I considered. I wish I knew more about her contributions (paging Interaction10!). Due to the circumstances surrounding the creation of digital products, much of them were made in the US by men. At least from 1940-1995. (My list stops at about 1995.) Shigeru Miyamoto, designer of many seminal video games, is Japanese. I'd love to fill out the list with more women and non-US contributors. My guess is, however, is that most of those are post-1995, although I'd love to be proven wrong. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
Hi all, I am a UI designer for a start up company and I'm conducting a usability test for our web product for the first time. I've read a few books including handbook of usability testing and a practical guide to usability testing, and I've read a ton of resources online. The product we are testing is a web widget which is going to be integrated in other websites (blogs, portals, etc.). We have a working prototype where we have embedded the widget in a fully functional mocked-up website. We are interested in testing two things: 1- Whether or not people will notice our widget at all and will interact with it 2- Knowing what the widget is, how easily can they use the features the widget offers The success of the product largely depends on the first point. The problem is that its almost impossible to write tasks for that. So I have designed the test to have 2 parts: in the first part, I want to give the user about 10 minutes to free-roam the website, and think-out-loud, to see how long it would take for them to notice the widget. I also want to observe how long it will take for them to interact with the feature, and see if they understand (and use) the features of the widget on their own. In part 2, I will give them particular tasks related to features of the widget and see how well they can interact with the UI (if they haven't figured out by now what the widget is, I will tell them) The only issue is, they might have already done some of the tasks in part 2 when they were free-roaming in part 1, and I'm not sure how to handle that. So, for the usability experts here, do you think this is a good approach? I would definitely appreciate your advice and comments. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
Two years ago, I was in a similar position as Eirik. I started my career in web development than transitioned to consumer electronic GUIs. I never had any formal design degree other than learning through books and applying it as I go. However, one thing I realized is that I didn't possess the proper design foundation and critical perspectives you need in design. Thus, I began my search for design programs. As a Human Computer Interaction Design graduate student at Indiana University, I can give you an overview on how our program is structured. In the first year, students spend a lot of studio time in teams on various design projects while learning the foundations of design - Interaction Design, Experience Design. As David mentioned students can take design electives in other schools. For example, some of my colleagues are taking design electives ranging from typography in fine arts to building physical games and interactive media in telecommunications. Which shows the true strength of the program - interdisciplinary. In the second year, students critically reflect from their studio experiences in the first year and work on their thesis projects, while incorporating design theory and interaction culture courses. One piece of advice I can give that helped me during my search in a masters program is to find a program that cultivates your design skills to your specific goals. Do you want to focus on product design, experience design, service design, or a combination of the two? Initially this was difficult for me to figure out at first, but after these answers emerged, it helped me tremendously with my design judgment and improvisation skills. Also since I had my fair share of development, I didn't search for traditional HCI programs that were CS focused. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38841 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Long / Large forms
Hi Chris, I think it's pretty common to use the Wizard pattern (HTMLhttp://quince.infragistics.com/Patterns/Wizard.html /Quince http://quince.infragistics.com/#/Main/ViewPattern$pattern=Wizard) for these. TurboTax is a long-standing example in that space from what I've seen, though doubtless there are plenty of others. If folks have more examples, please consider adding them. ;) -ambrose Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
Hello, I work on similar usability labs and my task lists always start with some exploratory tasks. Even if they may do some of the widget related tasks during that period, I would still ask the specific tasks associated with the goals of the widget. Hope that helps and good luck! Kaden On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:21 AM, pendar legof...@legofish.com wrote: Hi all, I am a UI designer for a start up company and I'm conducting a usability test for our web product for the first time. I've read a few books including handbook of usability testing and a practical guide to usability testing, and I've read a ton of resources online. The product we are testing is a web widget which is going to be integrated in other websites (blogs, portals, etc.). We have a working prototype where we have embedded the widget in a fully functional mocked-up website. We are interested in testing two things: 1- Whether or not people will notice our widget at all and will interact with it 2- Knowing what the widget is, how easily can they use the features the widget offers The success of the product largely depends on the first point. The problem is that its almost impossible to write tasks for that. So I have designed the test to have 2 parts: in the first part, I want to give the user about 10 minutes to free-roam the website, and think-out-loud, to see how long it would take for them to notice the widget. I also want to observe how long it will take for them to interact with the feature, and see if they understand (and use) the features of the widget on their own. In part 2, I will give them particular tasks related to features of the widget and see how well they can interact with the UI (if they haven't figured out by now what the widget is, I will tell them) The only issue is, they might have already done some of the tasks in part 2 when they were free-roaming in part 1, and I'm not sure how to handle that. So, for the usability experts here, do you think this is a good approach? I would definitely appreciate your advice and comments. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UIs for Image Comparison
Rob, You might want to take a look at Adobe Lightroom 2.0, it has functionality similar to what you describe. On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:20:15, Rob Tannen rtan...@bresslergroup.com wrote: I'm looking for examples of applications that support the task of comparing images, specifically multiple perspectives of the same object. For example simultaneously comparing before and after photos, or looking at an object from different angles at the same time. I am particularly interested in examples where the user can apply a tool or effect to multiple images simultaneously. Thanks in advance. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- -- Maxim Soloviev Director of Product Development www.nakea.net Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
or Muriel Cooper. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Nina Eleanor Alter ninav...@bigwheel.netwrote: BTW- I haven't seen Joy Mountford or any other women mentioned... and I know there were a couple of other ladies in the 'ol-skool PARC and Apple UI teams. We've got lots of men and Americans, women? Intl? n On Feb 18, 2009, at 7:22 AM, Dan Saffer wrote: On Feb 18, 2009, at 1:39 AM, Ferran Alvarez wrote: Do we already need a 'hall of fame'? Do we really need a 'hall of fame'? Yes and yes. We should recognize and understand the history of our field and celebrate those who created the interaction design paradigms like cut and paste that all of us use. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 7:58 AM, dave malouf wrote: ... many of the engineers that were mentioned, I doubt they do and I would suggest that we do need to understand the difference between engineering interactive systems and designing interactions. I recently read Mitch Kapor's Software Design Manifesto and was struck by his inability to bridge or describe the very gap you describe. He simply couldn't articulate it as clearly as we can today. (I blogged about it at graphpaper.com, naturally: http://tr.im/fsgt) Twenty-five years ago, the ideas of interaction design and software engineering had not yet become distinct -- much in the same way that, say, in the year 1660 physics, chemistry, alchemy, religion, and philosophy had not yet separated into distinct disciplines, either. Newton called his profession natural philosophy, Kapor called his software design. The difference you describe exists today, but it didn't exist ten or twenty years ago. We can hardly blame folks in the 1980's and earlier for blurring engineering and user experience design, as they were doing both. Thomas Edison thought a lot about user experience when he was engineering the fountain pen and the stock ticker, but obviously he was focused on the engineering. Even the people who created all those classic Atari 2600 computer games -- the gameplay, the graphics, the sounds -- were almost without exception engineers... yet it's hard to argue today that their primary contribution to the universe was in engineering. -Cf Christopher Fahey Behavior biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com me: http://www.graphpaper.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
I'm in the 'absolutely not' column. The proposal is too airy-fairy
impractical with overtly political items ('carbon neutral', for
example) thrown in.
The United States is dealing with huge problems that would not have
been helped by 'design thinking'. And the last thing we need is
more levels of bureaucracy with random cabinet level positions.
#6 alone would cost millions in taxpayer dollars--and to what end?
The only item in the list worth supporting is #2, as I think we've
all been faced with impenetrable government forms that appeared to
have been written by an English-Jibberish-English retranslator.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Josh, I think this is a matter of not whether but how and to what extent. I had been thinking about something like this for Obama's Citizen's Briefing Book, but that is over and this is better anyway. I'm curious about which items on the list were disagreed with. The problem I see with the list is that it pays attention to several causes celebres (not that they're invalid) over some of the deeper, non-glamorous issues. But as designers we should be used to that starting point. :) As to being tied to a government, I agree there are many issues to think through, especially for international organizations. However, there is much to learn from groups that have been in similar quandaries, for example, faith-based groups over the past decade or so. We know we have certain ideals and aims that we do not want to compromise, but I believe there is a way to walk the path of both and not either/or. My vote is to proceed and be wise about it as we go along. Phillip p.s. I did not get to meet you at the conference, but I enjoyed hearing you on Jared's panel and had a great workshop with Liya and Jeanine. Sounds like your team really enjoys their work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 8:53 AM, Christopher Fahey wrote: Twenty-five years ago, the ideas of interaction design and software engineering had not yet become distinct -- much in the same way that, say, in the year 1660 physics, chemistry, alchemy, religion, and philosophy had not yet separated into distinct disciplines, either. Newton called his profession natural philosophy, Kapor called his software design. The difference you describe exists today, but it didn't exist ten or twenty years ago. We can hardly blame folks in the 1980's and earlier for blurring engineering and user experience design, as they were doing both. Thomas Edison thought a lot about user experience when he was engineering the fountain pen and the stock ticker, but obviously he was focused on the engineering. Even the people who created all those classic Atari 2600 computer games -- the gameplay, the graphics, the sounds -- were almost without exception engineers... yet it's hard to argue today that their primary contribution to the universe was in engineering. You nailed it here. The same thing happened in the early 1990s with the web as well. Web designers were often (and still remain) their own coders. We can see the same thing happening now with interactive gestures. In fact, I think we can extrapolate a maxim that while a platform or medium is unstable or emerging, the more mixed the disciplines will have to be to deal with it and design for it. Dan Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
KEEP GOVERNMENTS OUT OF OUR CREATIVE SPACE!!! I'm a definate NO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
This effort frustrates me. I really appreciate and applaud the effort that went into it. But items 2 and 3, while admirable, really have no business being on this list. They are not only political agendas but are highly charged and likely to sink the entire effort. These two items need, and are worthy of, their own platforms and there own initiatives. And while designers can and should lead such efforts, these are not inherent issue regarding design. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Josh Seiden joshsei...@gmail.com wrote: Folk, Recently, a group of leaders from various US design organizations came together to discuss the question of a US National design policy. This summit meeting resulted in 10 design policy recommendations, which can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/policy-proposals.html (The full report on the summit meeting can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/summit-report.html) After the summit meeting, the leaders of this initiative contacted IxDA to ask for our participation and endorsement. In turn, the Board has asked me to reach out to you--the community--to help us decide how (or if) IxDA should participate. The Board finds much to support in the 10 policy initiatives. In particular, the spirit of optimistic patriotism is welcome, and we certainly support the efforts of those who are motivated by that spirit. That said, the 10 policy proposals include some items that the Board strongly disagreed with as well. The Board finds itself similarly split on whether or not the very idea of design organizations partnering with government is a good idea. What do you think? Should IxDA get involved? Are there specific initiatives that YOU would like to support by working alongside your IxDA peers? Are there alternative ways you would like to see IxDA proceed? For quick reference, here are the the 10 recommendations: 1. Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government. 2. Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications. 3. Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings. 4. Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design. 5. Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles. 6. Commission a report to measure and document design's contribution to the U.S. economy. 7. Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation. 8. Establish national grants for basic design research. 9. Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers. 10. Encourage direct government investment in design innovation. What do you think? How do you see IxDA's role relating to this? Thanks, Josh Seiden Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
I would urge you to not focus so much on the 'time' element unless they take excessive time to notice or do things. You're more interested in their interpretation and actions based on the 'think-aloud' method, and you need to focus on this more than time along IMO. Allowing users time to explore is good. This is a compromise though. If you subsequently give them a task, they will be more familiar with the interface and will be looking at it with a more analytical eye than a regular user. Therefore they may more easily discover a feature because they had more time to fully explore it than in an operation scenario. Your approach however looks good and sensible. Good luck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38904 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] A business case for switching Mac
Our creative team likewise live in a Mac world, in a company dominated by PCs. The IAs have VMware to switch back forth and use Visio. Comparing VMware to Parallels, one of our top IAs reports preferring Parallels because it feels more like you're running a Windows app in an OS X environment, so the switch is less jarring. Personally, I move back and forth between separate Windows Mac environments, and prefer Mac for most things, but I don't think an either-or world is necessary. And a few years ago when I did network administration in a Mac + Windows + Unix environment, I did find Macs much easier to network and support than Windows. bests, Alex O'Neal UX manager -- The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now. Patrick wrote: I recently worked for a company that was totally committed to the PC world, and the ENTIRE UX team were Macheads. Personally, I live in both worlds, and I don't see as much of a difference between Visio and Omnigraffle, and actually have work for clients stored in both formats (I run Parallels). I prefer to do work on the Mac, but it's not as much as a dealbreaker for me to work in Visio. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
I have said this before - on their blog site, in conversations with DaveM, other places. I think they are misguided bordering on clueless. It's one thing to bring together a cabal of policy wonks, academics, and bureaucrats to create a national design policy; it's another act of hubris to not even ask for our input before they draft the darn thing and only after we complain rather loudly about not being included in the discussion or formulation, to seemingly act like they want our support or rubber stamp which they will not get. Most annoying is that the 1 policy decision/direction they could actually take/recommend that would have a noticeable impact on design in the US is to recommend the re-funding of art and design in all public elementary schools across the country - short of that it's thoroughly useless and some of their recommendations are about as effective as pissing in the wind. That's my 2 cents. ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com http://blog.semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill On Feb 18, 2009, at 12:15 PM, mark schraad wrote: This effort frustrates me. I really appreciate and applaud the effort that went into it. But items 2 and 3, while admirable, really have no business being on this list. They are not only political agendas but are highly charged and likely to sink the entire effort. These two items need, and are worthy of, their own platforms and there own initiatives. And while designers can and should lead such efforts, these are not inherent issue regarding design. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Josh Seiden joshsei...@gmail.com wrote: Folk, Recently, a group of leaders from various US design organizations came together to discuss the question of a US National design policy. This summit meeting resulted in 10 design policy recommendations, which can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/policy-proposals.html (The full report on the summit meeting can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/summit-report.html) After the summit meeting, the leaders of this initiative contacted IxDA to ask for our participation and endorsement. In turn, the Board has asked me to reach out to you--the community--to help us decide how (or if) IxDA should participate. The Board finds much to support in the 10 policy initiatives. In particular, the spirit of optimistic patriotism is welcome, and we certainly support the efforts of those who are motivated by that spirit. That said, the 10 policy proposals include some items that the Board strongly disagreed with as well. The Board finds itself similarly split on whether or not the very idea of design organizations partnering with government is a good idea. What do you think? Should IxDA get involved? Are there specific initiatives that YOU would like to support by working alongside your IxDA peers? Are there alternative ways you would like to see IxDA proceed? For quick reference, here are the the 10 recommendations: 1. Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government. 2. Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications. 3. Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings. 4. Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design. 5. Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles. 6. Commission a report to measure and document design's contribution to the U.S. economy. 7. Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation. 8. Establish national grants for basic design research. 9. Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers. 10. Encourage direct government investment in design innovation. What do you think? How do you see IxDA's role relating to this? Thanks, Josh Seiden Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
Hi Pendar, I've read a few books including handbook of usability testing and a practical guide to usability testing, and I've read a ton of resources online. I am so psyched that you've read Handbook of Usability Testing. I hope it was the second edition. I was one of the authors. (Oh gawd, I hope I give you good advice.) We are interested in testing two things: 1- Whether or not people will notice our widget at all and will interact with it 2- Knowing what the widget is, how easily can they use the features the widget offers These are great questions. Setting up an exploratory test is exactly what I would do. So I have designed the test to have 2 parts: in the first part, I want to give the user about 10 minutes to free-roam the website, and think-out-loud, to see how long it would take for them to notice the widget. I also want to observe how long it will take for them to interact with the feature, and see if they understand (and use) the features of the widget on their own. In part 2, I will give them particular tasks related to features of the widget and see how well they can interact with the UI (if they haven't figured out by now what the widget is, I will tell them) The only issue is, they might have already done some of the tasks in part 2 when they were free-roaming in part 1, and I'm not sure how to handle that. So, for the usability experts here, do you think this is a good approach? I would definitely appreciate your advice and comments. If your participants do the tasks that you have in mind for part 2 in part 1 without your prompting them, I'd say your site and widget are really successful. Don't try to force-fit the test. Go with the flow. If that happens, you're still finding out what you want to know, which I think are these hidden questions (tell me if I'm wrong): Is the idea of the widget useful? Is it in the right place to be found? Do people understand what it is when they see it? Is the call to action of the widget strong enough that people click through? I hope you've recruited participants who are motivated to do what you want to observe -- that is, they've demonstrated somehow that they've done something before that is related to what you're exploring in this test, or they've volunteered a desire for the feature that the widget offers. Although you're talking about how long it takes, I would think twice about actually timing people for this test. Time won't tell you a lot at this point. Might be better to track what participants click on their way to interacting with the widget. That data can help you think about where to position the widget or entry points to it. Also, if you're asking people to think aloud, talking will slow them down (not necessarily a bad thing). I've written about this in the blog that accompanies Handbook of Usability Testing, here: http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-to-ask-participants-to-think-out.html Hope this helps. Let us know how it turns out. Dana :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: Dana Chisnell ~ Be good. UsabilityWorks. desk: 415.392.0776 mobile: 415.519.1148 dana AT usabilityworks DOT net www.usabilityworks.net http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
You've got the right approach. After the open ended part of the session, you'll know whether the widget stands out enough to be noticed on it's own merit. Then stop and ask whether the test participant ever does 'x' where x is the thing that the new widget does. 'x' is not the widget name, only the essence of what it does... After you establish whether 'x' is interesting, then ask them now to do 'x'. If they still cannot find it, that's a problem. After that even if you have them repeat things that the widget does, it's often good to see if they use it as designed and understand it or if they just got lucky on the first try. Best of luck, Ron Ron Perkins, Principal DesignPerspectives.com Usability and Interaction Design Consulting -Original Message- From: krushford [mailto:krushf...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 11:50 AM To: pendar Cc: disc...@ixda.org Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge Hello, I work on similar usability labs and my task lists always start with some exploratory tasks. Even if they may do some of the widget related tasks during that period, I would still ask the specific tasks associated with the goals of the widget. Hope that helps and good luck! Kaden On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:21 AM, pendar legof...@legofish.com wrote: Hi all, I am a UI designer for a start up company and I'm conducting a usability test for our web product for the first time. I've read a few books including handbook of usability testing and a practical guide to usability testing, and I've read a ton of resources online. The product we are testing is a web widget which is going to be integrated in other websites (blogs, portals, etc.). We have a working prototype where we have embedded the widget in a fully functional mocked-up website. We are interested in testing two things: 1- Whether or not people will notice our widget at all and will interact with it 2- Knowing what the widget is, how easily can they use the features the widget offers The success of the product largely depends on the first point. The problem is that its almost impossible to write tasks for that. So I have designed the test to have 2 parts: in the first part, I want to give the user about 10 minutes to free-roam the website, and think-out-loud, to see how long it would take for them to notice the widget. I also want to observe how long it will take for them to interact with the feature, and see if they understand (and use) the features of the widget on their own. In part 2, I will give them particular tasks related to features of the widget and see how well they can interact with the UI (if they haven't figured out by now what the widget is, I will tell them) The only issue is, they might have already done some of the tasks in part 2 when they were free-roaming in part 1, and I'm not sure how to handle that. So, for the usability experts here, do you think this is a good approach? I would definitely appreciate your advice and comments. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.552 / Virus Database: 270.10.25/1957 - Release Date: 2/17/2009 7:07 AM Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preparing a presentation on Fireworks
And for those that couldn't make it live, here's the archived presentation: http://experts.na3.acrobat.com/p13197444/ It definitely is a bit rambling and almost entirely lacking in bullet points, like a proper Tufte acolyte :) but I'd definitely love any questions or feedback, since the audience skewed (understandably) towards technical questions about Fireworks more than it did about overall UX issues. Al Abut -- interaction designer, crimefighter http://alabut.com http://twitter.com/alabut -- . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38092 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
I particularly like 8, 9, 10 but I feel that overall, the list is a bit lofty. Even if we gave the rubber stamp they want, what would that mean in a practical sense for IxDA members? Probably not much. Also, how would we reconcile such ties to the US government when we're supposed to be an international association? -Angel Anderson On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 9:42 AM, Will Evans wkeva...@gmail.com wrote: I have said this before - on their blog site, in conversations with DaveM, other places. I think they are misguided bordering on clueless. It's one thing to bring together a cabal of policy wonks, academics, and bureaucrats to create a national design policy; it's another act of hubris to not even ask for our input before they draft the darn thing and only after we complain rather loudly about not being included in the discussion or formulation, to seemingly act like they want our support or rubber stamp which they will not get. Most annoying is that the 1 policy decision/direction they could actually take/recommend that would have a noticeable impact on design in the US is to recommend the re-funding of art and design in all public elementary schools across the country - short of that it's thoroughly useless and some of their recommendations are about as effective as pissing in the wind. That's my 2 cents. ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com http://blog.semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill On Feb 18, 2009, at 12:15 PM, mark schraad wrote: This effort frustrates me. I really appreciate and applaud the effort that went into it. But items 2 and 3, while admirable, really have no business being on this list. They are not only political agendas but are highly charged and likely to sink the entire effort. These two items need, and are worthy of, their own platforms and there own initiatives. And while designers can and should lead such efforts, these are not inherent issue regarding design. On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:08 AM, Josh Seiden joshsei...@gmail.com wrote: Folk, Recently, a group of leaders from various US design organizations came together to discuss the question of a US National design policy. This summit meeting resulted in 10 design policy recommendations, which can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/policy-proposals.html (The full report on the summit meeting can be found here: http://www.designpolicy.org/usdp/summit-report.html) After the summit meeting, the leaders of this initiative contacted IxDA to ask for our participation and endorsement. In turn, the Board has asked me to reach out to you--the community--to help us decide how (or if) IxDA should participate. The Board finds much to support in the 10 policy initiatives. In particular, the spirit of optimistic patriotism is welcome, and we certainly support the efforts of those who are motivated by that spirit. That said, the 10 policy proposals include some items that the Board strongly disagreed with as well. The Board finds itself similarly split on whether or not the very idea of design organizations partnering with government is a good idea. What do you think? Should IxDA get involved? Are there specific initiatives that YOU would like to support by working alongside your IxDA peers? Are there alternative ways you would like to see IxDA proceed? For quick reference, here are the the 10 recommendations: 1. Formalize an American Design Council to partner with the U.S. Government. 2. Set guidelines for legibility, literacy, and accessibility for all government communications. 3. Target 2030 for carbon neutral buildings. 4. Create an Assistant Secretary for Design and Innovation position within the Department of Commerce to promote design. 5. Expand national grants to support interdisciplinary community design assistance programs based on human-centered design principles. 6. Commission a report to measure and document design's contribution to the U.S. economy. 7. Revive the Presidential Design Awards to be held every year and use triple bottom-line criteria (economic, social, and environmental benefit) for evaluation. 8. Establish national grants for basic design research. 9. Modify the patent process to reflect the types of intellectual property created by designers. 10. Encourage direct government investment in design innovation. What do you think? How do you see IxDA's role relating to this? Thanks, Josh Seiden Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ...
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 8:53 AM, Christopher Fahey wrote: The difference you describe exists today, but it didn't exist ten or twenty years ago. We can hardly blame folks in the 1980's and earlier for blurring engineering and user experience design, as they were doing both. Thomas Edison thought a lot about user experience when he was engineering the fountain pen and the stock ticker, but obviously he was focused on the engineering. Even the people who created all those classic Atari 2600 computer games -- the gameplay, the graphics, the sounds -- were almost without exception engineers... yet it's hard to argue today that their primary contribution to the universe was in engineering. To be clear, I wasn't looking for blame in this sense. Further, I think you're taking it a bit too far and making the same mistake that plagued the user experience crowd in the late 90s and early 00s. The it's all user experience, even if they didn't know it! Not really. You're treaded a slippery slope with this line of thinking imho. However, I just wanted to note that if people are looking for examples of people in the past, I wanted to make sure they were looking in the right spots. Guys like Paul Brainerd and his team have done far more in this regard than many of the people on Dan's list, and in my opinion, can be credited for being the first to truly modernize the concept of interacting with computers through a graphical interface, taking what the original Macintosh team did at the OS and simple software level and evolving it to the next stage. I just wanted to make sure folks were looking for the right people, which in the past context means they are almost always looking for engineers. And as for documenting many of the core concepts in software and interface design that are still 100% relevant to day as they were in 1982, Paul Heckel is still your guy. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
I agree with you Chris and Dan, whole-heartily. I was trying to bring structure and purpose to the exercise, b/c it seemed to me that almost anyone from Dyson to Ford who thought about any aspect of human needs and motivations in their designs (of success) could be put in this category of IxD Greats and in my mind that means it looses value to me. Let me explain a bit more. I can look at what Ford did in terms of designing cars as amazing (not the most beautiful, but from an IxD perspective revolutionary). It may inspire me in my own design. I can do the same with Edison, Bell, Marconi, Fulton, etc. I can even be inspired by the humaness of Wright and the abstraction of Gehry. Their genius is totally impressive, and all of them have affected the world I design in as an interaction designer, but I don't think in all integrity I can really add them to an Interaction Design Hall of Fame like the one being posited. The list itself becomes so huge that it starts to loose bounding and meaning b/c we start saying, well if soso is in, then why not this person? and so on and so on. Galileo is on the genius chain that leads to the atomic bomb, but I wouldn't call him an atomic physicist. I really think it a stretch to consider Edison an interaction designer in the same regard, or if Edison is, so is DaVinci and so is the guy who invented controlled fire, and the wheel, too. you've just made the term interaction designer, totally meaningless. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Designer inbreeding?
On Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:16:03, Eirik Midttun emidt...@gmail.com wrote: I'll just introduce my own background so you know where I stand: I have a Master's Degree in Networks and Telecommunications which mixes CS and EE. I started my career in embedded development, and I now do GUI design and Project Management. I do self-studies on Interaction Design and try to implement the practices in my project. I have also had thoughts about taking it a bit further, meaning going back to uni. The most interesting for my would be a 2-year Master, or maybe PhD work. However, they are mostly offered by ID departments and admission is pretty much designed for ID grads. If you're an engineer you typically don't have a portefolio. The CS programmes isn't much better, but entry seems easier. For me it is less interesting since most of it will be repetition of things I know, or can figure out on my own. Point is, I don't think this internal recruiting in universities is doing any help to the development of the IxD discipline. Shouldn't these traditional disciplines join forces to shape the younger IxD? Isn't cross-breeding a better strategy? Or am I missing out on something? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Sent from my mobile device Ripul Kumar Director, Usability Services Kern Communications Pvt. Ltd. http://www.kern-comm.com Tel 040 55196854 Mob 9885004854 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Again - I think the importance here is 'intentionality' - Galileo could not possibly think of himself or his work as interaction design but if I ripped open my time machine and presented Englebart with IxD as I understand it, he would jump on board, until he jumped off it again because his real intention was actually augmenting human memory and thinking and had nothing to do with designing behaviors or 15 other definitions of IxD that would be thrown at him. With the term IxD only/less than 7-10 years old - does that mean there are no greats of IxD yet - since it will take another 20 years for it to sink in? ~ will Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems Will Evans | User Experience Architect tel: +1.617.281.1281 | w...@semanticfoundry.com http://blog.semanticfoundry.com aim: semanticwill gtalk: semanticwill twitter: semanticwill On Feb 18, 2009, at 10:40 AM, dave malouf wrote: I agree with you Chris and Dan, whole-heartily. I was trying to bring structure and purpose to the exercise, b/c it seemed to me that almost anyone from Dyson to Ford who thought about any aspect of human needs and motivations in their designs (of success) could be put in this category of IxD Greats and in my mind that means it looses value to me. Let me explain a bit more. I can look at what Ford did in terms of designing cars as amazing (not the most beautiful, but from an IxD perspective revolutionary). It may inspire me in my own design. I can do the same with Edison, Bell, Marconi, Fulton, etc. I can even be inspired by the humaness of Wright and the abstraction of Gehry. Their genius is totally impressive, and all of them have affected the world I design in as an interaction designer, but I don't think in all integrity I can really add them to an Interaction Design Hall of Fame like the one being posited. The list itself becomes so huge that it starts to loose bounding and meaning b/c we start saying, well if soso is in, then why not this person? and so on and so on. Galileo is on the genius chain that leads to the atomic bomb, but I wouldn't call him an atomic physicist. I really think it a stretch to consider Edison an interaction designer in the same regard, or if Edison is, so is DaVinci and so is the guy who invented controlled fire, and the wheel, too. you've just made the term interaction designer, totally meaningless. -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
A few thoughts: 1) The total list is a draft and they are looking for feeback. Its a sketch being evaluated. I have problems w/ the after party invite as opposed to getting invited to the awards ceremony itself, but I can move on from that. 2) Government in any professional space. Whether a gov't is explicitly involved in a space or not it is involved. You are just kidding yourself to a certain degree. When it comes to design all I have to do is compare the US situation to those of Europe and Asia where design has much more governmental support than the US puts into it (definitely per capita). Various country design councils do a great job of getting money for design education (formal and informal). But just look at what Korea has been able to do b/c of their unique government policies on design. It has single-handily given a huge advantage to Korean product companies b/c of the support they get for hiring and maintaining design leadership. Design jobs are going to go overseas in droves over the next decade. Getting gov't awareness to our issues will be helpful. As to the whole carbon neutral thing. I think like what a few of our keynotes at intearction09 preached, I think it is time to make a stand as a designer. You are what you CHOOSE to design. This bit is trying to put that face out front. So to put it short (too late) and sweet (you decide) I support IxDA figuring out SOME way to engage in what is going on with this project/initiative. -- dave -- dave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Lot's of wonderful discussion! To the IxDA's mission points of Evangelism and Education, should we work to create a Hall of Fame site touting the accomplishments of innovators in computer interaction design? We can learn from our history, and demonstrating the progressive advancement of the craft with innovation building on innovation lends credence to IxD as a profession. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 11:02 AM, mike myles wrote: To the IxDA's mission points of Evangelism and Education, should we work to create a Hall of Fame site touting the accomplishments of innovators in computer interaction design? Two things: 1. Hall of Fame is an awful way to think of it. The purpose of creating a list seems to be more about noting influencers and innovators, understanding what they did, what they contributed, what ideas they formulated that last to today, and making sure that knowledge is passed down. 2. Whenever I refer to interaction design being about computers and software, I get the third degree from way too many people on this list. I have no problem creating a list of influential people that should be studied for the purposes of learning and evolving the profession, but I thought that the two things that were verboten on this list was claiming or otherwise tying IxD as a digital technology based craft or that an interaction designer should be expected to know how to draw. -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Something I keep thinking about seeing all of these individual names is that as opposed to e.g., paintings that are easier to think of as being created by one person, so much of the work done by the names on these lists were really team/group efforts. Aren't we continuing to sell one of the the major myths of innovation (i.e. Scott Berkun's book) by focusing on individuals? For example, I love Alan Kay's work, but I always think of his contributions together with the environment at Xerox PARC and all of the others in the groups that he worked with. Same with Edison, and for most of these people mentioned. And I want to add Christopher Alexander to the list (if he hasn't already been mentioned). :-) Joel On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 2:02 PM, mike myles mmyles2...@yahoo.com wrote: Lot's of wonderful discussion! To the IxDA's mission points of Evangelism and Education, should we work to create a Hall of Fame site touting the accomplishments of innovators in computer interaction design? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
I agree with Philip for the most part, though I share Mark's split between frustration and appreciation. Although it's understandably a weird feeling to have government involvement in what has purely been a creative space, I also feel there's a lot of opportunity to do good here - There are a ton of government services that could benefit from proper application of design thinking, for the good of the country. As for being 'tied to the government', it doesn't seem like there will be Men in Black peeking over your shoulder every time you fire up Illustrator, at least from my reading :) It might be good to look at the way the UK Design Council operates and examine the role it plays and the effect it has on the design community there. While flawed at the moment, I think it's certainly an effort worth pursuing, with substantial input from the community. But that's the iterative design process, right? Point #6 worries me substantially, however; I feel like it would be a bit of a boondoggle at best, and a vehicle for manipulating the flow of grants or other financial benefits at worst. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
Thank you krush and pgreasby for the wonderful feedback. As a usability testing virgin I do appreciate the tips. Dana, it is a wonderful surprise to read your reply. Indeed I read the second edition and found the book very insightful, using some of its templates in conjunction with other to develop a test plan (still in progress). You are on the spot regarding the questions we are trying to address We still havent recruited the users, we're doing that this week. Our target user group is very broad (pretty much anyone who visits blogs/portals/etc.), so I am only making a distinction between light and power internet users. We're also going to test two versions of the prototype (A B). So my strategy is to use 12 testers, 6 light users and 6 power uers (nicely varied age group). And then within each group, have 3 users test version A and 3 users test version B. So at the end, we would have 6 users who have tested A and 6 who have tested version B. I will definitely take note of your advice about not worrying too much about tracking time. I chose that as a measure rather arbitrarily, mostly because I thought if most users don't notice it within 30-40 seconds, then in a real-life scenario people would have probably gone on to another page already and have totally missed the widget. Anyway, thanks again for your replies, they are extremely helpful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38904 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] ...and don't forget to laugh
While in pursuit of the simple, the clear, the intuitive, the new, I'd like to give whimsy, surprise, and um, the warm embrace of stupidity, their due. No matter the domain, – virtual or tangible, high tech or high touch, interfaces or environments, – innovative thinking is accompanied by the opportunity to twist toward one of four emotional outcomes: the aha! (scientific knowing), the ah! (aesthetic experience), the ha ha! (humorous relief) and the duh? (what I’ll call “blessed stupidity”). I’ve had the most success (and fun) when teams are willing to enjoy a cathartic laugh, to thumb their noses at entrenched beliefs, to risk sharing funny, stupid thoughts when looking at problems on the edge of what's known. I’ve posted some of these moments at http://zamchicktheblog.blogspot.com. Any other examples where great ideas were peeking out from behind one's that were just duh? Gary Gary Zamchick Zamchick Group, L.L.C. zamch...@gmail.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/zamchick http://zamchicktheblog.blogspot.com Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Managing test script branching
I'm looking for a good tool to manage a multi-branch moderator's guide for a usability study. There are a number of shared tasks but some ordering variation, and I'm trying to avoid updating the same task/probe multiple times. Any suggestions? -Scott Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 10:50 AM, dave malouf wrote: 1) The total list is a draft and they are looking for feeback. Its a sketch being evaluated. I have problems w/ the after party invite as opposed to getting invited to the awards ceremony itself, but I can move on from that. After party invite? Folks... IxD is not even a legit profession yet You're still arguing and debating what the design curriculum is! Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? 8^) 2) Government in any professional space. I think I'm in agreement with Dave on the larger point. Further, maybe I'm reading the proposal wrong, but none of the points brought up in it are about government interference in the design sector per se, and all about making sure the government itself follows good design practices and standard, recognizes it, supports it, and in doing so, legitimizes it in the general population. As Dave pointed out, just look to Europe or Asia to see how well it's worked out for them. (The answer: Far better than for us here in the U.S.) I'm not sure where some of the reactions on this list are coming with regard that these proposals are about dictating design in any fashion at the private sector level. How on earth can setting *standards* for legibility and readability for government documents *produced* by government workers be a bad thing? Are standards only for the W3C or the IEEE and not for anyone else? -- Andrei Herasimchuk Chief Design Officer, Involution Studios innovating the digital world e. and...@involutionstudios.com c. +1 408 306 6422 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Hi folks, I'm enjoying this thread very much, albeit dismayed at the lack of cited women too. (Anybody see Maren Costa's work at Amazon at DUX 2005?) Anyways, I wanted to let folks know that the IxDA Board is playing around with the idea of creating an IxD timeline that would allow IxDA members to add material to it, documenting the fantastic and rich history of our discipline. In my mind, it should have a place for recognizing people as well as projects/case studies. Jim Leftwich is leading this new initiative, and has been sourcing some online tools to make this concept come to life as a collaborative system for the whole IxDA network to contribute participate. Seems like something that will resonate with the community, all right! :) Which comment is in NO WAY intended to stifle this thread -- on the contrary, keep the dialog going and we'll all be able to use this thread as some great source material. Cheers, Liz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
Liz, The timeline concept sounds like a great one. It strikes me that people (teams individuals), projects, products and publications all work in concert to show the evolution of interaction design. A timeline could be an effective way to tie all those items together and enhance understanding of the interrelation between them. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38833 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Like Angel, I like 8, 9, and 10, and though I understand frustrations others have expressed, I agree with Dave and Andrei about the overall initiative. I therefore support engagement, focused on asserting our collective informed opinion, and attempting to moderate misguided or overly ambitious elements of it. Assuming that nothing can happen unless the first item happens, professional design organizations need to weigh in heavily on every aspect of the design of said Council. Perhaps through initial engagement, we might offer to submit a design for the organization and its relationships (structure, roles, responsibilities, authority)... a highly resolved vision representing insight from the international design community and governments who have similar initiatives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Managing test script branching
How many participants in the study? I just go the old fashion way. I print out 1 copy per participant and then reorganize the pages to control for presentation bias. I dislike taking notes on a laptop when I do a utest... feels too clinical. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38932 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] VMWare vs. Parallels (was Re: A business case for switching Mac
VMWare also doesn't slow down your OSX install the way Parallels does due to how the virtual machine is implemented. I regularly develop for linux and OSX, running linux under a VMWare partition with no hassles. When needed, I also run a xp pro instance under VMWare, and it's also quite peppy. Biggest drawback (imho) is wasting all the disk and core space on another operating system. Alexandra O'Neal wrote: Our creative team likewise live in a Mac world, in a company dominated by PCs. The IAs have VMware to switch back forth and use Visio. Comparing VMware to Parallels, one of our top IAs reports preferring Parallels because it feels more like you're running a Windows app in an OS X environment, so the switch is less jarring. Personally, I move back and forth between separate Windows Mac environments, and prefer Mac for most things, but I don't think an either-or world is necessary. And a few years ago when I did network administration in a Mac + Windows + Unix environment, I did find Macs much easier to network and support than Windows. bests, Alex O'Neal UX manager -- The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now. Patrick wrote: I recently worked for a company that was totally committed to the PC world, and the ENTIRE UX team were Macheads. Personally, I live in both worlds, and I don't see as much of a difference between Visio and Omnigraffle, and actually have work for clients stored in both formats (I run Parallels). I prefer to do work on the Mac, but it's not as much as a dealbreaker for me to work in Visio. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- J. Eric jet Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09 design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Certainly, it isn't perfect. However, I view it as a foot in the door. This is the only venture in this direction I know of that seems to have legs. I think it is worth getting behind, even if we don't agree with everything on it. Furthermore, let's pretend that it does have legs and actually happens. If IxDA isn't involved in it, where does that leave us in relation to the rest of the design community? Another point of reference is the work of Richard Buchanan and Tony Golsby-Smith with the Australian Tax Office, which started by looking at a redesign of the tax forms but ended up redesigning the entire tax system. Andrei said; Folks... IxD is not even a legit profession yet You're still arguing and debating what the design curriculum is! Let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? 8^) Okay, so IxDA is the new kid on the block as a professional organization. However, considering the success of the first conference (and the imminently successful second) and the extremely active international membership, not to mention the caliber of professionals in our membership, I think we deserve some street cred. Best, Jack Jack L. Moffett Interaction Designer inmedius 412.459.0310 x219 http://www.inmedius.com When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only of how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. - R. Buckminster Fuller Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
The IxDA should absolutely participate in and support the US National Design Policy. The current draft proposal is attempting to shine a light on the importance of Design and design in every day life. Why would IxDA not want to help shape a national design policy? If the group decides against participation, we will be permanently left out of the conversation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
From Jack Moffett snip Another point of reference is the work of Richard Buchanan and Tony Golsby-Smith with the Australian Tax Office, which started by looking at a redesign of the tax forms but ended up redesigning the entire tax system. Jack, could you give me some references to this work? Due to my fascination with forms in general and tax forms in particular, I'd love to find out more about this claim, which I'd not heard about previously despite a few contacts here and there with the Australian Taxation Office. I tried a bit of Googling for it and came across this rather modest claim on the 2nd Road web site (Tim Golsby-Smith's consulting firm). It talks about reporting structures in the ATO and says: Senior management meet to consider these strategic reports. Their meetings have become focused and efficient. And most of their key planning issues for the coming year have emerged directly from these reports. On an individual level, leaders feel empowered. The Deputy Commissioner quoted above is delighted that he can now review the reports over a sandwich in just fifteen minutes, and yet be fully equipped to participate in the discussion. While I'm greatly in favour of helping senior managers to feel empowered and review management reports more quickly, I don't quite see that as a 'redesign of the entire tax system'. So I'd be grateful for any pointers you can give me to the wider project. Best Caroline Jarrett Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] VMWare vs. Parallels (was Re: A business case for switching Mac
Parallels is great for running the Mac OS and a Windows OS simultaneously. Example, when chaining audio applications you can have a PC only app open and chained to a Mac app, with dual monitors this is great. Can this be done with VMWare? I was dual booting with Fedora on my mac but those fine people at the mac store put an end to that... On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 1:09 PM, j. eric townsend j...@flatline.net wrote: VMWare also doesn't slow down your OSX install the way Parallels does due to how the virtual machine is implemented. I regularly develop for linux and OSX, running linux under a VMWare partition with no hassles. When needed, I also run a xp pro instance under VMWare, and it's also quite peppy. Biggest drawback (imho) is wasting all the disk and core space on another operating system. Alexandra O'Neal wrote: Our creative team likewise live in a Mac world, in a company dominated by PCs. The IAs have VMware to switch back forth and use Visio. Comparing VMware to Parallels, one of our top IAs reports preferring Parallels because it feels more like you're running a Windows app in an OS X environment, so the switch is less jarring. Personally, I move back and forth between separate Windows Mac environments, and prefer Mac for most things, but I don't think an either-or world is necessary. And a few years ago when I did network administration in a Mac + Windows + Unix environment, I did find Macs much easier to network and support than Windows. bests, Alex O'Neal UX manager -- The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is now. Patrick wrote: I recently worked for a company that was totally committed to the PC world, and the ENTIRE UX team were Macheads. Personally, I live in both worlds, and I don't see as much of a difference between Visio and Omnigraffle, and actually have work for clients stored in both formats (I run Parallels). I prefer to do work on the Mac, but it's not as much as a dealbreaker for me to work in Visio. Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- J. Eric jet Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09 design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] IxD Greats?
That is like me saying their should be more mexican people on the list. I wouldn't say that. Which brings me this mental model book I am reading where the author is a woman. All of her second person references are 'she'. After reading enough to draw a conclusion I'm not sure me and 'her' are feeling the same when we stroll through a grocery store or go to see a movie. Although she does pin the possible traits of the women I've known in my day it seems like she is designing for women only. How do you people address the gender difference during your user research? Seems like a woman observing a man and a man observing a woman would have completely different takes on their findings. How is this planned for, is their a name for it? Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Using qualifying questions to create a semi-walled garden?
Thanks all for your comments on this, it's been a busy few days and the IxDA list does not like my webmail app, so haven't been able to respond. Does anyone know of actual hard data as to how much dropoff extra steps/questions cause within a purchasing flow? Although this is not a strict e-commerce flow, I'm thinking that they are going to shrink their initial pool of customers looking at these products by something approaching 10-20% by having this extra page. I've tried Googling this kind of data but no luck so far. thanks Anthony On 17-Feb-09, at 7:42 AM, Adrian Howard wrote: Marketing is pushing for a qualifying question up front that will determine which product you are shown (i.e, you will not be shown the other product). Why? Do they have reasons why they prefer that method? Is, for example, having users of product A being aware of product B a bad thing? Have they found it an effective sales technique? Something else? Essentially it comes down to: Product A is more profitable, so they want to promote that; Some users are not eligible for either product (and some can't get both) due to technical and/or geographic limitations and they would prefer to not create unmet expectations by promoting a product that the user may not be eligible for (this seems to weigh very heavily on their value scale). We are pushing for an open site that will promote both products, and give the users the ability to choose, and do qualifying as the first step in ordering. Are you going to get some users being annoyed by only discovering they can get A when they had their heart set on B when they get to ordering? This is a possibility, and the one Marketing seems the most concerned about. The qualifying info may or may not be able to be stored in a persistent cookie; so the UX might be really awful if you come back and the site keeps asking you where you're from (plus other possible questions). If you're forcing the user to make the same decision multiple times that's going to be bad. Whether that decision is a pre-qualification question - or figuring out whether product A or B applies to them. the current solution being proposed by Marketing is that the index page to this whole product section -- imagine hiding a whole product vertical behind a qualifying interstitial -- will have both the qualifying questions AND a button that says I just want to look around or something to that effect. This button would then take them to the kind of experience that I am proposing. The size of this button and it's placement is my next battle -- IMO this button should take up 98% of the screen (j/k). While I suppose not as bad as having the whole thing as a walled garden, this means that users will have to go through this extra step, PLUS we will have to do the development work to create both the walled and non-walled experiences. I've also confirmed that we are not able to store this data on a cookie -- the user will have to go through this step each time they come back to the site. Besides the argument of user control over system control, can you think of any other angles to try and sell this to the marketing folks? * Demonstrate via storyboards how much longer it takes to use one technique in given situations/user groups? * Paper prototypes + users = demonstration of annoyance the solution will cause? I heart demonstrations :) Especially lo-fi ones that the other side can be involved with. Yeah, this is the kind of investment that I think I will have to make. At this point it has all been quite conceptual but I may need to actually prototype it so they can experience it for themselves. thanks Anthony Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] Using this list: How do I change my subscription email address?
Help? I searched the profile page and saw no option for editing this. It notes that I should remove my subscription and re-subscribe, but my email address stays there. Thanks! Mike Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
I am no fan of big government, but let's face it that some very large initiatives simply need some regulatory heft behind them. Perhaps this is one and I believe it should be explored. The comments about keeping government out of creative efforts seem odd. Are we better or worse off for having the NEA and NAS here in the US? And don't other countries have even more success pairing creativity and government? As many have pointed out, we have to be careful about how and in what we get involved, but I will say again that being part of the discussion is better than not. Let's enter while the door is open rather than knock later and hear that the meeting is closed. The most important thing we could work on as an organization is what we would do with a place at the table. ph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
[IxDA Discuss] [Fwd: Using this list: How do I change my subscription email address?]
---BeginMessage--- Help? I searched the profile page and saw no option for editing this. It notes that I should remove my subscription and re-subscribe, but my email address stays there. Thanks! Mike ---End Message--- Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Good stock imagery resources, anyone?
http://www.sxc.hu has a good collection of free stock images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38775 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
On Feb 18, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Caroline Jarrett wrote: Jack, could you give me some references to this work? Due to my fascination with forms in general and tax forms in particular, I'd love to find out more about this claim, which I'd not heard about previously despite a few contacts here and there with the Australian Taxation Office. Certainly. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/desi.2008.24.1.55 http://design.case.edu/2002workshop/Positions/Preston.doc http://powerofdesign.aiga.org/content.cfm/smith_cat Google's fast. I got my previous post as one of my search results! :) Best, Jack Jack L. Moffett Interaction Designer inmedius 412.459.0310 x219 http://www.inmedius.com First, recognize that the ‘right’ requirements are in principle unknowable by users, customers and designers at the start. Devise the design process, and the formal agreement between designers and customers and users, to be sensitive to what is learnt by any of the parties as the design evolves. - J.C. Jones Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Should IxDA support a US National Design Policy?
Thanks for all the input folks. Let me put a finer point on what participation means. Participation means that YOU feel motivated to work on one of these 10 initiatives. Do you? If so, how? Would you put a group of IxDA members together to drive one of these initiatives forward? if not, what would YOU be willing to do? If you look at the detailed report of the summit, you will see that many of the ideas that the group considered are ideas that we've talk about as a group. Perhaps there are ideas in the booklet that you feel passionately about and would like to drive? Remember that IxDA is not AIGA. We have no paid membership. We have no paid staff. We are an all volunteer army. And we have lots to work on as it is. So, in some ways, this is a question of priorities--of triage really. What do WE want to work on together? JS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38901 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Using qualifying questions to create a semi-walled garden?
The qualification algorithm is much more granular.My cromagnum understanding of algorithms is that they are as granular as they need to be. Nothing more nothing less. Did you ask someone and assume that this is the case or you are grabbing the reins and are certain this is true? If it doesn't work and you can't make it work than by all means do not use it. I think this line from Tufte's Visual Explanations in regards to the Space Shuttle challengers lack of success is applicable here. 'Various officials had camouflaged the issue by by testifying to the commission in an obscurantist language of evasive technical jargon' Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Usability Testing Challenge
I like to ask as few questions as possible when someone is interacting to keep them from artificially paying attention and thinking about things-- doing is more revealing than talking. Ron Sent from my iPhone On Feb 18, 2009, at 11:43 AM, pendar legof...@legofish.com wrote: Thank you Ron, very useful insight. My strategy was to keep the communication between the user and the test facilitator fairly open during the open-ended session and have the facilitator probe the user as the user does the stuff. For example, immediately after the user first interacts with the widget, I was going to pose the question what do you think the widget does?, and so on. After reading your insight I'm wondering if it's better pose the questions after the open-ended part is done, and before starting the task-based part of the test. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38904 Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Long / Large forms
Hi chris, A side question: maybe the first is to think about reducing the length? Jarod On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:45:13, Chris McLay ch...@eeoh.com.au wrote: Hi, I'm looking for examples of very long forms, or forms for gathering lots of data. Forms that have multiple questions (20+) for gathering lots of long answers (150 words +). I'm thinking these would be like Resume Builders, Grant Applications, Business Plans... Anyone seen or worked on something like this? Thanks, Chris -- Chris McLay. http://eeoh.com.au Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help -- Sent from my mobile device http://designforuse.blogspot.com/ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Using qualifying questions to create a semi-walled garden?
Thanks Angel... When this project explodes seconds after takeoff I will be sure to have some more evasive technical jargon at the ready. On 18-Feb-09, at 3:56 PM, Angel Marquez wrote: The qualification algorithm is much more granular. My cromagnum understanding of algorithms is that they are as granular as they need to be. Nothing more nothing less. Did you ask someone and assume that this is the case or you are grabbing the reins and are certain this is true? If it doesn't work and you can't make it work than by all means do not use it. I think this line from Tufte's Visual Explanations in regards to the Space Shuttle challengers lack of success is applicable here. 'Various officials had camouflaged the issue by by testifying to the commission in an obscurantist language of evasive technical jargon' Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .. http://www.ixda.org/help
