Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
UCD, Agile or whatever the next process that comes into fashion (FrAgile?), my concern is that these processes may stagnate innovation. In all I've read about UCD, largely neglected is how a UCD process helps foster innovation or creativity. UCD processes are structural, cognitive frameworks for advancing a product from abstract specifications to a concrete form; they provide constraints that streamline and focus decision making. But the procedures are not necessarily the only vehicle for creation of a product, nor do they guarantee the right level of ideation/creativity that can lead to innovation and product success. And there's no proof that a product won't succeed if UCD isn't followed. I find I'm more interested in the principals from which the UCD process was derived rather than strict adherence to UCD as the only way to apply those principals. I simply can't picture UCD as _the_ means for product innovation - after all, isn't innovation a process in and of itself? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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] Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (tw)ears. Vote in the 2010 SXSW Interactive Panel today http://ow.ly/ncYi
Please vote for our panel for the March 2010 SXSW Interactive Conference. It has long been said that it's not what you say, but how you say it. Within the interactive world, however, content and its delivery is equally important. We'll talk about how to use the defined target to generate user specific copy to create results, show documentation of the failures and successes of interactive copy (as it pertains to the user experience), how to use SEO to your advantage within interactive content, and what type of knowledge is required to be a great interactive writer. Thanks so much, Heather Bansemer Creatively Mashed 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] profit centered design
It's much like the razor-razorblade model isn't it? However, because of how expensive the razoblades are, I, as a woman, often just buy a new razor. Usually the package comes with 2 more razorblades. I find it more cost effective. Is it a backward engineering for this kind of strategy? At the same time, this is probably a good model. It helps the economy. How many people have made a living out of just replacing mobile batteries and re-selling them? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45216 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] Design -- Development pipeline/tools?
Have you looked at Mingle? http://studios.thoughtworks.com/mingle-agile-project-management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45219 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] iPhone turnover (was We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)
Seems as if we got some reali IPhone fans here huh? :) With regards to my friend: It dropped out of his hands and fell to the ground. No one ran it over with a truck :) Let me remind you that in Denmark we chance mobile phones each 6 months due to our contracts. Its not rare at all to change a mobile phone that often here. I can obviously not make a general statement, and I purely write what I experience. If the IPhone was so amazing to use, why did those I know change to NOKIA after the 6 month period? They could simply get another phone, renew the contract and carry on using IPhone. Yet they did not. I guess I will have to get one myself, before making you guys upset ;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45220 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
Apple's design process: http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/03/apples_design_p.html . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
UCD has many other names and consist of these (and probably many others): contextual inquiry, customer-focused design, empathic design, participatory design, usability, usability engineering, usability testing, user experience design, user-focused design, user-friendly design. With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD processes. So I dont entirely agree with Andrei. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote: UCD is not ONE specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have many different development processes with the focus on the USER. Which makes it a practically useless term, since no two practitioners of UCD do the same thing and nobody can differentiate quality UCD from poorly executed UCD. Jared 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
Jared: But won't you agree that UCD follow a certain guideline? Poorly executed UCD could for instancebe that not enough qualitative research was conducted? There could be other examples... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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] profit centered design
I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while they still had perfectly good phones because they were hopeless Apple addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked. Charles Boyung charles.boy...@nexustechnologiesllc.com 8/31/2009 1:20 PM On top of that, just look how many people upgraded to the newest iPhone at full price when their existing phones were still perfectly good. When you've got people drinking the Kool-Aid like Apple does, you're bound to take advantage of it as long as you canl. 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] profit centered design
Most people I know only upgraded their phones once their contract had expired and they got a substantial discount on the next phone. I've seen many iPhone users upgrade well before contract expiration at the full device cost.That's a big difference. On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Tracy Boyington tracy_boying...@okcareertech.org wrote: I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while they still had perfectly good phones because they were hopeless Apple addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked. Charles Boyung charles.boy...@nexustechnologiesllc.com 8/31/2009 1:20 PM On top of that, just look how many people upgraded to the newest iPhone at full price when their existing phones were still perfectly good. When you've got people drinking the Kool-Aid like Apple does, you're bound to take advantage of it as long as you canl. 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 -- Paul Nuschke Principal, Research Strategy ELECTRONIC INK© www.electronicink.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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Jared Spool jsp...@uie.com wrote: Which makes it a practically useless term, since no two practitioners of UCD do the same thing and nobody can differentiate quality UCD from poorly executed UCD. On the other hand, it may be its flexibility that enables it to succeed where a more strictured methodology (or even just terminology) fails. It feels somewhat extreme to go from a recognition that the elements of UCD are flexible and adaptable to saying it is useless. I've seen the same thing with Agile--folks are going to make it mean what they want, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have core recognizable elements (that are valuable). I think Ali highlighted some of these. Anyways, personally I'm not attached to UCD as a term, but it does seem to resonate with a whole lotta people. Jared, it sounds like you think that's a bad thing, but it seems that when you're trying to get people together from very different backgrounds, finding common ground and terminology, even if imprecisely defined, is great place to go from towards finding the way forward. I think sometimes we get overly analytical when it comes to this stuff. -a 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] profit centered design
But I don't see that as indication that they are drinking the Kool-Aid. One could just as easily say that someone who sticks with Nokia, for example, has drank the Kool-Aid if they refuse to even consider other phones, including the iPhone. People saw new technology, they liked it, they bought it. The fact that a small percentage of them were not satisfied, just as a percentage of people who buy *anything* are not satisfied, doesn't mean Apple somehow connived them into buying something they never wanted. Paul Nuschke plni...@gmail.com 9/1/2009 9:02 AM Most people I know only upgraded their phones once their contract had expired and they got a substantial discount on the next phone. I've seen many iPhone users upgrade well before contract expiration at the full device cost.That's a big difference. On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Tracy Boyington tracy_boying...@okcareertech.org wrote: I don't understand your logic here. Are you saying people upgraded while they still had perfectly good phones because they were hopeless Apple addicts? Are you under the impression that before the iPhone, people only upgraded when their phones died? Because most people I know upgrade because they want a new phone, even if their existing phone works. And did this long before the iPhone hit the scene. My husband and I have owned one or more cell phones ever since they came in a bag, and neither of us has ever upgraded because our current phone no longer worked. Charles Boyung charles.boy...@nexustechnologiesllc.com 8/31/2009 1:20 PM On top of that, just look how many people upgraded to the newest iPhone at full price when their existing phones were still perfectly good. When you've got people drinking the Kool-Aid like Apple does, you're bound to take advantage of it as long as you canl. 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 -- Paul Nuschke Principal, Research Strategy ELECTRONIC INK© www.electronicink.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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
Jared: Okay I have been reading all your comments carefully. Also the ones you made in my post. You are against this term since you claim that no two practitioners of UCD do the same thing. As humans we are different from each other and have a different creative mind. Following UCD doesnt mean that you HAVE to do the same thing as another practitioner of UCD. I bet, if you hand out a project to two different UCD practitioners, these will develop different solutions to a problem YET both will be acceptable and based on User Research. Does that mean that UCD is a useless term? I don't think so. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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] Design -- Development pipeline/tools?
Hi Billie, In the project I'm working on now, I made a special effort to document the important parts of our design and leave many details out of the specifications. I added a disclaimer in all the documents that the specs were like a jazz chart, that some improvisation was expected and encouraged, and the specs would not be updated afterwards. No time (this is the 10th day of my current work week, which I think may end sometime in October). The other important part of this jazz performance thing is that I'm one of the improvisers. I'm in every team meeting. I'm actively in the code styling and setting dim timers on indicator lights. I drew all the production art, and redraw a good deal of it once I see it in action. I refactor control templates and debug events. We're a small tight dev team and our boundaries are pretty fuzzy. And we're all ok with that. This sort of arrangement obviously wouldn't work in a large formal organization, or when you need to send work overseas, or when the team is inexperienced, or or or... But it's working for us. I think of it as the sort of structure you want to get to when three or four really good people who work well together are all turned loose to do great stuff. Hope this helps, Michael Micheletti On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 5:54 AM, Billie Mandel billie.man...@purplelabs.com wrote: Hey folks - What's your company's process/pipeline/set of tools for delivering and communicating designs (and associated visual design assets) to your dev team? *[Addressed particularly to innies in software development orgs though anyone's insights much appreciated]* TO be clear: I'm NOT asking the Visio vs Illustrator vs Fireworks etc conversation. I'm asking what happens *after* the design team has determined (at least a first cut of) both how the app should work, and how it should look. Do you have a tool or process that tells the developers which UI patterns/controls to use, where to place the art, how much velocity/decay there should be on animated transitions or gestural effects? Are they coding these things manually based on design team deliverables (wireframes/animated sequences)? Do you have a tool that you use in which designers can actually create the apps' front ends? I ask because I'm doing a bit of an audit of our processes, trying to streamline things and get more efficient. I'm trying to get a feel for the state of the art in UI development processes -- need to assess how behind/ahead my company is so I can decide how hard I need to push my process innovation agenda. Cheers - Billie PS - [waving hello] Haven't posted in ages - been a bit 'heads down' over here. Hope everyone's having a fab summer! *** Billie Mandel Director, User Experience Myriad Group AG www.myriadgroup.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 -- Michael Micheletti michael.michele...@gmail.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] [EVENT] Reminder - Chicago September Event on the 1st - Cultural Context
One last reminder about our event tonight - we don't have food and drink planned, so if you're the hungry type please grab a bite before the event. Steve and I (Carolyn) will be at Exchequer across the street at around 5pm. I'll be taking the RSVP form down around noon today: http://tinyurl.com/m2xe76 Join us on *Tuesday, September 1st*, when Steve Portigal will be in town to talk about Understanding Cultural Context. Steve will explore the notion of social norms and share a number of examples of observed cultural behaviors. This will illustrate the power and importance of noticing the cultural context in which design research takes place. *Steve Portigal* is the founder of Portigal Consultinghttp://portigalconsulting.com/, a bite-sized firm that helps organizations to discover and act on new insights about themselves and their customers. In addition to regularly speaking at design and marketing events, Steve has taught Design Research at the California College of Art and the Involution Master Academy. He writes regularly for interactions magazine, Core77 and the Portigal Consulting blog, All This ChittahChattah. Steve is an avid photographer who has a Museum of Foreign Grocery Products in his home. Date: Tuesday, September 1st Time: 6:30-8:30 DePaul University, CDM 243 S. Wabash Room 924 We do not currently have food or drink planned - if your company may be interesting in sponsoring, please reply using this email address. See you there! 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
I guess you will to address UCD as philosophy. As previous gays said, there're two level for UCD in the design culture, one from design philosophy perspective, other from process perspective. Design cant avoid the former one, because all artifact is by the people, for the people and of the people, but that dosent means one should follow some named UCD process ( most of the case, it more like a street to a dead end, but it's not a reason to say design is not centered on people and people's needs ). On of Jared's argumentation is good design, or the quality of design, which is the a very good topic, but that's a different perspective for design ( UCD is for the people from philosophy perspective ), good design is for the quality perspective, they have no conflicts from the root, treat them as conflict or same level problem is a problem. Regards, -- Jarod On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:12 PM, Ali Naqvi a...@amroha.dk wrote: Jared: Okay I have been reading all your comments carefully. Also the ones you made in my post. You are against this term since you claim that no two practitioners of UCD do the same thing. As humans we are different from each other and have a different creative mind. Following UCD doesnt mean that you HAVE to do the same thing as another practitioner of UCD. I bet, if you hand out a project to two different UCD practitioners, these will develop different solutions to a problem YET both will be acceptable and based on User Research. Does that mean that UCD is a useless term? I don't think so. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45169 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 -- @jarodtang 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] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.
Have you thought of doing a survey and having people self-identify their occupation? No constraints, just a text field (or two- one for industry and one for occupation). You could even do it as a fill in the blank, eg, I work as a _ in the __ industry. You'd need a fairly large sample size, but it sounds like you may be working with a well-defined audience. Once you have a large list of how people think of their industry and occupation, you can normalize it and that becomes your list. You're never going to have a truly exhaustive list, though (unless you're dealing with a very constrained system), so the choice becomes having people not answer or answer incorrectly, vs having an optional not listed selection and having them write-in their occupation if they don't see it on the list. The first means you'll get less accurate data, the second means you'll get more data that will be hard to do anything with, so there are trade-offs either way. Good luck! --Amy Jones -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Paul Trumble Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 9:34 AM To: disc...@ixda.org Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from. All: I'm looking for some advice, examples or even recommendations of who might be good at solving this particular problem for us. In the context of a longish multi-page web form we have a need for the user to tell us at a fairly granular level what their occupation is. the total length of the list is long, more than 1,000 choices. The accuracy of the answer is pretty important to our business as is our desire not to stop the users flow through the application because of either the difficulty or perceived intrusiveness of the question. I should add that most users don't view the question as being necessary based on their understanding of what they are filling out. Currently we use an introductory question (labeled currently 'industry', but in the past 'line of work' - the better version) to narrow down the list of occupations that are presented to the individual. This approach may well be the best solution to a difficult problem, but it brings a little emotional and cognitive overhead with it. Regularly when we observe users they will grumble that we are asking the same question twice, less so with the 'line of work' label I believe. Part of the problem with we have with this approach is that the choices in the industry list are not very good. The selections for industry are confusing and users don't always grasp that if their occupation is not showing up as a choice the solution to the problem might be to choose a different industry. The actual list has some regulatory constraints and a fair amount of internal political baggage. We are looking for a way to develop a new taxonomy that might make the process more understandable to the user, while preserving the level of detail the business requires. Card-sorting doesn't seem like a good tool here since ultimately we need to know how individual users categorize their own occupation, not how they classify a list of occupations with which they have varying degrees of familiarity. Because of the regulatory constraints we can't experiment with different versions of the list at any given time. We've used surveys to test particular taxonomies in the past. Generally surveys have proved a good way to rule things out, not develop something that works well. What thoughts do you all have on this? I really haven't found any examples of folks who do something similar well. I'm interested in advice, or if you know someone (or if you are someone) who could do a good job of putting a new taxonomy together that would be good too. We may well have to bring in the magic aura of expertise that only consultants possess in order to sell any changes. You can email me directly or reply to the list. Thanks in advance. Paul Trumble -- Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. - Groucho Marx http://www.trumbling.com/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/paultrumble/ http://www.twitter.com/trumbling 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] Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your (tw)ears. Vote in the 2010 SXSW Interactive Panel today http://ow.ly/ncYi
http://ow.ly/ncYi is your voting link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45238 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] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.
Go to berecruited.com and register as a high school athlete. While doing so, you'll be asked to select your high school from a list of 25,000 of them. You'll notice, though, that you have to type its name, and once done, your dropdown list narrows to show schools in your state, then just those in your area. You could do something similar with the industry selection...perhaps narrow your industries down to just five or so, then let people type their occupation, displaying possible options via ajax below. I ran a site similar to berecruited, wherein we *needed* the user's high school, but had a real hard time getting people to find it among a huge list. Seems similar to your problem... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45250 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] Designing a long list of items that people must choose from.
Oops looks like Bryan already submitted the auto complete idea. :) Darn my distracted typing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45250 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] The Fly Me to Canux Contest-Deadline Extended - Go to Canux for practically FREE!
Here is a *tremendous *opportunity for a student or junior practitioner to have access to one of the most amazing and intimate UX conferences in the world! The good folks at nForm are giving YOU the opportunity to go to Canux with *free conference registration*, including two nights accommodation and meals during the conference, *plus $500 CDN* to help with your travel expenses! Don't miss this incredible opportunity! Read below on how YOU can win! - Direct link: http://canux.nform.ca/2009/08/18/the-fly-me-to-canux-contest/ *Updated: new deadline Sept. 4th* We’re going to bring one lucky attendee to Canux with some help from nForm. We’ll give you a *free conference registration*, including two nights accommodation and meals during the conference, *plus $500 CDN* to help with your travel expenses getting to Banff. *How do you get to be that lucky attendee?* 1. Tell us why you want to come to Canux in a blog post or online video. Entries must be in English. 2. Link from your post to the main Canux site at http://canux.nform.ca 3. Tell us about your post by twittering a link to it with the hashtag #flymetocanux. This tweet should *not* be to anyone – we’ll use the hashtag to find it, not our Twitter handles, thanks. If you don’t have a Twitter http://twitter.com/account, now is the time to get one [image: :)] The nForm crew will choose our favorites from eligible entries, and Jess McMullin http://twitter.com/jessmcmullin and Gene Smithhttp://twitter.com/gsmithwill make the final selection. If the selected winner has already registered for Canux, we will fully refund registration costs (so you can register now, and still enter the contest). The contest is open until 11:59 p.m., Pacific Time, September 4th, 2009. Winner will be notified on Monday, September 7th, via Twitter. One entry per person, please. Multiple entries will be disqualified. The contest is open worldwide to anyone above the age of majority, unless prohibited by law. However, the winner is responsible for all travel costs incurred. nForm will award one (1) cheque for five hundred dollars ($500.00) Canadian on site in Banff. nForm will also register the attendee for one (1) single accommodation event registration, a $999.00 value. nForm has no responsibility for booking travel or making other arrangements. The winner’s photo, copy, or video may be used by nForm for promotional purposes with no further compensation. Depending on legal requirements in the winner’s jurisdiction, a skill-testing question may be required to claim the prize. *Tips for impressing us:* Do tell us who you are, why you care, what’s important to you, what coming to Canux will mean. Don’t write more than a page of copy, don’t take more than 3 minutes in video, don’t send multiple entries, don’t badger us on Twitter, spam us by email or otherwise be annoying. 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] iPhone turnover (was We don't make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.)
As fantastic the iPhone is - design-wise, app-wise, user interface-wise -- it is still not optimum for heavy texting and/or email. Ali, perhaps your friends were disappointed with having to type on iPhone's touch key pad which does not give the same tactile response as other smart phones. I switched from a BlackBerry to the iPhone about a year ago and I still prefer the BB's keyboard. I believe that Apple is looking into making typing a more tactile experience (e.g., vibrating response to touch, replicate feel of raised keys on touch screen, etc.) because of this deficit. As for the 99% satisfaction score mentioned, that's an impressive number for any technology. But keep in mind, Apple designed the iPhone with such an impressive emotional, experiential benefit built in that users often forgive its functional deficits (e.g., still no MMS as promised in the US: http://bit.ly/z6Ahv). That's an important lesson for their competitors. Ali, a polite suggestion: next time you post you may want to do some research first among your friends as to why they decided to change and the basis of their complaints. I think the trade-off of a smart phone's appeal vs. it's deficits is a fascinating area of discussion, especially when you consider how the emotional benefits can outweigh the functional ones. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45220 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote: With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD processes. So I dont entirely agree with Andrei. Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the product itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their products, their design choices, and their culture will tell you this is the case. What I have been saying for years and people like you seem to keep missing is that UCD as both a philosophy and methodology is at best only a portion the overall product design process, and is incomplete even in the best circumstances where I've seen people practice it's guiding principles. It's incomplete precisely because as you stated so clearly above, the entire intent of UCD seems to focus on the user as the center of the universe, at the expense of equally important aspects of the product, like technology requirements and business needs. As such, I've never seen UCD succeed to my standard because it's simply not enough on its own to create what I would consider well- designed products. Here's a visceral way for all those people who are so tied to UCD to get what it is that I'm saying: Go build your own prototypes. And when I say build your own prototypes, I mean create all the pixel- perfect assets yourself with whatever tool you want to use, code up the HTML or MXML or whatever presentation language you want to use, hand code all your own CSS, and script all the interactions with JavaScript or ActionScript on your own. Feel free to fake data with hard coded JSON while you're at it. I guarantee the single act of forcing yourself to learn how to code and build your own prototypes will show you without a doubt how focusing on the user as the center of everything is incomplete at best. -- 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] UX Team Collaboration
Tom, Great question, would love to hear what others are using for version control. What about an SVN repository? I've heard from various front-end developers, visual designers, and UX-ers that using a code repo works. I haven't personally tried it, but it sounds doable to me. Cheers, Jason R. -- Jason Robb Experience Design Implementation ja...@jasonrobb.com http://jasonrobb.com http://uxboston.com http://uiscraps.tumblr.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45252 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] UX Team Collaboration
I reached out to the guys at EightShapes and Nathan Curtis responded with a link to a post on their blog that speaks to this (Thanks Nathan!) Link to the article: http://unify.eightshapes.com/efficiency-tips/8-tips-for-organizing-project-files-folders/ Headlines on the file management aspect: Use Subversion Beanstalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45252 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
I tried to make a change to a site I'm new to working on, to remove the page title as the last element of the breadcrumb and simply treat the title itself as the last element in the breadcrumb, including a last and keeping the title immediately below. I was surprised that not only wasn't it a simple argument to make, but I met staid refusal from the design team. My argument was that repeating the page title is redundant, removing anything that's redundant and isn't functional is good, especially given the fairly busy nature of their pages, and that it's not necessary to orient the user since the location information is clear either way. (We have no research showing people lost or confused, but we do have research showing people having difficulty finding things near the top of the page, albeit only in wireframes.) Their argument is that it's useful to reinforce where the user is, and that since people don't focus on it unless it's needed secondarily for navigation, it adds negligible to no visual noise to the page. The other arguments are that it's better for SEO and we have bigger fish to fry. Nielsen says include it but doesn't say why (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/breadcrumbs.html). A survey shows a surprising lack of consistency on this issue. Apple, Don Norman's site, and Ideo don't repeat the page title. Yahoo!, Google and nngroup.com do. I probably won't be able to make this change happen, but curious on others thoughts? 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
I think that including the current page title makes it totally clear that this is a trail to the current page. Breadcrumbs are sometimes prefaced by 'you are here' which is possibly redundant if you include the current page title. Without the current title the breadcrumbs would mean 'these are the levels above the current page' which isn't such a straightforward concept. Joe Lanman --- http://formd.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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
The Buddha says, wherever you go, there you are. He also says that very few users rely on breadcrumbs to navigate or get themselves oriented within the site: they only care about a fluid nav to where they need to go (present page) and to the next place (sometimes back, sometimes not). That said, I agree with Joe that redundancy is good within this context. Providing additional navigational cues/links to allow the user to get back to any main pages is even better. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45266 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
I'm creating a web page and am having issues selecting a font. I recently watched a documentary on Helvetica, but it left me wondering if that really is the best way to go. Helvetica seems to be timeless but also does not stand out. What is your favourite font and why? Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
Two of mine (but I have more than two favorites): Janson Janson because the letterforms are beautiful and the italics are elegant. I like the way the capital J dips on the baseline. Janson also uses my favorite type of lowercase a's. Helvetica You can do almost anything with Helvetica, and the weights it comes in is amazing. Helvetica Inserat used to be my absolute favorite for headlines in newspaper ads. Kern it right and it is absolutely wonderful to look at. By the way, something that has suffered in design and web design is kerning, I mean real kerning pairs. Having been a typesetter years ago, I am appalled by poorly kerned type on many sites and in print ads, which always saddens me. I do think that sometimes you need to alter a letterform to get the logo design to do what you need. I recently designed a logo where I made a slight change to the descender in a lowercase g and it did make the difference in what I needed. -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Kristen Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 8:37 AM To: disc...@ixda.org Subject: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page I'm creating a web page and am having issues selecting a font. I recently watched a documentary on Helvetica, but it left me wondering if that really is the best way to go. Helvetica seems to be timeless but also does not stand out. What is your favourite font and why? Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? 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 This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses, confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers, available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email. 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? Depends on your target audience. The only people who notice such things are the people who notice such things http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1919127,00.html /pauric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
Does anyone have an opinion about changing the font from headers to main text? For example, using a cleaner, simple font for headers and potentially one with a little more complexity through serif's to ease the reader in the main text? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
You ask that question as though it perhaps is not conceivable to do so... I think that is where the element of design comes into the decision process as well. Part of the design process is what statement you want the overall impact to be, and that may factor into the selection of the typeface and where it is used. But I do think it is fine to make a change from serif to san-serif, from one typeface to another, to render a design successfully/legibly/beautifully/usefully/usably. -Original Message- From: discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com [mailto:discuss-boun...@lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of Kristen Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 9:10 AM To: disc...@ixda.org Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Preferred Font for a logo and index page Does anyone have an opinion about changing the font from headers to main text? For example, using a cleaner, simple font for headers and potentially one with a little more complexity through serif's to ease the reader in the main text? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269 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 This email is confidential and subject to important disclaimers and conditions including on offers for the purchase or sale of securities, accuracy and completeness of information, viruses, confidentiality, legal privilege, and legal entity disclaimers, available at http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/disclosures/email. 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
But if it isn't clear (that this is where you are), shouldn't there be better ways of making it clear than providing a redundant non-functional element? Maybe with the You Are Here: and including that last ? I might test this. I'll let y'all know if I can sneak it into a usability study and what the results are. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45266 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] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.
Actually we did an a/b test with an auto-complete feature, with disastrous results. Personally I think the lack of an agreed upon vocabulary killed it. While you know what your high school is called, there might be 25 ways to name your job. Thanks for the ideas. Let me know if you have any others. Paul On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Bryan Minihan bjmini...@nc.rr.com wrote: Go to berecruited.com and register as a high school athlete. While doing so, you'll be asked to select your high school from a list of 25,000 of them. You'll notice, though, that you have to type its name, and once done, your dropdown list narrows to show schools in your state, then just those in your area. -- 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] [Event] Call for participation: STC Summit, Dallas, 2-5 May 2010
Dear IxDAers, There's been some recent discussion about how to design online help. Did you know that there's a whole professional society, the Society for Technical Communication, that's all about writing help (specifically) and helping users (generally) and designing user experiences? If you're working in user experience, usability, accessibility, or technical communication in general: please think about coming to the STC Summit next year in Dallas, 2-5 May 2010. Our call for proposals has just opened at: http://www.softconference.com/subs/stc/2010/ I'm manager of the Usability and Accessibility track, and I'm looking for proposals that will really stretch us. What fantastic new techniques and ideas are you burning to tell us about? What have you learned over the last year or so that you'd like to share? My aim is to get proposals in two specific areas: - Getting started will be for technical communicators who are new to usability or accessibility and who want to know how to... get started! (you were ahead of me). What can you do with little or no budget, maybe no knowledge, but a lot of enthusiasm? You might be an experienced person yourself or you might have just got started yourself: share your experiences and what you wish someone else had told you. - Advanced will be aimed at the leaders of our profession. You can expect people coming to your Advanced session to have many years' experience - but they also want to be challenged, to learn new things, and to hear about your successes and lessons learned. Please feel welcome to bounce ideas around, either here or offline to me. Or just go for it and put those proposals in. I'm looking forward to a great conference. Caroline Jarrett caroline.jarr...@effortmark.co.uk 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
Kristen, You should take a look at www.typophile.com - the definitive typographic community. Read this before posting: http://typophile.com/design_readme Cheers, Jason R. -- Jason Robb Experience Design Implementation 617-899-6400 ja...@jasonrobb.com http://jasonrobb.com http://uxboston.com http://uiscraps.tumblr.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify, simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser), headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving page rank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45266 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] UX Team Collaboration
Try Dropbox -- for small groups, their folder sharing works pretty well. Automatically syncs, accessible over the web, keeps historical versions. http://www.getdropbox.com/ -Jon On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 3:42 AM, Tom Daly tomcd...@gmail.com wrote: I've suddenly found my team grow from one to three and it's clear that a centralized file system is needed, especially as the team grows. I'd love to hear how other teams are working, managing their documentation for both the UX/IxD/VD phases for projects. My aim is to have a central file repository that manages versions and is easily accessed on/off location. I appreciate any insights into 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 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] \Way Out\ vs \Exit\ - Signage usability and passenger experience
Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called Canada Line (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the most is the exit sign: instead of printing Exit, they use Way Out. My thoughts: - Exit is almost the international standard word to indicate an exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English. - Don't try to be clever and reinvent the experience. Using an example from Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, one should use well-known terms like home, about us, jobs instead of Learn More about Calvin, Wanna get hired? - According to Jhenifer Pabillano from Translink.ca blog, the decision of printing Way Out was made by the private contractor InTransit BC, who thought Way Out was more descriptive and would be easily understandable by an international ridership. (see #link1) I am curious what matrix or user study, if any, they used to support this argument? For more details of my thoughts you may visit my blog at http://calvin-c.com/blog/way-out #link1: http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2009/08/canada-line-roundup-even-more-pics-and-video-and-passport-stamp-info/#comment-19912 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 14:36, Kristenkrist...@pmgintelligence.com wrote: What is your favourite font and why? Kristen, choosing a font should *not* be a matter of whatever one personally prefers, but of what one wants to *communicate*. And to whom. Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? Yes, definitely, though not solely. There's actually quite some complexity offered by this matter. ;-) If you would like to educate yourself on (very classical) typography, you might want to have a look at Bringhurst's ‘Elements of Typographical Style’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Typographic_Style (see also http://webtypography.net/). If the concerning website is not exactly just for private purposes, I would very much endorse you requesting the professional expertise of someone with a proper training in graphics design/visual communication. Never forget that markets = communication (even though branding on the web works somehow differently than in former print times, IMHO). Cheers, Sascha -- : create https://www.xing.com/profile/Sascha_Brossmann http://www.linkedin.com/in/brsma http://twitter.com/brsma 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 14:58, pauricpau...@pauric.net wrote: Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? Depends on your target audience. The only people who notice such things are the people who notice such things I heavily disagree. People might not consciously notice (i.e. care about) the choice of one typeface over the other but still perceive a slight overall difference. Even if they cannot really lay their hands on it. And in terms of fonts available cross-platform (without taking @font-face co. into account) the differences between possible typefaces (i.e. CSS font cascades) cannot even be called subtle. Sascha 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] \Way Out\ vs \Exit\ - Signage usability and passenger experience
Way Out also has the disadvantage of being a pun. It might be fun and appropriate on a website, but as you point out, in an airport, where people have plans to catch, the error could be a problem. Note that at least in the US, FAA language is notoriously unfriendly to regular people, let alone those who don't speak English as a first language. Only on an airline would you refer to lavatories and illuminating the seat belt sign rather than using more common words. Diana On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Calvin je...@jeepu.net wrote: Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called Canada Line (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the most is the exit sign: instead of printing Exit, they use Way Out. My thoughts: - Exit is almost the international standard word to indicate an exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English. - Don't try to be clever and reinvent the experience. Using an example from Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think, one should use well-known terms like home, about us, jobs instead of Learn More about Calvin, Wanna get hired? - According to Jhenifer Pabillano from Translink.ca blog, the decision of printing Way Out was made by the private contractor InTransit BC, who thought Way Out was more descriptive and would be easily understandable by an international ridership. (see #link1) I am curious what matrix or user study, if any, they used to support this argument? For more details of my thoughts you may visit my blog at http://calvin-c.com/blog/way-out #link1: http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/2009/08/canada-line-roundup-even-more-pics-and-video-and-passport-stamp-info/#comment-19912 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
[IxDA Discuss] [EVENT] IxDA Austin // Tues, Sept 22nd // Work Smart! Better Design Process with Sketching and Dynamic Prototypes with Sketchflow
Product design requires fast and light weight strategies, in order to make decisions, changes and true innovation. Building prototypes in same medium as the final product is something other industries have done for years. If you want to learn how to push your design process with real collaboration, and live solutions at every phase, then Sketchflow in Expression 3 is THE tool to explore. Discover how to take the ‘fuzziness’ and uncertainty out of your stakeholder meetings, with lo-fi, working sketches and prototypes. Showcase the inherent value of your solutions with rich, tangible, interactive, illustrative, working narratives that clearly demonstrate success. By adopting a dynamic process you can: create and test ideas instantly, FEEL the user experience and share it with your team and clients, all while keeping the solution light and non-destructive. It’s time to take the frustration out of your work! The event is free of charge and open to all interested parties. Sponsored by Microsoft Complimentary adult beverages and light snacks provided - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - RSVP: http://ixdaaustin.ning.com/events/prototyping-panel (If you are not already a member, you'll need to sign up first. It's free) - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - WHEN Tuesday, Sept 22nd, 2009 6:00 – 6:30pm Networking 6:30 – 7:30pm Presentation 7:30 – 8:00pm Networking and Conversation WHERE Cuba Libre 409 Colorado St, Austin, TX 78701 *www.cubalibreaustin.com * PRESENTER Sara Summers is a User Experience Evangelist for Microsoft based out of Austin, TX. Sara is currently coauthoring a book for experience designers, entitled *Dynamic Prototyping*, expected to be on bookshelves by the end of this year. She has a personal mantra of design democracy – happy, healthy designers and developers working and playing together to create beautiful, inspirational products. Sara speaks often and loves to talk about big ideas, changing everything, breaking your toys, throwing away your designs and capturing new ideas. She reads everything she can get her hands on and prides herself in being an armchair social and cognitive scientist and researcher. Academically, Ms. Summers is trained as a technologist and visual designer, with a BS in Computer Graphics Technology from Purdue University. IxDA Austin produces regular face-to-face community events to gather professionals who design interactive systems and products of all kinds: web, desktop, enterprise, mobile, consumer electronics, digitally-enhanced environments, and more. All interested parties are welcome! If you'd like to learn more please email us: austin-lo...@ixda.org 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] \Way Out\ vs \Exit\ - Signage usability and passenger experience
- Exit is almost the international standard word to indicate an exit route. In Australia, New Zealand, Dubai, and Korea, the standard appears to be Way Out. I don't recall if these signs were used *every*where, but they were definitely used in airports and subway stations, and frequently in all kinds of public places. I don't know why there is a split, but I've wondered if it's because Exit sounds like a *command* (as in Get out!), whereas Way Out comes across more like a street sign, simply politely telling you where you are. -r- 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] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.
On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 23:32, Paul Trumblepaultrum...@gmail.com wrote: Actually we did an a/b test with an auto-complete feature, with disastrous results. Personally I think the lack of an agreed upon vocabulary killed it. While you know what your high school is called, there might be 25 ways to name your job. hm… If the auto-completer just triggers suggestions based on more or less literally matching terms: yes, certainly. But maybe it would be possible to have it search within semantic fields instead? And how about elevating the usefulness of suggestions further with some social metrics of your users and the like? Further: maybe drilling down through possibilities could get easier when employing facets for classification instead of a taxonomy. Thanks for the ideas. Let me know if you have any others. Let's see. But I'd like to ask more questions first: * What kind of information about the users do you already have at this point? * Is it absolutely crucial to request this information exactly at this time? Maybe it could be easier to collect the required information later. * How do the users come to register and what happens afterwards? * Could you maybe outline the whole registration process as currently planned? As far and detailed as possible? * On a side note: a large multi-step/-screen form does not seem like the optimal way to get good follow-through/conversion rates ;-) To come up with better ideas for this would probably also require some more knowledge about your prospective users, their goals, business objectives etc. I don't know how much about those you are willing or able to share without having NDAs signed, though. (Given the importance you hinted at, I guess that we might touch some sensible/strategic business issues here.) Cheers, Sascha -- : create https://www.xing.com/profile/Sascha_Brossmann http://www.linkedin.com/in/brsma http://twitter.com/brsma 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
I would keep the current page title at the end of the breadcrumb trail in addition to the title. Users may not mentally link a title that is separated from the breadcrumb. It's a good 'you are here' tool, but without the current page at the end, it's more like 'you're in this section'. Putting 'You are here' at the beginning of the breadcrumb trail may be a good idea - I think it depends on the ability of your users. On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 10:43 AM, Chad Jennings cjenni...@blurb.com wrote: Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify, simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser), headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving page rank. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45266 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] Designing a long list of items that people mustchoose from.
sensible/ business issues here.) Oops, false friend… s/sensible/sensitive/ I hope, they're sensible, nonetheless ;-) 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com wrote: On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote: With time more and newer methods can be added to UCD. UCD is not ONE specific development process. UCD is an overall term that can have many different development processes with the focus on the USER. I think that APPLE does focus on the user and DO use some of the UCD processes. So I dont entirely agree with Andrei. Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the product itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their products, their design choices, and their culture will tell you this is the case. For e.g.? -- Jarod -- @jarodtang 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] UX Team Collaboration
Subversion is pretty much the de facto standard as far as centralized version control goes. It is a fantasic piece of software and there are loads of tools round for easily integrating it into your workflow. Alternatively you may also be interested in looking into distributed version control systems such as Git (http://git-scm.com/) and Bazaar (http://bazaar-vcs.org/). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45252 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] \Way Out\ vs \Exit\ - Signage usability and passenger experience
On 1 Sep 2009, at 15:59, Calvin wrote: Vancouver, Canada recently opened a new subway system called Canada Line (http://www.canadaline.ca). While I notice quite a few issues in the whole passenger experience, one thing that makes me wonder the most is the exit sign: instead of printing Exit, they use Way Out. My thoughts: - Exit is almost the international standard word to indicate an exit route. I believe most ESL people can still understand the word and recognize it as symbol even if they don't know English. I can't comment on numbers - since I don't have the stats - but I've certainly noticed Way Out used in France Norway where there was signage in multiple languages. It's the label I'd look for since it's the standard one in the UK (Exit normally being reserved for special routes like Fire Exit, Emergency Exit, etc. rather than normal means of egress). Cheers, Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] \Way Out\ vs \Exit\ - Signage usability and passenger experience
On 2 Sep 2009, at 00:17, Diana Wynne wrote: [snip] Only on an airline would you refer to lavatories and illuminating the seat belt sign rather than using more common words. [snip] That reminds me of some rather uncomfortable times I had as a first time tourist in the US before I figured out that labels like comfort station, rest area and rest stop meant toilet. (comfort station in particular was a _very_ close call :-) Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] Preferred Font for a logo and index page
Sasha, unless you are privy to the requirements for Kristen's site you cannot make a guided decision on whether the choice of font will directly impact the goals of the design. Target audience, context of use, frequency of use. Until we know the design's requirements we cannot advise on direction. Do you think small changes in a font will affect perception of a brand in one way or another? McDonalds uses Bodega Sans. Test: If you believe the choice of this font conveys a message or meaning to the average McDonalds customer - you're a designer. (o; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45269 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 6:34 AM, Ali Naqvi wrote: But won't you agree that UCD follow a certain guideline? No, I wouldn't. Dozens of interviews I've conducted with self- proclaimed UCD professionals shows there is very little overlap in what UCD means or what a UCD professional does. There's no guidelines beyond some vague notion of involving users which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be UCD followers do too. So, if I were to give you a pile of 10 folks who claim to follow UCD combined with a pile of 10 folks who claim to design without following UCD -- without telling you which was which -- I'm betting you couldn't pick out who was in each group by looking at either their philosophies, their activities, or their end results. At which point, I ask, what makes UCD special? Why is it important? Jared 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
On Sep 1, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Chad Jennings wrote: Audrey, I can totally empathize with desire to simplify, simplify, simplify. There is some credence to the SEO argument as having a redundancy between the URL, page title (as shown on browser), headline, and breadcrumbs (or sub header) are variables in improving page rank. Actually, they are not. That's a myth. Their is no evidence to suggest that redundancy between those factors increases page rank. Jared 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] Breadcrumbs including page title or no?
On Sep 1, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Audrey Crane wrote: Their argument is that it's useful to reinforce where the user is, and that since people don't focus on it unless it's needed secondarily for navigation, it adds negligible to no visual noise to the page. Breadcrumbs are a design cop-out. That's my opinion. http://www.uie.com/articles/breadcrumbs/ Jared Jared M. Spool User Interface Engineering 510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845 e: jsp...@uie.com p: +1 978 327 5561 http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: @jmspool 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Jared Spool wrote: There's no guidelines beyond some vague notion of involving users which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be UCD followers do too. For the record, I acknowledge that I design for people. What I don't do is people-centered design. -- 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] profit centered design
Hi Eric, On 31 Aug 2009, at 17:03, j. eric townsend wrote: Adrian Howard wrote: And, a Todd says, if the majority of your customer base isn't replacing batteries - is it customer focussed to add a feature that they don't want or need? If you take away the choice before they ever have it, how do you know they want it? What if what the majority wants isn't actually good, or is not good for the customer base as a whole? Is every design nuance of the iPhone based on what the majority of the users wanted or what Jobs/Ives and the bizdev people at Apple wanted? I've no idea. Making assumptions either way seems premature. There are costs as well as benefits to having a removable battery as I previously mentioned. The Android G1 has a battery that's easy to replace, which means I can carry a spare on the road or buy an extra-capacity one. It's an option I have, and there's enough people doing it that there are plenty of aftermarket batteries available. And that's great. If you are somebody who is on the road for extended periods I can see that being an important feature for you. I'm not. I've never needed an additional battery for my phone (which isn't an iPhone :-) Never needed to replace it either. The fact that I have a removable battery has only every been a problem for me rather than a feature (accidentally become disconnected and not charging, getting lost, separating and disappearing under the sofa when I dropped it, etc.) It doesn't make the phone any less reliable, I've dropped mine plenty of times and it's never fallen apart. (It's certainly never caught on fire or imploded or any such thing.) But it is more complicated to design and build. Almost certainly more expensive to build. Possibly larger. Probably more fragile than a built in one. (Just because your phone didn't break doesn't mean that over larger numbers it's not an issue. The product designers I've talked to in the past have all hated battery packs coz of the design issues I mentioned before.) There are also enough iPhone owners interested in replacing the battery in their iPhone/iPod that there are outfits selling replacement batteries and upgrade kits online. Yup. There are also people who sell extra battery packs to plug in to give you an extended battery life. I don't think that means that Apple should have made the iPhone twice as thick/heavy with a larger battery. Is it customer focused to make it difficult for the user to change the battery if the battery dies out of warranty and to make upgrade to a new model the repair option? (And haven't we learn anything from the planned obsolescence model of the US auto industry?) It's certainly good business sense to make repair difficult -- when the battery died in my 60G iPod, they wanted to give me %10 off a new iPod if I'd recycle the old one. Let's see, I can pay $360 for the current version of my iPod that holds slightly more music or replace a battery that probably costs $10. Which is the better deal for me and which is the better deal for Apple? Of definitely a better deal for Apple there. Doesn't mean that it isn't a better deal for the customer elsewhere though. I'm really not trying to say that removable battery == bad. Or removable battery == good. Just that there are costs and benefits. For me (with my experiences of my built-in-battery iPod and replaceable battery phone) the costs of removable batteries outweigh the benefits. For you - the opposite seems to be true. Who should Apple have designed for? No idea myself not having done any research on the number of potential customers out there, what their expectations are, what features they like/dislike, etc. Apple seem to be doing pretty well with their choices though :-) (BTW this whole discussion reminds me of the stuff Kathy Sierra wrote about you only being in a good place with a product when you have folk loving _and_ hating it http://is.gd/2Mxxm) Cheers, Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Jarod Tang wrote: On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Andrei Herasimchuk aherasimc...@involutionstudios.com wrote: Apple focuses on the customer, the technology, the business and the product itself. Simple cursory knowledge of their history, their products, their design choices, and their culture will tell you this is the case. For e.g.? Examples of Apple choices that involved more than just a focus on the user: * Implementing 3.5 hard disk floppies when they were not standard in the market, but contained more data storage. This was a product design and technology decision, and certainly did not help customers out of the gate since it could hard to find these disks when the first Macs shipped. * Subsequently, Apple also dropped external hard drives from their laptops first, aded in DVD enabled drives, and generally have always pushed the next generation connections on all of their computers, before they ever become standard in the general computing marketplace. * Sticking to a single button mouse and clicking convention when the rest of the market uses 2 or more. Especially games and entertainment markets. The word on the street is that this decision has been reinforced by Jobs only, but no one knows why Apple refuses to adopt multi-button mice, especially considering it's pretty much required by gamers, creative professionals, 3D animators and architects, all markets that Apple should be trying to appease, one would think. * OpenDoc, which never made it, but was not something that could exist outside of the engineering that was required to make it happen. In the end, it failed for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was that while a lofty design goal, it wound up being too difficult to make happen technically and often made the resulting interfaces more complicated, not less. * The candy colored iMacs. Once again making Macs feel like toys. They were more of a business and branding decision to grab attention when Apple needed it most. If they were truly a great design decision aimed at what their customers really want, and not a fad (which I think they were), Apple would still be making them today. * The entire graphical user interface system in the first place, which was viewed by business users back in the '80s to be too much like a toy. Apple didn't care. It claimed the GUI made more sense and was easier to use. That fight last at least until the late 90s. These days however, we have Google playing the role of being anti-aesthetic and more machine designed, so I guess Apple may not have truly changed the entire tech industry just yet. * The Mac Cube. Expensive, but cool. People who own them claim them as status symbols. And while they are indeed cool, they certainly weren't aimed at even a large portion of their die-hard fan base. * The iPod spin wheel. Not sure how the spin wheel is user focused. It's a technological solution to an interesting design problem of how to make easier access to long lists of items on a 3 screen. In fact, when you are presented new users an iPod and they had not seen one before, most people had know idea how to make the spin wheel work until shown. Also in fact, the spin wheel breaks down once you have very long lists to navigate. Still easy to use, but not the best design solution over all compared to other devices. * The iPhone touch screen and interface. While it has it's cheerleaders, my daughter is like a lot of folks: they want the tactical keyboard for texting. Even after all this time, Apple hasn't come out with a solution for those people, who probably will not move over to the full touch interface. Quite frankly, the touch screen and the resulting interface are classic Apple: cool, new technology that allows for a new form factor and opens up a new interaction and business model that wasn't possible before. In this case, unique Apps that can only exist with a touch screen interface. * The original Finder. As an operating system, it was one of the first that polled for user events rather than sit back passively. This allowed for the creation and concepts behind the feedback loop with interfaces. It was also, in fact, probably the genesis for pretty much everything having to do with software and interaction since. It was not created to solve a customer problem and if you asked, customers would still to this day have no idea what it is. It was a technological advance that allowed Apple to create new types of applications that could do more than what was being offered in DOS at the time. I could go on and on. Apple has a long history of making products that are more often than not, a combination of technical, business, design and customer choices. Very rarely have I seen Apple make a choice based solely on user centered anything, and more often than not, the products people love most
Re: [IxDA Discuss] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 10:46 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: On Sep 1, 2009, at 8:32 PM, Jared Spool wrote: There's no guidelines beyond some vague notion of involving users which, by the way, people (like Andrei) who claim to not be UCD followers do too. For the record, I acknowledge that I design for people. What I don't do is people-centered design. I misspoke. I apologize. :) Jared 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On Sep 1, 2009, at 9:08 PM, Adrian Howard wrote: For me the big advantage was 1) impossible to eject mid-read/write causing data loss and possible damage to drive disk (folk were _always_ doing this in my experience) 2) Due to the covered nature of the disk - much harder to get crud in disk and onto drive - again avoiding damage to disk drive Agreed on both counts. And to further reminisce a bit let's not forget all the stories of people who bought Macs that had the power switch on the front just under the floppy drive, and they would press the button thinking it would eject the disk, but it turned off the machine. -- 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] UX Team Collaboration
Git and svn are comparable but git is better in some respects , for e.g. handling branches (i.e. if you are production version of the code , and then you also are working on 1 or more new features. You can keep one production branch and have another branch for other features. This way if a hot fix is to be done to production then any incomplete feature code does not come in the way. Hosting wise , you could have these installed anywhere. I use github and like it. It has nice integration into other apps also, and then it hosts a lot of open source code which is useful. But these are more useful for code related files. for documentation I had a media wiki locally installed and that worked very well for me. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=45252 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On 2 Sep 2009, at 05:27, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: Agreed on both counts. And to further reminisce a bit let's not forget all the stories of people who bought Macs that had the power switch on the front just under the floppy drive, and they would press the button thinking it would eject the disk, but it turned off the machine. Oh yes! Saw that one a lot :-) Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
On 2 Sep 2009, at 04:49, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote: * Implementing 3.5 hard disk floppies when they were not standard in the market, but contained more data storage. This was a product design and technology decision, and certainly did not help customers out of the gate since it could hard to find these disks when the first Macs shipped. Just to be sad and techie for a bit... More storage wasn't the only (or maybe not even the main) advantage of the 3.5 floppy (and the similar 3 floppy that I don't think ever made it into machines outside of the UK in the 80's.) Indeed there were 5.25 floppy formats that met or exceeded the storage size of the 3.5 floppy at the time Apple stuck it in their machines. For me the big advantage was 1) impossible to eject mid-read/write causing data loss and possible damage to drive disk (folk were _always_ doing this in my experience) 2) Due to the covered nature of the disk - much harder to get crud in disk and onto drive - again avoiding damage to disk drive Cheers, Adrian (who was very happy to see the back of 8 and 5.25 floppies back in the day :) -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] UX Team Collaboration
On 1 Sep 2009, at 21:31, Alok Jain wrote: Git and svn are comparable but git is better in some respects , for e.g. handling branches (i.e. if you are production version of the code , and then you also are working on 1 or more new features. You can keep one production branch and have another branch for other features. This way if a hot fix is to be done to production then any incomplete feature code does not come in the way. [snip] And git is worse in others (poor support on Windows boxes, lack of GUI apps for those who like GUI apps, more complex command line UI, etc.) [and you can also do branches with Subversion - but the tool support for managing branches is better in git] Cheers, Adrian -- http://quietstars.com - twitter.com/adrianh - delicious.com/adrianh 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] UCD vs Design Again? Really?!? [was: We don't blah blah blah]
Hi Ambrose, Thanks for posting. My experience is that all three roles you mention here (software developers, designers and UX professionals) don't bother pointing out the deficiencies of the other's approach... they just focus on their roles in whatever project process is required to do the work. The culture dictates how closely they work together, and their interaction preferences determine how they communicate. Yours, Robert On Sat, Aug 29, 2009 at 10:03 PM, J. Ambrose Little ambr...@aspalliance.com wrote: Jared, Andrei, Charlie, et al, I'm writing as someone working full time in the software industry for over 10 years and a hobbyist/wannabe for most of my life. I came up through the ranks with no formal computer, science, or design education. The only degree I hold is in history and humanities. I was a developer and architect for most of my career. So why the heck am I presuming to speak up amidst you juggernauts of usability and design? Because I'm someone who really cares about making great software and making the software industry in general better. Look, I'm here because it seems pretty obvious to me that the best way to make software better is through a focus on people *and* good design. The last 8 years of my career have been a steady enlightenment in that direction that all started with a rather silly incident involving some terribly amateurish visual design. (I guess my humanities background predisposes me, too.) Anyways, the point is that from my perspective (i.e., not having much vested interest in UCD, Usability, HCI, Design, IA, and so on), you're setting up an unnecessary (and damaging) dichotomy. It's not understanding people OR designing. It's both. Even software devs (those arch nemeses!) have figured out that involving the actual people who will use their software in the design process helps them to make more successful software. They also have figured out that being able to iterate and try different things helps them come to better solutions. These two principles underly what is broadly known as Agile. And if you want an amorphous term, man, Agile beats UCD any day! The way I see it, the people advocating UCD/UX and the people advocating Agile both see the light--they see the way to make this stuff better. They're coming at it from different directions but essentially marching to the same drum. In the last few years they've been sidling up to each other and saying, hey, we can learn from and work with each other and achieve our common goals. Now you got folks coming alongside, saying, no, you silly people don't get it, it's Design! Well, of course it's design! It's never not been design. You say, no Dee-sign, with a BIG D. We say, okay, what the heck do you mean by that? And you (IMO) have slowly been articulating it in ever clearer ways. Now, I have gone from more skeptical to almost a believer in Dee-sign, but still, I don't see it as some magic or something antithetical to Agile or UX. I see it as complimentary. Because all along we've known we gotta do good design--that's what the frak we've been trying to do. So you have a different background and discipline, and maybe it's better. Yeah, I think so. So again, from my perspective, you have the UX folks coming in and helping the somewhat floundering software developers do better in understanding people and you have the Design folks coming in and helping the somewhat floundering software developers do better in design. Awesome! More, smart, educated, passionate, and talented people marching together. Now what heck are we arguing about?? -a 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] We don\'t make consumer products, hence no need for a User Centered Design development process.
Hi Ali, Do you believe in a user-centered design process as a benefit to creating better web interfaces? It doesn't sound like there's much room for discussion about the topic at your current company. Who else shares your view amongst your peers, or even in different departments? - Robert On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Ali Naqvi a...@amroha.dk wrote: Time and time again I am being told that a user centered design development process isn't needed in our company since we do not make consumer products. Yet we make web interfaces for them to use, we create billions of features for them to use etc. A manager said last week: We are a technology driven corporation and that is why we are so successful. 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