CategoryUX

May 7, 2014 — We all have our favored methods and techniques, but the general process is similar: Conduct research, prototype, then present to stakeholders and users. However, every once in a while something will take you by surprise. In this article, Chrisday will discuss the variety of challenges that he faced and how he eventually overcame them. Many of these learnings can be applied to enhance the user experience design process in smaller projects. Read more…

April 25, 2014 — Paul Boag would argue that the single most precious commodity in Western society is time. People hate to have their time wasted, especially online. We spend so much of our time online these days, and every interaction demands a slice of our time. One minor inconvenience on a website might not be much, but, accumulated, it is death by a thousand cuts. On each project ask two questions: “Am I saving myself time at the expense of the user?” and “How can I save the user time here?”. Read more…

April 22, 2014 — Users skip or otherwise ignore dialogs, tours, video demos and transparencies. At best, users find them a minor inconvenience. At worst, the patterns significantly aggravate new users who are trying to get into the app. In this article, Theresa Neil and Rick Malley will look at why many common tutorial patterns are ineffective and how you can leverage game design principles to increase user engagement. Read more…

April 10, 2014 — If you are building a product, you should always speak with customers and test your idea before. But you probably don’t know that *you *might be making some of the most common mistakes when running your experiments. Mistakes include testing the wrong aspect of your business, asking the wrong questions and neglecting to define a criterion for success. In this article, Grace Ng will show you a guide to designing quick, effective, low-cost experiments. Read more…

March 11, 2014 — A powerful report combines data gathered from a variety of sources, such as interviews with users, and analysis of the website’s analytics. The goal is to put the key insights from your research of a website into a single document. For this article, Kyle Larson created a fictional Widgets website, which you’ll work on to build a data report. Read more…

March 6, 2014 — During brainstorming sessions, UX professionals would generate concepts as paper or whiteboard sketches. But this artifacts limit participants from visualizing interactivity and the system’s flow. In this article Svetlin Denkov will look at clickthrough prototyping on the iPhone with the Prototyping on Paper (or POP) app. His goal is to introduce the tool, share his prototyping experience and discuss competitors. Read more…

February 26, 2014 — While responsive design is an extremely elegant way to handle coding for multiple device types when executed with HTML and CSS, the prototyping tools available to UX professionals have not delivered testable or demonstrable experiences of the same quality. That changed with the new Axure RP 7. With this feature, a UX designer can create a multi-device prototype in a few hours. As we all get further along in designing for our multi-device world, Axure RP’s adaptive views are a great tool to have in your arsenal. Read more…

February 24, 2014 — An off-canvas menu is a great way to maintain context while giving the user a lot of additional information. In this article, Kyle Peatt will talk about why off-canvas has become so successful as a navigation pattern. Countless methods and patterns are waiting to be discovered by intrepid designers. The potential of this pattern is bound only by our drive to pioneer. It’s time that we explore just how far off canvas we can go! Read more…

January 27, 2014 — The debate about what a “User Experience Design” exactly is, is as old as the discipline itself, and while sitting back and watching the drama is sometimes fun, let’s try to figure out which user experience techniques are useful for startups, in-house teams, big corporations and anyone who wants to improve their website, product or service. Read more…

January 8, 2014 — Anthony Viviano has been working at incorporating lean UX at the enterprise level. In studying it, he fond that there’s a temptation to lay down rules, and if the rules aren’t followed, you can’t call it lean UX. At the end of the day, though, some lean UX is better than none. Read more…