Recently I came across the Visual Complexity website thanks to Adaptive Paths signposts for the week ending March 5th. A particular graphic by Christopher Hefele popped out at me called the NetFlix Similarity Map. Having written a paper on the intelligence of the Netflix recommender engine ‘Cinematch’ a couple semesters ago I found this visual to be particularly interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently gave a presentation at the South Florida User Experience Meetup on the top 10 design and layout principles you should know when designing your website. Below is a summary as well as the presentation with some screen shot examples for those who could not attend. Read the rest of this entry »

What I call invisible interactions are interactions I never really noticed until they went missing. These are the truly usable and seamlessly designed interactions.  Features I’ve come to expect without even knowing it. Below is a list of some invisible interactions that I have come to discover in my everyday computer use. Once they went missing for one reason or another I was lost without them.

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What is the best tool for creating prototypes?

This is a surprisingly controversial topic. Just like asking someone whether they prefer Coke or Pepsi, you’re bound to get a reason behind why their choice is best, or why water is better for you if they don’t drink soda.

Picking the right prototyping tool is really a matter of what works best for you and your experience with different applications. It’s about what you find easy to use, and allows you to create the designs you envision relatively quickly and pain free.

My favorite tools are Balsamiq, Axure, Visio and InDesign. Each has its purpose in my toolbox, and I choose which one to use based on the needs of each individual project.

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Paper Prototyping with Magnets and Dry Erase

What is Paper Prototyping?

Paper Prototyping is a low fidelity (Low-Fi) way to create and test designs before an application has been built. The nature of a these prototypes as paper and pencil is an important element. Not only does the paper and pen lead to a creative aspect of the process, but it also lends well to a cheap budget and quick turnaround. More importantly however, the rough sketch implies an unfinished idea which lends well to iterations and makes it more likely that those working on the design will be willing to change them. The more time and effort we put into an idea, typically the more attached we become to that idea. By creating rough sketches with just enough fidelity to get the idea across we are more likely to be open to modifications. Read the rest of this entry »

What are standards?

Standards are agreed upon conventions for a particular process or visual pattern based on research and proven best practices. They provide a basis for commonality across many diverse things. They allow us to learn something once, and employ it in multiple places. An example of a well know interface standard are the simple button icons used in rich text editing toolbars for bold, italic and underlined text. The B is Bold, the I is italic and the U is underlined. Read the rest of this entry »

Technology is constantly changing. Everyday research is done, things are discovered and advancements are made. With the rise of RSS feeds I have found my feed reader becoming an indispensable source of information to help keep me up to date in this constantly changing profession. I’ve had many people ask me where I find the articles i’m always forwarding.

Therefore I have decided to post my top 10 list of UX feeds. There are certainly many more, but these are the ones I find my self continually reading on a regular basis. They are provided below in no particular order accompanied with a brief description of the content. If there are any missing that you enjoy, please post a link in the comments. Read the rest of this entry »

Design Review: Lotus Notes 8 versus Outlook 2007

Recently our office started upgrading some employees to Lotus 8 and I decided to give it a try. Before I get started, let me give you a little information on my email experience. I started using email in the mid 90’s with Hotmail, moving at somepoint after 2000 to Outlook which I have used religously since. Sure, I still have my Hotmail account, as well as Yahoo Mail, and Gmail. But rather than fanagle with multiple interfaces and logins everthing conveniently is pushed to my home computer and appears nicely integrated into a single inbox in my Outlook.

So you can imagine I was less than excited when I found out I was going to be forced to use an email application aside from my beloved Outlook. I admit that at first with Notes 7, I resisted and cheated. I used a connector at work that would allow me to continue receiving my email via the outlook interface eventhough the company used Lotus Notes. (For those interested here is a link to the connector, you must have domino 7 and outlook 2003).

So how is it I’m writing an article about Lotus 8 you may ask? I have to say it is sheer curiousity as a person who designs applications for a living. I attended CHI 2009 and went to a presentation by IBM explaning all of the user experience research methods they employeed when updating there system from version 7 to 8, and the presentation impressed me enough to make me decide it’s worth a test drive.

So here are my initial thoughts when comparing Lotus Notes 8 against my beloved Outlook 2007. Read the rest of this entry »

Regardless of the vast information available on form design best practices there are online forms everywhere which break many of the standards. Forms stand between users and your product or service and should be given priority as a major portal to your business.

Forms should focus on the point. They should be simple and should not include unnecessary text or requests for information. Labels should be intuitive and obvious. If the user’s login is an email address the label should be “Email” not “Username” or “Login”. Each form should have a clear goal and purpose which is clearly communicated to the user. While the user is filling out the form the user should always be aware of what’s going on, and any errors they may create.
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What does it take to make your website global? I mean technically people can already access it from anywhere if it’s a public site, so all you need is a little bit of translation from babblefish right? Wrong.

Translation
Believe it or not, there is much more to a global site than the language it is written in. Even with language there are many considerations aside from rough translation. For example think about when you talk to a new English speaker. Notice how they seem to mix up certain verbs or tense and even meaning. That’s because language is unique to its culture and does not always directly translate to an equivalent word in other languages and cultures. This is why you should use not just a method of translation, but also back translation. Read the rest of this entry »