Boxes and Arrows: Comments by uxdesign .com

uxdesign .com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:24:21 GMT

A “more democratically responsible user experience…” what an interesting, and I think useful, framing of the topic. “Out-voicing” by some polemic or aggravated group over other perhaps more civil but less aggressive ones is a real problem with user generated content, as it is with humanity in general, I’d say. Though not to acquiesce. Tribes that discourage voices are not unlike those that discourage votes: both are a bane to social health. And yes, IAs, interaction designers and UX strategists should be concerned about this, not least because we’re concerned with people (as in We The…), or because we’re often now in a position to influence human-human as well as human-computer interaction, but because the widest possible participation serves our media enterprise objectives as well.

Chris Wilson, in your later paragraph, seems to agree with Barry Schwartz, who say says our usual response, to generate rules and incentives fails us. I liken Wilson’s principled chaperons to Schwartz’ moral heroes: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wi…

“Something in the air,” I suppose, as I just wrote “How Sociable Is Your Media?” last weekend, around similar ideas. “If people rule in your design process, then it is essentially a democratic project:” http://uxdesign.com/ux-theory/article/sociable-social-med…

Principals of many kinds are essential to design, and probably always have been. Perhaps us veteran/designers give a little more thought to how design principals relate to democratic ones, but I hope not.

uxdesign .com — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:21:24 GMT

Listened to JJG’s Plenary this morning via i/pod. Always insightful, interesting, provocative (enough) and engaging. As every IA knows language matters, as the shaper of models clarifies thought. So I was glad to hear him reclaim and validate user experience design. I didn’t expect his take on use of “users,” given recent trends. And glad most of all for maintaining focus where it belongs: on people and our various modes of apprehension. Useful distinctions, admonitions, “new” idea-relationships, and renewed emphasis on the work itself, rather than talk about it. Tons of ‘grist for the mill.’ Thank you Jessie!

uxdesign .com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:48:32 GMT

I’m happy to see that prototyping seems to be increasing. Yet I am still surprised, despite praise lavished on axure, protoshare and the like, at the dearth of sufficiently dynamic web application “prototyping” tools.

“Prototyping” a website takes little less time than creating one. Yet, even nearing 2010, there is rabid hunger for a good WEB APP prototyping tool that can mimic, if not actually provide, behavioral objects that are based on common js frameworks. As it is, creating even simple interactive prototypes is time consuming. This, I’d guess, is why you’re “prototyping isolated interactions” for testing?