Big Ideas
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Alignment Diagrams
by James Kalbach | [2 comments]
Alignment diagrams bring actions, thoughts, and people together to address the causes of poor experience at their root. James Kalbach shows how designers can use this tool to solve business problems and have real business impact. more...
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Emotional Design with A.C.T. - Part 1
by Trevor van Gorp | [21 comments]
We form relationships with products and services for the same reasons we form them with people. In this first of two installments, Trevor explains how emotion commands attention. more...
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IA Summit 10 - Richard Saul Wurman Keynote
by Jeff Parks | [0 comments]
In his keynote from the 2010 IA Summit, Richard Saul Wurman encourages the design community to take on big problems rather than make small changes incrementally. more...
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UX Book Clubs
by Steve Baty | [11 comments]
With their interesting approach and engaging format, UX Book Clubs are sprouting up all over the globe. Steve
Baty tells us about their genesis, the structure, and how the approach
encourages new learning and
participation. more... -
IA Summit 09 - Keynote
by Jeff Parks | [7 comments]
Michael Wesch points out that our "audiences" aren't audiences at all, but rather creators, and our job is to enable. Along with the design challenges, this new approach delivers the joy of reconnecting people to each other. more...
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IA Summit 09 - Plenary
by Jeff Parks | [6 comments]
In the Closing Plenary, Jesse James Garrett looks back at Summits past, examines
the current state of User Experience
Design, and endorses a vision of our practice as a mechanism for discovery. more... -
Wanted/Needed: UX Design for Collaboration 2.0
by Matthew C. Clarke | [27 comments]
Matthew Clarke asserts that no current software supports the full process of collaboration, and proposes a model that may help get us closer to a more effective collaboration environment. more...
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Bringing Holistic Awareness to Your Design
by Joseph Selbie | [15 comments]
Web application design teams that have a shared understanding of a project's context and objectives produce better results. Joseph Selbie explains, and gives us tips on how to promote shared, holistic understanding in our own teams. more...
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IDEA 2008
by Jeff Parks | [1 comment]
The IDEA Conference took place in Chicago on October 7-9. The speakers pushed the boundaries of what it means to design complex information spaces of all kinds. We can all expand our practice by absorbing their experiences and ideas. In cooperation with the IA Institute, we're happy to bring you recordings of most conference talks. more...
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IDEA 2008: An Interview with Andrew Hinton
by Russ Unger | [0 comments]
We all need context to better understand how to react to environments. Andrew Hinton thinks deeply about how context pertains to a world where architecture is
not made of tangible objects. He shares some of these thoughts with Russ Unger. more... -
Your New Excuse to Get an Xbox
by Mia Northrop | [9 comments]
Games are fun and immersive, while websites, for the most part, are not. How do we get users to suspend disbelief on the web? Mia Northrup examines how some techniques for developing games can lead to better digital experiences. more...
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On A Scale of 1 to 5
by Alex Kirtland and Aaron Schiff | [22 comments]
Rating and reputation systems
can reduce uncertainty decisions during online transactions. Alex Kirtland and Aaron Schiff give us solid practical advice on how to design them successfully. more... -
Enhancing Dashboard Value and User Experience
by Joe Lamantia | [9 comments]
In this article, part five of a series, the author describes ways to enhance the long-term value and user experience quality of portals by encouraging portability and natural patterns of dialog and interaction around aggregated content. more...
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Personas and the Role of Design Documentation
by Andrew Hinton | [26 comments]
Andrew Hinton digs into the origins of the persona and reflects on how business uses (or misuses) design documentation. more...
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Search Behavior Patterns
by John Ferrara | [6 comments]
People search for information online is often in idiosyncratic ways. It's rarely as straightforward as designers of search systems assume. John Ferrara gives us hope as he helps us think about a broader search ecology and identifies patterns in behavior that serve as the basis for good search design. more...
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Foundations of Interaction Design
by Jeff Parks | [4 comments]
Jeff Parks speaks with David Malouf on his article, Foundations of Interaction Design. They discuss several foundations of Interaction design explore in greater detail issues posted in the story's comments. more...
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Connectors for Dashboards and Portals
by Joe Lamantia | [4 comments]
This article is the fourth in a series sharing a design framework for dashboards and portals. In this installment, Joe Lamantia demonstrates how to connect content containers to ease navigation at all levels of the architecture. more...
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The Limitations of Server Log Files for Usability Analysis
by Karl Groves | [17 comments]
In the quest to gather more data on user behavior, some researchers and designers look to server log files for usability analysis. While the logs do provide a great deal of information, Karl Groves demonstrates why they are are inappropriate for gathering usability data. more...
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Building Block Definitions (Containers)
by Joe Lamantia | [4 comments]
Joe Lamantia dives deep into the components of the building block system. Each has a place in his design framework for dashboards and portals. See how you too can use these same elements in your work. (Part 3 in a series) more...
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Foundations of Interaction Design
by David Malouf | [11 comments]
Interaction Design focuses on the behavior of interfaces, rather than their form or structure. David Malouf proposes four foundations that underpin that practice. They help orchestrate a holistic narrative and give us all things to seriously consider when we look at our creations. more...