Post Category: Design
9 Mar, 2012 I recently read a post by Jaime Creixems on his affection for the superior experiences crafted by Disney Imagineers (and to a lesser degree Apple). It’s nothing that hasn’t been said before; in a nutshell, Disney & Apple care deeply about and excel at user experience design (water is also wet).
Jaime also said the following, which I could not agree with more:
To achieve that kind of ‘awesomeness’ you need to care deeply about details.
His attention to detail comment, coupled with Andy Budd’s recent scathing remarks about the agency model inspired this post.
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7 Mar, 2012 It happens to every project—there are a dozen feature requests in your backlog, but your team only has enough time to implement no more than four of them before the next scheduled product release date. Normally, you do one of the following:
- Start at the top of the list and work your way down until you run out of time
- Pick the features that the CEO/VP/Client added to the backlog
- Bust your ass to do a mediocre job squeezing all 12 features into the next release (8 of which were inadequately tested and stand a good chance of crashing the entire app/site)
Here’s another option to prioritize what matters: The Kano Model.
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29 Feb, 2012 A new iOS application called Clear has been making the rounds in the online tech and design circles. Â Tech pundits are loving the simplicity, user interface, and gesture based interaction model. I’ve received messages from friends and colleagues asking if I’ve seen the “clever UX” of the to-do application. Well, I have seen it; I downloaded it the day it was launched, and spent some time using it. I determined within about 15 minutes that, while the user interface is certainly clever, the application falls short in the usefulness department.
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28 Feb, 2012 Recently, I came across a website that encouraged me to “Wireframe Like A Professional” (who me, professional? You must be joking!). The site offers downloadable UI patterns that can be incorporated into your favorite design program in order to design wireframes; and you can tell they’re meant for wireframing because they’re grayscale.
The designer (known only as Anthony T) clearly worked hard to create several beautiful UI elements, the problem is, they’re too beautiful.
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27 Feb, 2012 With the ever-increasing number of devices (big & small) capable of browsing the web, adapting a user’s experience to best suit the type of device they’re using is a natural progression in user interface design. Unfortunately, some designers are applying the responsive design approach to content.
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23 Feb, 2012 Seeing as I’ve transitioned into a position that focuses exclusively on mobile user experience and interface design, I thought it was only appropriate to tackle a more mobile-friendly (i.e. adaptive, fluid, responsive, progressive enhancement, etc.) redesign for my own site. I thought I’d share a bit on the process and nuts & bolts behind the transition.
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