July 2011
16 posts
1 tag
Managing Complex UX Deliverables
Sometimes, people forget that the various UX deliverables on a given project are strongly interrelated. By this, I mean that a deliverable influences and informs downstream deliverables, while the downstream deliverables should support and expand on those that were created upstream. This also means that when something new is discovered, all of these fabulous deliverables should be updated as...
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Advice for Small UX Teams
Out of necessity, people on small user experience teams need to be generalists, especially when they are a team of one or two. UX Matters has some great pointers for small UX teams, from selling yourself to getting things done with little budget to finding a support network. All good advice that can help make you and your tiny team more productive.
Original Article
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Metaphors for Explaining Pair Design
It can be difficult to explain the ways by which things get created. The people at Cooper generally have two roles on their pair design teams: Generators and Synthesizers. But,this nomenclature may not go over so well “with parents or at a cocktail party”, to use their words. So, they’ve gone on to explain their pair design roles, metaphorically. I especially like the the use of...
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HOWTO: Tracking Social Engagement in Google...
The social engagement tracking in Google Analytics is great. Google +1 works by default if you use the +1 Button Creator. However, one needs to do a bit of configuration to get tracking working for other things like Twitter tweets and Facebook likes. The popular Wordpress plugins for Addthis and Sharethis use Google Analytics Events for tracking social engagement rather than the newer _trackSocial...
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Wireframe Primer
Wireframes are old hat to anyone who has been working on web sites and applications for more than, say, 5 minutes. However, for those that aren’t involved in web design, wireframes can be a bit of a mystery. If you’re growing tired of explaining the role of the wireframe and why nobody should worry about how boxy and devoid of color they are, perhaps you can point people to UX 101: The...
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iPhone Fireflies 3
The video above shows the movement of over 800 iPhones in Europe during April 2011. There are a few other versions of iPhone Fireflies 3 at crowdflow.net. By the way, Crowdflow is collecting iPhone location log files in order to visualize wifi and cellular data networks around the world. If you are interested, you can in contribute the location data from your iPhone on crowdflow.net.
via...
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How to Win a User Experience Debate
Stakeholders generally provide plenty of design feedback. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the feedback is so counter to a good user experience that you, as the UX designer, are compelled to take a stand. If you’ve been around for more than one project, you’ve probably done this already. Before your next encounter, you may want to read Winning a User...
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Three Tactics for Better Wireframe Presentations
Wireframes can be misconstrued by stakeholders if they are not presented in the right way. Everyone has their own way of presenting wireframes, and most are always on the lookout for ways to improve. These three tactics for making more understandable wireframe presentations are worth checking out. I especially like the use of storytelling to frame individual wireframes in the context of user...
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In.gredients, the Zero-Packaging Supermarket
View the full length video on YouTube.
Food packaging is pretty wasteful. Even if one recycles everything they can, a fair amount of packaging is going in the trash. In.gredients, a supermarket slated to open this year in Austin is going reduce packaging needs by letting customers bring their own containers. If you don’t have a container, no problem, In.gredients will provide a...
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Quote of the Week
There was a point in the late ’90s where all the graduating M.B.A.’s wanted to start companies in Silicon Valley, and for the most part they were not actually qualified to do it. They brought the whole sideshow of the hype and parties and all that crap. M.B.A. graduating classes are actually a reliable contrary indicator: if they all want to go into investment banking, there’s going to be a...
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Tracking Social Plugins with Google Analytics
Google Analytics has a few handy reports for tracking social plugin activity on your site. If you’re using the standard Google +1 implementation, +1 activity should get tracked automatically without further coding. However, for other plugins like Twitter and Facebook, you’ll probably need to add some code to your site. The Google Analytics Blog to has a quick rundown on Social Plugin...
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Orienteering vs. Teleportation: Designing for Both...
One of the challenges faced by user interface designers is how to make the interface work for novices, experts and everyone in between. These groups come to a site or application bringing different types of knowledge, therefore they require different interactions. Tyler Tate has an interesting take on this in Novices Orienteer, Experts Teleport. In this article he gives some solid examples of...
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Experience Modeling
How can one go about effectively communicating user experience design to their team? Marc Sasinski puts forth one method in his article, Experience Design Models. He walks through the example of an online service that pays household bills to demonstrate how to create an experience model.
This is an excellent example of how to turn user research into something actionable and easily understood by...
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Happy Independence Day
For your enjoyment: A fireworks display, NYPD style.
via Cityroom
Original Article
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Prototypes Application Creates Quick iPhone...
Sometimes it’s hard to understand how a particular design is going to work from a user experience standpoint, especially on a mobile device. With the Prototypes application you can quickly turn design comps (or even wireframes and sketches) into a tappable/clickable prototype on the iPhone, iPod touch or Mac. Basically, you’ll be turning the images into image maps that will load the...
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Email Charter
It seems like very few people really love email. After all, if you use email in your professional life, you probably spend a good portion of your working day dealing with it. It’s been a few years since I was getting inundated with so many emails that I had to make changes to the way I dealt with them. The changes I made to my email management were a success. If you are having trouble with...
June 2011
8 posts
1 tag
+1 Reporting in Google Analytics and Webmaster...
Both Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools have built in +1 reporting now. This will make tracking +1 activity a bit easier. Obviously, Google +1 isn’t the only game in town when it comes to social sharing. Google Analytics also provides a few social reports, these will help you track how people are sharing your content across different social mediums.
Original Article
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Risk Meets Foursquare
Care for a giant game of Risk? Enter World of Fourcraft, which uses Foursquare to turn the five boroughs of New York into a sort of virtual board game. Looks like a good reason to start checking in with Foursquare again.
Original Article
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Requirements and User Experience
Greg Laugero has an excellent writeup on Matching Requirements with User Experience at Johnny Holland Magazine. His examples of enhancing requirements, which are often incomplete, with interaction design tools, such as user stories, during the design phase are great. This is a good read not only for those who are charged with meeting requirements, but also the people writing the requirements....
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Assessing a Team's UX Skills
Jared Spool posted an article on Assessing Your Team’s UX Skills back in 2007. He recently linked to it again, and for good reason. It’s an excellent read, and contains a simple test for assessing your UX team. Ensuring that your UX team is taking a huge step toward ensuring successful products.
Original Article
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NextTrain Crowdsources Subway Tracking
The NYCMate application (available for iPhone and Android) has a NextTrain feature, which uses phone data to predict subway arrival times. It does so by analyzing when its users lose signal when going underground. According to this article, the system will need about 10,000 of NYCMate’s 600,000 users to turn on the NextTrain feature to get an accurate view of what is happening with the...
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How to Track Google Plus One with Google Analytics
Google introduced +1 a couple weeks ago. If you’ve added the buttons, but are wondering how to track all of this, check out this post about tracking Google plus one with Google Analytics on yoast.com.
Happy Tracking!
Update 2011-06-30: Google has more methods for tracking +1 in Webmaster Tools and Analytics.
Original Article
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Light Switch Time Capsule
I ran across this light switch time capsule project a while back. Basically, one puts brief message on the back of a switch-plate to be found by a future occupant. Isn’t that better than leaving behind just dust and cat hair?
Unfortunately, the last time I moved, I totally forgot about it. Too bad, because I’m sure the new owner of the apartment would have been really interested in...
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Trying to be everywhere...
A while back, Bits had a post about taking a step back from the constant connectedness. I especially like comment number 2: “Trying to be everywhere means being nowhere at all.” So true.
While I have no scientific evidence, it seems like those I spend the most time with have started to take this step back. It seems as if the smart phones don’t get pulled out quite as much...
April 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Friendster Purge
Remember Friendster? Of course you do. If, by chance, you have any old photos on Friendster, you might want to download them soon. Friendster is going to delete old posts and photos, permanently. For me, this serves as a reminder to be careful who we entrust with storing our data (yes, I’m looking at you Facebook). Today, it seems unfathomable that Facebook would fade into obscurity. But,...
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The Frying Dutchmen Lands in NYC
A new food truck is coming to the streets of New York. The Frying Dutchmen will be a mobile friets truck, plying the avenues between SoHo and Murray Hill. Fried potatoes with a selection of dipping sauces will surely be a hit on with the revelers in both neighborhoods.
No word on whether the name is a shout out to the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet of a similar name from the Simpsons, or just a a...
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IA/UX Stencils, Templates and Patterns
There are a lot of IA/UX libraries out there for various platforms. At this point, I prefer OmniGraffle for most things, but sometimes, clients want things done in something else. Here’s a short list of libraries/patterns for use in different software, including OmniGraffle and Visio. This is a very short list, but they are all things I’ve used and been happy with.
Konigi has a nice...
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iPhone Tracker
For a few months now, your iPhone has been storing your location data and transferring it to your computer when you sync. You can view this data with the handy and open source iPhone Tracker. Getting this sort of information from cellular companies usually requires some form of legal action. But, now you can get it without ever contacting an attorney.
It reminds me of this Tell-all telephone data...
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Don't be a Jerk
Take the Bike Smart Pledge!
Original Article
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DisplayCabinet
DisplayCabinet from bashford on Vimeo.
How cool is this?
DisplayCabinet is the output of 24 hours with Tim Burrell Saward and Dan Williams “connecting up our things to the web, our environments to our things, and our things to us” as part of the Pachube Internet of Things Hackathon.
Little bits of data, revealed in the right context (in an unobtrusive way), can be totally enlightening. I like...
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Sixpoint Cans on the Horizon
Update 2011-05-16: Sixpoint will be available in cans come Memorial Day!
It appears that Sixpoint may begin offering at least one of their fine, craft ales in cans. This was also mentioned on beernews.org and Beeradvocate.
It will be great to have some Bengali Tiger in such portable containers!
Original Article
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Yes, They Do Windows
Lens offers a view of the people that help ensure a clear view with Glass in Front, Clouds Below. The slideshow consists of images of window washers at work—both professional and amateur—from the New York Times Archives. The views are stunning enough to make one contemplate picking up a squeegee and hanging from a skyscraper.
Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
Original Article
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Troubleshooting Data Sent to Google Analytics
If you work with Google Analytics, eventually, you’ll probably be faced with a situation where you are unsure about what data is being sent by ga.js to Google’s servers. Google recommends several different ways to troubleshoot the GA tracking code. However, if you are just trying to find out what data is being sent to Google, I recommend using the Google Analytics Tracking Code...
March 2011
6 posts
1 tag
How to Make the Office a Place Where Work Gets...
Jason Fried hits the nail on the head regarding the current state of office productivity in this TED Talk (embedded below). Namely, interruptions are shredding our work days up into tiny 10 or 15 or 30 minute increments during which we are expected to get meaningful work done. Obviously, this is far from ideal. Towards the end of the talk, he offers some recommendations—my favorite being the...
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Hipster Relativity
This is a hypothesis I’ve held for quite some time now…
Graphic by Dustin Glick
Original Article
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DIY Cooking Handbook
I really like the idea of this DIY Cooking Handbook from the New York Times. It pulls together a handful of recipes from varied sources for “nice to have in the fridge/pantry” items. Currently, there are 13 different (lucky!) recipes ranging from kimchi to preserved lemons. The Horseradish Beer Mustard sounds particularly delightful.
Original Article
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Phoning it In
I have this great, old rotary phone. Yes, it still works, and yes, I still use it. It rings with a warm tone that the iPhone’s “old phone” ringtone does a really poor job of mimicking. It sits next to the couch and rarely moves. Although, it does have a 25 foot cord, so it can be dragged about the apartment without too much effort. But, it normally stays in place because it has a...
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Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
It isn’t all that surprising that Forest City Ratner is seriously considering building a 34 story, pre-fab, modular tower to satisfy affordable housing requirements. This is just one of many promises that will be unkept on the Atlantic Yards project. This particular promise was to the construction workers who stood to gain quite a few jobs out of this project. But, modular construction means...
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EOM?
Shame on me, I thought EOM was common knowledge. Looking back on it now, it probably would have been less effort to write a paragraph about the package in the email. Live and learn.
Original Article
August 2007
1 post
1 tag
My Motorcycle Touring Essentials
This is an ongoing list of things I’ve learned to bring along on longer motorcycle trips. Most of the things listed here are luxury items that one can certainly do without. I, however, prefer not to rough it too much. For an exhaustive packing list along with some great moto-camping recommendations, I suggest Bill Johns’ Excellent Motorcycle Camping Guide Also, Hellen Twowheels has...