June 2010
4 posts
1 tag
The Local Maximum →
In his latest article on 52 Weeks of UX, Joshua Porter once again nails an important aspect of UX:
One strategy we might employ is to optimize until we reach a point of diminishing returns: design until changes just aren’t having a big effect. Then, stop optimizing and return to other kinds of analysis to figure out the next steps. Conduct interviews. Do user testing. Give surveys, ask...
2 tags
“The best software has a vision. The best software takes sides. When someone uses...”
– Jason Fried, Getting Real
This quotes latest reincarnation appears in Mike Rundles excellent article Kill The Settings, Build Opinionated Software and is still very true.
1 tag
iPhone OS Service Menu →
Chris Clarks excellent idea delivers functionality, which remains discoverable, fits into the existing workflow and solves one of the remaining problems of copy’n’past in the iPhone OS. What’s not to like about it?
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Sexy Skills of Data Geeks →
In his excellent article on the rise of the Data Scientist, Nathan of Flowing Data writes:
Even if you’re not into visualization, you’re going to need at least a subset of the skills […] if you want to seriously mess with data. Statisticians should know APIs, databases, and how to scrape data; designers should learn to do things programmatically; and computer scientists...
May 2010
14 posts
1 tag
V Lock →
A true treasure of UX improvement for an everyday problem no one addressed in the last few centuries.
1 tag
Rethinking the Inspector →
Very creative rethinking of the traditional palette by Plasq co-founder Keith Lang. Probably not something I can imagine for the Creative Suite, but It sure would be handy for iWorks. Especially since it would create a bridge toward quasimodes in the touch interface version of iWorks (for more on this, see Gestures)
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Gestures →
Again, a thorough article by Lukas Mathis, this time on complex gestures in touch interfaces.
He points out that once a gesture becomes so complex that it doesn’t resemble any real world action associated with the task anymore, it’s not much better then a CLI.
In the next months and years, defining how complex touch interactions are done will be a major war zone for the...
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“Graphic designers have the intention to grab an emotional response visually....”
– Michael Dick, creative interface designer.
As I mentioned in my posts “On the Quality of Business Ideas”, it needs both emotions and logic, and both on an above average level, to create something of quality.
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Google Prediction API →
A developers magic 8-Ball. May still produce interesting results.
Although it makes me wary to trust yet another set of data to the great google machina, it is an interesting opportunity to use all the experience and know how google gained in evaluating data.
Possibilities afforded by such technical opportunities may actually one day become more then just hapless sprawls into the direction of...
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The Psychologist’s View of UX Design →
Good stuff.
3 tags
First Person User Interfaces →
Combines most of my late posts about future ux into a handy presentation. So, either this stuff is glaringly obvious, or I think like a Yahoo bigwig… :)
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WatchJesse Schell (@jesseschell, former Disney Imagineer, game developer and professor at Carnegie Mellon university talks about “Design Outside the Box”.
Although this talk is already six months old (which, by internet-time, means 2 years) we only now begin to see a more widespread pondering of concepts like FPIs, game mechanic oriented social networks (like foursquare and gowalla) and...
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More FPI Samples
Lately, articles and pre-concepts of FPI’s seem more abundant then ever.
Check out this interesting take of US Homeland Security on how the future of fire fighting and crisis management may look like. /via Andrew Vande Moere
Next, there is this fascinating look behind the scenes of Iron Man 2’s FPIs, done by Perception. During the movie I admired most how natural and fitting the...
1 tag
How UX Can Drive Sales in Mobile Apps →
Excellent Interview with Jeff Powers of Occipital, creator of the iPhone App RedLaser, on how a change in UX perspectives dramatically enriched the app.
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Curators of the Real-Time Web →
Interesting article on how SwiftRiver distills chatter to relevant, actionable information. A lot about trust, and in extension thereof: quality.
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iPad Usability: First Findings From User Testing →
Yes, it’s Nielsen, but it’s still an interesting read.
UPDATE: Interesting response to Nielsens findings by Fred Beecher:
2 tags
Understand the Web →
I totally agree with @benward’s perspective on the recent discussion about web apps vs. native apps, started by @joehewitt.
April 2010
13 posts
1 tag
On the Quality of Business Ideas
Something can be perceived as good if it is useful, beautiful or beneficial to exist.
In common vernacular use, the term quality refers to to a high degree of excellence and therefore means either usefulness or beauty.1
Nature shows us many examples of great quality.2 That’s why I believe that great quality attracts people all by itself. It just feels right and provides a satisfying...
1 tag
“Eventually everything connects - people, ideas, objects. The quality of the...”
– C. Eames, again via @amyhoy
TouchScroll for WebKit Mobile →
Very impressive indeed
It took almost 3 years for someone (aka @void_0) to come up with this.
JavaScript and CSS3 Rocks! ;)
3 tags
Conservative vs. Liberal UX
Tomorrow, @Luca, a friend of mine, will discuss the badly phrased question “Is the Internet Making Us Dumb” on one of the more prestigious Austrian talk shows Club 2.
This will be especially intriguing, as Luca and his main argumentative adversary Frank Schirrmacher, publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, will likely engage upon many questions deeply related to the broader...
1 tag
Simplicity Isn't That Simple →
That’s one of the things Apple is really good at. Reduce to the essence, and then deliver features on a regular basis.
This creates a sense of evolvement and continuity, which is very important to establish a relationship of trust with your customers.
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First Person User Interfaces →
First person interfaces allow people to interact with the real world as they are currently experiencing it. These applications layer information on top of people’s immediate view of the world and turn the objects and people around them into interactive elements. First person interfaces enable people to interact with the real world through a set of “always on” sensors. Simply...
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Smart Contact Lenses →
I recently wrote a few blogposts about augmented reality, touch interfaces and eye tracking. This above link is about solar powered contact lens HUDs.
I can vividly see a future where all this converges into a social and location aware cloud. Where data and reality melt together in a photo-realistic environment which will truly be an augmented reality.
We will interact with this reality...
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MiniApps - HTML5 apps for mobile platforms →
Well done examples, all open source.
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Social Markers
Not long ago, I had a conversation with @amyhoy on what the future of forums could look like. She had an idea very much akin to what @craigmod is expressing here:
So consider this: 10,000 of us reading the same Kindle book, each of us highlighting and taking notes. Would the aggregate of this not be illuminating? If I want to publicly share my notes with fellow Kindle or iBooks readers,...
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A pixel is not a pixel is not a pixel →
Good summary.
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From Report to Infographic
After crafting many, many reports in the last few months, a simple realization dawned on me today. Reports are just a collection of number, raw data if you will. What to make of it, is up to the beholder. But as with the difference between bad powerpoints and good keynotes, it doesn’t have to end there.
More sophisticated reports - I tend to call them summaries - are data put into...
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Painkiller Marketing →
What caught my attention in this article, is the idea that most customers will find any website by either recommendation or through search. In both cases they do not visit the site randomly, but with at least some mild interest.
Attention span is usually short, and talking about stuff they are aware already, isn’t helping. So I think this article emphasizes the “no-setup-just-do-it” idea.
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“Software cries out for personality, for ornamentation, for delight. To reflect...”
– Amy Hoy, ca. 2010 AD