User experience: An alternative approach to personas
Personas are a great way to help visualise the people you are designing for. However, sometimes the traditional approach can be a bit overwhelming. Fortunately there is an alternative.
User experience archive
Talks: Social Media is a user experience issue
Integrating social media with our website should be more than just slapping some social media icons on the homepage.
User experience: Are you forcing your users into social silos?
As web designers and website owners we need to think long and hard about how we are using social media, especially how we introduce social elements into our websites
Mobile: Help your users, be focused
Do users get your app? Are you confusing them with too many features?
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:41 — 2.0MB)
User experience: Satisfying our desire for risk and reward
A website should satisfy our desire for risk and reward. How your site does that depends on its it’s role. Which role does your site serve?
Podcast: Download (Duration: 3:51 — 2.1MB)
User experience: Are you annoying your repeat users?
What are you doing to make existing users feel special? For that matter what are you doing just to make their lives a little bit easier?
Podcast: Download (Duration: 4:05 — 2.2MB)
Design: Wireframing for responsive design
Responsive design creates some enormous challenges, not just in build but also in layout and wireframing.
Responsive Design Sketchbook
I really like the look of this carefully thought out sketch pad:
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0064/4612/products/responsive-blueprint_grande.png?100729
I can imagine how this could benefit the design thinking process, helping designers to remember and consider that site design should be working at many widths.
Want.
Design: A prototype is worth a thousand words
Leigh shares some thoughts on why a functional prototype is worth a ten thousand word specification.
User experience: Jared Spool talks about calls to action
In episode 4 of season 1 we discussed calls to action. This included a short segment from usability expert Jared Spool. Now we are releasing the full interview.
User experience: An experience with user personas
Leigh Howells (a user experience/design consultant at Headscape) shares his experience of creating some user personas.
User experience: Making user testing happen
We all know we should be doing more usability testing than we are. Fortunately there are some great tools available to make the job easier.
User experience: You're a failure: Deal with it
Every website has points of failure. It is inevitable. The question is do you know what they are and are you doing something about them?
User experience: How to stop choice paralysis damaging your sales
Could you be losing sales because users cannot make a decision? The chances are the answer is yes. Fortunately there is something you can do about it.
User experience: Happy customers through an improved checkout
You would think that the checkout form would be simple. However often users abandon their purchase, because the checkout form fails to deliver.
User experience: Lou Rosenfeld on Search Analytics
Lou Rosenfeld shares how the search terms used on our websites can reveal a lot about our users.
User experience: User testing for disposable websites
Increasingly any marketing campaign is accompanied by a landing page or microsite, but how do you justify user testing such short term sites.
User experience: Usability testing in action
A lot of people think that running a usability session is difficult… its not. This recording of a usability test session proves otherwise.
Mobile: Monthly usability testing with Steve Krug
Steve Krug, usability expert and author of “Don’t make me Think”, shares with us his unique approach to usability.
User experience: Speed Wireframing with Nick Finck
A great little video showing off the wireframing process.
Mobile: The iPhone is not easy to use: a new direction for UX Design
If the iPhone is so difficult to use, why is it still regarded as a game changer by both the design and business worlds? Because it does several important things right, but most of all because it’s…
User experience: University course finders suck
I see a lot of University websites and the one area that consistently fails to deliver is the course finder.
User experience: Case Study: Wiltshire Farm Foods
One of the biggest challenges of running a successful website is balancing the needs of users with those of the business. This is especially true when an existing business model conflicts with user needs.