User Experience Design Blog

Jul 14, 2010 - I loved this presentation by Paul Adams of the Google UX team. He explores designing for real social networks by examining relationships, influence, identity and privacy. The entire presentation is extremely well done, and the discussion around relationships and our online versus offline social network truly illuminates important factors in social design. The Real Life Social Network [...]

Sep 18, 2009 - Many online and mobile applications rely on ratings and reviews from their communities to provide wisdom for their remaining users. Services such as Yelp, Amazon, Digg, and even the Apple App Store use input from their users to evaluate some intrinsic value of a set of items—be they books or iPhone applications.  However, new research [...]

Aug 11, 2009 - Earlier this month Nokia Conversations posted a poll for the most important feature in a web browsing device and the results are in from 461 respondents. No surprise, the ‘all of the above’ choice was the top-rated feature, but following that were ‘big screen,’ and ‘high speed connectivity.’

Feb 25, 2009 - Two user experience researchers share on the Google Blog how their team conducted eye-tracking studies on the interface of Universal Search to gain insight into optimal information design. They write in their post: Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions [...]

Jan 19, 2009 - The BBC reports on a study conducted by Mformation, which reveals that of 4,000 people interviewed in the UK and US, 61% claim that “setting up a new handset is as challenging as moving bank accounts.” The report reveals other details of the complexity users face, such as using various applications, browsing the web, reading email, [...]

Nov 4, 2008 - Today is the big day, and no matter for whom or what you are voting on November 4th, you not only want your vote counted, but you also want it counted correctly. In the spirit of fair elections with a twist of usability geekiness, we at Montparnas compiled a few resources where you can learn [...]

Aug 6, 2008 - As a designer and consumer advocate, I often judge the experiences that I have with various products and services. So I was keen to read David Pogue’s recent article with his own experience observations, aptly titled It’s the Software, Not You. Of the Delta Airlines touchscreen kiosks, Pogue writes: “Whenever I encounter badly designed software like this, [...]

Jul 29, 2008 - Jakob Nielson’s article, Weekly User Testing: TiVo Did It, You Can Too provides a great case study supporting testing early and frequently in the design process to produce exceptional design. Having worked with TiVo, I can say that their approach to usability and research is stellar, and their user experience team is very talented, so [...]

May 30, 2008 - According to the Business Week, Americans don’t visit the same web sites on their mobile devices as they do on their PC’s. Websites such as craigslist and eBay, ranked at number 1 and number 2 respectively, gain six or more spots in the mobile realm than on traditional devices. The article goes on to [...]

Feb 7, 2007 - An MIT and Harvard study (via Slashdot) unveils that the SiteKey system employed by Bank of America, ING Direct and Yahoo!, among others are likely ineffective at protecting users against fraudulent sites. The SiteKey system is based on assigning an image to a user’s account and presenting it prior to the user entering a password. [...]