User Experience Design Blog

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 [...]

Jul 23, 2008 - Last month Nokia published a document (PDF) that presents examples of good mobile design based on the interaction design, easy-of-use, and visual appeal of the products. The set includes: Gmail Jaiku Mobile Opera Mini New York Times Google Maps Yahoo! Go 3.0 Here are a few screen shots from the document: Although the analysis is quite subjective, I think the sampling is a [...]

Jul 21, 2008 - Today Facebook released a refreshed design of the site which includes some interaction enhancements for scanning profiles as well as managing your own profile. You can try out the new look at: www.new.facebook.com. The element I applaud the most is the prominence now given to the Wall. This is a great move, considering the stickiness of [...]

Jul 15, 2008 - Yesterday, the Xbox 360 team announced that their target product would be undergoing a face-lift and some noticeable experience enhancements. Of particular interest are the new dashboard and avatars; the latter which will be fully integrated in other Xbox LIVE gaming and future products. The dashboard surfaces the key navigation as in previous versions, but is [...]

Jul 11, 2008 - The search experience is one that continues to evolve. Developers continue to improve the algorithms and interactions aimed at getting users to their desired result(s) faster. Hints such as the exposed URL, have expanded to include elements such as StumbleUpon’s Social Search, Ask’s binoculars site previews, among others. There has even been talk and development [...]

Jul 9, 2008 - To some ‘reputation’ and ‘brand’ may be one and the same. I consider reputation to be an integral part of a company’s brand. Beyond reputation, brand can include things like popularity (market penetration), identity, uniqueness, etc.¬† Yet reputation probably pays the biggest role in building a valuable brand. Indeed, this past week Forbes released [...]

Jul 3, 2008 - Based on this week’s talk of the rising importance of universal design, one may ponder whether this trend is actually real and to what extent it has manifested itself in daily life. Are products really easier and more accessible for everyone? Although I think the global trend is moving in the right direction for the most [...]

Jul 1, 2008 - Beth Tauke of uiGarden.net recently posted a pretty complete article on universal design’s rising momentum in the global marketplace. Admittedly, universal design has been around for over twenty years, but as the writer points out: “Recently, universal design has been cropping up in places in which it would have been unwelcome twenty years ago. The term [...]

Jun 26, 2008 - CNET has posted that it will be rolling out a new user experience design over the coming weeks. The new website will not only look different, but will contain modern interaction elements to simplify its pages while exposing more content. The main goals for the user experience redesign are to “make the site easier to [...]

Jun 23, 2008 - TechCrunch has posted a brief look inside Google’s Gmail usability lab along with some interesting pictures of the testing and observation rooms. One thing that I found interesting is the large monitor in the testing room–not a typical features in most testing set-ups. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard usability lab. Another thing worth [...]