carmel hassan

Getting Simple with a CMS

unamalaidea — Sun, 27 May 2012 16:48:15 +0200

GetSimple really is the simplest content management system (CMS) ever. After seeing so many people amazed by Kirby - a licensed file-based CMS - I started looking for something at least comparable but open-source, and here is GetSimple.

I’ve been atracted by its two first principles and its admin front-end:

XML Based
We don’t use mySQL to store our information, but instead depend the simplicity of XML. By utilizing XML, we are able stay away from introducing an extra layer of slowness and complexity associated with connecting to a mySQL database. Because GetSimple was built specifically for the small-site market, we feel this is the absolutely best option for data storage.

You can “Undo” Almost Everything
This feature was based off an eye-opening AListApart article explaining how warning messages never work as planned. Because of this, we’ve included “undo” into almost every action you can take on the site, giving you peace-of-mind for when you make those inevitable stupid mistakes.

Now, I’ll play with it for a small personal project I have in mind, and I’ll tell you more comming soon.

Have you already try it?

Another “emotional” message by Piccsy.

unamalaidea — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:07:01 +0200

Another “emotional” message by Piccsy.

littlebigdetails: Tumblr - The copy inside the age verification...

unamalaidea — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:10:38 +0200

littlebigdetails:

Tumblr - The copy inside the age verification form, when signing up for Tumblr, changes depending on the value.

/via okdan

I’m still old

UX in Spain

unamalaidea — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:58:36 +0200

UX Spain - the first event about User Experience in our country - has been successfully celebrated this week with a pretty high number of attendees, almost 400.

We’ve had the opportunity to meet, know, share and discuss hot topics that concerns to our profession at every level and with a very varied kind of people.

Now that we’re back having our minds in the next #UXSP, we all seems to feel like if the Pandora box was opened. So here are some thoughts and conclusions of this rich exchange of experiences:

What’s UX?

As the 1-million dollar question with hundreds of doubtful answers, the UX exists and cover many areas, we can spent our whole career wondering which kind of UX we are, but the only interesting question is what’s the UX we do and how it helps to create big things.

Coding, Technology, Psychology, Aesthetic and what else?

Misconceptions only bring poor-quality products, services, UIs … or experiences. Attending to all these conferences has made me remind the importance of understanding and learning always something different, something new, something old and, why not, something “borrowed” of other specialisation, whatever it is.

UX is your business, your company is your business

Honestly, it is the first time I hear about “Intraprenuer” and I love it, mainly because it highlights the power of changing a company for better. We’re on track ;)

Are UX roles real? The talent is searched

Companies that expressed their failure hiring “UX people” where there, by the way, offering jobs. Some old-fashioned discussions where developers (wrongly called technologists) and designers (probably conceived as visual designers) where both considered in this big world hiding the most difficult-to-admit true: the only thing that really matter is talent, and it’s not something that everybody can have it. Rest of us we’ll think how to be as good as possible.

Share, share, share…

It’s time to share again, to get rid of confidentiality, or shame, or fear, or mistery… it’s time to tell the truth about our failures and success. We have even a bigger responsibility since we’ve had people to admire who made this before. We have to give something to the community as we have received it in the past.

… and much more

User testing not needed anymore, really?
Missing something else rather than web pages, web sites, web architectures, and web design… the app world is coming and we cannot forget desktops.
Agile, is it new? Shall we say only Lean UX? The challenge of big teams working smoothly, my favorite 15-mins speech of this event powered by Ujue Agudo and Tona Monjo. The design process matters.
Universal design is not possible but disabled users have preferences, as any other users (Thanks to Idioa Soto and Nacho Madrid)
Prototyping is your communication tool – use it A.L.W.A.Y.S (Thanks to Dani Armengol)
The UX is made for something good (Thanks to elecciones.es and Mònica Zapata)

I personally don’t have any user-mantra to repeat again and again when I go to the office every day, but I’m in love of my work because I love create things, I love beauty and great ideas that can positively impact in other people.

That’s all, such simple such pretentious.

That’s the way I honor this profession and makes me get by to the uncertainty and disappointments that, being honest, sometimes just happens. I have seen same vision and feelings in UX Spain and I’m looking forward to repeat it again next year, so hope to meet all of you keeping the same energy.

Is it a button?

unamalaidea — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:21:03 +0200

Is it a button?

Webstock ‘12: Jared Spool - The Anatomy of a Design...

unamalaidea — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 19:55:28 +0200

Webstock ‘12: Jared Spool - The Anatomy of a Design Decision

Excellent talk, funny, revealing, with a large variety of examples, some healthcare industry samples between them.

What are the habits of highly effective design teams? The best designs come from not one, but hundreds of well-made decisions. The worst designs arise out of hundreds of poorly-made decisions. All that stands between you and a great design is the qualify of your decisions. Where do they come from?
For the last five years, we’ve been studying how designers make their decisions. When do they use outside information, such as research about their users? When do they go with their gut instinct? When do the designers look to past decisions and the lessons they’ve learned?

What we found will surprise you. In this presentation, Jared will take you on an entertaining deep dive into the gut instinct of the best designers (without looking at all the gooey parts). You’ll learn five styles of decision making, from Self Design to Experience-focused Design, and which style produces quality results. Prepare to learn how to be a better designer, as Jared shares the secrets of the best and worst.

Columnal CSS - A responsive CSS grid system

unamalaidea — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:25:14 +0200

Columnal CSS - A responsive CSS grid system

"The real thing with Agile is that never ends. From the moment of your first very rough conceptual..."

unamalaidea — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 22:15:23 +0200

“The real thing with Agile is that never ends. From the moment of your first very rough conceptual prototype to the moment that you ship code you can sell you’re testing all the way through. You’re checking with your customer all the way through. That’s the end state that we’re working towards with our clients is the point where you don’t even have to wait for working code to do the iterations with your customers.”

- Hugh Beyer – Getting Started with UX Inside Agile Development

Photo

unamalaidea — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:08:23 +0100

"El buen diseño no sólo acabará con los manuales de usuario y las instrucciones de uso, sino que..."

unamalaidea — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:05:19 +0100

“El buen diseño no sólo acabará con los manuales de usuario y las instrucciones de uso, sino que construirá nuevos modelos de comunicación basados en el aprendizaje por interacción y la expresión creativa.”

- good design is…

Usability and Electronic Health Records at User Centric

unamalaidea — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:38:30 +0100

Usability and Electronic Health Records at User Centric

Mobile Best Practices (alpha)

unamalaidea — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:03:05 +0100

Mobile Best Practices (alpha):

Strategy, User Experience, Visual Design, Development Resources for web mobile development

Are you about to create mobile experiences but you’re...

unamalaidea — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:52:13 +0100

Are you about to create mobile experiences but you’re still looking for inspiration?

The Revolution will be Portable: Understanding the Tablet Opportunity

[Book] User Experience Management - Skills for leading effective UX Teams

unamalaidea — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:01:41 +0100

[Book] User Experience Management - Skills for leading effective UX Teams:

Good reference book for checking from time to time as a guide for the most common management activities.

I want to remark the consideration about the difference between Leadership and Management that is described in different chapters. The attributes for leadership are expressed as follows:

Leadership

Leaders infect others with vision and generate enthusiasm.

Leaders communicate, and communicate well.

Leaders are trusted, and trust themselves

Leaders handle uncertainty and stress with grace and calm

Leaders are proactive, goal oriented, and go after exciting challenges, rather than only being reactive.

Leaders respect and value their followers and those with whom they work.

UX leaders fight for users, inspire with design, and yet never lose sight of business value.

Leaders embrace feedback and get better.

Leaders inspire others to be their best and to improve, and mentor them.

Leaders know how to leverage people’s strengths, and how to work around or manage weaknesses.

Leadership is hard work, but leaders get in the flow.

Undoubtably, it’s something to aspire. And here is the index of contents:

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Building the team
Chapter 3: Creating your team
Chapter 4: Equipping the team
Chapter 5: Focusing the team
Chapter 6: Creating a high performance team
Chapter 7: Nurturing the team
Chapter 8: Transforming the organisation
Chapter 9: Evangelizing UX
Chapter 10: Conclusions

A UX Developer is...

unamalaidea — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:54:59 +0100

A UX Developer is all of that – a front end developer with a sensitivity and talent for crafting a UI that is going to be better to use – but in addition to that they have a declared interest in understanding more about the User Experience work that goes ahead of the UI design.

via @leisa

… a must read post.

An Important Time for Design (A List Apart)

unamalaidea — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:48:39 +0100

An Important Time for Design (A List Apart):

Reading this:

Design as partner

If we want to really show what design is and what it can do, we need to get design elevated to the partner level. Partners have major equity stakes, real decision-making power, and are involved in product development from the beginning. The design team must feel that it has both the authority to make product decisions and the responsibility for the outcome of those decisions. If good design has an important role to play in the future of the web (it does), designers should work on their own terms and with a fair share of both the risk and the reward (read: cash money) set aside for them.

… and discoverying this: http://rockhealth.com/

Fireworks wireframing kit

unamalaidea — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 10:09:54 +0100

Fireworks wireframing kit:

Via @Wireframes

Practice Fusion, the leading provider of health records software...

unamalaidea — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:43:22 +0100

Practice Fusion, the leading provider of health records software for medical professionals, has published a nice recap of their user conference, Connect11, where Alan Cooper spoke about the role of interaction design in health care. Among the questions answered - “what do you get when you cross a computer with a doctor’s office?”

At the 13 minute mark, Stefan Klocek presents a prototype of Practice Fusion’s new iPad app.

Via Cooper Journal

Is Microsoft Common User Interface ended?

unamalaidea — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:00:05 +0100

Is Microsoft Common User Interface ended?:

MSCUI provides User Interface Design Guidance and Toolkit controls that address a wide range of patient safety issues faced by healthcare organizations worldwide. However, in the last months we haven’t received any new a part from their Clinical Documentation Solution.

Does it mean it’s over? Despite the ambition of providing a definitive CUI, Microsoft has done an impressive work providing guidelines that work at least for its primary target market: the NHS.

Now it is in our hands thinking if the effort is worthless or, in the contrary, it is the moment of continuing validating whether that common user interface could be a real standard somewhere else or not.

Ended or not, we cannot ignore the big amount of knowledge and information that can be learned and used from MSCUI. This will be always a reference to take into consideration.

[Links] 2011 - A year of UX and more

unamalaidea — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:38:18 +0100

What we read from blogs we’re subscribed to it’s part of our every-day inspiration.

After a year, I’ve had opportunity to read and discover different posts with a special influence in me, anyhow. The year is ending now and this is the summary of the readings I recommend before 2012.

carmel hassan

Getting Simple with a CMS

Another “emotional” message by Piccsy.

littlebigdetails: Tumblr - The copy inside the age verification...

UX in Spain

What’s UX?

Coding, Technology, Psychology, Aesthetic and what else?

UX is your business, your company is your business

Are UX roles real? The talent is searched

Share, share, share…

… and much more

Is it a button?

Webstock ‘12: Jared Spool - The Anatomy of a Design...

Columnal CSS - A responsive CSS grid system

"The real thing with Agile is that never ends. From the moment of your first very rough conceptual..."

Photo

"El buen diseño no sólo acabará con los manuales de usuario y las instrucciones de uso, sino que..."

Usability and Electronic Health Records at User Centric

Mobile Best Practices (alpha)

Are you about to create mobile experiences but you’re...

[Book] User Experience Management - Skills for leading effective UX Teams

A UX Developer is...

An Important Time for Design (A List Apart)

Design as partner

Fireworks wireframing kit

Practice Fusion, the leading provider of health records software...

Is Microsoft Common User Interface ended?

[Links] 2011 - A year of UX and more

December

November

October

September

August

July

June

May

April

March

February

January