1. Inside Google’s User Experience Lab: An Interview With Google’s Marcin Wichary – Smashing Magazine

   - This is a great interview with @mwichary, senior User Experience Designer at Google. These profiles are always a good read, that gives you some insight to other companies workflows and tools.

2. The Usabilla Blog » One simple question to get to the root of any design problem » The Usabilla Blog

   - I think I have had a post on this subject before, but it’s worth repeating. Why is a really great question to ask, like an annoying five-year-old who just keeps asking the same why no matter what you answer. You’ll get to the bottom of the issue quite soon.
   

   ”Why? Because the motor wont start.
   Why? Because there is not enough oxygen to allow ignition.
   Why? Because there is no air flowing through the air filter.
   Why? Because it hasn’t been cleaned for a while.
   Why? Because users don’t know where to find it.”

3. Pawned. Gamification and Its Discontents

   - This is a nice presentation about gamification and how it more often then not seems to miss the point that games actually provides us. A very interesting read, in the craze of adding points and achievements to stimulate participation and engagement.

Hello. I’m changing language here from now on, since mostly everything I write in my work is in english it seems like a better fit. Enjoy.

1. Why WSJ Mobile App Gets ** Customer Reviews (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)

   - Nice article on workflow of an iPhone app. But why have these startup screens at all? Let people have an article or two before prompting to sign-up or login, and prove why they should pay for the subscription.

2. Creating Meaningful Site Search by Challenging Assumptions » Usability, UX » Design Festival

   - Good article on in-site searches. Much of which I implemented in a previous project, nice to see!

   ”Simple filters after a query to hone results are more effective than a complex search interface which makes the task seem overwhelming.”

3. How Print Design is the Future of Interaction – Mike Kruzeniski

   - Rather long article, but well worth a read through.
   

   ”In the past ten years however, the relevant technologies that support the design of Interfaces – displays, processing speeds, and rendering engines – have matured to a point that they provide a more capable canvas for design. Meanwhile, our culture has become visibly more comfortable with the technologies that surround it. These combination of trends are creating an important inflection point for designers. The aesthetic experience of the digital surface can now be considered and explored in a more sophisticated manner.”

4. The UI Geniuses At Berg Rethink The Common Receipt | Co.Design

   - I remember someone doing a quite interesting usability study on receipts during one of my first years at KTH, but I can’t seem to find it. These guys took the concept a bit further..
   

   ”We’ve added semi-useful info-visualisation of the foods ordered based on “what the till knows” — sparklines, trends — and low-tech personalisation of information that might be useful to regulars. Customers can select events or news stories they are interested in by ticking a check box.”

5. A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

   - This is really a periodic table of visualization methods. Quite nice, with examples of each visualization method.

6. Learning from Fable III’s UX Mistakes | UX Booth

   - Case studies are always fun to read. I haven’t played the game though, so I really can’t say all that much.
   

   ”In its quest to increase the accessibility of RPG mechanics, Fable III has instead overcomplicated some areas and oversimplified others. The resulting user experience is frustrating and leaves users bored as they struggle to navigate the disconnect between what they wanted and what Lionhead thought they wanted.”

7. » Experience Design Models: Minding the Gap Between Ideas and Interfaces Johnny Holland – It’s all about interaction » Blog Archive

   - Experience design seems to be rather like what we have been doing for the last couple of months, although somewhat more structured. An article worth a read anyway.
   

   ”In other words, once you show wireframes or mockups to stakeholders, you’ve already impressed upon them a specific direction, which is almost impossible to erase. And chances are that by showing design documents, you’re more than likely committed yourself. That’s just a natural position to take as you pitch your design rationale.”

8. Pure CSS GUI icons (experimental) – Nicolas Gallagher

   - Nice and pretty awesome.
   

   ”Several months ago I was experimenting with the creation of common GUI icons with CSS. The HTML is very simple and it relies on CSS pseudo-elements rather than extraneous HTML elements. The technical aspects of this exercise might be of interest to others, so I’ve decided to share it.”

Så i fredags var det midsommar och jag tog tillfället i akt att ändra dag för dessa länkar. Från och med nu kör vi onsdagar istället!

1. » Matching Requirements with User Experience Johnny Holland – It’s all about interaction » Blog Archive

   - Yep.
   

   ”Many projects still start with the same approach – quickly make a list of requirements and establish a budget under the assumption that the requirements are comprehensive and complete. This creates problems for designers. How do we break into this relationship and get an early seat at the table? Respect the Situation and the Work The first thing we need to do in these situations is respect the requirements and reference them in our deliverables to make clear that we are paying attention.”

2. What do you love?

   - Google vill veta vad jag älskar. Jag berättar för dem. Det är kebab, och nu låter de mig utforska kebab i 3D!

   

3. Is It Time to Rethink Website Navigation?

   - Hmm.. Brr.
   

   ”While there are plenty of reasons to avoid going back to the days of entirely Flash website builds — whether your reasons are related to performance, SEO, web accessibility, independence from a proprietary technology, etc. — for most of our projects, we may still be able to gain some inspiration from what Flash sites showed us, especially in the rethinking of how website navigation can look and function.”

4. Personas 101: What Are They and Why Should I Care?

   - Om personas, varför och hur man kan använda dem och hur begreppet allt som oftast blandas ihop till en röra av allt möjligt som inte hör dit.
   

   ”Walmart found out the hard (and costly) way when it cleaned house and made its stores “less cluttered,” after posing the question to customers: “Would you like Walmart aisles to be less cluttered?” Now honestly, who is not going to say “yes” to that? Cluttered never has a good connotation, like the word “boring.”

5. Shades of Grey: Wireframes as Thinking Device | UX Magazine

   - Trevlig liten artikel om att använda wireframes som ”thinking device” för att stimulera konversation kring designförslag. Det är svårt att starta en vettig diskussion kring en tankebild, eftersom den ser annorlunda ut hos alla.

   ”I think it is quite common for user experience folks to view design as problem solving. For me, designing through the use of wireframes is a search in a problem space of alternatives; it’s a process of problem setting as much as it is a process of problem solving, which means that I always start with the context. To simplify, I pick my primary audience and the one activity that allows them to solve one goal quickly, effortlessly, and elegantly.”

6. Does GE Think We’re Stupid?

   - Att använda grafik för grafikens skull är aldrig en bra idé. Ska man visualisera data gäller det att visualiseringen berättar en historia som är lättare att ta till sig, än om den presenterats i text. GE misslyckas.
   

   ”Only after clicking on everything in sight did I eventually discover that what I assumed was a legend is in fact a unique control for switching between quantity and years. The blue and white colors of the control, though they match the colors of the chart, mean nothing. The white spaces in the visualization are also meaningless.”

1. Boston Subway Map Design Modification — UsabilityBlog

   -
   

   ”..after-the-fact design modifications.. They’re crystal-clear evidence that a design has failed to meet the needs of users.”

2. Developing a UX Practice of Practicing

   -
   

   ”Managers and team leaders can allocate regular times for practice and setting up activities for the team. A few hours of practice each week is an inexpensive technique way to see skill improvement, augmenting any training or conferences.”

3. Project Rimino, The Future of Mobile Experience

   - Vissa idéer är riktigt snygga, liksom själva UI:t.

4. Learning Styles: The Cognitive Side of Content

   -
   

   ”But because verbal and visual concepts are stored separately, translating a semantic idea into a visual concept is a taxing, though ubiquitous process. When someone tells you driving directions, for instance, you probably construct a simple visual map in your mind. If you’re putting together a bookshelf using Ikea’s pictogram instructions, on the other hand, your mind works to decode those images into verbal steps of what to do next.

5. Kugghjul eller skiftnyckel för inställningar?

   - När ska man använda ikoner? Och vilken ikon ska man använda? I det här fallet undrar jag om inte förvirringen hade varit ännu större om det hade funnits två skiftnycklar (eller kugghjul) precis under varandra..

1. The JavaScript Tutorial | The JavaScript Tutorial

   - De säger att i år är året man måste lära sig JavaScript. Så kör hårt! Läs också ”JavaScript the Good Parts” av Douglas Crockford.

2. What makes a great user experience?

   - Det är verkligen så enkelt som att svara på frågorna användarna vill ha svar på. Tricket är bara att hitta och definiera de rätta frågorna. Och att tillhandahålla svaret på rätt sätt. Och att … ja, typ..

   ”If we understand our users questions we can set about answering them. It really is that simple.”

3. My, My, My…

   - Dålig meny, ingen donut.

4. Closed Wallets, Closed Minds

   - Closed Wallets, Closed Minds. Om hur konsumptionsmönster möjligen ändras..

   ”Companies that want to come on the journey are going to have to do what many are not so good at. They are going to have to listen to what the consumer wants, rather than tell them.”

5. Creating Engaged and Passionate Users, Part 2 « Bokardo

   - Jag postade första delen i den här intervjun för ett tag sen, så här kommer den andra också. Om engagemang och varför Facebook vann över MySpace, bland annat.

6. Wanna Create A Great Product? Fail Early, Fail Fast, Fail Often | Co.Design

   - Jag gillar det här citatet:

   ”I have not failed, I’v just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”
   -Thomas Edison

7. How I Failed, Failed, and Finally Succeeded at Learning How to Code – Technology – The Atlantic

   - Om upplevelsen att lära sig, som helt missas av många skolor. Eller iallafall kunde göras mycket mer engagerande.

   ”Although this was 1983, and the ORIC-1 had about the same raw computing power as a modern alarm clock, there was something oddly compelling about it. When you turned it on all you saw was the word ”Ready,” and beneath that, a blinking cursor. It was an open invitation: type something, see what happens.”

Stressig vecka. Få länkar och ännu färre kommentarer.

1. Why The Valley Wants Designers That Can Code | Konigi

   - Mycket diskussion senaste tiden om huruvida man ska kunna koda eller inte.

2. How to Identify the Best Design Problems – 52 Weeks of UX

   - Ramverk för att prioritera designproblem.
   

   ”We have to prioritize the people we design for, the features we choose to build, the elements on a page, as well as the overall problems we choose to solve. But choosing problems isn’t always easy…”

3. UX Tips for Non UX Designers | UX Magazine

   - Bara så ni vet.
   

   ”I only have two rules for doing UX design. My first rule is: be lazy.”

4. Who Is on the UX Team?

   -
   

   ”What we found, however, was that the successful Team-Of-One individuals were also embracing a larger team to get their work done. They found they couldn’t control every UX decision. To get the best designs, they needed to give the design influencers the right information to make smart decisions.”

   ”One surprising finding was, in our limited sample, that almost every successful team was in a single location. There were many examples of distributed teams amongst the struggling teams, but we only saw a couple of successful distributed teams.”

5. BBC News – Internet of things blurs the line between bits and atoms

   - Sweet.
   

   ”Imagine googling your home to find your child’s lost toy.”

1. Hard to exit

   - Jag höll på att springa in i den här när jag var påväg ut ur hissen. Typiskt oanvändbar utgång. Kan man inte meddela innan jag åker upp att det inte finns så många andra val på just den våningen än att åka ner igen?

   

   Elevator exit fail

2. The Expanding Role of User Experience Design | UX Magazine

   - Jag gillar den T-formade kunskapsgrafen. Men det finns många andra bra poänger i texten.

   ”User experience is not only about seeing the big picture of how our applications and websites are used, but also about how they are made.”

   ”A UX designer who can grasp the complexities of engineering problems, the subtlety of design, the power of great content, interaction design principles, and the value of a well considered taxonomy can properly navigate the challenges of a project that transcends platforms. But we have to grasp the big picture for another reason too…”

3. Don’t simplify the UX, curate! | Viget Advance

   - Jag tycker de två sitter nära ihop. Man ska inte simplifiera till den grad att man tar bort saker som tillför värde bara för att man ska ta bort något. Snarare fråga sig varför ett visst element finns närvarande, vad tillför det till meddelandet som ska förmedlas, eller handlingarna som ska utföras?

   ”It becomes a default exercise blindly performed out of numerical necessity. Or even worse, that the exercise has become so common that we consider the very process of elimination equivalent to good or usable design.”

4. Bloom’s Vision For Computer Interfaces: Worlds, Not Windows | Co.Design

   - Kolla på filmen om Planetary om ni inte gjort det än. Ganska schysst gränssnitt mot iTunes.

   ”We slot into the space between Google and Apple,” he explains. ”Google’s the most powerful functional toolset ever, but they have no idea about design. Apple is the best example of ‘design culture’ in the commercial world now, but they have no idea how to use the network. We’re at the intersection of that growth: We like to think we’re bringing Apple-like design values to the network, and an awareness of the beauty of computation to the Googles of the world.”

5. Usability in Icons | Stiern

   - Ikoner känns ofta svåra att förstå, speciellt när de beskriver ovanliga, program- eller sid-specifika funktioner. Om man ska använda ikoner måste det alltid finnas förklarande text till. I en tooltip kanske.

   ”I’m a geek myself, so I can say it — only geeks understand link icons”

6. InfoQ: Making Apps That Don’t Suck

   - Mycket bra och underhållande presentation av Mike Lee (@bmf) om att skapa bra saker. Även om titeln pratar om att skapa appar, ligger presentationen på ett mycket mer abstrakt plan. Se den!

   ”A good user interface is not the same as a good user experience”

1. Improving Usability with Fitts’ Law

   - Jag vet att jag har postat tidigare om Fitts’ Law inom UI design, men hittar inte riktigt när. Den här posten är hur som helst betydligt mer förklarande och visar på viktiga koncept att tänka på i designprocessen; the prime pixel, magic pixels..
   

   Fitts’ law is centered around a mathematical equation that is used to illustrate the time it takes to reach a target object. A target object, in the context of UIs, can be any interactive element, such as a submit button, a hyperlink, and an input field in a web form. The idea is this: The quicker you can reach a target object, the more convenient and easy it is to use.
   

2. CHI 2011 Notes – Google Docs

   - Presentationer, videos, workshops, anteckningar och mer från CHI’11! OBS: kanske inte finns kvar här så länge till..

3. The Washington Monthly – The Magazine – The Information Sage

   - Lång artikel om Edward Tufte och hans revolutionerande av ”information design”, men väl läsvärd.
   

   Tufte took one look at the Web site mockups that the board’s designer had prepared and pronounced them “intellectually impoverished.”

4. Concept to Code: Code literacy in UX | UX Magazine

   - Kunskap om kodande är absolut en positiv sak, man kan bygga enkla prototyper, uppskatta tidsåtgång eller kasta bort för galna idéer. Men det är just också ett potentiellt problem med att vara för kodvetande. De galna idéerna kan bli lidande (möjligen helt omedvetet) eftersom man då ”vet” att de inte kan genomföras, och det är inte bra.

5. Sketchboard before you wireframe | Think Vitamin

   - Enkel och bra teknik, som jag tror fungerar utmärkt för att plocka in UX i agila utvecklingsmiljöer. Det är så enkelt att göra ändringar, byta plats på steg i flödet och kommentera att man kan ha sketchboarden uppe genom hela projektet.

6. Full Browser Width Bars | CSS-Tricks

   - CSS-tricks: pseudoelement. Bra.

7. How to Fix the 5 Most Common Mistakes with Focus Groups

   - Lång genomgång av vanliga misstag i fokusgrupper. Akta er för the alter leader och the vividness effect.
   

   The vividness effect often impacts our own recall of situations and events, and this effects they way we assess current or future situations.

1. Cognitive Styles

   - Gör testet och se vilken typ du är. Läs också artikeln sen.
   

   There are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound—indeed, so deep and profound that it is worthwhile to understand them in order to design our displays in accord with those tasks.

   - Edward Tufte

2. Delta i arbetet med nya Vägledning för webbutveckling

   - Sånna här riktlinjer är alltid spännande att läsa.!

3. Utilize Available Screen Space (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

   - Wasted space är inte bra. Det gäller att skilja på bortkastat tomrum och nyttig luftighet. Högre informationstäthet => mindre behov av att scrolla runt och större chans att det eftersökta hittas.

4. 10 Skills to Become a Frontend Developer worth Millions

   - Alla behöver front-enders.

5. 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People | UX Magazine

   - Boktips. Till mig själv.

6. Essential UX Layers for Agile and Lean Design Teams

   - Om att få in UX-arbete i agila utvecklingsprocesser. Iterativ design och användarcentrerade designmetoder passar utmärkt ihop. Minsta möjliga kod för att ha något som fungerar, sedan göra om. Istället för att ha en avsatt designperiod i början, som resulterar i dokumentation som ska följas genom projektet..

1. Lös problemet genom att lösa det | anvandbart.se

   - Fantastiska felmeddelanden får inleda den här fredagen.

   ”Installation failed”

2. Innovative Techniques To Simplify Sign-Ups and Log-Ins – Smashing Magazine

   - Ett gäng bra tips helt enkelt. Mycket faller bort när man har annat att tänka på.

3. » “Checklist Thinking” for UX Professionals: Retaining your sanity in a complex project Johnny Holland – It’s all about interaction » Blog Archive

   - Men det tar också bort lite av möjligheterna med att prototypa först och iterera därifrån, vilket kan ge helt andra resultat än att specificera behov fullt ut och sedan bocka av..
   

   ”Checklist thinking keeps you focused on 1) what your deliverable needs to cover to be complete and 2) what your deliverable will be used for downstream.

4. A List Apart: Articles: Now You See Me

   - Ett kort utdrag ur Aaron Gustafsons bok ”Now You See Me” om adaptive web design. Kan vara värd att titta närmre på.

5. Intel Tech Fest more than show-and-tell | Portland Business Journal

   - Härligt att organisera sånt här med 82500 anställda..

   The products people want to buy today are not just a clever piece of hardware or clever piece of software. They want the hardware and the software to work together in such a way that they deliver a very compelling user experience. You only get that when you bring the disciplines together and that’s what Tech Fest is about.

6. 3 Important Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps

   - Det finns rätt många utmaningar i att bygga en stor webb-app. Tre av dem i den här artikeln och allt kan summeras med ”don’t make me think”.

7. Tiggr: A Tool for Building Interactive Html Prototypes – UX Movement

   - Tiggr har släppt en ny version och ser spännande ut, men när det kommer till uppsjön av prototyp-verktyg känns det mer som att det handlar om vilken som bäst passar hur man själv jobbar. Det viktigaste är att man kan kommunicera sin idé. Själv gillar jag ju fortfarande enkla, nedskalade och snabba mockingbird bäst.