tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84988012024-04-27T07:17:47.847+01:00Christina's balderdash of User Interface Design, including user experience, usability testing and information architecture...christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1124569454464064572005-08-20T21:20:00.000+01:002005-08-20T21:24:14.470+01:00

Content in English or in Japanese is much more common. If you surf the Net (in Chinese), you see a lot of the same stuff over and over again," Yu said. "There's a feeling that there's nothing fresh out there. I think the key to the Internet's development in China is content...cuter games, search engines turning up more sites that were more connected to each other.Read the full article about the

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1124064674667118072005-08-15T00:11:00.000+01:002005-08-15T01:11:14.723+01:00

AIGA London's last event was about design and social policy, - a pannel debate with Richard Eisermann, Director – Design & Innovation, Design Council, James Woudhuysen, Professor of Forecasting and Innovation, De Montfort University, and Ben Rogers, Associate Director/Head of the Democracy team, ippr, chaired by Nico Macdonald, chair of AIGA London.It was a very inspiring

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1124060645772959972005-08-14T23:56:00.000+01:002005-08-15T00:06:30.310+01:00

An interesting article at Newsweek by Fareed Zakaria.Every businessman these days has a dazzling statistic about China, meant to stun the listener into silence. And they are an impressive set of numbers. China is now the world's largest producer of coal, steel and cement, the second largest consumer of energy and the third largest importer of oil, which is why gas prices are soaring. China's

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1122032810945454882005-07-22T11:47:00.000+01:002005-07-22T12:50:28.006+01:00

Don Norman has been very kindly supported uiGarden by offereing his essays being translated and published in Chinese at the webzine free of charge and put a link to uiGarden on his website. He also gave his time generously to the interview - When Norman Meets Chinese... that I did on behalf of uiGarden's editorial team.uiGarden's readers, - practioners in China and our advisors have also

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1118349127659257682005-06-09T20:29:00.000+01:002005-06-09T21:39:04.810+01:00

This is the notes taken from Janice (Ginny) Redish's talk at the UK UPA.People come to web sites for the content. So why is so much content on the web poorly organized, poorly written, poorly designed?Ginny Redish's had a talk at last month's UK UPA. In her talk, she outlined what users really want from a web page by illustrations of her recent relevent research studies.She claimed that users go

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1111167717589314782005-03-18T17:33:00.000+00:002005-03-18T17:41:57.593+00:00

(...continuation of part one)3. Lack of multidisciplinary background.The majority Chinese practitioners come from graphic design or computer science backgrounds rather than psychology or other disciplines. Therefore, some practitioners still think that UI design is only small GUI, such as icon design. At the same time, most of the HCI research is only concentrate on some limited HCI technologies,

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1110386625221804022005-03-09T16:32:00.000+00:002005-03-09T16:43:45.226+00:00

From the uiGarden project and my previous work experience in China, I have discovered some facts about HCI in the Chinese IT industry. I have been trying to summarise what I have found. I will present them in two parts. Here comes the first part.1.Lack of expertise for usability and user-centred design methods.The integral level of usability and user-centred design in China is still at the

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1107790475924441622005-02-07T15:31:00.000+00:002005-02-07T15:34:35.923+00:00

By Gerry McGovern The first step in developing successful reader personas is to decide what readers you are not going to focus on. Good web management is often more about what you exclude than what you include. I know of a large organization that primarily targets four key markets offline, yet targets 20 markets online. Its website isn’t great, with lots of poor-quality, generic content. There

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1106515504636304142005-01-23T20:46:00.000+00:002005-01-23T21:25:04.636+00:00

I've been doing a paper for the Special Issue on Accessibility and Technical Communication of the Usability Special Interest Group of the Society for Technical Communication with my friend Eleanor and Sean. Accessibility along with usability is becoming more and more aware nowadays. However, not enough research report showing its status in China. Eleanor, Sean and me want to bring the latest

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1104855248810440972005-01-04T16:08:00.000+00:002005-01-04T16:14:08.810+00:00

After eight months hard work, with firm and persistent conviction, heartfelt passion and generous support from friends, the first issue of uiGarden, - the bilingual webzine dedicated for professionals in the UI and usability related field is finally published. In the first issue, we bring out articles in English and Chinese by six top scholars: including Don Norman, Alan Dix, Scott Jesson and

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1104359963039878652004-12-29T21:47:00.000+00:002004-12-29T22:39:23.040+00:00

Two weeks ago, I did an interview for Discovery Channel, BBC China Service. In that program, I talked about the developement of Intelligent Computer, and whether it will take over human beings in the future. It's not my strongest part to be honest. I initially suggested human interface as the topic. This one was the last on the list of topics I suggested. However, the director of the program

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1102630846546293412004-12-09T22:06:00.000+00:002004-12-09T22:20:46.546+00:00

Yesterday, my previous company in China bought IBM PC business at the costs of altogether about $1,75 billion. I worked from 1998-2002 at Lenovo before came to England. It's only at there I started knowing what user-centred design was and grew up from a user interface designer to the manager of UI design centre. I thrived a lot during working there and I still feel grateful for having had an

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1100730721697446962004-11-17T22:17:00.000+00:002004-11-17T22:32:01.696+00:00

UPA Voice is the official online publication of the Usability Professionals' Association American Chapter. A couple of months ago, when they saw my post on the Interaction designers mailing list, they asked me to contribute an article introducing the uiGarden on their October's issue. This issue is finally on line available now. Please read the article here about uiGarden. I have to note that

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1100630966106939992004-11-16T18:29:00.000+00:002004-11-16T18:49:26.106+00:00

I post this on the Interaction designers mailing list, - a great list which provides lots of extra information on interaction design, usability, etc. I've been following this list for a while, passively though. I feel this is a great list including various interesting discussions. However, I also have found some drawbacks of mailing list that I don't like very much. For example, threads are a

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1100218457045704192004-11-12T01:06:00.000+00:002004-11-12T00:14:17.046+00:00

This is not a new article. Many of you might have already seen it. I think it's good to archive it. Originally published on Thursday March 11, 2004 at The Guardian Former Apple fellow and design guru Don Norman has been influential on and offline. He tells Jack Schofield why products should now start making us smile Don Norman changed the way a generation of designers saw the world, and this

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1100129085754695552004-11-10T21:24:00.000+00:002004-11-10T23:24:45.753+00:00

A couple of weeks ago, I moved into a new house. My housemate was expected to sort out the broadband for us before I moved in. But then I found out that we were not able to have more than one computers to be online simultaniously. So I was commissioned to contact the Telewest technical support team to solve this problem. When I told my housemate that according to the provider we need a router

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1100040014224258862004-11-09T22:07:00.000+00:002004-11-09T22:40:14.223+00:00

I have recently got attacked by a unknown spyware. Whenever I use IE, it pops-up other windows here and there. It even changes my tool bar, put some strange search engine bookmarks on it! I hate this - giving me junk stuffs without my permission! It also hindered users to make the full potential of the Internet. And most importantly, if your product failed to give users secure feeling, your user

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1099526508561138752004-11-03T23:34:00.000+00:002004-11-04T00:01:48.560+00:00

Have you ever thought of the interfaces of fruits? I saw a very interesting post by a group of students at Birmingham University. Yes, we always relate interfaces with computers or domestic appliances, never made a relationship with fruits! However, fruits do interact with us by their unique interfaces. And this topic actually can be expanded to lots of objects almost infinitely. What about

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1099269990976057572004-11-01T01:41:00.000+00:002004-11-16T18:53:19.440+00:00

Ann Light, the editor of usabilitynews.com and also the advisor of uiGarden.net has written an article about uiGarden at usabilitynews.com. Read the article - Chinese/English Magazine launches with Forums

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1098103249096937642004-10-18T13:32:00.000+01:002004-10-18T13:40:49.096+01:00

Louis Rosenfeld has published the IA Trends Survey Results and Analysis he did on his blog, quite iformative. So if you are doing an IA job or interested in knowing more about its situation and trends, you can have a look of it. What I found interesting is that "The numbers of both in-house and agency IAs will decline; this drop will be partially countered by growth in self-employed consultants.

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1097529765975184092004-10-11T22:11:00.000+01:002004-10-11T22:25:38.593+01:00

"It’s easy just putting up a website. It’s tough making it a pleasure for your visitors to visit. The difference is the same between success and failure, between a painting and a masterpiece. The same between merely creating and creating excellence." --- Puneet Mehrotra Puneet Mehrotra has just published his newest article at hindustantimes.com. In this article, he talked about the importance of

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1097138160553166192004-10-07T09:28:00.000+01:002004-10-07T09:36:00.553+01:00

By Kath Straub, Ph.D., CUA, Chief Scientist of HFI. Focus groups and American juries Have you ever been on an American jury? The objective of a jury is to examine the evidence in a given trial and determine whether the evidence is compelling. Within the deliberation process, members of the jury must come to some level of consensus. Often consensus is achieved by successive approximation:

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1096905250139095832004-10-04T11:56:00.000+01:002004-10-04T17:24:36.966+01:00

I found its interesting that all the popular news portal website are designed to be very busy and have lots of pop-up ads and flash/gif adds on the page. Here are three screen shots of the top three most popular portal sites in China: www.sina.com.cn Two pop-ups, lots of flash/gif ads around the window. Very busy news headlines. www.sohu.com No pop-ups, less ads than sina, still tons of

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1096576954585988672004-09-30T21:37:00.000+01:002004-09-30T21:42:34.586+01:00

A introduction to RSS feeds, to all the RSS newcomers from "Feed Burner" If you're new to RSS and syndication on the web, we hope this page offers a straightforward exploration of the purpose and promise these changes bring to Internet publishing and browsing as you know it now. What is RSS? "RSS" stands for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, and/or Rockdale, Sandow, and Southern (

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8498801.post-1096485502100533782004-09-29T19:57:00.000+01:002004-09-29T20:19:59.056+01:00

I have recently found an interesting wiki practice at: http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ Amazing thing is, he has only used simple Javascript and DHTML to achive all these advanced functions, and it's within the web standards! I like the feature of "click & open" animation and "double click to edit". If this is possible, we are getting more closed to use web browser just as a versatile thin client

christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09616167583855652145noreply@blogger.com0