Usability week ending March 6th

Friday, 4th March, 8:10 AM
Building an international auxiliary #language, shared #symbols to break down barriers of understanding between people: http://j.mp/gw5tAZ

Wednesday, 2nd March, 10:56 AM
#Piracy the preferred means of acquiring TV not because it's free, but because it's the best way to consume TV: http://j.mp/i2nEnf #vod #ux

Tuesday, 1st March, 6:10 PM
Rapid #prototyping with #Sinatra apps to make great proofs of concept or Minimum Viable Products: http://j.mp/hLF80S #ruby

Tuesday, 1st March, 12:16 PM
Tendency to over-specify potential capabilities of a #VOD system leads to huge technical problems: http://j.mp/fgPAw1 #ott #design #ia #ux

via twitter.com/terretta

Sociable machines

“Where once artificial intelligence researchers proposed artefacts that would win us over with their smartness, designers of these latest machines aim to seduce with sociability. Sociable robots press our “Darwinian buttons”: we respond to humanoid objects that make eye contact, track our motion and say our names as “creatures” with intentions, consciousness, even feelings.

Indeed, when an object reaches out and asks us to care for it, we find we not only want to care for it, but want it to care for us in return. Nurturance turns out to be the “killer app” in our relationships with the inanimate. We are vulnerable to new attachments, seduced by machines that ask for our care. They “pretend” to converse, but do not understand what we say. Engrossed by sociable robots, we are alone yet experience a new sense of intimacy.” [...]

“Alone with robots, we feel connected; together with people but not fully relating to them, we feel alone. We are in the still centre of a perfect storm. I call this the “robotic moment”, a technological moment in which we fear our lives with technology are out of control, and we fantasise, paradoxically, that it is technology that will help us re-establish control.”

via 
newscientist.com

Usability week ending January 16th

Friday, 14th January, 7:47 PM
Google handing the keys of web video’s future right back to Flash: http://j.mp/dOMCVE #codec #webm #vp8 #h264 #flash

Friday, 14th January, 6:09 PM
Apple's philosophy, “We’re going to make these decisions for you,” is called "design": http://j.mp/ieW639 #design

Friday, 14th January, 8:42 AM
Apple's #design iterations are simplification steps removing cruft, not adding features: http://j.mp/h3X2KB

Friday, 14th January, 8:26 AM
Traditional pay-per-click is a waste--only 8% of Internet users now account for 85% of all clicks: http://j.mp/g4v2Sa @comscore #stats #ads

Thursday, 13th January, 2:10 PM
The entire #Android device market seems to be made specifically for gadget blogs and early adopters: http://j.mp/enaC5A #ux #wp7 #usability

Wednesday, 12th January, 3:36 PM
The primary failure of MySpace was usability -- what happens when users make decisions on design: http://j.mp/f9AKkA #ux #usability

Tuesday, 11th January, 10:03 AM
Easy to read -- standard font size, active white space, reader friendly line height, clear contrast, no text images: http://j.mp/gEVFIq #ux

Monday, 10th January, 4:50 PM
Usability's dark side -- the paradox of the guided user: http://j.mp/hPhovz #ux #usability #ia

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending December 12th

Saturday, 11th December, 10:29 PM
Grand Central Terminal - 360 view: http://occip.it/pygyc72zj

Saturday, 11th December, 6:34 PM
Macy's at 34th and Herald Sq - 360 view: http://occip.it/pyh0h9rij

Friday, 10th December, 1:33 PM
"Mobile data traffic in 2011 will be roughly the same as total Internet traffic circa 2002." -- @pkedrosky #trendspotting

Wednesday, 8th December, 8:41 PM
User experience design in the age of computational objects and ubiquitous computing: http://j.mp/hUBKQ5

Tuesday, 7th December, 12:08 PM
A reminder to design fluid width sites—iPad hits 8 percent of global mobile PC (laptop + tablet) shipments: http://j.mp/i8lnqx #ux #ia

Tuesday, 7th December, 9:44 AM
The first problem is to design the API. The second is to help people learn to use it: http://j.mp/e8RlP6 #api #ia

Monday, 6th December, 10:49 PM
#Persuasion triggers in web #design: reciprocation, commitment, social proof, authority, scarcity, framing, salience: http://j.mp/fpJdwg #ia

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending December 5th

Friday, 3rd December, 4:09 PM
The Design of Everyday Things--theory of how people behave when working with everyday objects, and guidelines to follow: http://j.mp/gXJPxv

Thursday, 2nd December, 2:11 PM
Is simplicity a bad design goal?: http://j.mp/fyGPqb #ux #design #ui

Wednesday, 1st December, 1:50 PM
Trust, crowd empowerment, transparency and co-management of life activity, are the new master concepts for success: http://j.mp/eS0iNC #ux

Monday, 29th November, 5:52 PM
How A/B testing a splash page and sign up button earned Obama an extra $60M in fund raising: http://j.mp/gF525L #webdesign #ux

Monday, 29th November, 10:11 AM
5 of the best new user experiences of 2010--most interesting, useful, and innovative, expanding #ux expectations: http://j.mp/eWHqgn

via twitter.com/terretta

Social business and service design

It is not surprising that almost every business analyst, from whatever field they come from, management, business consulting, marketing, finance…etc predicts that customer experience and customer value in use will be the next big strategic thing, including major players like Forrester research – The State Of Customer Experience, 2010 – and big five consultancies like Cap Gemini. See also for example Emanuele Quintarelli’s summaries of the Enterprise 2.0 Summit 2010 and the “Social CRM Strategies Summit” (Day 1 & Day 2). More fundamental models in business and academia are underlining this new paradigm: Service dominant logic, and lean consumption as an application of lean management .

And that’s exactly the reason why service design (as a generalization of the formerly emerged discipline of User experience design – see Peter Morville, Smashing Magazine & Kimmy Paluch) and design thinking are starting to raise such a high interest: It’s these disciplines that have the tools, methods and people (the designers and design thinkers) necessary to discover & create customer value and experience, the new ingredients for success and competitiveness in business.

via servicedesign.lu

Usability week ending November 7th

Thursday, 4th November, 1:30 PM
Web designers, keep your page sizes down. It’s for your own (and your users') good: http://j.mp/9QDkjV #ux #performance

Thursday, 4th November, 12:58 PM
Best practices for combining #typefaces in a #design, as well as some blunders to avoid: http://j.mp/bffnUQ #fonts #typography #webdesign

Monday, 1st November, 11:40 AM
Users pay close attention to photos with relevant information, ignore fluffy pictures used for looks: http://j.mp/cjLqtw #ia #ui

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending October 10th

Friday, 8th October, 4:46 PM
Mobile web apps are an excellent opportunity for native-like performance without specializing in a particular platform: http://j.mp/aoQhzw

Thursday, 7th October, 4:55 PM
Ten golden principles for successful web apps: http://j.mp/9bkD6B #design #ux #development #startups

Tuesday, 5th October, 4:16 PM
Business-aligned #usability ratings communicate actual business impacts of issues identified in usability #testing: http://j.mp/dvvnXh

via twitter.com/terretta

Usability week ending October 3rd

Tuesday, 28th September, 4:08 PM
Understand how colors interact with each other to establish a heirarchy of information in your #typography: http://j.mp/dANmUD #ux #design

Monday, 27th September, 2:01 PM
Do you know what your customers actually remember about your site? Try Clue's 5 second test: http://j.mp/9j4MUQ #ux #tdd #webdesign

Sunday, 26th September, 12:08 PM
To make backend infrastructure software usable, focus on the linguistic elements of the design: http://j.mp/dlkj2x

via twitter.com/terretta