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Designing for touch
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/designing-touch

Semantic web: context for the rest of us
http://www.tnooz.com/2012/04/12/news/semantic-web-context-for-the-rest-of-us/

How will the new law on cookies affect internet browsing? (really nice explanation of cookie use here)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/13/new-law-cookies-affect-internet-browsing

Does it have legs? Information Architecture Heuristics for InteractionDesigners
http://www.slideshare.net/AbbyCovert/information-architecture-heuristics

8 Ways to Boost Ecommerce Shopping Cart Conversions
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32200/8-Ways-to-Boost-Ecommerce-Shopping-Cart-Conversions.aspx

Tracking the Trackers: Guardian initiative to reveal big companies using web tracking and monitoring
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/13/tracking-the-trackers-cookies-web-monitors

Wireframe of the new programme video page (Click to enlarge)

I’ve been really enjoying the last couple of months at work! I enjoying working in general, but lately I’ve been engrossed in a really meaty and fun project – sculpting the user experience of our new video proposition, which I mentioned in my previous post, The Problem with Online Video.

I talked about the issue we had with pop-up players not sitting well with our advertising policies. We’ve refined the solution a little more to make it more usable. Now, users will be able to launch the pop-out directly from the video list. We can’t get around the fact that the user needs to make that decision before watching, but it’s a click less to get to playing video now.

With the introduction of archive video, rather than just the last 30 days catch-up video, we have been working hard on the findability of video. More

Fitt's Law - size and position!

Hick's Law - 7 plus/minus 2!

Ok, so I’m not saying that we need to know the maths, but the underlying principles are important! Fitts’ Law tells us that the time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target, so the size of a link area and it’s position on the page (and relative to other elements) is important.  Hick’s Law says that the time it takes for a person to make a decision is a result of the possible choices he or she has. More choices mean a longer decision process – which gives us the 7 plus/minus 2 rule.

These are two of the fundamental rules that I use in user experience architecture. I’d recommend Tog’s (Bruce Tognazzini’s) First Principles of Interaction Design for some more.

GUUI Sketchy Wireframing Stencil

I am a very big fan of sketchy wireframes, which I was introduced to by Ben Gilmore. There is an interesting discussion on them over at the IxDA, but my feeling is that they are a really powerful way of showing wireframes.

The informal appearance makes them more accessibile to people outside the Information Architecture sphere, and I have noticed that I get far better reaction to them and get better feedback on them than I got from more traditional straight edge wireframes. They also reduce the confusion that the wireframes in some represent the visual design of the page.

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