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I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• iPhone Apps Need Low Starting Hurdles
  Most mobile applications are used only intermittently, so they must be especially easy during initial use. In particular, upfront registration shouldn't be required before users experience an app's benefits.
• Analytics – The Usability Lab of the decade
  10 to 15 years ago the usability laboratory was the must-have for vetting and testing your design ideas. But more nimble development processes and new tools seem to have superseded the usability lab.
• Overlays in web forms
  Not all people require all the input fields within a Web form at all times. Instead, forms can provide additional input fields to the people that need them without getting in the way of people that don’t. A common way to display these additional options is to use an overlay: a set of additional input fields that sits on top of a form like a dialog window on your computer’s desktop.
• Words that Zing
• Northern Lights | A Nature Phenomena
  These breathtaking images were taken by photographer Aurora Borilis.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• 10×10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris
  10×10 is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. The result is an often moving, sometimes shocking, occasionally frivolous, but always fitting snapshot of our world. Every hour, 10×10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time. Over the course of days, months, and years, 10×10 leaves a trail of these hourly statements which, stitched together side by side, form a continuous patchwork tapestry of human life.
• Making Users Buy Online – The Importance of Building …
  With online sales rising to 9.8% of the total retail sales in the UK in 2008* and 12.6% of businesses selling online (Office of National Statistics), the role of company websites is still enhancing often becoming a central part of the offered customer experience.
• Design the stakeholder experience | Front to back
  To get the stakeholders on track for a successful UX project, use your skills and design the stakeholder experience.
• Video: The right way to wireframe
• Improve conversions by connecting with your audience
  Lots of people design sites based on what they would like to see. However, what makes sense to a designer may not make sense to their target audience. If designers seek to create a conversion-friendly web experience we’re going to have to learn about our audience and what makes them tick.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

• LukeW | User Experience Diagrams
• Card Games for Information Architects
  This article reviews 6 simple but powerful research techniques you can use to improve the information architecture of your product or web site. None of these activities require a computer. You simply need a bunch of cards, a participant and a desk.
• 10 ways you can use photos to influence the user experience | cxpartners
  As a photographer I understand how to take photos that will result in a certain reaction from the viewer. We have all seen photos that have influenced our thoughts, our feelings and ultimately our own behaviour.

  The classic image placeholder

  So why as UX designers do we ignore photos when they can be so powerful? The classic wireframes image placeholder represents nothing but a missed opportunity.

  In this article I will identify just how important choosing the right photographs can be, as well as proposing a new method for denoting photos in our wireframes.

• Better User Experience With Storytelling
  Stories have defined our world. They have been with us since the dawn of communication, from cave walls to the tall tales recounted around fires. They have continued to evolve with their purpose remaining the same; To entertain, to share common experiences, to teach, and to pass on traditions.
• Forum Nokia – User Experience Programme
• Bringing User Centered Design to the Agile Environment
  In of itself, Agile does a good job of flexing to the winds of change. But one has to ask whether it was devised to treat a symptom of the larger cause: the business doesn’t know what it wants. While Agile enables the development team to better cope with this, it doesn’t solve the problem and in most cases creates new problems.
• A/B Test Case Study: Single Page vs. Multi-Step Checkoutc
  o when we started re-working the Official Vancouver 2010 Olympic Store, we challenged ourselves to take it to the next level — and we cut the checkout process down to just single page.

  Structurally, the new single-page checkout looks very much like the two-page checkout, with shipping information first, followed by billing and confirmation.

  With A/B split testing, 50% of traffic was redirected to the original checkout, while the other 50% was served the new single-page checkout. After only 300 transactions, the winner was clear and we stopped the experiment after 606 transactions. Google Website Optimizer concluded that the single-page checkout outperformed the out-of-the-box checkout by a whopping 21.8%. But what does that 21.8% really mean?

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!

I bookmark a lot of pages and sites which I find interesting, inspirational and informative every day! I’d like to share some of them with you here. In general they are about user experience, usability, UCD, accessbility and design. In general, but not always!!

Here is a selection of bookmarks for May 12th:

• How To: Prepare For A Pitch Over The Phone | Matt Singley | Social Media Optimization
  I advise companies about how to optimize social media for brand exposure, adoption and support. Because of this I am constantly talking to potential clients on the phone, discussing their goals and desires for an effective online campaign. If you are in the business of consulting or are thinking about moving in that direction I’ve put together a short list of tips and tricks for preparing for that phone call, because as I’ve learned the hard way, if you aren’t prepared you’re not going to get the job. With the economy in the condition it is, every call is critical.
• Refactoring the User Experience :: UXmatters
  The ability to take a broad view of the world and incorporate lessons learned from other disciplines distinguishes the best practitioners in any field. As UX professionals, there is much we can learn from good software engineering practice, which maps a team’s understanding of a problem at a human level onto the implementation of a technical solution. The essence of good software engineering practice is effective user experience—from developing the high-level design documentation that describes how the main elements of a system interact to its implementation in clearly written code. Though the relationship between software engineering and user experience is not always an easy one, software engineers and UX professionals share some common goals. Both have a vested interest in producing systems that are useful and usable.
• Making $10,000 a Pixel: Optimizing Thumbnail Images in Search Results :: UXmatters
  In search results, the old adage a picture is worth a thousand words rings true. When it comes to making your search results more efficient to use, more relevant, and more attractive, images reign supreme. There is simply nothing else on your search results pages that can come close to offering the same potential as thumbnail images for dramatically increasing your conversion rates and revenues.
• Ten inexpensive tips to improve user experience | Blog | Econsultancy
  At TechCrunch’s Geek ‘n Rolla event last week, I managed to have a quick chat with Leisa Reichelt from Disambiguity, following her great presentation about “Why you can’t NOT afford good user experience”.
• The Value of User Experience (from Web 2.0 Expo Berlin 2008)
  Companies and brands should think about (user) experience to find new competitive edge for their business. Better experiences create more value for users, which can be in turn transformed into business value for the company.

Please do feel free to suggest other related (and unrelated ones)!