BlobFisk.com

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!!

• Iceland’s disruptive volcano
  Today, British civil aviation authorities ordered the country's airspace closed as of noon, due to a cloud of ash drifting from the erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. The volcano has erupted for the second time in less than a month, melting ice, shooting smoke and steam into the air and forcing hundreds of people to flee rising floodwaters. The volcanic ash has forced the cancellation of many flights and disrupted air traffic across northern Europe, stranding thousands of passengers. Collected here are photos of the most recent eruption, and of last month's eruptions, which were from the same volcano, just several miles further east. (17 photos total)
• Top 10 YouTube Videos About Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs
• Designing for Interaction: Design Research
  If only a small bit of the typical time, money, and resources used to make and market a product or service were put towards design research—observing, talking to, and maybe even making artifacts with customers and users—the products and services we use would be greatly improved. Dan Saffer explains.
• The Secret to Designing an Intuitive UX
  Imagine that you’ve never seen an iPad, but I’ve just handed one to you and told you that you can read books on it. Before you turn on the iPad, before you use it, you have a model in your head of what reading a book on the iPad will be like. You have assumptions about what the book will look like on the screen, what things you will be able to do, and how you will do them—things like turning a page, or using a bookmark. You have a “mental model” of reading a book on the iPad, even if you’ve never done it before.
• Watch Air Traffic – LIVE!
• Why You Need A Content Strategist?
  Are you investing in your content? Do you have a strategy? If not then help is at hand. You need a content strategist, but who are they and what do they do?

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!!

• Overcoming egocentrism – where to next for the UX research industry?
  Egocentrism is something that we largely grow out of in childhood. There’s a famous test in developmental psychology called Piaget’s 3 mountains task (shown below). When you give it to 2-6 year old children, most of them fail. As soon as kids reach 6 years old, they start passing the test in much greater numbers.
• UK retail mega menu navigation review
  Web navigation is a key area for usability and new navigation methods are introduced frequently as web programming languages evolve. The last twelve months has seen several large retail sites using 'mega menus' as their primary navigation structure. In this article we have reviewed five popular retails sites in the UK with regards to the usability of the mega menus in the site, and we have developed our own check list and criteria to test against.
• Gathering variables for AB split testing
  A/B split testing is no longer an enigmatic term amongst web professionals; countless articles and books cover the basics. What more, access to tools such as Visual Website Optimizer (disclaimer: this is my startup)—which simplify the setup and maintenance of A/B tests have—have made the testing process itself as straightforward as possible. Despite this, though, A/B split testing isn’t part and parcel for UX designers and internet marketers. The question then becomes: why not?
• 25 OUTSTANDING ILLUSTRATIONS FOR INSPIRATION
  We are all aware of the hard work and time it required to come up with a unique and beautiful Illustration and well aware of the importance of Inspiration. Today, We have compiled illustrations based on human characters and cartoons. I decided not to come up with a large showcase and tried to focus on quality and uniqueness. One can find Inspirational character illustration in digital art, in traditional art, vector illustrations, pencil sketches and other in the showcase. Feel free to share your opinion about what you see.
• Agile Personas
  One of the most consistent patterns I see among those integrating UX and Agile is a business-as-usual approach to Personas, i.e. continuing to create them largely in the same way as in a traditional waterfall practice. Doing so, in my opinion, is a mistake, and reflects a lack of understanding both of the purpose behind Personas and the thinking underlying an Agile practice.
• From Here to Experience
  At the IA Summit in Phoenix, AZ Jared Spool outlined the role of an experience vision in keeping design teams focused and innovating. Here's my notes from his presentation From Here to Experience:

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!!

• 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!!

Here is a selection of bookmarks for May 12th:

• The TED Commandments – rules every speaker needs to know
  I discovered one of the reasons the speeches are so good… TED’s organisers send upcoming speakers a stone tablet, engraved with the ‘TED Commandments”. Amy Tan in her TED Talk described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”.
• The History of Eating Utensils
  The Department of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences houses the Rietz Collection of Food Technology. Containing nearly 1,400 items, this collection was assembled by Carl Austin Rietz, an inventor and businessman in the food industry. His interest in the industry led him on travels around the world to collect objects used in the production, processing, storage, presentation, preparation, and serving of food.
• 10 Transition Effects: The art of Showing/Hiding Content | DevSnippets
• Nick’s Top User Experience Books | Blog | Nick Finck | UX/IA Pro, Speaker, and Community Cultivator.
  So today there have been a few mentions of the The UX Book Club‘s Top UX Books list (Most notably: Louis Rosenfeld and Paul Seys). I believe this list suppose to be based on the recommendations from all of the UX Book Clubs around the world… tho the Seattle UX Book Club was never informed of this list, or at least it’s members weren’t. A good list none the less.
• Analysis, Plus Synthesis: Turning Data into Insights :: UXmatters
  Conducting primary user research such as in-depth interviews or field studies can be fairly straightforward, when compared with what you face upon returning to the office with piles of notes, sketches, user journals, and audio and video recordings. You may ask, What should I do with all this data? and How do I turn it into something meaningful?
• Putting people first » Bringing the everyday life of people into design
  Products play a role in our everyday lives. Insight into the experiences of people in their everyday lives is of great use for designing products. For example, the contexts in which products are used (physical, social, culture etc.) and the state (excited, tired, concentrated etc.) of the users influence how they experience using products. However, in design practice using this type of diverse, subjective and multi-layered information, as inspirational input for the design process, is a recent development.

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)!