The ROI of Non-Design: Murdoch’s $1bn MySpace Blunder
December 14th, 2009 § 0
The Financial Times on December 4 published a fascinating, sprawling account of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. acquisition of MySpace in 2005 and the reasons behind the social network’s subsequent decline and abdication to Facebook. Matthew Garrahan’s 4000-word piece delivers the type of in-depth, well-researched reading for which the newspaper industry is struggling to find an audience and revenue model in this era of 140-character text bytes. For the invested, it also contains a clear subtext: foot-dragging on design and user experience improvements drove people from the MySpace ship.
The Ajax Experience… Delayed by a Year
October 9th, 2009 § 1
In October of 2008 I attended the Ajax Experience Conference (sponsored by ajaxian.com among others) in Boston. 2009 saw a conflict between Ben and Dion and Adaptive Path’s San Francisco UX Week, which I opted for to diversify. Here, however, near its first anniversary, I share what I took from the 2008 Boston session. We’ve made progress. There’s still a way to go. And I still think UI/X is king. The excitement and challenges of a year ago:
Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2009: Day 4
September 22nd, 2009 § 2
Presentation Recap
Jesse James Garrett: The State of User Experience
Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path president and coiner of the term ‘Ajax,’ closed out UX Week 2009 with what he called a “state of the union for UX.” UX, Garrett reminded us, is a field that took root on the web. But over the past 15 years the concept of User Experience has spread to other media and technologies, and has implicated itself in the product and service economies such that today it is perhaps the key informant in the design of holistic, multi-channel experiences.
Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2009: Day 3
September 21st, 2009 § 0
Theme
‘Perception and the senses’ was day three’s theme. Attendees were welcomed with an introduction to the concept of Synesthesia, defined as “a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, such as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.”
Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2009: Day 2
September 19th, 2009 § 0
Theme
In welcoming us to Day 2 of the conference, Adaptive Path President Peter Merholz promised us we wouldn’t see any product or UI pictures as the goal was to move from technology tools and methods to reflection on the human experience. Day 2′s theme was ‘Expression.’
Keynote Recap
Sarah Jones
Tony Award® winning playwright and performer Sarah Jones brought life and meaning to the concept of personae. Those who weren’t familiar with her work (myself included) were greeted, in the first moments of her presentation, by a very proper English-accented woman whom we assumed would present to us for the next 40 minutes. What we in fact witnessed was a consuming character study that reminded us in a jolting way of the people for whom we work.
Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2009: Day 1 Notes and Quotes
September 16th, 2009 § 2
Aaron Forth: Mint.com – Why Good User Experience and Design are Essential
- Traditional tension exists between user experience and business objectives.
- “User Experience is where strategy must begin.”
- There exists a history of frustration with personal finance tools.
- The brand establishes an affiliation with a certain type of content, which in mint’s case is delivered through its blog.
- Key Aspects of the mint.com UI:
- Setup in less than 3 minutes
- Reduction of work and repetitive tasks wherever possible
- Designing for ‘wow’ moments
Adaptive Path’s UX Week 2009: Day 1 Keynote Recap
September 15th, 2009 § 1
Matias Duarte: Preparing for Revolution – Designing a Mobile Information Workspace
Matias Duarte is Vice President of Human Interface & User Experience at Palm and joined the company when, as he tells it, it was bordering on irrelevancy, bankruptcy, and ruin. To paraphrase, “The ship was sinking and even the lifeboat I chose to jump into was a rotten leaky one…” Duarte presented on how, from such a position, he was able to drive the thinking and process that led to webOS, the underlying UX foundation of the Palm Pre that Fast Company describes as the “Smartphone [that] Might Turn Palm Around.”
Fly Me to Canux
September 2nd, 2009 § 0
Who I am
I wear the UI designer’s hat but also the developer’s.
I work in a large Financial Institution where money is the business and those who handle it are called ‘officers.’
I am asked to provide estimates and updates on a weekly basis.
I am expected to design and develop to a schedule.
I am expected to work on multiple simultaneous projects.
I believe that functionality has been all but commoditized and that design and experience are today’s differentiators.
I believe in aesthetics, emotion, and pleasure of product.
I struggle to reconcile these beliefs with my organization’s focus on projects, pace, and pipeline.
I sometimes get discouraged…
But I haven’t lost the faith.
Design
April 12th, 2009 § 0
It’s a wide-ranging discipline. The focus of this site is on the front-end of the web but my design inspiration is drawn from numerous sources. I think it’s in looking outside our areas of expertise and practice that we can often take our most valuable lessons.
Design processes usually entail decisions made on the basis of subjective opinions and experience. If good design is our goal, what we hope for is that the people whose subjectivity shapes the product are people who have devoted time or careers to understanding the questions and implications of their design decisions. At a fundamental level, of course, we need to define what design is and what ‘success’ entails for any product design project.