User Experience Blog

Value Driven

I'm continuing to noodle away at this Value-Driven (Idea to Implementation) process. I think I've got something a little simpler now.

---

The Web Application Framework

The fact that Windows 8 and WinRT will host Web technologies natively got me thinking.

---

Idea to Implementation v2

In a previous post, I laid down some initial thinking on a flexible framework that would make it easier to manage the way we move from idea to implementation.

---

The No-Compromise Compromise

During the Build keynotes, Microsoft made a point of referring to Windows 8 as a "no compromise" reimagining of Windows for all devices. The touch-first aspect may be able to make that claim, but there was a big fat turd of a compromise in another part of the system.

---

Houses of Significance

So, why is social media so successful? We're all, at some scope, fairly insignificant. I'm pretty sure I don't mean much to an exploding star. Hell, I don't mean much beyond my family. And that's the point... within a limited scope of existence, we all matter. It seems perhaps that social media, with it's bottom-up approach, allows one to build a scope of existence that enhances significance.

---

Creating Effective People

I have often had to justify the benefit of User Experience. I actually think it's quite simple: effective people make for effective technology and effective technology makes for a successful business. And UX is all about creating happy, effective people.

---

Pondering Complexity in User Experiences

I was asked the other day about my particular design bent. Am I more inclined to simplicity or complexity? There is no right answer to that question.

---

User Adaptation and Managing Improvements

It is interesting that users are capable of adapting to a lot of what we might call poor interfaces. That creates some interesting problems when we go to make improvements.

---

Initial Thinking on Idea to Implemenation

In my experience, success and failure has a lot to do with the synergy between work objectives (the stuff we do) and the value propositions that target a real-world domain (why we're doing it). I'm starting to work on a process model to address this in a fairly generalized way.

---

Ignoring user skill and designing to usability constants

It doesn't really matter how skilled a user is when they encounter our applications. We should treat everybody the same knowing that they are going arrive at their own version of success within our application based on how well we design to good usability principles.

---

The Future might just look a lot like today

It's funny how the future of technology never turns out to be quite as dramatically different than the predictions will have it.

---

Materials and other design primitives

I've been thinking about the way we describe interactive elements and the way those elements are composed from a design perspective (not from a modularity point of view). I'm after a sort of a visual language. Or perhaps it's just a conceptual framework for understanding, manipulating, and compositing the visual things of a UI.

---

People, Places, and Things

I was musing about the nature of "location" on the Web. In particular, I was thinking about the role of that concept in helping people understand and move around the Web.

---

Flexible Box Model with a Dash of Rant

I really think that Layout is the biggest problem afflicting Web Development. There are so many interesting ways to do things, but they are all way more difficult than they need to be.

---

Analysis and reasoning as a creative component

My brother-in-law and I were talking about company culture and team dynamics and we wandered into an interesting discussion of creativity. It got me thinking about its many forms and its role in some of the larger business processes.

---

Work Principles

These are the principles I use to guide my approach to technology. I have been and continue to be driven to produce what I consider to be "beautiful technology." In attempting to do that, I think you have to have a solid philiophical base.

---

Some Musings on MVVM

I've been thinking about MVVM lately. In so doing, I've started to reclassify some things. It doesn't change anything about MVVM, but it does help me better apply the pattern in my solutions.

---

Double Standard on Browser Bundling

When Microsoft attempted to bundle Internet Explorer into the Windows Operating system, it drew the ire of many, including the EU. Isn't the IPhone doing the same thing?

---

Refactoring social interaction

With Internet experiences, there really are no new ideas. There is this ongoing, every more clever refactoring of social interaction into new and interesting expressions.

---

Designing for Muddling

As Steve Krug points out, most people don't really attempt to learn an application by reading. They simply dive right in and attempt to learn by doing. This might be the most simple and basic usability theory.

---

Necessity of Mobile Applications (Apps)

Apple touts that there are loads of Apps. WP7 and Android have their own Marketplaces as well. But do we need them? Can good integration between the mobile device and the Web browser solve 90% of the cases for mobile apps?