Gamification seems to have been the big thing for a while. Maybe we have heard too much of it. Some would say we have been over sold on gamification, making it the wonder child that will make your websites work and attract and keep customers.
Gamification by Design – by Gabe Zichermann and Chris Cunningham is the recommended discussion seed book for UXPerth this month (April 2012). I don’t often review the books for UXPerth, unless they are amazingly outstanding or something a lot worse.
Times have just got to change. I’m a little sick of living in a world that is regionalise into sales and licencing zones for no real reason besides to restrict sales due to some arcane money grubbing corporate policy.
What makes matters worse is people building experiences that highlight this and rub our face in it time and time again!
I regularly buy music online from various places, I tend to favour non DRM music, or if I can buy directly from the artist which is even better – I don’t like iTunes much at all.
I don’t mind completing surveys, I even do those phone surveys. Having working with several different marketing teams and conducted countless UX information gathering surveys over the years. I can understand the difficulties of getting a good response from people. So I don’t mind taking the time to complete the odd survey.
Still I have to wonder sometimes if the teams behind the surveys are really understanding their audience that is completing the survey in the first place.
A few weeks back our fence was blown over in a storm. We put in an insurance claim, it was processed, and we got the fence repaired. No issue, good service all round.
I get asked this a lot. “What are the best UX books to read?”
In true UX tradition my answer is depends.
It depends on your experience as a UX practitioner, your experience with scientific research methods, psychology, interaction design, user interface design, product or visual design and your level of communication skills.
Still having a list of starter books would be handy.
Yeah sure others have their lists from the likes of Will Evans, Paul Seys and Nick Finck however some of the books on these are either too complex (for someone new to UX) or take way to long to get to the point. Bit like this post.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, HTML prototypes, run workshops on UX design, do user research and conduct usability & accessibility testing and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc or just email me.
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