Tag Archives: userexperience

Not Creating User Experiences

Dec
9
2010

an empty Perth hay st mall on a late night shopping night, with no one around - the perfect experience

It’s a little frustrating and amusing at the same time.  Of late I have been reading and talking with a fair few designers who are sprouting on about building and creating user experiences.

Er, No.   You have it wrong.

Let’s consider this for a moment, (yes I’m being picky).

Yes that’s right they said they are building, creating the user experience for the web site concerned.

They are so sure of their design abilities that they can state that when the audience arrives at the said site they will have the exact experience they had planned and designed.

Dark Labelling

Dec
7
2010

We often talk about dark patterns of user interfaces and how as User Experience practitioners you really should design a world that does no evil and rejects these dark ideals.

But it really doesn’t help when you get situations every day around you. When even the labelling on the food you eat is subject to the similar dirty tricks.

Now I eat a good deal of salmon, I try and get it as fresh as I can, but sadly sometimes that’s only out of a can.  The other day we encountered this issue with Safcol Salmon.

User Experience is not a Platform

Nov
1
2010

UX Australia 2010

There seems to be this idea of late promoting that all you need to design a user experience is a single developmental / design platform.  As if this platform is all that is required, the UX nirvana, the ulitmate UX tool.

This is a little like saying that your experience with a cup of coffee is directly reliant on the brand coffee making equipment and tools that where used to brew the cup.   With no consideration to given to the farmer, buyer, roaster, and the barista and the like.

Virtual Design Walls?

Oct
2
2010

Design Wall

Some of you may not have heard of design or project walls, they have been around for a while in various disguises like design cubicles,  design studios, information radiators, UX walls and the like.

This is where you can spread your UX artefacts,  your documentation of the project and the principles of the design out onto a wall for all to see.    You can put on the wall your key points from user research, map user stories, card sorts, inspirational competitors designs, task stories,  task flows and maps, afffinity diagrams, persona, storyboards, sketches, wireframes, feature lists,  burndown chart and so on; you get the idea.