Tag Archives: ux

Capturing Creativity

Mar
14
2010

Coffee Creativity

Creativity is a strange beast. Often creativity is blocking us, running away.  We often talk about it, discuss it at length and even say it can be learned.  Sometimes it’s even hard to find that creative spark.  However what is creativity.   In reality creativity is a hard thing to define as a  specific reproducible item.

Doesn’t help that creativity is different things to different people.

You see creativity can be related to the newer western principle of making products, building things for a purpose, the expression of scientific or technological innovation.  Where as in older cultures, there has always been an undertone for creativity being more for personal fulfilment, private goal setting, the taking of an inner journey.

Failing at Design

Feb
28
2010

Too Much Lego

I was talking to the local UPA Perth chapter (in formation) about aspects of UX visualisation.  It was an interesting topic that brought up a good number of discussion points.

One point was on the design process. The way we design.  The way that we just don’t allow ourselves time to fail at the design.  Or if we do, it is hidden in the back room so we can appear to be “magical design wizards” that produce the perfect product, interface design, IA or the like.

User Surveys – Do it Right or Not at All.

Feb
17
2010

You have been registered.

I have been involved with many user surveys over the years. Some have gone well. Some have been a complete waste of time and effort. The main distinction between them is the surveys that were professionally developed and pretested would succeed. The ones that had been knocked together by a well meaning manager were often destined to failure.

It comes down to this – unless you have experience designing surveys, then it’s best to either hire someone who has had experience and training, or find another way to collect the same information.

Presenting Phone Numbers

Feb
6
2010

Phone Keypad

The other day I was chatting away with a potential client, I asked for their phone number, as you do. They replied with 1800 GETT AWEB (no that’s not real) . I asked what that was a real number, there was silence for a moment, then “I have no idea,” was the honest reply.

It’s not that phone names are anything new, but it did get me thinking.

The use of the phrase (name) as a number was all well and good if I wanted to remember the number. It’s well know that people remember words and phrases better in general than they do strings or numbers.  Clearly why phone number names are so popular.