An obituary in the New York Times highlight’s John Karlin’s historic influence on digital dialing. Karlin died on January 28 at the age of 94. Ed Israelski, a well-know human factors professional, was fortunate to work under Karlin at Bell Labs. Karlin designed the famous (or infamous) telephone keypad layout. He also conducted innovative research… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Real-World Usability
Who owns your UX philosophy?
“I’ve been in three board meetings in the last month where it was painfully apparent that there wasn’t a person in the company who owned the UX philosophy of the product. I’m explicitly saying “UX” (user experience) rather than “UI” (user interface) as each company had an excellent designer and the application looked great. But… Continue Reading
Tech hotshots: The rise of the UX expert
“As the digital world shrinks down to a screen the size of your hand, demand for user experience designers explodes.” The surge of mobile and tablet devices has placed more emphasis and need for user experience skills. UX practitioners have been promoting awareness and education of UX and usability for years, and it has paid off. Read… Continue Reading
“Connecting” Video on the future of Interaction Design and UX
Thought-provoking video on Vimeo about the future of our field – https://vimeo.com/52861634. The follow-on comments are just as interesting as the video. Here’s the summary: The 18 minute “Connecting” documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry’s thought leaders. As the role of software is… Continue Reading
Give Before You Get – Advice for the New Year
Great advice from a world-famous Boulder start-up mentor and founder, Brad Feld. Give Before You Get … Continue Reading
5 Ways to Begin Designing Your Life in 2013
Happy New Year 2013!! Here’s a great blog post about integrating your work and your life and living DESIGN! Enjoy! 5 Ways to Begin Designing Your Life in 2013 … Continue Reading
Simplicity Isn’t Simple
KISS – Keep it Simple, Stupid! This has historically been a top-level goal for user experience professionals . However, as this blog post describes, achieving simplicity is not a simple exercise. There are many aspects to simplicity. It’s not as easy as saying, “If we look at an Apple UI, that’s our model!” Here’s the post: Simplicity… Continue Reading
New book – Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving
Worth a read! New book available (for free!) – Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving is presented as a handbook for teaching, learning, and doing meaningful disruptive design work. The book includes an introduction to wicked problems, describing some of the challenges and opportunities of design-led entrepreneurial activities. The text describes the skills… Continue Reading
Information Visualization (and some whiskey, too!!)
Very nice example of the discipline called “information visualization.” This is the field best represented by Edward Tufte’s amazing books and courses. On one small notebook page, the complex distinction between the different varieties of scotch whiskey is beautifully displayed. Read the article here.… Continue Reading
Perfecting Military Medical Solutions
View an amazing collection of new military healthcare devices in the battlefield! “With the growing swiftness and capability of today’s technology, medical tools are increasing in their specificity to meet military healthcare needs. The combat environment calls for particular solutions; on the battlefield, where time is of essence, military healthcare providers need the right implement,… Continue Reading
EMR Vendors Stress Usability to Attract Physicians
Going back to my beginnings in the new field of building “user-friendly” software in the early 1980′s, usability began a long history as a potential product differentiator in a competitive field. Now, with the onset of a multitude of EMR software programs coming to market now and in the next few years, software vendors are… Continue Reading
EMR Usability – Standardization vs Usability and Innovation
This is a classic debate – whether it is nobler to be consistent or to be usable! EMRs have notoriously been both inconsistent and also very unusable. So, what to do – fix the inconsistencies or fix the usability issues? The problem is, fixing one of these issues doesn’t necessarily fix the other! Here’s an… Continue Reading
You’re not a user experience designer if…
It is very comforting that the “User Experience” field has become more popular and well-respected over the years. That makes me, as a UX professional, feel good about the work we do. However, as Whitney Hess points out in her blog post, There’s just one problem: not everyone calling themselves a user experience designer is… Continue Reading
Walmart’s $1.85 billon dollar mistake
Good companies listen to their customers – better customers figure out the appropriate questions to ask BEFORE they ask for feedback from their users! There may be other factors (economic factors, for example) that may be involved, but this case study shows the dangers of poorly designed user research and the inherent dangers of (just)… Continue Reading
User Experience Myths
Similar to the “Golden Rules” of user experience design that I have written about and cover in my presentations and seminars, there are many common myths about users and the user experience. Some myths have been around for many years, such as the myth, “You may not have more than 7 +/- 2 items in… Continue Reading
Healthcare Experience Design Conference – Boston, Mass – April 11, 2011
As a user experience professional designing EMR, EHR and case management software in the healthcare industry, there are few opportunities to educate, learn, network and focus on UX in healthcare. Well, look no longer!! I’m excited to hear about the Healthcare Experience Design Conference in Boston, Mass, on April 11, 2011. Here’s a summary of… Continue Reading
How one UI button change ruined the taxi ride!
Mark Hurst of Good Experience recently wrote on How one button changed the customer experience of New York City taxis Installed a few years ago, a touch-screen user interface allowed customers to choose a tip of 15%, 20%, or 25%. Thus with a single tap one could deliver the tip (and avoid mental arithmetic calculations).… Continue Reading
UX Storytellers Tell Their Stories – FREE eBook
Very good reading! User Experience stories from UX experts! From the IxDA website: In this free eBook, ‘UX Storytellers – Connecting the Dots’, 42 UX masterminds tell personal stories of their exciting lives as User Experience professionals. The book brings together authors from around the world who paint a very entertaining picture of our multifaceted… Continue Reading
Making “Boring” Better – Virgin America Airlines In-Flight Video
Mark Hurst of Good Experience posted this on how Virgin America improved the user experience of passengers on their flights. Other airlines should learn from this experience. ______________________________________ How Virgin America’s customer experience turns “boring to better” Virgin America is my favorite domestic airline, in part because of the way it treats an overlooked part… Continue Reading
Mandel presents to Denver University’s Daniels College of Business on “Golden Rules of Web Design”
Theo Mandel, Ph.D. gives an invited presentation – “Golden Rules of Web Design” – to a Digital Marketing graduate course at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver September 27, 2010 Denver, Colorado… Continue Reading