Theo Mandel is one of the organizers and presenters at the ninth annual Internet User Experience conference – IUE 2013. The April 2-3 conference in Tempe, Arizona, highlights top industry speakers, practitioners, and authors to provide attendees with a complete package of Internet user experience design training, case studies, and real-world examples. Mandel’s sessions include: Golden… Continue Reading
Category Archives: User Experience
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
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
Phoenix World Usability Day Celebration 2011
“To the heart of design” is a phrase that best describes the largest and most successful World Usability Day (WUD) event produced in Phoenix, Arizona, since its first event in 2007. PayPal hosted and sponsored the event, kicked off with a multimedia presentation of examples from its extensive interaction design team members, numbering 250 strong,… Continue Reading
User Experience Experts are in Demand
As an independent user experience (UX) consultant, this year has been very busy, with more and more companies and clients realizing that user experience and usability is a critical component of any product or device’s design and and development process. Want to know more details on the resurgence of user experience? Check it out on… 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
“In Google we trust” – Students poorly advised?
It has become part of the internet vernacular to “Google” something to find out more about it. Once googled, how reliable are the results listed? Are featured listings more truthful or informative than lower-ranked listings? A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially… 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
Charlie Chaplin: Google Doodle celebrates 122 years since his birth!
Friday post – Google Doodle celebrates Charlie Chaplin’s birth with an original video celebrating Chaplin. Google, the world’s most popular and most visited website is known for its celebration of special days and occasions but has only rarely featured a video doodle on its homepage. In the black and white video, Chaplin is moved on… 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
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
Why are User Experience (UX) and User-Centered Design (UCD) getting a bad rap?
There have been a number of recent articles, blog posts and list comments trashing user experience design (UX) as unneeded, misguided and counter-productive to good product design and development. As a long-time user experience practitioner, I was taken aback by these attack from many sides. However, as my partner at Success PragmatiQ, Larry Marine, and I… 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