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I've often wondered what it was like in the early days of creating Twitter. It must have been interesting times working out what the social network would be, what it would look like and how it would function. Of course, no-one then knew for certain it would be the slam-dunk success of today.In those early, startup days of rapid development and innovation, there must have been countless arguments, debates and jousts over how it would look and how it would ...
I recently introduced myself to someone and when I explained that I'm a User Experience Designer, his eyes lit up and he said "Ah, you’re the usability guy." "Yeah, kind of" I responded. He looked at me, confused. "What’s the difference?" he asked.For apps and websites, usability refers to how easily your site visitors can complete a given task e.g. filling in a checkout form. In the emerging markets particularly, usability is still a differentiator. This is why the savvier ...
As far back as the days of ENIAC and old-school IBM punch-card computers, users have been trained to adapt their experience to the capabilities of the computing devices available to them. And, as we all know, there has been a 30-year evolution of usability and functionality that has been working towards the clear goal of making every aspect of the tech experience easier. Whether it be a device, an operating system, a web-site, or a dozen of the every-day amenities ...
When I changed career path from journalism to user experience design, it was largely on the faith my friend Lidia had in my journalism skills. “Dude!” she said, “You’re perfect for this.”At the time Lidia was wrapping up her PhD in Human Computer Interaction at Swansea University, where I was editing itwales.com. To her, it didn’t matter that I’d had minimal exposure to UX until that point. As a career changer herself (from social work to HCI), Lidia knew firsthand ...
If you're a writer of any stripe you will have come across numerous recommendations for Scrivener as the ultimate tool for collating research, scribbling down ideas and finding the structure of the story you're trying to tell.In fact, though it's marketed as software for novelists, Scrivener's powerful feature set is a boon to anyone who needs to wrangle large amounts of information.I've used Scrivener almost exclusively since 2007, so when I made the switch from journalism to user ...
Flash is something which has wowed clients for some years now. It looks impressive on your developer’s desktop, and fantastic in client pitches. New clients are impressed with some agencies’ design capabilities because Flash sites look attractive. That is pretty much where pure 100% Flash websites belong, on power points, in pitches but not in real web designs.Look, of course Flash does have its uses. Some online gaming is driven with Flash, along campaign driven micro sites which have ...
Clothing is one of the biggest growth markets for online retail, with more people welcoming the obvious benefits of online clothes shopping: no battling the crowds, saving time and often money; not having to faff around in changing rooms; and the confidence of knowing you can always return it if it doesn’t fit just right. And yet apparel is still one of the most difficult things to sell online — a hard truth not helped by the fact that, for ...
Behavioural economics, persuasive design: I knew the theory, but could I put it into practice at my daughter's 'Cake and Candy day'?Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling upon Happiness are two of the best books about using the quirks of the human brain to help you market and sell. We always keep these basic ideas in mind when designing websites and social networks. But there's nothing like the evidence of your own eyes to ram home a concept. ...
The future popularity of tablet computers was predicted more than ten years ago, but it took the genius of Apple to bring it to the mainstream. It's the same trend we’ve seen many times before: Apple makes a groundbreaking innovation and within a fairly short space of time it becomes the norm, as we are now seeing with the iPad and tablet computing – a trend which looks to be far more important than the "flash in the pan" of ...
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