At a recent job, my department faced large budget cuts. When the dust had cleared, I found I had become a UX group of one. This didn’t come with a corresponding slowdown in work – in fact, following a major rewrite of our call center application, our department was already struggling to keep pace with a backload of business initiatives. Cuts slashed our BAs, our development group, and our QAs, yet everyone remaining was being asked to speed up. I
Continue readingWhen was the last time you read your resume? Go ahead and give it a look. Read your last job description. It’s impressive, right? Chances are, you emphasize your accomplishments, your ability to create stunning deliverables, and your extensive knowledge of the user experience practice. Now, think back to your last project. But, ignore the deliverables and design ideas. Forget the budgets and timelines. What are you left with? Aside from a handful of sharpies and post-its, you’re left with
Continue readingDid you know usability tests have shown that the maximum number of seconds a user is willing to wait, on average, before abandoning a web page, is 8.6? If that number surprises you, it should. The study took place in 1994. The bar is exponentially higher now for people involved in website user experience design and development when it comes to load speed. Here’s a quick look at the state of affairs. Slow speeds are a real usability challenge. According
Continue readingThis is an excerpt from the upcoming Android Design Patterns: Interaction Design Solutions for Developers (Wiley, 2013) by Greg Nudelman Anything that slows down customers or gets in their way after they download your app is a bad thing. That includes sign-up/sign-in forms that show up even before potential customers can figure out if the app is actually worth using. It’s a simple UX equation This antipattern seems to be going away more and more as companies are beginning to figure
Continue readingA quote that I stumbled on during grad school stuck with me. From the story of the elder’s box as told by Eber Hampton, it sums up my philosophy of working and teaching: “How many sides do you see?” “One,” I said. He pulled the box towards his chest and turned it so one corner faced me. “Now how many do you see?” “Now I see three sides.” He stepped back and extended the box, one corner towards him and one
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