Blog - Page 36 of 124 - Boxes and Arrows

December 31, 2012 Foundational Thinking

Five Big UX Topics in 2012

For years, UX professionals have vigorously lobbied for a “seat at the table” when it comes to formative decisions about products and product development. Looking back at 2012, trends indicate that this wish is becoming reality. Many leading UX consultants reported that their clients are more open to research and design methods with a UX focus than they have been in the past. This elevated focus on UX ideas and concepts will require informed engagement with several high-level topics that

A Perfection of Means and a Confusion of Aims

Posted by Abby Covert

“A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem” – Albert Einstein My work involves helping people to understand how to best plan circumstances in which users are engaged and satisfied with their experience. Yet, I do not call myself a user experience designer. I am an information architect. I work on clarifying information and the structure it should take to best enable understanding. I create maps, controlled vocabularies, diagrams, flows, hierarchies, and statements of

November 14, 2012 Foundational Thinking / Professionalism

The Music Outlives the Band

Posted by Robert Hoekman Jr

Parental advisory for strong language, guru-deflating, and semantics. A couple of years ago, I was asked to speak about “design thinking” at a web conference. The conference-speaking part was nothing new, but the topic certainly was. With the “design thinking” wave having just recently peaked, I had yet to even come up with a clear definition of the term. So I accepted the challenge and went about the business of putting a wrapper around the idea so I could

November 13, 2012 Foundational Thinking

What is User Experience?

Posted by Stephen P Anderson

I’m tired of discussing “user experience.” What it is, what it isn’t. I’m tired of talking about wireframes vs prototypes. I’m tired of the agile-lean-waterfall debates. I’m weary from discussing personas and sitemaps. I’m wary of design patterns, and I’m pretty sure the term “user” has held us back. Above all, I’m tired of defining the damn thing. None of this is what I practice, and these things aren’t user experience. So what is UX? Let’s talk instead about two

November 13, 2012 Foundational Thinking / Process and Methods / Workplace and Career

Mythic Design

Posted by Christina Wodtke

When I agreed to teach a twelve-week course on user experience design, I did what anyone of us would do: I went to find something to copy. I trolled the articles and syllabi I could find online, and I was horrified. Sometime in the years between Jesse James Garrett’s lovely diagram and his incendiary demand that a room full of information architects, content strategists, and interaction designers rebrand themselves as user experience designers, user experience design had grown small. Jesse’s