User Centred

Android Design Patterns

When I was offered presenting at the Design track at Droidcon 2011, I enthusiastically accepted as very little has been written on the topic. This still holds true, regardless of Android being the most widespread Smartphone OS on the planet.

The things is, Android apps have been heavily criticised in the past due to poor usability and . . . → Read More: Android Design Patterns

Cracking the mobile user experience at OTA 2011

Check the Over The Air FlickR gallery

Where some of the finest code-crackers and scientist were gathered during the war to decrypt Nazis messages sent throughout the war-torn Europe?

… the answer is at Bletchley Park, just south of Milton Keynes, in the UK. During World War II, Bletchley Park was the site of the United Kingdom’s . . . → Read More: Cracking the mobile user experience at OTA 2011

Illustrator template for iPhone design

I recently worked on a couple of user experience specifications for mobile applications with Adobe InDesign and Illustrator and, while I found many resources for Omnigraffle, I couldn’t find anything for Illustrator. Most of the stuff I found was for Omnigraffle. I never particulary liked Omnigraffle , so I sticked to Illustrator and Indesign. There are . . . → Read More: Illustrator template for iPhone design

A ‘Step backwards for Gestural Interfaces’ or for the NN’s Group?

Just finished reading the article Gestural Interfaces: A Step Backwards In Usability by Donald Norman and Jakob Nielsen. I would suggest reading the article before reading my critique below.

My immediate gut feeling was that their article didn’t hit the mark this time. Despite my admiration for Donald Normand and sharing a similar (HCI) background with both of . . . → Read More: A ‘Step backwards for Gestural Interfaces’ or for the NN’s Group?

Google, Apple and their mobile user experience: Twitter review

A look at last month tweets . . . → Read More: Google, Apple and their mobile user experience: Twitter review

A remote change for user research?

What happens when we can carry out user research and testing remotely? Do we need to change the way we work?

The answer to this question is: “No“.

I recently had a chance of carrying out a research and usability testing consulting for a keyword research service based here in London. This experience led me to many . . . → Read More: A remote change for user research?

User Centred at a Glance

Tag clouds have never been particularly useful... they give 'at a glance' view of the content of a website, but they have very little potential for wayfinding... try even finding the link to your own bookmarks in a Del.icio.us tag cloud - presenting categories and subcategories is more effective. . . . → Read More: User Centred at a Glance

Why doing user research first is right

I have found an interesting column from Donald Norman about how the role of user research in the software/web development process, though I have to say that I find the premise of his quite contentiious. I agree with him when he says that lengthy, time-consuming field work must take place before the project starts, but even with the ball running and in a limited time frame it is possible to know a lot about the users. . . . → Read More: Why doing user research first is right

Why Forrester got it wrong on User Experience?

Features and patterns should never be the primary focus of a User-centred Experience Design process. We should rather research on user most frequent tasks before jumping into designing RIAs (Rich-Internet Applications). In a nutshell, before looking at your patterns library, get to know users and tasks! . . . → Read More: Why Forrester got it wrong on User Experience?

UX Trends in the 2007 UPA Salary

I just found a fresh UPA 2007 salary survey out in my mailbox… there are a couple of interesting thoughts that I would like to share with you.

First of all, the survey has a quite a large sample: 1523 people answered to the survey, with the vast majority in US (999) and then the other countries: . . . → Read More: UX Trends in the 2007 UPA Salary