Category: UX

Categories
experience Happy Cog™ Information architecture New York City people Philadelphia User Experience UX work Working

Cognition

Two greatly gifted user experience professionals are contributing their time and talent to Happy Cog.

Kevin Hoffman

A veteran strategist and instructor, user experience director Kevin Hoffman creates compelling online experiences via patient research and sparkling creative insight. Prior to joining Happy Cog, he spent more than a decade building sites, developing strategies, and leading projects for colleges and universities in Baltimore. Kevin joins our Philadelphia office; we are thrilled to have him.

Whitney Hess

Co-inventor of a patented search tool for American Express, user experience consultant Whitney Hess has a bachelor’s in writing, a master’s in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon, and ten years’ experience making complex sites work beautifully. Her work for the New York office of Happy Cog will soon bear public fruit; we are delighted to have her on our team.

Welcome, Kevin and Whitney.

[tags]Whitney Hess, Kevin Hoffman, UX, userexperience, happycog, talent[/tags]

Categories
A List Apart Accessibility architecture Code Design development User Experience UX Web Design

ALA 272: Accessible web video, better 404

In Issue No. 272 of A List Apart, for people who make websites:

This is How the Web Gets Regulated

by JOE CLARK

As in finance, so on the web: self-regulation has failed. Nearly ten years after specifications first required it, video captioning can barely be said to exist on the web. The big players, while swollen with self-congratulation, are technically incompetent, and nobody else is even trying. So what will it take to support the human and legal rights of hearing impaired web users? It just might take the law, says Joe Clark.

A More Useful 404

by DEAN FRICKEY

When broken links frustrate your site’s visitors, a typical 404 page explains what went wrong and provides links that may relate to the visitor’s quest. That’s good, but now you can do better. With Dean Frickey’s custom 404, when something’s amiss, pertinent information is sent not only to the visitor, but to the developer—so that, in many cases, the problem can be fixed! A better 404 means never having to say you’re sorry.

[tags]alistapart, closedcaptioning, captioning, captions, webvideo, video, accessible, accessibility, 404, error, reporting, usability, programming, design, webdesign, webdevelopment[/tags]

Categories
A List Apart Design Typography Usability User Experience UX work writing

Mental models. Yipes! Stripes!

In Issue No. 267 of A LIST APART, For People Who make Websites…

Look at it Another Way

by INDI YOUNG

Before you can solve a user’s problems, you must see them as that user sees them. Once you understand what drives people’s behavior, not only do new ideas flow freely, but the ideas that flow are appropriate and useful. Indi Young tells how to get out of your own way and hear what your users are telling you.

and…

Zebra Striping: More Data for the Case

by JESSICA ENDERS

As designers or marketers, we share a desire that our tables and forms be easy to scan, read, and use. Does the widely practiced shading of alternate rows help, hurt, or have no effect? A previous study proving inconclusive, designer and researcher Jessica Enders has tackled the conundrum again, coming up with statistically relevant data and a set of recommendations.

[tags]jessicaenders, indiyoung, mentalmodels, zebrastripe, zebrastriping, alistapart, ALA, happycog, publications[/tags]

Categories
A List Apart An Event Apart cities Code conferences content creativity CSS Design development eric meyer events experience Happy Cog™ Ideas industry Jason Santa Maria San Francisco Usability User Experience UX Web Design work Working Zeldman

Photos from An Event Apart San Francisco

Take a dip in the Flickr photo pool from An Event Apart San Francisco 2008. Day Two is about to begin.

111 Minna Gallery (MediaTemple party)

[tags]aeasf08, aneventapart, webdesign, conference, sanfrancisco[/tags]

Categories
Design Usability User Experience UX

Zing

John Gruber is right: his four-year-old Daring Fireball essay, Ronco Spray-on Usability, still holds up nicely indeed.

Alas, the notion that usability is the easy part—something you just add on after doing the hard part of writing the code—is hardly limited to the open source community.

There are still many companies that think information architecture holds a mirror up to the org chart.

There are still many web clients who believe it is more important to support an “investment” in a moribund technical platform than to create great user experiences.

There are even (although there are far fewer than there used to be) some designers who think their primary job is to wow the user with their skills.

[tags]design, usability[/tags]

Categories
A List Apart Accessibility Applications architecture art direction business Career client services Community content Design development Diversity experience Happy Cog™ Ideas industry Standards Survey User Experience UX Web Design work Working writing

The Survey for People Who Make Websites

It’s back, it’s improved, and it’s hungry for your data. It’s A List Apart’s second annual survey for people who make websites.

I took it! And so should you. The Survey for People Who Make Websites.

Last year nearly 33,000 of you took the survey, enabling us to begin figuring out what kinds of job titles, salaries, and work situations are common in our field.

This year’s survey corrects many of last year’s mistakes, with more detailed and numerous questions for freelance contractors and owners of (or partners in) small web businesses. There are also better international categories, and many other improvements recommended by those who took the survey last year.

Please take the survey and encourage your friends and colleagues who make websites to do likewise.

[Comments off. Pings on.]

[tags]survey, web design survey, webdesign, webdevelopment, professional, alistapart[/tags]

Categories
Usability User Experience UX

Customer support on the march

You know that new thing where you call customer support and a robot tells you that there’s no need to wait; just leave your phone number and you’ll be called back in three minutes? So you do it, and three minutes later, the robot calls you back and asks you to hold while your call is connected? And then you sit on hold for twenty minutes waiting to get connected?

[tags]customersupport, userexperience, badexperience, UX[/tags]

Categories
An Event Apart art direction Boston Community conferences content CSS Design development eric meyer events experience Happy Cog™ Ideas industry Jason Santa Maria Layout links Standards style Travel UX Web Design Zeldman

AEA Boston 2008 session notes

Early, initial linkage and reviews. Let us know what we missed!

Functioning Form – An Event Apart: Understanding Web Design

Luke Wroblewski: “Jeffrey Zeldman’s Understanding Web Design talk at An Event Apart Boston 2008 highlighted factors that made it challenging to explain the value and perspective of Web designers but still managed to offer a way to describe the field.”

Functioning Form – An Event Apart: The Lessons of CSS Frameworks

Luke Wroblewski: “At An Event Apart Boston 2008, Eric Meyer walked through common characteristics of several Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) frameworks and outlined lessons that can be learned from their structure.”

Functioning Form – An Event Apart: Good Design Ain’t Easy

Luke Wroblewski: “Jason Santa Maria’s Good Design Ain’t Easy talk at An Event Apart 2008 argued for deeper graphic resonance in the presentation of content online.”

KarlynMorissette.com: An Event Apart: Day one schedule

Karyln is an educator who attended An Event Apart Boston 2008, sat in the front row, and took fabulous notes. This summary post links to her individual notes from each session of day one.

Karlyn’s session notes are informative, opinionated, and fun to read, and include photos of speakers and presentations. Well worth your time!

KarlynMorissette.com: An Event Apart: Day two schedule

Karyln assesses day one and posts links to her individual notes from each session of day two (except for the last session, as “you had to be there” for the live critiques).

Idiot Banter: An Event Apart session notes

Notes from all sessions.

Slide sharing

Luke Wroblewski – An Event Apart: Web Application Hierarchy

“In my Web Application Hierarchy presentation at An Event Apart Boston 2008, I walked through the importance of visual hierarchy, visual principles for developing effective hierarchies, and utilizing applications of visual hierarchy to communicate central messages, guide actions, and present information. Download the slides from my presentation.”

Quirksmode: AEA Boston slides

From Peter-Paul Koch’s presentation on unobtrusive scripting.

[tags]aneventapart, design, webdesign, conference, aeaboston08, session notes, downloads[/tags]

Categories
Usability UX

UX Zeitgeist (beta)

A colleague who is interested in learning more about user experience (UX) design, information architecture, and usability, asked what sites he should visit. I suggested he check the UX Zeitgeist (beta) section of Rosenfeld Media. Not only is it UX Zeitgeist interesting and informative in its own right; it’s also a reasonable who’s who, with an index of 120 UX people, sortable by mindshare, books authored, and other facets.

[tags]userexperience, UX zeitgeist, zeitgeist, UI, design, rosenfeldmedia, UX[/tags]