April 2011
2 posts
3 tags
4 forgotten principles of usability testing →
Over the last few months I’ve sat through dozens of usability tests run by design agencies. Clients have asked me to oversee the tests to make sure that the agency really puts their design through its paces. This is a good thing as it shows that usability testing is now becoming a mainstream activity in the design community. But many of the usability tests I’ve sat through have been...
4 tags
How to Get Clients to Approve Your Wireframes... →
You have finally finished your wireframes. You present them to your client and your client loves them. Your job’s done, right? Not quite. Chances are the client will come back to you and present you with some ideas of their own. Some of these ideas could make sense, but some could completely change your design for the worse.
Not everything your client suggests will be harmful to your...
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Work Less →
Have you ever noticed that right before you go on holiday you get double the amount done that you would on a normal week? Why? Because you have a time constraint. You have to get all of your work done before you leave for holiday otherwise those cocktails by the pool just won’t taste as sweet will they? You’re sacrificing your time now so that you can enjoy it later.
4 tags
Using lies in research →
Lies. We consider them an occupational hazard. In the course of our research at Bolt | Peters, organizations both large and small will inadvertently ask us to participate in their lies and, intentional or not, the implications are often dire. When we lie to ourselves, our users, or our team about issues at the core of a user experience project, we unwittingly accelerate the interface’s demise. It...
February 2011
12 posts
5 tags
Considerations for Mobile Design (Part 1): Speed →
This series—Considerations for Mobile Design—aims to help experience designers understand how the transition to mobile affects their audience and, in turn, their designs. In the beginning, we’ll take a look at the rules governing today’s mobile sites. In part two, we’ll discuss how expectations might change as the underlying technology continues to improve. Along the way, we’ll cover...
3 tags
10 Reasons Why You Need a Mobile Office →
Did you know that a small, purposeful workflow change can make your life significantly better? Yep, that change is having a mobile office, and there are 10 reasons why a mobile office can improve your design work and life. So what’s a mobile office? It’s what it sounds like – your design-work office on the go. All of your essential tools in a bag, ready to take with you.
4 tags
The unfortunate math behind consulting companies →
Consulting can be a great way to fund a startup or make a bunch of cash. It’s easy to start; Just pick an hourly rate and jump in.
But someday soon you’ll notice there’s only so many billable hours in the day, and you’ll be tempted to expand. Maybe hire an employee for $30 per hour and re-bill them at $60. Easy money, right?
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Unfortunately the math doesn’t work that way.
4 tags
Business Objectives vs. User Experience →
Here’s a question for you: would you agree that creating a great user experience should be the primary aim of any Web designer? I know what your answer is… and youʼre wrong!
Okay, I admit that not all of you would have answered yes, but most probably did. Somehow, the majority of Web designers have come to believe that creating a great user experience is an end in itself. I think we are...
4 tags
It’s Time To Kill Multi-Tasking →
What’s the outlook for productive creativity in the coming year? In two phrases: Multi-tasking is dead! Long live single-minded focus! We recently pinged the 99% twitter audience for feedback on how they’re adapting their productivity regimes to be better, faster, smarter, and just generally more awesome in 2011. When the results came in, every single productivity resolution voiced seemed...
6 tags
Schedules Suck: Win with the Rolling Five Day... →
After a decade of working on projects with highly motivated founders and product teams that want to get stuff done, we’ve come to a simple conclusion: schedules can be death to team morale and great product unless you balance them by staying nimble and opportunistic. Great things only happen when a highly motivated team gets to play a little to discover new ways to do things better.
We’ve all...
5 tags
The New Bulletproof @Font-Face Syntax →
Since the beginning of the ‘webfont revolution’ we’ve relied on somewhat hacky @font-face declarations to get webfonts loading cross-browser. Could there be a better way? One that’s clear and compatible with future browsers?
3 tags
URL Design →
You should take time to design your URL structure. If there’s one thing I hope you remember after reading this article it’s to take time to design your URL structure. Don’t leave it up to your framework. Don’t leave it up to chance. Think about it and craft an experience.
5 tags
The Problem With Home →
If you sit and watch people use an iPhone there’s a mistake made often and reliably: They hit the home button when they mean to just go back to the app’s main screen. Going home has heavy consequences—to recover you’ve got to find that app again, sit through its splash screen, and fiddle the app to where it was before. The home button is the grunt-and-touch control of physical affordances. While...
3 tags
Little Things Matter →
When it comes to building a web experience, most of the effort is typically put towards the tactical objectives that aim to satisfy business and user requirements: Users should be able to easily browse products and buy them; The business should have the capability to manage marketing campaigns; Users should be able to easily move laterally between similar products. Every agency, no matter how big...
5 tags
The game just completely changed →
Something insane is happening in the creative industry and all of you need to know about it. Two recent events have completely changed the career prospects for Web Designers and Developers: 1) Frank Chimero’s Kickstarter project and 2) Natasha Wescoat’s live painting sessions.
5 tags
Immersive mobile e-commerce search using drop down... →
In this article, I will explore the topic of using a specialized drop-down menu as one of the ways of creating immersive experience in mobile e-commercesearch UIs, and I’ll introduce a novel design pattern, the status bar drop-down menu. In contrast to existing mobile search interfaces that devote 24-33% of the screen to navigation, the status bar drop-down menu allows 100% of the screen...