Review of fresh materials, September 2010

This material continues a series of monthly reviews of fresh articles on the topic of interfaces, new tools and collections of patterns, interesting cases and historical stories. Of the tapes of several hundred thematic subscriptions, approximately 5% of the worthwhile publications are selected that are interesting to share. Previous materials: April , May-June , July , August .

Methods and practices

Dancing with the Cards - Quick-and-Dirty Analysis of Card-Sorting Data
Shanshan Ma talks about an interesting technique when using card sorting - using a convenient and intuitive matrix, it allows you to sort and group related options. Besides the fact that it is a useful tool in the work, the final result is also excellent for presenting to clients.
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The Power of PET Design in Action
A simple but very effective demo video in which Spencer Gerrol shows step by step how to improve the presentation of information on the travel company's website. These steps allow you to turn a simple information block into selling and luring customers.

Three Reasons Why Persuasive Design Isn't Enough to Influence Change
Collen Jones article on the limitations of "persuasive design" - a practice that has become particularly relevant in the last few years. She cites three reasons why this approach is not yet fully mature and requires a deeper study.

Remote User Research
Jim Ross from Electronic Ink Philadelphia provides a series of tips on how to select respondents for remote unmoderated usability testing. He talks about the process itself, its basic techniques and tools that will help find the subjects.

UNMODERATED remote user testing?
Specialists of Userzoom, which offers an online tool for unmoderated usability testing, dispel myths about this technique. They give examples from practice, refer to the experience of their own product and answer a dozen questions on the topic.

Recommendations for Usability in Practice
Jasper van Kuijk collected a collection of practical recommendations for improving usability, which formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation. Although much of this has been heard more than once and fairly obvious, the selection itself is quite useful.

Instruments

Review App - Drag, Drop, Review
An iPhone application that allows you to quickly test the design of mobile applications on the phone screen. It takes into account both old screens and the new retina display. The program performs similar tasks with the previously released LiveView .

Patterns

Testing Accordion Forms
One of the main experts in online forms, Luke Wroblewski, describes the results of an experiment with the presentation of the form as an "accordion". The results of the usability test series are encouraging - the user sees less unnecessary “here and now” information, does not wait for the download of new pages, does not lose focus.

So You Wanna Build a Library, Eh? The Big Pattern or Component Library
There have been many written articles on building a library of patterns in recent years, but this is one of the best. Nathan Curtis from EightShapes describes important steps in the process that will allow you to not only create but effectively use such a library in practice.

Process

8 Must-see UX Diagrams
Andrew Maier brought together one of the most well-known diagrams of the interface design process — from the classic “honeycombs” of Peter Morville and the “elements” of Jesse James Garrett to relatively fresh posters.

Facilitation of processes
An article based on the presentation of Dmitry Satin, in which he talks about the work of the facilitator in the project teams. He describes the tasks of a specialist and the specifics of his work in helping teams find the right solutions.

Cases

iPhone App Designs Reviewed - Critique Board and Lessons Learned
Alexander Komarov has published a series of expert evaluations of the application interface for the iPhone. He examines the design of the three products and gives tips on how to improve them.

Theory

Playing Hard to Get - Using scarcity to influence behavior
Stephen P. Anderson talks about how to use the deficit to involve users in working with the product. He talks about the reasons why this trick works, and gives some examples from practice.

ROIs on PhDs - How much are the trailing letters worth to you?
Kath Straub is trying to figure out whether the effort involved in obtaining a doctoral degree for usability specialists is worth it. She explores two main reasons - increasing prestige in the professional community and high salaries.

Improve Site Usability by Studying Museums
Alexander Dawson has collected an excellent collection of examples from museum practice that are well applicable when building interfaces. They describe navigation, feed, help systems, and other similar things.

Children's Websites - Usability Issues in Designing for Kids
Jakob Nielsen talks about the results of his study of the behavior of children 3-12 years old on the Internet. The article tells about the features of their work with sites, compares the behavior of children and adults, draws conclusions about changes from the previous study.

The space of design
Hugh Dubberly describes several models of the design and design process, dwelling separately on the Jay Doblin design matrix. It allows you to simulate the performance and aesthetics of products, unitary systems and complex systems.

Juicy Stories Sell Ideas
The Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks article on the use of stories in interface design and how they help sell products, services, and ideas. They describe the process as a whole and give some examples from practice.

Story

Essential Interaction Design Essays and Articles
Dan Saffer has published a selection of key articles and publications over the past half century that have been pivotal and simply important for the discipline of interface design. In the list of several dozen articles from the classics Vannevar Bush and Paul Fitts to modern publications.

A Briefing Number 5 in Usability Testing
Jeff Sauro is trying to trace the sources of the usability rule “5 users is enough”. The article cites a chain of events since 1981 that influenced the appearance of the rule.

Trends

SCVNGR's Secret Game Mechanics Playdeck
Erick Schonfeld describes the principles of the game mechanics of the mobile social application SCVNGR. This is a deck of 50 cards, each of which represents a specific technique of involvement and allows you to make the product more interesting. By the way, its Russian-language translation is available.

Conference proceedings

EuroIA 10
Reports, presentations, notes and videos from the EuroIA 2010 conference, which was held September 23-25 ​​in Paris.

mobileHCI 2010
Reports, presentations, notes and video from the mobileHCI 2010 conference, which was held on September 7-10 in Lisbon.

UX Australia 2010
Reports, presentations, notes and video from the conference UX Australia 2010, held August 25-27 in Melbourne.

Conference Announcements

A series of webinars UX-Marathon 2010 (October 25 - November 2)
A series of webinars with the participation of leading Western experts "UX-Marathon" will be held from October 25 to November 2.

Usability Ukraine '10 in Kiev (November 5)
In Kiev, the World Usability Day will be held on November 5 in the conference hall of the President Hotel.

World Usability Day in Kiev (November 11)
In Kiev, "World Usability Day" will be held November 11 in the cafe "Varenichnaya" Victory ".

World Usability Day in Moscow (November 13)
In Moscow, the World Usability Day will be held on November 13 in the conference room of the 1C company.

World Usability Day in Minsk (November 20)
The World Usability Day will be held in Minsk on November 20 in the conference hall of the Belarus Hotel.

Fresh links can also be tracked in the Friendfeed User Experience ribbon .