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Review of fresh materials, October-November 2011

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 2010-September 2011 . Due to the heightened conference activity this fall, there was a pause with publications, but there will not be such an influx of events.




Methods and practices


Storyboarding & ux
Ben Crothers most excellent series of articles on the use of storyboards in design. He describes in detail the process of their creation and methods of application in practice. Part 2 and part 3 are available , as well as a theme development .
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Designing with People
An interesting resource dedicated to user research. He well describes the methods, approaches and examples of research results.

Lost in Translation - Tips for usability testing in a foreign country
Participant of the international UXAlliance, the company ExperienceLab, has published a report on the traditional research, timed to coincide with World Usability Day. This year the document is devoted to cultural peculiarities during usability testing in foreign countries.

Rapid prototyping for mobile products
Amy McGuinness from CXPartners compares the different ways of prototyping mobile interfaces for usability tests. It lists the pros and cons of paper prototypes, clickable PDFs and specialized programs.

Goal Driven Design Decisions
A simple but interesting example and method of parsing user goals when working with the interface. The “MotivatorFacilitator” diagram allows you to disassemble any target into its components for a better understanding.

QuestionStorming - Framing The Problem
James Kalbach describes the QuestionStorming technique, a type of brainstorm aimed at finding the real problem that the designer is trying to solve. It consists of 5 steps and helps to find the right direction of work.

The Spirit of Halloween Personas
For the recent Halloween, the Cooper Consulting team prepared a description of a series of comic characters. Despite the frivolity of the topic, this is a great example of the format and how important it is not to slip into caricature - character cards focus on needs and goals.

Tools and Templates


Comprehensive Review Of Usability And User Experience Testing Tools
Cameron Chapman has put together a complete selection of tools for remote testing, card sorting, web analytics, eye-tracking and other user research methods for Smashing Magazine.

The Truth About Webcam Eye Tracking
Excellent article Aga Boyko, in which she tells the principles of the work of cheap ways of eye-tracking-research using a webcam. The accuracy of the data obtained is extremely extremely low, which, in general, is not surprising for such limited equipment.

Axure fu master cheat sheet
WitFlow experts have prepared an excellent memo with a list of hot keys in Axure. Direct link to PDF .

Usabilla now supports mobile usability testing
Two online remote usability testing services, Usabilla and UserZoom, immediately launched tools for testing mobile sites and applications. Product Description UserZoom .

Proto.io - Silly-fast mobile prototyping
Online tool for designing mobile and tablet sites and applications. It allows you to create interactive prototypes and test them on Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices.

Reframer - Quickly quan
Online service for the analysis of notes and notes left in the course of usability research. It allows you to categorize and rank problems in the interface, to look for links between them.

Freebie: Twitter GUI PSD
Shelby White has assembled a PSD template for a typical Twitter page. Direct download link .

Vector Doodlekit
More than 700 black and white vector icons, which are perfect for wireframes in the form similar to the sketches. The kit is also available as free PNG versions. Another collection of icons in the form of sketches .

Patterns and guides


Meaningful transitions
A chic collection of patterns that collects and categorizes animation examples in interfaces. All of them are divided into several key sections - Orientation, Spatial Extension, Awaking Controls, Highlight, Feedback, Feedforward.

Mobile Design Pattern Gallery
Recently, a second book on Theresa Neil interface patterns, this time dedicated to mobile sites and applications, has been published. The author published on the specially created website the entire collection of patterns, and the UX Booth edition is one of the chapters of the book devoted to reference and training screens.

An Extensive Web Form Usability Guide
A good overview of form design from Justin Misfud. Little is said, but for beginners it is a great material.

Official Usability & Website Guidelines of World Governments
Justin Misfud collected a collection of official interface guidelines from government authorities in different countries. They describe the principles of usability, accessibility and other aspects of building good sites.

Socially-Transmitted Functionality
Jared Spool offers an interesting term - “socially learning functionality” for interface approaches that are difficult to detect in a natural way. A good example is the “pull to refresh” gesture that has spread to the iPhone to update the lists, which is usually taught by a tip from friends and acquaintances.

Jensen Harris Walks Us Through the Windows 8 UI
From September 13 to September 16, Anaheim Californian hosted a Build conference dedicated to Windows 8. As part of it, the interface team leader Jensen Harris and other experts talked a lot about Win8 and the Metro paradigm in particular. In the video - a brief overview of the interface from Jensen himself. There are some more interesting materials based on the conference:

BlackBerry PlayBook 1.0 UI Guidelines
Interface guidelines for Blackberry PlayBook tablets. In the near future, by the way, version 2.0 is expected.

BlackBerry Smartphone 7.0 UI Guidelines
RIM has updated the interface guidelines in connection with the release of the new version of the BlackBerry 7 smartphone OS.

Google TV Design Patterns
So far, a small but interesting guideline on the design and design of applications for the TV platform Google TV. It describes various aspects of creating such interfaces - from the screen layout to the context of use.

The Evolution Of Fails - Alert in Error Messages
Sean Rintel recalls services that used character characters for error pages. He concludes that such an approach harms the brand - the company begins to be associated with regular problems.

Form design guidelines crib sheet (free download)
CXPartners has prepared a handy form design guide. It is available as a PDF, PSD, and Omnigraffle document.

Cue - A gesture icon system
Another system of notation gestures in touch interfaces using icons. Direct download link .

Organizing Mobile
An excerpt from Luke Wroblewski's recent book “Mobile First” is part of chapter number 4 on content organization in mobile sites and applications. A good description of the basic principles with a mass of illustrations.

How not to make a basket of stores
Overview of baskets in a couple dozen of domestic online stores. The article itself is not particularly interesting, but may be useful as a mini-market review.

Process


How to manage design projects with user experience metrics
UserFocus's David Travis describes how to quickly and inexpensively obtain interface metrics on a regular basis. As well as making and adjusting decisions based on them.

The Design of Design Studio
Will Evans continues the description of the design studio “Design Studio” methodology for group work, which is great for small and medium-sized teams. After - an article about the features of using design studio in terms of agile-projects .

The T-Model and Strategies for Hiring IA Practitioners
Nathaniel Davis describes the peculiarities of the professional qualifications of information architects - a set of skills and specializations that the employer should pay attention to when hiring such a specialist. The second part of the article is available .

Moving from Critical Review to Critique
Jared Spool’s excellent column on design criticism, which often comes down to finding minor issues instead of checking whether an interface solves tasks.

Cutting the Complexity of Content Marketing
An interesting article by Jayme Thomason, in which she criticizes the complexity of the current process of preparing content and offers ways to solve key problems. Actual material in the period of particular interest in content strategy.

Efficient Sketching Studios With Remote Participants
Another article about the “Design Studio” methodology from the company 8Shapes, which describes the tools for co-creating sketches by teams that are located in different offices.

7 Ingredients of a Successful UX Strategy
Paul Bryan cites seven principles for building a UX strategy — a set of common settings, emphasis, methods, and practices that should underlie any interface command. Except for the last item, the list looks healthy and balanced.

What users can can learn from Sherlock Holmes
Interesting comparison of user research methods and the approach to the investigations of Sherlock Holmes. The article describes 5 principles of good research.

Cases


Designing the Start screen
Chaitanya Sareen talks in a Windows 8 blog about how the Start menu developed and why the new version made a decision about its radical processing. A lot of interesting statistics and an excellent example of justifying such complex decisions. Even more interesting is the continuation of this description - the development team responds in detail to the criticism of users. The entire series of articles in general is a rare example of such a large-scale description of design solutions.

If you focus on your wrong page for your landing page tests!
ConversionVoodoo’s team cautions against always using eye-tracking testing results when optimizing conversion. The article gives an example of how good from the point of view of logic an illustration does not give the best exhaust in practice.

What Should I Look For In A UI Typeface?
An interesting analysis of the basic fonts of leading operating systems from Ian Cylkowski. He compares different situations for using Segoe UI (Windows), Lucida Grande (Mac OS X), Ubuntu (Ubuntu), Helvetica Neue (iOS) and Droid Sans (Android) and notes the strengths and weaknesses of each of the fonts.

6 Strategies For Getting Good Design Done - Learnings from Google Wallet
An interesting case about the launch of the Google Wallet product, in which the interface team talks about the process of its creation. An important part of the process was the collection of the team itself and the formation of confidence in it.

Theory


HCI Classes @ Stanford
Stanford University's online interface design courses led by Professor Scott Klemmer. Beginning of classes - in January 2012.

Psychological Usability Heuristics
Jordi Sánchez summarized all psychological heuristics in a single table, which she wrote about in her publications and in the recent book Susan Weinschenk. Direct link to the table in Google Docs .

Social Computing by Thomas Erickson
Excerpts from Thomas Erickson's interactive computing encyclopedia Interaction-Design.org, chapter four, on social computing. For the time being these are working materials that should be formalized in a finished publication.

What is a Confidence Interval?
Caroline Jarrett talks about what a confidence interval is and why it is important when analyzing the results of usability research. A good introductory article describing the general principles of the method.

User Strategies: Considerations for UX Analysis and Design
Paul McInerney's article on various strategies for achieving goals and solving problems that users apply. A good example of the fact that usage scenarios are not always universal.

Designing to overcome behavior barriers
Caroline Jones talks about the B (ehavior) = TAM (triggers + ability + motivation) behavioral model proposed by BJ Fogg from Stanford University. Very good review article with the basic calculations of the theory and methods of describing user behavior.

The Flexibility of the Four Stages of Competence
Jared Spool describes the four stages of user competence when working with a product. It can be conscious and unconscious and can influence the reaction when changing the interface .

Riding the Magic Escalator of Acquired Knowledge
Jared Spool offers a good illustration chart that helps simplify user training. She suggests moving in two directions at once - lowering the threshold of necessary knowledge and direct learning.

Shoes, Cars, and Other Love Stories - Investigating the Experience of Love for Products
Thesis Beatriz Russo, in which she explores the principles of building products, from which consumers are delighted. Although the publication is largely related to industrial design, it has a lot of interesting things about interfaces and UX as a whole.

A Quick Look Into The Math Of Animations With JavaScript
Christian Heilmann describes the mathematical principles for constructing animation, which is actively used in modern interfaces. The article is replete with formulas, but it is more than important for understanding the principles of constructing transitions between different screens and element states.

Story


How the Knowledge Navigator video came about
Bud Culligan, one of the authors of Apple’s legendary Knowledge Navigator concept, describes how this video was actually created. It was a hastily assembled video, which was not the manifesto of the company. This happened later, after the video became popular.

More game controllers evolution charts
A selection of infographics on the history of the development of game controllers. The article contains 6 posters showing the evolution of joysticks and gamepads.

Trends


Real Life Responsive Design: Ethan Marcotte
An interesting discussion by Ethan Marcotte and Leigh Howells on the current topic of adaptive design. It is available as a podcast and a regular article.

When People Use Different Devices
Luke Wroblewski collected statistics of several web services about what time of day and with which devices users are working with them. Particularly interesting is the pronounced increase in activity of iPad sessions late in the evening.

First Person User Interfaces (Presentation by Luke Wroblewski @ CHIFOO)
Presentation of Luke Wroblewski about interfaces from the first person for the conference CHIFOO. They provide the lowest level of abstraction compared to other approaches, including the now actively growing NUI, and therefore require less training.

The Business Case For (Or Against) Service Design (Brandon Schauer Presentation @ Service Design Network Conference)
Presentation of Brandon Schauer, in which he questions the service design services market. He estimated its volume and came to the conclusion that the main work was done by completely non-specialized designers.

Conference proceedings


User Experience Russia 2011
From 6 to 8 October, the fifth anniversary conference of User Experience Russia 2011 was held in Moscow. The organizers published presentations and video recordings of the speeches.
User Experience 2011: Master Class: Cross-platform design for mobile - Android, iPhone, Windows Phone 7, Symbian (Yuri Vetrov)
View more presentations from Yury Vetrov

Cooper Consulting Training in Moscow
On October 14 and 15, at the invitation of Innova, the team of Cooper Consulting came to Moscow with Alan himself at the head. A small report from Elena Dronova tells about the event. The second part is http://monzano.livejournal.com/31817.html . Cooper blog mini-report and photo report .

Lean UX Machine: Israel 2011
Daniel Szuc, Tomer Sharon and Johanna Kollmann talk about an interface workshop held in Israel for local startups. A good description of the process of carrying out, which is useful to the organizers of such trainings.

Roundtable "Usability as a New Direction of Research in Engineering Psychology"
In September 2010, a round table was held at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the psychological problems of interaction design in information technologies. The topic of discussion was the intensively developing in the last decade a new practically-oriented area of ​​research related to the design of computer product interfaces (primarily related to the Internet), which was called usability.

Fresh links can also be tracked in the Facebook group of the same name .

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/135401/


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