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New on UXmatters: July 10, 2017
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In Part 1 of this series on how to design for mobile touchscreens, I told you all about the history of touchscreens, how capacitive touch works today, and the research I have been conducting to find out how people really interact with their touchscreen phones and tablets.
In Part 2, I discussed the first five of my ten heuristics for designing for touch in the real world, on any device:
1. Device diversity is human diversity.
Design for every user and every type and size of phone.
Design for the variable ways in which people work with their devices, not just one way.
Set aside your biases. Don’t assume everyone has your phone or uses it the same way you do. Read More
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Today, we’re experiencing a growing torrent of big data. Data for our retail purchases, Internet searches, social-media posts, and even our commutes to work reside somewhere. Not only do we cast a shadow on the ground when we walk in the sunlight, we all have data doppelgängers that show both our current state and the history of our lives. Our own data interacts with the data of other people—such as those who buy the same books on Amazon that we do or our friends on social media. All of this data interacts with the companies with whose products and services we engage.
Through machine learning and artificial intelligence, organizations can use big data to predict our next actions—sometimes even better than we can predict them ourselves. The implications of big data are enormous—enabling us to view suggested products while on a retailer’s Web site, receive recommendations to connect with people who we might know on social-media sites, and benefit from smart IoT devices that gather data from us and those who are similar to us, then act accordingly. Organizations in the healthcare and financial arenas use big-data systems to spot potential adverse events, while also pinpointing scenarios that can bring increased profits and positive outcomes. Read More
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In the ideal interaction between humans and computers, technology handles the routine, mundane tasks at which it excels, allowing people to focus on higher-level, more important aspects of achieving their goals. Nevertheless, until recently, technology’s role in providing user assistance has been limited to providing traditional online Help and on screen instructions. However, as technology becomes ever more powerful, it increasingly has the ability to offer more proactive user assistance and even perform certain tasks automatically, easing the cognitive load on the user.
At its best, proactive user assistance can be very helpful. At its worst, it can be distracting, even annoying to users who receive either unwanted assistance or incorrect information. Remember Clippy, shown in Figure 1, the animated-paperclip assistant in Windows 95 that irritated legions of computer users? There’s nothing more annoying than a system’s automatically taking unwanted actions or constantly offering undesired suggestions. Read More
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By Yury Vetrov
In Part 5.1 of this two-parter within my larger series on applied UX strategy, I covered the benefits of using a shared language between business and design, then began my discussion of a three-stage model for solving business problems through design that progresses through the following three stages:
- Stage 1: Helping product teams identify and solve user problems—which I covered in Part 5.1
- Stage 2: Evaluating maximal outcomes for problem solutions
- Stage 3: Moving from problem solving to innovation
When product designers keep in mind why a company chooses to solve particular user problems and how their solutions will impact the business—at every stage in this model—the focus of their work shifts from creating design deliverables to defining product strategy. Design becomes a strategic role whose goals are to increase key business metrics and drive innovation.
Now, in Part 5.2, I’ll delve further into this transformation of the product designer’s role, covering Stages 2 and 3 in depth. Read More
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By Ben Coleman and Dan Goodwin
This is a sample chapter from Ben Coleman and Dan Goodwin’s new book Designing UX: Prototyping. 2017 SitePoint.
Chapter 7: Building HTML Prototypes
When we say HTML prototypes, we mean a Web site comprising HTML markup, CSS for presentation, and JavaScript for additional interactivity. It may be a simple HTML Web site, or a Web site that runs on a framework or content management system (CMS).
This chapter is not a detailed step-by-step guide, nor will it teach you how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or frameworks. It aims to help you understand all the options for creating HTML prototypes and their benefits. You’ll find out what’s needed to get started, and gain some guidance on how to approach creating an HTML prototype. We’ll also include some real-life prototyping case studies from some of the projects we’ve worked on at fffunction.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to make an informed decision as to what approach will suit you and your project. Read More
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Thank You to Our Sponsors!
We would like to thank our sponsors for their support of UXmatters!
One of the biggest challenges of designing user experiences in an agile world is fitting into agile processes. Compounding this challenge is that it can sometimes feel like engineers are from Mars and designers are from Venus. This is why it is essential to find ways of making User Experience techniques more Lean and agile.
Join Dean Barker, VP of UX and Agile coaching at Optum/UnitedHealth Group, as he discusses how to remove the waste from your UX processes for a truly Lean foundation.
This Webinar will teach you how to
- understand User Experience in the context of agile
- integrate Lean research techniques into an agile development process
- take an agile approach to UX design
View this free Webinar now!
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Conferences UXmatters Has Attended
Look for our conference reviews in upcoming editions of UXmatters.
::: O'Reilly Design Conference 2017, March 20–22, in San Francisco, California
::: TiEcon 2017, May 5–6, in Santa Clara, California
::: Enterprise UX 2017, June 7–9, in San Francisco, California
Sponsoring UXmatters
If your company offers products or services for UX professionals, sponsoring UXmatters provides an ideal way for you to reach your audience—the senior practitioners, managers, and executives who recommend and approve their purchase. If you want to inquire about sponsoring UXmatters, please contact us at sponsor@uxmatters.com.
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Opportunities for Authors & Volunteers
If you are an expert in user experience (UX) strategy, any aspect of UX design, or user research who has strong writing skills, we welcome you to contribute to UXmatters. Please send an article proposal to us at info@uxmatters.com.
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There are many opportunities for you to contribute to UXmatters. If you're interested in volunteering with UXmatters, please contact us at info@uxmatters.com.
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About UXmatters
UXmatters is one of the foremost Web magazines for UX professionals. We deliver compelling content about developing effective UX strategies and designing digital-product user experiences that optimally serve people's needs and satisfy their desires. Created by and for UX professionals, UXmatters covers a broad spectrum of topics about UX management, strategy, design, and research for a diverse range of digital products—from Web, mobile, and desktop applications to mobile devices and consumer electronics products. Our audience encompasses people in all UX professions.
About User Experience
User experience (UX) encompasses all aspects of a digital product that users experience directly—and perceive, learn, and use—including its form, behavior, and content. Learnability, usability, usefulness, and aesthetic appeal are key factors in users' experience of a product. UX design takes a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to the design of user interfaces for digital products. It integrates interaction design, industrial design, information architecture, visual user interface design, instructional design, and user-centered design, ensuring coherence and consistency across all of these design dimensions.
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