Interaction Design Methods

Felt boards
Shaun Bergmann, Loren Baxter, mark schraad, Troy Gardner and 5 others
In the initial stages of brainstorming design, specifically when it comes to reactive changes to the interface, I'm commonly sketching boxes...

July 2008

prototype philosophy
mark schraad, Daniel Szuc
Great article on the business week site today about design... http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jul2008/id20080728_623527.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_top+stories Near the end of the article Claudia Kotchka talks about prototype...

Practical UX tips for developers
Qixing Zheng, Benjamin Ho, J. Ambrose Little, Ray Shah and 2 others
Hi all, I was wondering if anyone has done presentation for developers to show them why is UX design relevant for them...

Interactive prototyping
oliver green, Arjun Mehta, Itamar Medeiros, Janne Kaasalainen and 20 others
Hi All, I need to prototype a concept that is a blend of web based applications and mobile applications. Is there any...

June 2008

Examples of Advancements in Design
J. Ambrose Little, Christine Boese, Donna M. Fritzsche, Christine Boese
Hi folks, Following up on the recent thread about higher degrees in design and such, I find myself very curious to know...

Google and Usability
Adam Connor, Jared Spool, Jared Spool
There's a brief post on Google's Usability Lab over at TechCrunch. Not a lot of info, but in case anyone...

Validity of Hit Counts
Piotrowski, Charles, Paul Trumble, Will Evans, Bryan Minihan and 4 others
One of the organizations I volunteer for get "hit counts" from Go Daddy for its website (www.rutlandhistory.com <http://www.rutlandhistory.com/> ). We are getting about...

Using Morae Recorder+Observer: Yes or no?
Jerome Ryckborst, Paul Nuschke, Sabrina Klein, Manish Pillewar
I'd like to hear from people who have to conduct usability sessions on their own, AND who use Morae Observer...

Criteria for Evaluating Websites
AmirBehzad Eslami, Itamar Medeiros, Charles B. Kreitzberg, Dmitry Nekrasovski and 5 others
Dear List, e-Greetings, I'm an undergraduate computer science student. I live in Tehran, Iran. ... Please don't judge me based on my location. Here,...

RobotReplay
Chris Maissan, Andre Charland
I think this may have been brought up before, but has anyone on the list used this tool? If so, what...

Prototyping & GOMS
Santiago Bustelo, Bonnie E.John, Todd Moy, Todd Moy
CogTool, developed by Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute, has a really interesting approach: perform a KLM-GOMS simulation over the...

[Book Review] Web Form Design, Filling in the Blanks
Will Evans, pauric, John Gibbard, Louis Rosenfeld and 2 others
All, I just finished this book, and thought I would share my book review with the community. Enjoy! - Will --------------------------------------------------------- Book Review Web Form Design,...

User Research Survey
Rob Tannen
The IDSA Human Factors section is conducting a survey on the use of technology for user research and your input...

IA and Social Networks/Web 2.0 functionality
Tom Dell'Aringa, Scott McDaniel, Bryan Minihan and 8 others
Good Morning, My current project is a social network. I'm actually having some trouble putting together a good site map because so...

Project Management with Scrum
G, Itamar Medeiros, Jeff White, Jens Meiert
Hey All, I would like to know if anyone out there has any experience working with the Scrum Project Management and...

Using a Survey to Asses Usability
Tamlyn Rhodes, Will Evans, Todd Zaki Warfel, Brooke Baldwin and 9 others
The company I'm working for is redesigning their account control panel. We'll be releasing the functionality in stages and running it as...

May 2008

Which comes first: Task Flows or Wires?
Tom Dell'Aringa, Matthew Nish-Lapidus, Alok Jain, Fred Beecher and 8 others
Hello everyone, I'm just starting a brand new project, something of a larger scale. I have basic requirements at hand, nothing too...

Usability = Predictability
Robert Hoekman Jr, Todd Moy, Rui Miguel Ramos, Itamar Medeiros and 59 others
"Usability equals predictability." As in, if you can accurately predict what's going to happen next in an interaction, it's because the action...

What do you do best?
Jack Moffett, Will Evans, Katie Albers, dave malouf and 21 others
As an Interaction Designer (or Interface Designer, Information Architect, Usability Specialist, etc.), what is it that you do best? Curious, Jack Jack...

Persona Names
Matthew Zuckman, Todd Moy, Caroline Jarrett, lachica and 5 others
I am running a persona workshop with our client partners to flesh out some of the behavioral aspects. As...

Asking questions to participants in a positive or negative way ?
chiwah liu, Steve Baty, codi, Alexander Baxevanis and 14 others
Hello, If I want to do a survey to participant about, for example, usability of a product. Is it better to formulate...

Use cases and user scenarios
Sachendra Yadav, Celeste 'seele' Paul, Chauncey Wilson, Dann Nebbe and 3 others
Is there a concrete distinction between use cases and user scenarios? -- Sachendra Yadav sachendra.wordpress.com ...

April 2008

group brainstorm template for sketches and ideas
Michele Marut, Joseph Selbie, Will Parker, Jay Morgan and 6 others
Here is an update to this post Leah Buley posted some templates she uses at Adaptive Path on her blog at http://ugleah.tumblr.com/post/31643831 On...

The Documentation View of Design
Oleg Krupnov, Jordan, Courtney
I'd like to validate the following sentiment that dawned at me. Wireframes and prototypes suggest primarily that the design solutions are presented...

Do you ask for Functions or Scenarios?
AJ Kock, Daniel Montano, Jack Moffett, Dan Harrelson and 8 others
Before testing: If you want a product with good UX, do you give the programmers a list of functions or a...

What to call The User?
Dye, Sylvania, Susie Robson, Pieter Jansegers, Charles B. Kreitzberg and 4 others
We prefer the terms "person" or "customer" when referring to people who use our software in general, but I'm wondering...

Functional Testing Vs Usability Testing ?
Manish Pillewar, Pam Migliore
Where unit tests deal with checking for coding errors at class levels, functional testing is more from an end users perspective. But...

Interaction Design in an Agile Environment
Loredana Crisan, Robert Hoekman Jr, Lene Leth Rasmussen, Bruno Figueiredo and 14 others
What are your thoughts on Interaction Design and the Agile Environment? Here’s my experience of how extreme programming and design mix: 1)...

Wireframe vs. Prototype
Connor, Adam, Todd Zaki Warfel, Switzky, Andrew, Todd Zaki Warfel and 10 others
A common point of confusion when I've partnered with other IAs/Interaction Designers/UX Designers, yadda yadda yadda is what a wireframe is vs....

IxDA NYC (4/29) Interaction08 redux: Sketching and storytelling
Bruce Esrig
The IxDA NYC April event is an Interaction08 redux. We'll discuss sketching and storytelling as pivotal tools for design. In his keynote,...

Empathic design
ali at amroha.dk, Chauncey Wilson, Will Evans, Ali Naqvi
Hello fellow members, I would like to know how organizations view "empathic design". Is it something that they take seriously? What is your...

UX Design Process
Abbett, Jonathan, Angel Anderson, Uday Gajendar, Angel Anderson and 6 others
I work in a small open-source software development team within a medical informatics research group. Until last year, our development methodologies...

March 2008

[Announcement] Lou Rosenfeld - Site Search Analytics For Better UX Workshop
W Evans
[Workshop] Lou Rosenfeld, co-author of the Polar Bear book, is doing some new workshops and I wanted to get the word out....

collaborative group structures
mark schraad, Matthew Nish-Lapidus, Christine Boese, Jeff Howard
There is a lot of conversation about working collaboratively on this board. Mostly regarding results and software to facilitate....

February 2008

Agile methodologies for discovering user needs
oliver green, Dan, Luis de la Orden Morais, Jeff White and 5 others
Hi All, We are in the discovery phase of the project, where we have absolutely no idea what the user needs are....

January 2008

Continuous Scroll
Etkin Ciftci, Abi Jones, ELISABETH HUBERT, Mark Schraad and 25 others
As supported in the Sympony Open-Source PHP Web Framework, "Ajax Pagination" allows the client browser to load the content gradually as...

Usability guidelines for creating online training modules for enterprise applications
gitikaa at gmail.com
Any thoughts on the "do's and don'ts" to keep in mind while designing online training modules for enterprise applications? Best practices? Prefered...

Myers Briggs, DISC, Personality of UX Folk
Anthony Colfelt, Jeff Howard, W Evans, Chauncey Wilson and 41 others
Hi all, I'm drafting the second part of an article on Hiring UX professionals for Boxes and Arrows at the...

Using eye tracking to determine whether person needs more information.
peter, Harry Brignull, Oleg Krupnov, Joakim Isaksson
Hi out there, I am not sure whether this is the right forum, so sorry in advance if not. But I saw...

SEO and Usability
Mark Schraad, Jeff White, Fred Beecher, dave malouf and 45 others
I'm running into an interesting conversation with more regularity every week. That conversation surrounds the usability compromise that ...

November 2007

Mobile phones usability research - Advices on video recording
Miguel, Barbara Ballard, Barbara Ballard and 7 others
Hello, I am going to run a usability research on the BlackBerry Curve, for which I want to video record the device...

October 2007

Factors in converting from on-ground to online task accomplishment
Ariel van Spronsen, ELISABETH HUBERT, Adrian Howard, Oleh Kovalchuke and 3 others
Hi all: I'm looking for your thoughts and/or references to research or other well-founded work regarding the factors that eventually convert people...

Non graphical storyboards
Marvin Hunkin, Joshua Knight, Adrian Howard, Scharn, David and 2 others
Hi a blind website development student doing the diploma of website development at my local college in Adelaide, australia. i use...

Tools for communicating styles to developers
Gabriel Friedman, bjminihan at nc.rr.com, Jennifer Berk, Ty Hatch and 6 others
Does anyone have any nifty ideas/thoughts/tools for creating design-specific style guides from photoshop mockups? Basically, i've designed a site and now...

The Five Types of Prototypes
Todd Zaki Warfel, lois, Dmitry Nekrasovski, Cindy Alvarez and 9 others
So, this whole discussion about making clickable wireframes got me thinking about something. As I'm working through my book,...

September 2007

Hack your own usability studio (long recipe, low price)
Fredrik Matheson, Alexander Baxevanis, Rob Tannen, Michael Lisboa and 4 others
At work we use Morae (http://techsmith.com/morae.asp) for user testing. Quirks aside, it works pretty well. The other day all our copies of...

Methods for prototyping thick applications
Matthew Attaway, Alok Jain, bhakti भक्ति, David Malouf and 5 others
Hello all, I'm in the process of designing my first major "thick" application( yay! ), and have run into something of a...

August 2007

True or False: In a perfect world we'd all create html clickable wireframes after the static ones have been done
Akanowicz Ron, David Malouf, Stew Dean, W Evans and 26 others
Same format at (static) wireframes, but done in html with all clickable navigation and intra-copy links leading to the...

Multi-channel user interface design
oliver green, Oliver Green, pauric, Morten Hjerde and 16 others
Hi all, Are there any particular design methods that help while designing UIs that are available via multiple channels. e.g. items can...

July 2007

Usability testing at conferences
Wilson, Russell, Thomas Vander Wal, Michele Marut, Fred Beecher and 7 others
I just returned from a conference where we tested several interaction designs on 45 users (you can see a summary here...

June 2007

iPhone - its not about the UI
Morten Hjerde, Stew Dean, Prachi Pundeer, Håkan Reis and 24 others
I think we need to realize that iPhone-lust is not about the UI or the features. Look at the ads. The...

May 2007

Personas or some other technique?
Tom Dell'Aringa, Mark Schraad, Trip O'Dell, Vijay Venkatraman and 9 others
Hi there, I'm working on a complex portal/business tool project for a major home services (cleaning) company. I have very limited resources...

April 2007

Taxonomy + Folksonomy ?
Christopher Fahey, Kyle Cooney, Thomas Vander Wal, lachica and 5 others
Howdy all, (sorry for cross-posting, I don't know where to go anymore) I'm imagining a system (for a project) where a fixed...

Prototyping Drag and Drop
Mitchell Gass, Wilson, Russell, pauric, Jon Strande and 20 others
I'm curious what people are doing to prototype drag and drop interactions. Do any of the currently available prototyping tools,...

February 2007

IxD in agile environments
Robert Hoekman, Jr., Dan Williams, Josh Viney, Allison Beckwith and 36 others
Anyone doing IxD work in an agile programming environment? If so, what are you doing to make it work with agile...

January 2007

Documentation Version Numbers
Dante Murphy, Lana Carlene, Matthias Mueller-Prove
I'm trying to establish a documentation numbering standard for my team, and there is some initial resistance to the approach I've...

Current Methodologies vs. Technology (Was: Sketching vs. Prototyping: Bill Buxton)
Josh Viney, Brett Williams, Josh Seiden and 5 others
> Jared said: > In his world, a sketch should communicate how "done" the thinking is. > Rough sketches communicate early thoughts....

Participatory Design
Vishal Iyer, Phillip Hunter, Dante Murphy, Ari Feldman and 18 others
Does anyone have experience using Participatory Design as a part of the Design process? What are the pros n cons? One...

Rationale for *not* using UCD
Leisa Reichelt, Dan Williams, Juan Lanus, CD Evans and 33 others
I'm working on a little side project at the moment that involves collecting as many reasons as I can come across...

What do we do now? (Was: Users' Goals)
Josh Viney, pauric
As usual, I'm going to start with a statement, but I promise there's a question at the end of all this...

December 2006

Personas Personas Personas
David Malouf, Robert Reimann, Jonathan Korman and 4 others
What about "innovation"? BusinessWeek even added a quarterly addition to their magazine about Innovation. Personally, I find "personae" so uninteresting. I think...

Personas Personas Personas (was: New IxD Techniques to Try in 2007)
Dan Saffer, Todd Zaki Warfel, Jared M. Spool, Jared M. Spool
"Personas" was this years' UX Buzzword. Anyone read either of the two books that came out solely dedicated to persona...

New IxD Techniques to Try in 2007
Dan Saffer, Nancy Broden, Robert Hoekman, Jr. and 55 others
Hi! I'm putting together a list of new IxD methods and techniques I've found that I want to try next...

October 2006

method for keeping track of employee UI suggestions?
David VanEsselstyn, Brian LeRoux, Gabriel White, Oleh Kovalchuke
Hi - I'm at a new organization, and am trying to develop a method for allowing employees to make specific suggestions...

May 2006

Ethnography - Frameworks
Alok Jain, Jeff Howard, Jared M. Spool, Dan Saffer and 2 others
Dear All, I am looking for resources around frameworks for data collection and data analysis during ethnographic studies. For e.g. one such framework...

April 2006

My card sorting book is underway
Donna Maurer
Hi guys I’m very excited to let you know that, between now and the end of the year, I will be writing...

February 2006

Getting users outside of your company
Robert Hoekman, Jr., Taneem Talukdar, Taneem Talukdar and 5 others
Most of my career so far has been spent designing and developing products for speciific audiences, like the HR department at...

Mixing methodologies - Contextual Design/UCD with XP/Agile - experiences and/or best practices
Rich Rogan, Pierre Abel, Christopher Rivard, Håkan Reis
Does anyone have experiences mixing design/development methodologies UCD/Contextual Design with an Agile/XP process? The company I'm working with is implanting an XP...

August 2005

Ethnographic research methods
Lada Gorlenko, Marc Rettig, Joshua Seiden, Mukherjee, Sayantani and 14 others
NR> I would be interested in hearing from this community about NR> an aspect of doing this work that Mikko-Pekka and...

March 2005

testing navigation models
Angela Azzolino, David Texidor, Peter Boersma, Lada Gorlenko and 16 others
Looking for methods to test navigation models. With no time allotted to testing in the schedule I'm looking for recommendations from...

January 2005

Beyond big personas and power points
Lada Gorlenko, Reimann, Robert, David Heller and 8 others
[Inspired by the two threads, particularly, by recent Robert Reimann's comments] Has anyone got any data/observations/stories on how the persona method works in...

December 2004

When to bring in technology
Narey, Kevin, Listera, kjnarey, Listera and 3 others
>First I want to say, that in general, I totally agree that design and technology should be separated >as much as...

September 2004

Sorting methodology
Barry Day, kaushikg2004 at vsnl.net, boese
Hi IxDers Has anybody used the Q-sort methodology in a usability/interaction design context? Barry ...