November 2005 Issue
UX Community
Published: November 25, 2005
To all of the bloggers who have written about UXmatters and people
who have sent email messages and comments, thank you for warmly welcoming
UXmatters to the UX community. We’ve been gratified by the high
level of interest in and enthusiastic response to this Web magazine.
There seems to have been some pent up demand for a publication
that covers the breadth of user experience for digital products!
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Category: Editorials
The Enterprise User Experience: Bridging the IT/Marketing Divide
Published: November 21, 2005
Within the corporate world, the clash between marketing and IT teams is a well known, but little discussed subject. Often, the marketing or corporate communications team owns the vision for online efforts, while the tech team owns their execution.
The stereotype of the suits vs. the geeks is too simple to
capture the situation. Still, there’s no doubt the conflict
has often boiled down to two polarized positions.
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Category: Features
DUX2005: One Person's Journey
Published: November 21, 2005
People from the UX community came together at DUX2005. I had eagerly awaited this second Conference on Designing for User eXperience, which was held November 2–5 at Fort Mason, in San Francisco, especially since I’d had miss the first DUX Conference in 2003. The conference lived up to my high expectations, providing fun and insight in equal measure. The surprising blue skies and sparkling vistas of the Golden Gate bridge didn’t hurt the experience either.
For me, the insights started with the two tutorials I attended: Layers
of Experience, which Marc Rettig taught, and Whose
Line Is It Anyway: Improv, Ethnography, and Innovation, which
Steve Portigal taught.
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Category: Reviews
Another Perspective on DUX2005
Published: November 21, 2005
Everyone I spoke with at DUX seemed pleased by the quality and diversity of the tutorials presented on Day 1 of DUX2005. I really wanted to attend the Studio Tours that day, but was too busy launching this Web magazine, so missed them. Maybe next time….
The DUX Conference began brilliantly with an
interactive performance by J.Walt Adamczyk and an opening
plenary address by Bill Irwin. Beautiful ambient
music accompanied J.Walt’s live animation
performance. He took us on an odyssey
following a convoluted path through an evolving 3D landscape.
It was mesmerizing.
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Category: Reviews
Welcome to UXmatters
Published: November 3, 2005
We are very pleased to welcome you to UXmatters—a Web magazine created by and for UX professionals. Together, we can create the premiere source of information and inspiration for UX professionals.
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Category: Editorials
Data: The Essence of a Digital Lifestyle
Published: November 3, 2005
“There are those who look at things the way they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”—Robert F. Kennedy
Imagine: A space for seeing the world in a different way is Dirk Knemeyer’s forum for asking “Why not?” and dreaming about things that never were—but certainly could be. This column will explore innovative and progressive topics in digital product design today and look at where current trends and patterns are taking us tomorrow.
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Category: Columns
Why People Matter
Published: November 3, 2005
This column, Universal Usability, will explore the social benefits of human-centered design and ways in which we can create better conversations that include more people.
I’m writing this while listening to news reports and public discussion about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. The thought that keeps running through my head is this: the real disaster was not the storm, but our response to it.
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Category: Columns
So the Necessary May Speak
Published: November 3, 2005
“When you design an interactive product, you are creating the setting for thousands of conversations, which will be spoken between product and person.”—Marc Rettig
Though carefully structured organizational systems and well architected interactions are key components of effective interface designs, it is ultimately the presentation of an interface—layout, look and feel—that tells users what a product has to offer and how they can make use of it. As a result, creating usable and engaging interactive products is dependent on our ability, as designers, to communicate with our audience. The better at communicating we are, the easier it is for our audience to understand our messages and intentions and the easier it is for them to use and appreciate the products we design.
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Category: Columns
Personas, Goals, and Emotional Design
Published: November 3, 2005
When Don Norman’s most recent book, Emotional Design1, hit the shelves in early 2004, it sent a ripple through the user experience world. Norman introduced the idea that product design should address three different levels of cognitive and emotional processing: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. This idea seemed like old news to some and a revelation to others in the UX community. In either case, Norman’s ideas, based on years of cognitive research, provide an articulated structure for modeling user responses to product and brand and a rational context for many intuitions long held by professional designers.
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Category: Features
Information Architecture 2.0
Published: November 1, 2005
The typical information architect thinks about structure—how one item in a group relates to all the other items in the group and how that group relates to all other groups. In the early days of information architecture (IA), groups and their related items tended to be well defined. For example, in the heyday of e-commerce, an information architect translated a product catalog into a storefront on the Web. Today, these problems seem old hat.
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Category: Features