September 21st, 2010
 You know it’s funny. I’m yet to see any posters inviting people to ‘read here’, buttons asking people to ‘press this’ or bottles imploring people to ‘drink this’ (Alice in Wonderland aside) , and yet I still see websites requesting their users to ‘click here’ to follow some link. The use of ‘click here’ is one of those bad design habits, like frames, flashing text and animated logos that I thought had died out by now. Sadly it seems that the practice is still very much alive and well. Even our esteemed friends at Mozilla are doing it . . . Read more
September 10th, 2010
 There are all sorts of user experience related myths, misconceptions and down right mis-truths out there. All UXers use Macs; you’ve got to wear skinny jeans to be a real UX designer; Jakob Nielsen has declared the letter ‘C’ to unusable, to name but a few. Here are some of the most common UX myths that I’ve had to deal with and why they’re simply not true. . . . Read more
August 27th, 2010
 Wow, what a difference some well thought out UX design can make. I recently bought a new Humax video recorder (the imaginatively titled PVR-9300T) because I got fed up with the shortcomings of my old Humax model (the also imaginatively titled PVR8000T) and the difference in the user experience is quite something. The new model is a delight to use compared to to it’s slightly clunky younger sibling. This got me thinking about the importance of continually improving the usability and UX of your product, and how you might go about doing this. . . . Read more
July 23rd, 2010
 When designing the UX for any system consistency really counts – consistency both within the interface and consistency with other similar interfaces. If the interface behaves differently from other similar systems then it’s more likely to confuse users because they are going to have to re-learn how things work. Equally inconsistencies within the interface don’t just make the interface look half finished and a bit slap dash, but force users to think more than they should have to. Here are some things to think about to help maintain that all important consistency. . . . Read more
July 15th, 2010
 What do you think is the most important tool for a UX designer? A trusty laptop (Mac of course)? Nope. A good drawing and wireframing package? Nope. A kick arse prototyping package? Nope. The most important tool for any UX designer is a pen and a stack of paper. Why? Because before you even think about using any of these for design work you should be sitting down to sketch out your ideas. . . . Read more
July 8th, 2010
 As any designer knows where ever possible you should re-use and recycle to avoid constantly re-inventing the wheel. With this in mind I’ve cobbled together a design patterns search engine using Google’s custom search to search the best design pattern websites out there. . . . Read more
June 4th, 2010
 Like all the best techniques there is no right or wrong way to create and use personas (well there is probably a wrong way – like using your favourite TV show characters as your personas). I therefore thought that I would share some tips to consider when researching your users and when creating and using your personas, so that you too can get the most out of personas. . . . Read more
May 22nd, 2010
 There has been a lot of debate about how best to incorporate UX design into Agile software development, especially as like UX it’s still a very new field and people are still finding out what works best. I’m certainly no Agile expert and even more certainly don’t have all the answers, but thought I would share some tips when it comes to working on the UX side of things for an Agile project. . . . Read more
May 6th, 2010
 I don’t know what’s so alluring about ‘Top 10′ lists but I swear they are everywhere! Top 10 best movies. Top 10 best footballers. Top 10 richest people in the world. Top 10 best countries for asking people what their favourite ‘Top 10′ lists are… Being a slave to convention I thought I would add to the ever growing list of ‘Top 10s’ so here is my first stab at a ‘Top 10′ favourite UX websites and blogs. . . . Read more
April 12th, 2010
 OK so ‘commandments’ probably isn’t the right word (God certainly didn’t deliver his UX advice to me whilst I was on the top of some mountain) but that aside here are my 10 UX design principles. . . . Read more
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