jpreardon.com » Development

Managing Complex UX Deliverables

jpreardon — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:30:24 +0000

Sometimes, people forget that the various UX deliverables on a given project are strongly interrelated. By this, I mean that a deliverable influences and informs downstream deliverables, while the downstream deliverables should support and expand on those that were created upstream. This also means that when something new is discovered, all of these fabulous deliverables should be updated as needed. The larger the project, the more important this becomes. Makes sense, right? Right!

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, sometimes due to time or budgetary constraints, sometime due to poor process or laziness. “Checklist Thinking” for UX Professionals: Retaining your sanity in a complex project further explains the importance of process when it comes to deliverables and offers some strategies for making is happen. It’s worth the quick read, if only as a reminder of how all these documents are (supposed to be) tied together.

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Advice for Small UX Teams

jpreardon — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:53:13 +0000

Out of necessity, people on small user experience teams need to be generalists, especially when they are a team of one or two. UX Matters has some great pointers for small UX teams, from selling yourself to getting things done with little budget to finding a support network. All good advice that can help make you and your tiny team more productive.

Metaphors for Explaining Pair Design

jpreardon — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:42:58 +0000

It can be difficult to explain the ways by which things get created. The people at Cooper generally have two roles on their pair design teams: Generators and Synthesizers. But,this nomenclature may not go over so well “with parents or at a cocktail party”, to use their words. So, they’ve gone on to explain their pair design roles, metaphorically. I especially like the the use of Han Solo and Chewie in the pilot/navigator roles.

Web Design Survey Results

HOWTO: Tracking Social Engagement in Google Analytics

jpreardon — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:13:14 +0000

The social engagement tracking in Google Analytics is great. Google +1 works by default if you use the +1 Button Creator. However, one needs to do a bit of configuration to get tracking working for other things like Twitter tweets and Facebook likes. The popular WordPress plugins for Addthis and Sharethis use Google Analytics Events for tracking social engagement rather than the newer _trackSocial method. So, for the time being, if you want to get track social engagement with Google Analytics social reports, you’ll need to add your own code. Don’t be alarmed though, it isn’t all that difficult. This step by step guide about Tracking Social Engagement with Google Analytics will get you headed in the right direction.

One thing that wasn’t clear (to me at least) was were the javascript code should go for the Twitter event binding. This is important when considering a blog index page where there are multiple tweet buttons on the page that are associated with different posts. Twitter’s code handles this quite well, so long as you put the call to twttr.events.bind and the function extractParamFromUri somewhere where they only get called once. In my case, I created a .js file for these two things, which loads in the header along with widgets.js.

Wireframe Primer

jpreardon — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 15:17:05 +0000

Wireframes are old hat to anyone who has been working on web sites and applications for more than, say, 5 minutes. However, for those that aren’t involved in web design, wireframes can be a bit of a mystery. If you’re growing tired of explaining the role of the wireframe and why nobody should worry about how boxy and devoid of color they are, perhaps you can point people to UX 101: The Wireframe. There, one will fine a succinct explanation of the wireframe, why they are valuable, and what to look for when reviewing them.

iPhone Fireflies 3

jpreardon — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 18:32:36 +0000

The video above shows the movement of over 800 iPhones in Europe during April 2011. There are a few other versions of iPhone Fireflies 3 at crowdflow.net. By the way, Crowdflow is collecting iPhone location log files in order to visualize wifi and cellular data networks around the world. If you are interested, you can in contribute the location data from your iPhone on crowdflow.net.

via information aesthetics

How to Win a User Experience Debate

jpreardon — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:30:37 +0000

Stakeholders generally provide plenty of design feedback. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the feedback is so counter to a good user experience that you, as the UX designer, are compelled to take a stand. If you’ve been around for more than one project, you’ve probably done this already. Before your next encounter, you may want to read Winning a User Experience Debate, which is an excerpt from the book Undercover User Experience Design. They present a three-tiered approach for validating a design, which they call the Validation Stack. It walks one through the evidence that one can be used to defend a design decision. They also mention an additional technique to use when your use of the Validation Stack fails.

via UIEtips

Three Tactics for Better Wireframe Presentations

jpreardon — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:36:49 +0000

Wireframes can be misconstrued by stakeholders if they are not presented in the right way. Everyone has their own way of presenting wireframes, and most are always on the lookout for ways to improve. These three tactics for making more understandable wireframe presentations are worth checking out. I especially like the use of storytelling to frame individual wireframes in the context of user stories and/or personas. I also like the idea of working early sketches into the presentation.

Tracking Social Plugins with Google Analytics

jpreardon — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 21:05:17 +0000

Google Analytics has a few handy reports for tracking social plugin activity on your site. If you’re using the standard Google +1 implementation, +1 activity should get tracked automatically without further coding. However, for other plugins like Twitter and Facebook, you’ll probably need to add some code to your site. The Google Analytics Blog to has a quick rundown on Social Plugin Tracking in Google Analytics.

Orienteering vs. Teleportation: Designing for Both Novices and Experts

jpreardon — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:27:11 +0000

One of the challenges faced by user interface designers is how to make the interface work for novices, experts and everyone in between. These groups come to a site or application bringing different types of knowledge, therefore they require different interactions. Tyler Tate has an interesting take on this in Novices Orienteer, Experts Teleport. In this article he gives some solid examples of various interface elements for both novices and experts.

FCC: VoIP Not Subject to State Regulation

jpreardon.com » Development

Managing Complex UX Deliverables

Advice for Small UX Teams

Related Posts

Metaphors for Explaining Pair Design

Related Posts

HOWTO: Tracking Social Engagement in Google Analytics

Related Posts

Wireframe Primer

Related Posts

iPhone Fireflies 3

Related Posts

How to Win a User Experience Debate

Related Posts

Three Tactics for Better Wireframe Presentations

Related Posts

Tracking Social Plugins with Google Analytics

Related Posts

Orienteering vs. Teleportation: Designing for Both Novices and Experts

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