Karen Bachmann's Posts - UX Watercooler2024-03-29T07:21:17ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmannhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2192430861?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=2e8c831grgr7w&xn_auth=noGreat article on creating "experience themes" to guide and unify UX designtag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-11-13:2085916:BlogPost:40842009-11-13T18:25:27.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
<a href="http://boxesandarrows.com/view/experience-themes" target="_blank">Experience Themes: How a storytelling method can help unify teams and create better products</a> by <a href="http://twitter.com/cchastain" target="_blank">Cindy Chastain</a> shares<br />
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"... a method drawn from storytelling that can help us build a better story about our product, unify teams, inspire design concepts and get us closer to evoking the pleasure, emotion and meaning of the experience we intend to deliver to users…
<a href="http://boxesandarrows.com/view/experience-themes" target="_blank">Experience Themes: How a storytelling method can help unify teams and create better products</a> by <a href="http://twitter.com/cchastain" target="_blank">Cindy Chastain</a> shares<br />
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"... a method drawn from storytelling that can help us build a better story about our product, unify teams, inspire design concepts and get us closer to evoking the pleasure, emotion and meaning of the experience we intend to deliver to users through the products and services we design."<br />
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In a world where engagement is expected at every touch point with an organization, this is a valuable technique to add to your design toolkit. Is anyone using anything like this currently?LinkedIn's new look created using user-centered design practicestag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-11-09:2085916:BlogPost:40832009-11-09T16:37:00.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
Kevin Bury, Principle UX Designer at LinkedIn, <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/11/06/kevin-bury-a-new-design-for-linkedin/">blogs</a> about LinkedIn's new design and explains that it is based on user research and refined by usability testing. (Thanks, <a href="http://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/AlexSKelly" target="_blank">Alex</a>, for posting the link through Twitter.)
Kevin Bury, Principle UX Designer at LinkedIn, <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/11/06/kevin-bury-a-new-design-for-linkedin/">blogs</a> about LinkedIn's new design and explains that it is based on user research and refined by usability testing. (Thanks, <a href="http://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/AlexSKelly" target="_blank">Alex</a>, for posting the link through Twitter.)Web Slices: Letting users create their experience and control their content or a better idea than implementation?tag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-08-04:2085916:BlogPost:27212009-08-04T18:38:53.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
Has anyone been using or creating web slices, a feature in IE8 (<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx" target="_blank">Microsoft's description of the feature</a>)? When I first learned about web slices earlier this year, I was intrigued. Web slices seemed to allow users to turn their Favorites bar into essentially a customized portal, creating a new form of user experience with existing content. However, I haven't heard much about implementations or…
Has anyone been using or creating web slices, a feature in IE8 (<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/features/easier.aspx" target="_blank">Microsoft's description of the feature</a>)? When I first learned about web slices earlier this year, I was intrigued. Web slices seemed to allow users to turn their Favorites bar into essentially a customized portal, creating a new form of user experience with existing content. However, I haven't heard much about implementations or the reactions people have had.<br />
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A Google search revealed a number of tech review articles and some how-to guides, but few actual examples bubbled to the top. One noteworthy example that did was the The New York Times <a href="http://firstlook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/internet-explorer-8-web-slices/" target="_blank">Latest Stories web slice</a>, but reader comments (excluding the "I hate IE/MS" posts) indicate that the experience is still lacking.<br />
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If you are using web slices for yourself, what has your experience been like? What web slices do you subscribe to? Has it been a useful way to manage information?<br />
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If you are designing sites that offer web slices, how have they been received? Do you have any lessons to share for other considering supporting this feature?Interesting article series in Wired: "Design Under Constraint: How Limits Boost Creativity"tag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-03-10:2085916:BlogPost:26612009-03-10T20:22:20.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
<a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/17-03/dp_intro" target="_blank">Design Under Constraint: How Limits Boost Creativity</a> shares examples of how limitations have inspired creativity and innovative designs in a variety of products. Each example gives details showing how both aesthetics and usability improved in response to the challenges the design teams faced. Fun and thought-provoking.
<a href="http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/17-03/dp_intro" target="_blank">Design Under Constraint: How Limits Boost Creativity</a> shares examples of how limitations have inspired creativity and innovative designs in a variety of products. Each example gives details showing how both aesthetics and usability improved in response to the challenges the design teams faced. Fun and thought-provoking.Useful freeware: Instant Eyedropper identifies HTML color codes from any pixeltag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-02-09:2085916:BlogPost:24812009-02-09T23:19:27.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
One of the UX email newsletters I receive included a link to <a href="http://instant-eyedropper.com/" target="_blank">Instant Eyedropper</a>. The product website describes this Windows software as "a free software tool for webmasters that will identify and automatically paste to the clipboard the HTML color code of any pixel on the screen with just a single mouse click."<br />
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I haven't used it yet, but given my reliance on the eyedropper tool when tweaking images and the frustrations I've had…
One of the UX email newsletters I receive included a link to <a href="http://instant-eyedropper.com/" target="_blank">Instant Eyedropper</a>. The product website describes this Windows software as "a free software tool for webmasters that will identify and automatically paste to the clipboard the HTML color code of any pixel on the screen with just a single mouse click."<br />
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I haven't used it yet, but given my reliance on the eyedropper tool when tweaking images and the frustrations I've had trying to match colors in HTML prototypes when I haven't been given codes, I'll definitely be downloading it. I hope it might be useful to those of you designing for the Web. If anyone is already using this tool, please share any reviews, limitations we should know, or raves.Social Media in Action: Heroic US Airways pilot commended by thousandstag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2009-01-16:2085916:BlogPost:23212009-01-16T17:30:00.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
The story about how US Airways pilot, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, successfully executed an <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99432590" target="_blank">emergency landing in the Hudson River</a> and personally ensured that all passengers were safely evacuated is remarkable for many reasons and undoubtedly front-page news throughout the country and a top news story throughout <a href="http://www.welt.de/english-news/" target="_blank">the world</a>.<br />
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The part of the…
The story about how US Airways pilot, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger, successfully executed an <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99432590" target="_blank">emergency landing in the Hudson River</a> and personally ensured that all passengers were safely evacuated is remarkable for many reasons and undoubtedly front-page news throughout the country and a top news story throughout <a href="http://www.welt.de/english-news/" target="_blank">the world</a>.<br />
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The part of the story that catches my professional interest is how social media (new media, Web 2.0, and so forth - pick your favorite) has been employed to <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_re_us/plane_in_river_pilot" target="_blank">recognize Captain Sullenberger's heroism</a>. Within hours of the accident, a <a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Captain-CB-Sully-Sullenberger/45557497235?sid=17ade191441ccbe540049e2baa155941&ref=s" target="_blank">Facebook page dedicated to the captain</a> was created. As of this writing, he has 13,050 fans (an increase of over 5,000 fans in the hour from when I first looked at the page and growing by hundreds every time I click it).<br />
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In a quick tour of some other major social networking sites, I found only a LinkedIn profile with currently five connections. I can only speculate about how many invitations might be waiting, but I suspect his safety consultancy <a href="http://safetyreliability.com/home" target="_blank">Safety Reliability Methods, Inc.</a> will benefit. An AP article stated that his inbox at the company was full on Thursday.<br />
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As expected, the blogosphere has tens of thousands of entries (including, now, this one) about him. Twitter has hundreds of tweets about him, in many different languages. The first was posted just over two hours after the crash.<br />
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He now has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullenberger" target="_blank">his own Wikipedia page</a>.<br />
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I did not take the time to read the reader comments on the traditional media sites, other than a quick skim to note that many praised the captain and crew.<br />
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According to the articles I looked at, Captain Sullenberger has not accepted media interviews at this point. He may be a private person, he may feel that he was just doing his job, or any number other reasons for this that I can only guess at. Despite not seeking a spotlight, however, he's earned attention, along with well-deserved praise, that has nearly eclipsed the story of the crash itself and is likely to live on longer.Developer diaries: A way to build community and foster innovationtag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2008-12-03:2085916:BlogPost:17432008-12-03T07:03:49.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
The online games I play have both released major updates. These exciting and long-anticipated events have been tracked regularly by game reviewers and fans alike. I've been reading for weeks before and since the releases about these expansions in forums, release notes, reviews, and developer diaries.<br />
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Developer diaries are particularly interesting artifacts. A developer diary discusses the motivation, goals, and/or design thinking that went into a particular aspect of product design. The…
The online games I play have both released major updates. These exciting and long-anticipated events have been tracked regularly by game reviewers and fans alike. I've been reading for weeks before and since the releases about these expansions in forums, release notes, reviews, and developer diaries.<br />
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Developer diaries are particularly interesting artifacts. A developer diary discusses the motivation, goals, and/or design thinking that went into a particular aspect of product design. The writing is generally too neat and complete to be verbatim from an actual daily diary, but these posts do seem to summarize what might actually have been in a real diary leading up to the final product. They also have noticeable variations in voice, suggesting that the authors are different people, not the same authorized public communicator, even if they are obviously edited for grammar.<br />
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Let me correct myself. When I said "product design," I really meant <b>game</b> design. A Google search for <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=developer+diary&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a" target="_blank">developer diary</a> revealed nearly 900,000 hits. In the first 10 <i>pages</i> of results, only 2 were not for games. Those were not about a product, but are personal-professional blog posts that used the name.<br />
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This surprised me. Why would such an interesting and engaging communication be largely limited to a single genre?<br />
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One of the really amazing things about games is the importance and priority of community around those games. The best game communities are not limited to those who play the game, but include the developers, designers, game masters (a variable title that can be read as "in-game tech support"), and other people who work for the developer. Developer diaries are a way of recapping why particular decisions were made and sharing this information with the larger community invested in the affected game.<br />
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In a passionate game community, such communication might be self-defense. If gamers feel passionately about a design direction — especially if they do not like it — the company will hear about it. A lot. Explaining the decision-making process is one way that the company can steer the overall conversation into the most constructive channels. The openness on their side allows posters to make more thoughtful comments (yes, they do happen) about the merits of the decision, whether the actual experience delivered on the design goals, and what additional thoughts might need to be considered.<br />
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Some developer diaries describe how decisions drew from user feedback and suggestions. In effect, they summarize the discussion for product improvement to date, describe the action taken on the discussion, and provide a launching point for the next round of discussion. This further strengthens and validates the lines of communication.<br />
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Developer diaries, therefore, offer an interesting way to engage in an ongoing, profitable discussion with users. So why don't other products release these? Developer blogs (for those companies that allow them) sometimes touch on the same information to a point, but I cannot recall any as focused on a particular area of the design or detailed about the design thinking.<br />
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Interviews with developers (including game developers) and case studies in presentations or articles touch on design rationale, but seldom present a detailed picture. In my own consulting, I provide a design rationale for user experience designs and sometime describe the path leading to a given design for my clients. I find that sharing this background helps facilitate discussions with stakeholders. Still, even I typically convey these in a few bullet points, call outs, or a short paragraph.<br />
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The resulting discussions that developer diaries (and even my limited form of this) generate lead me to conclude that the benefits of sharing this information are many, although I admit to a bias for open, free-access communication. I can certainly imagine the arguments against talking about the design process. The first one that comes to mind is that companies might consider such discussion proprietary.<br />
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I'll leave you to think of others, but let's consider this one a bit. With very few <a href="http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-04/bz_apple" target="_blank">exceptions</a>, most companies cannot innovate in a vacuum. Consider, as a corollary example, difference that published research can make across products compared to patented proprietary technologies. Certainly, the originating company benefits in the short term from patents. Published research that describes the process not just the end results, however, generates extensions and refinements of the idea that can benefit everyone, potentially even the originating organization. In the extreme, restricting access to discoveries can actually stifle innovation. (Some interesting reading addressing this last point include <a href="http://www.gridlockeconomy.com/excerpts.html" target="_blank">The Gridlock Economy</a> by Michael Heller and <a href="http://www.openinnovation.net/Book/NewParadigm/index.html" target="_blank">Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm</a>, edited by Chesbrough, et. al.)<br />
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If this comparison stands, sharing design rationales and background (effectively publishing design research) offers the potential to raise the standards for UX design across not just throughout related companies, but across industries. The free feedback and discussion that developer diaries generates open up communication channels between users and developers. This communication, in turn, regularly generates new and fresh ideas leading to innovation.<br />
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As a UX designer, I personally learn a lot from reading the background of a successful design — more than I would just from merely emulating the design itself. I wish sometimes that I could share more of my own design rationales with peers for critique and feedback to improve it and to pass on anything I think served its purpose particularly well. Even though my contracts usually prohibit such public openness, I think that I may be more disciplined in keeping a designer diary, beyond just a few bullet points, in future projects.<br />
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What are your experiences with this? Do you keep some type of design diary, even for your own later review? Do you share your design thinking? With whom? How much of it? What concerns do you have about sharing your design thinking?Improving the legibility of highway signstag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2008-10-03:2085916:BlogPost:8862008-10-03T20:08:18.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
In keeping with the Transportation theme for World Usability Day 2008, check out the New York Times article, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html" target="_blank">The Road to Clarity</a> by Joshua Yaffa. This article chronicles the creation of a new font, Clearview, now being adopted for US highway signs. Proving increased legibility and researching the actual improved usability was a key part of the design process. Further details about the research, as well as a…
In keeping with the Transportation theme for World Usability Day 2008, check out the New York Times article, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html" target="_blank">The Road to Clarity</a> by Joshua Yaffa. This article chronicles the creation of a new font, Clearview, now being adopted for US highway signs. Proving increased legibility and researching the actual improved usability was a key part of the design process. Further details about the research, as well as a shop to buy the font, is available on the font site <a href="http://www.clearviewhwy.com/" target="_blank">ClearviewHwy</a>.New feature: Member blog posts display on the main pagetag:uxwatercooler.ning.com,2008-08-05:2085916:BlogPost:3422008-08-05T16:24:27.000ZKaren Bachmannhttp://uxwatercooler.ning.com/profile/KarenBachmann
If you keep a blog on the UX Watercooler, the summaries of your posts will display on this main page. I hope you find this a useful way to share and exchange your thoughts with other members as well as visitors to this site.
If you keep a blog on the UX Watercooler, the summaries of your posts will display on this main page. I hope you find this a useful way to share and exchange your thoughts with other members as well as visitors to this site.