Difference between male and female designers

Today the Webdesigner depot (WDD) provided a interesting post and infographic about the differences of web-design by gender.

Have a look and find out some interesting numbers about the tendency to use large numbers of typeface colors or the use of straight or rounded lines. (Of couse the numbers are no rules, there are only a rough insight.)

Br, Claudia

The Power of Wireframing - Kits

Hi everybody!

Now it's autumn (already with some snow) (at least in Vienna & Salzburg) and it has been a long time since my last post. In the future I will try to share with you at least one interesting information per month (because I have a lot in my mind).

Now back to the topic ... Wireframe Kits.
The great Smashing Magazine published an huge article with a lot of useful wireframe kits. A few of them I want to share with you directly.

As I'm a big fan of magnetic protoyping this kit is a real help - the Wireframe Magnets (DIY Kit).

A also very useful kit is the User Interface Design Framework for Illustrator and OmniGraffle including GUI Elements, Icons and Styles. 

And the last Wireframe Kit is the Free Sketching and Wireframe Kit, available for illustrator, as svg, pdf and eps.

If you want to see/try more wireframe kits - have a look in the article.

Br, Claudia

Book Review "Selling Usability"

Hi everybody!

Verena - a friend of mine and an user experience designer from Artefact (Seattle) - recommended to me a book called "Selling Usability - User experience infiltration tactics" by John S. Rhodes published in 2009.

I would strongly recommend reading this book if you are responsible for Usability/User Experience in your company and you want that your organization cares or cares more about usability.

The book consists of 40 small chapters (each 3-6 pages) and it's easy and entertaining to read. Especially the headlines of the chapters (and the related comments) made me smile ... for example "Designers & Developers: These Bees Give You Honey" or "Teams: What Mama Didn't Tell You".

Even if not everything mentioned in this book can be applied to your situation, everybody will find some good hints where he can start within the organisation.

Best wishes from sunny Vienna,

Claudia

Unexpected usability problems...

Hi,

today I want to talk about unexpected usability problems. A lot of products are tested and tested and tested to ensure a high user experience and to find severe usability problems. One of these products is flight entertainment solutions.

Three weeks ago I flew from Munich to New York with Lufthansa and next to me sat an elderly man - about 75 to 80 years old. He tried to use the entertainment system and he couldn't figure it out the main issue .... "How can I navigate?"

What do you think was his problem?

His problem was that he didn't recognize or know that the screen is a touch-screen. He tried to use the space on the right side of the screen (what is actually the cup holder) like a mouse pad.

This example showed me again how important it is to test the application with end-users (because there is a gap between what you think is useable and how the end-user acts) and to test it in the correct - the real-life - environment.


Br Claudia

Games in applications: Try Ribbon Hero in Word!

Hi,

a few months ago (in October 2009) I wrote a blog post about "The Fun Theory" and how games in applications can help to increase the satisfaction of the users while working with an application.

Today Office Labs (a creative, future-oriented, experimenting department of Microsoft) published "Ribbon Hero" - a concept prototype that should help users to learn Word and Excel. I want to share this with you because this is the first realization using game mechanics in "boring" daily-business applications.



Try it, and probably we can share our highscore in facebook :-).

Br, Claudia

PS: Hopefully my mum likes the game and I needn't explain the ribbon anymore.

Anybody can do usability ...

Hi everybody

I just read the new blog article by Jakob Nielsen and I want to share this great statement with you:

Usability is like cooking: everybody needs the results, anybody can do it reasonably well with a bit of training, and yet it takes a master to produce a gourmet outcome.

I also have the opinion that everybody - if he/she is interested in the topic - can learn the basic skills to find usability problems in advance (by scribbling screens) or afterwards (by reviewing the application). So, read the article ... it's really great.

Br/Üdv/LG
Claudia

Agile & User-centered design (the next part)

Hi,

once again I want to share with you an interesting blog article by David Farkas about the agile and user-centered design process and how these can fit together?

http://johnnyholland.org/2009/12/14/how-ucd-and-agile-can-live-together/

... and the solution is "communication". And I agree 100%.

Farkas talks about the agile and the UCD process as two equivalent processes that influence the whole project. In my opinion the agile process effecting the whole team is the framework and I try to integrate and align the UCD process to it.

Farkas also shows in the blog article his view of the project lifespan and the transition from the UCD process to the agile process. As I already mentioned I think the UCD Phase 1 can be part of the first few sprints of the agile process - I don't know any project that starts in the first sprint with the whole UI and interaciton stuff :-). Of course at the beginning there is a lot of work for the usability engineer.

So that's my opinion, but what is yours - or have you any further interesting links you want to share?

Br, Claudia