I recently attended a LUXi, the Lean User Experience Intensive facilitated by Lane Halley & Josh Seiden of LUXr.  The 2-day, hands-on, workshop is designed to teach entrepreneurs how they can achieve “predictable, high-quality, high-velocity user experience outcomes” using Lean UX Principals and I am really excited to share what I learned.

The traditional user experience process is normally long and expensive and that makes it challenging for startups to get products to market fast, and can be the difference between success (great user adoption) and failure.

The Event

The event was extremely well run and the attendees were divided into teams of 3. We were then walked through and practiced a series of activities, each one building on the previous one, that supported one complete Lean UX Cycle: THINK, MAKE, CHECK (click on image to enlarge).

Step by step process of the Lean UX Cycle

THINK

• Step 1 – Write down the problem (this exercise helps with establishing focus)

  I had the privilege of working with Keka Marzagão & Billy Tobon on a hypothetical “new start-up” in the health food industry. Each of us was directed to write down the “problems” as we perceive them…one problem per sticky note. Then, as a team, we reviewed everyone’s sticky notes and decided what problems are worth solving.

  Our first goal was to determine the problem our company will solve. We each brainstormed for 5 minutes identifying different problems in the health food industry and then collectively reviewed everyone’s ideas and settled on the following: “the reason a lot of people don’t eat healthy is because they don’t have time to cook”.

  What I learned: I discovered that this method of brainstorming was extremely effective. It ensures that everyone’s individual thoughts will get seen and heard. I find that, in group brainstorming sessions, oftentimes the people who are less outgoing never get a chance to present their ideas.

• Step 2 – Create a Hypothesis

  Once you decide on a problem you are going to solve, the next step is to create a Hypothesis by framing it into the following sentence structure:

  Person type X has problem Y that can be solved by solution Z and measured by metric Q

  This was the hypothesis we came up with: “We believe that busy people have the desire/need to eat healthy prepared home cooked meals but they can’t have the time to patience to do it”

• Step 3 – Create a Persona
  A persona is a narrative that describes the person your product will be used by. A good persona will include information like: behavior patterns, goals, needs, attitudes, beliefs, workflow, skills, and environment. You can use this amazing persona cheat sheet prepared by LUXr.

  What I learned: Creating a persona forced us to really think about who our customer is and later, when we went to interview people, it was easier to visually identify them because we knew exactly what we were looking for.

MAKE

• Step 1 – Start to think about solutions
  Using the hypothesis and the persona, we started exploring the ideas with visual thinking and developing a shared understanding, which helped us move from the abstract to the specific solutions.

  We each drew 6 ideas on a piece of paper and, during the group discussion, we were encouraged to provide feedback in the following language:

  When Explaining an idea: “this idea solves the following problem for the following person in the following way”

   

  When providing critique: “I don’t see how this solves the problem X”

• Step 2 – Establish a census on the best solution to pursue and create an artifact that you can show to users.
  We decided that a web application would be the most effective first step and since, in our minds, trust might be the biggest problem in adoption, we decided to create very colorful design that showcases our chef’s photos, ratings, and testimonials. Also important was to showcase the photos of the foods and the ingredients that were used.

  Below is my team’s finished prototype designed by Keka:

CHECK

The final step of the process is to validate your ideas by getting out of the building and talking, in person if possible, with living, breathing customers to determine the validity of your assumptions.

We were shown techniques for interviewing people and asking open ended questions. Our team then went out into Union Square to interview potential customers.

What I learned: Through the interview process, I discovered that effective user interviewing is a skill that needs to be mastered and practiced ahead of time. I found it difficult to extract information from the user without leading them. I suggest that you read Lane’s slideshare presentation, I’m out of the building now what, where she covers how & where you can find users to talk to, offering tips for effective user interviews, and much more!

Learning from Others

Another great aspect of the event was the Show & Tell, where all of the teams shared their work and experiences. It was enlightening and empowering to see the different approaches and issues that people came up with and learn from one another. It was amazing to see the Lean UX process at work and see how quickly ideas can be validated

Tips for using these techniques in your own work

Here are some words of wisdom from Lane:

In your own work, you will use these techniques in a way that is appropriate for you. You may choose do these activities for longer periods, or with gaps of hours or days in between. You may choose different collaborators from your team for different activities. You may skip some of these activities or add some of your own. The important thing is that your entire team establishes a SHARED PROBLEM STATEMENT (what is our hypothesis? What result are we trying to accomplish? For whom?), and that you then work towards the MOST LIGHTWEIGHT thing you can make to validate that hypothesis. ~ Lane Halley

My Takeaway

I will not ever build a feature or a product without going through this process first! Thank you Lane & Josh!

Related posts:

1. Book Clubs for User Experience Professionals
2. Best New Tool for User Testing: The Flip
3. Experience Last Month’s IA Summit Online

Meet Nina Walia. Nina is a Creative Strategist and Producer of Engaging Cross-Platform Experiences.  She has overseen interaction design and content development of websites and games for the Webby-award winning pbskids.org since 2004.

Never let someone else tell you that you don’t belong at the table – most of all yourself. Remember how crucial your unique perspective is to how we use and design technology and in shaping the freedoms of systems of the future.
~Nina Walia

1. What is your background and how did you get into the interaction design field?

As a daughter of an Electrical Engineer father, I was always the tinkering with technology. I studied Computer Science at Georgia Tech but the lack of diversity in the CS student population lead to a lack of diversity in teaching approaches so I left to pursue more creative uses of technology. I transferred to University of Georgia and received a degree in Journalism, focusing on film, audio and new media production – but I couldn’t shake the knowledge I had gained from Computer Science. I had learned how to make systems and interactive components work so I applied interaction to all my media projects. For example, I helped build a webcasting studio and produce events for it, I built and operated an interactive component to a theater production and built websites for orgs on a freelance basis.

Without skipping a beat, I knew I wanted to pursue interactive design further and went straight to grad school. I returned to Georgia Tech, where they had begun a Masters program called Information Design and Technology. IDT was a new multidisciplinary program crossing computer science with art, design, & communication. It was a fantastic program where, amongst many things, I sound designed tangible environments, learned usability and human computer interaction concepts, created educational technology applications, and experimented with designing new kinds of interfaces for experiences of the future.

2. What is it about interaction design that you most enjoy, or find most rewarding?

Finding new ways for people to connect with content and each other.

Companies must set aside time and budget to conduct user testing, even if it’s just informal user testing. It shouldn’t be one of the first items on the budget chopping block when it’s so fundamental to a company’s success.

3. What’s your favorite milestone in your career or business?

There’s still so much to accomplish! But one of the achievements I’m most proud of is becoming the “go to” for creating concepts for cross-platform experiences at PBS KIDS. I’ve produced successful games kids participate with on TV, online, and soon on mobile devices.

4. What major obstacle/barrier/conflict have you faced and how did you overcome it?

Working at a nonprofit you are often asked to produce big things with small resources, so I’ve found many ways to overcome budget and resource barriers in order to produce successful gigs. Some tricks include reusing art or audio assets from TV programs for the web and having an arsenal of external developers you are familiar with who are extremely flexible. By delivering products that shine and get the attention of company decision makers, our interactive team has been allocated more resources in subsequent projects. We’ve proven ourselves time and time again, taking us from being a second thought to innovation leaders all departments of the company turn to.

Always think about how you can extend an experience across devices and platforms from the beginning to gain efficiencies and a unified user experience. At the concept or kick-off phase, have representatives from every platform team at the table to brainstorm the big picture and how it all ties together.

5. What are the common mistakes made by companies when it comes to interaction design?

A common mistake is using company employees as the only source of user testing. All too often I’ve seen the approval of senior executives be the only point in the development process where someone outside the project interacts with the interface. Companies must set aside time and budget to conduct user testing, even if it’s just informal user testing. It shouldn’t be one of the first items on the budget chopping block when it’s so fundamental to a company’s success.

Another mistake is not having a diverse pool of interaction designers. Different backgrounds bring different perspectives and approaches to a project. Without diversity you are operating with a blind side.

6. Which websites do you admire from an interaction design perspective?

I’ve been working on quite a bit of augmented reality lately so I’ve come across some interesting new kinds of interaction models. It’s exciting because these models allow children to bypass the challenge of using a mouse. Enhanced interaction can be placed on tangible objects children are used to, like blocks. For example, using wIzQubes™, kids can manipulate familiar fairy tales by arranging blocks next to each other in different combinations.

7. You specialize in building Engaging Cross-Platform Experiences.  Can you give advice to other companies who are trying to design their applications for different platforms?

Two key points of advice:

• Plan the experience as a cross platform experience from day one! Always think about how you can extend an experience across devices and platforms from the beginning to gain efficiencies and a unified user experience. At the concept or kick-off phase, have representatives from every platform team at the table to brainstorm the big picture and how it all ties together.
• Take advantage of each medium’s affordances. The experience should not be exactly the same across platforms. For example, there are ways you can engage with characters or content on mobile devices that TV or desktop computer don’t allow you to.

The greatest “technology” I’ve adopted is this new personal time prioritization system.

8. You have designed very successful curriculum-based games for kids. What are some challenges that you’ve faced in designing things for kids?  Any advice to someone who is trying to build an application for this demographic?

What you think you know about this age is probably wrong J. User testing is key. Testing with your own children or neighbor’s children is probably not enough of a sample to reflect the general population (interaction designers’ children are generally more savvy than most).

Another thing that has helped is taking days where we’ll volunteer at a school for that age group. Immersing ourselves in what its like to be a kid that age is a great reality check on the abilities of that age group.

I highly recommend consulting the PBS Parents Child Development Tracker: http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/. We worked with child development experts to gain insight into learning and development milestones for children ages 1-9 years. The guide covers: approaches to learning, creative arts, language, literacy, math, science, physical health, and social & emotional growth.

9. What is the latest, greatest technology that helped you make a quantum leap in your work?

Outside of my day job I am involved in many organizations and side projects that are demanding of my time. I’ve finally learned that although I want to be involved in everything, I only end up feeling guilty about how I don’t have enough time or energy to give my best to each and every project. I now focus only on a couple of projects that elicit the most personal happiness when I’m engaging with them, and I allow myself the flexibility of being involved only for certain time frames. I’m spread much less thin and am much more productive. So the greatest “technology” I’ve adopted is this new personal time prioritization system.

10. What are the qualities & characteristics that a professional woman needs to succeed in today’s fast paced world of technology? What sage words of advice (words of wisdom) can you offer to other professional women to help them achieve their own success?

I agree wholeheartedly with Cheryl Platz’s answer to this question: “Never let someone else tell you that you don’t belong at the table – most of all yourself.” Remember how crucial your unique perspective is to how we use and design technology and in shaping the freedoms of systems of the future.

Related posts:

1. Mentors & Motivators – Meet Cheryl Platz
2. Mentors & Motivators – Meet Lindsay Moore
3. Mentors & Motivators – Meet Brenda Laurel

We are launching a series of blog posts interviewing some women who are accomplishing some amazing things with the hope that their stories will encourage, inspire, and motivate you in your career, business, or personal life.

Meet Cheryl Platz. Cheryl is a User Experience Designer at Microsoft (server and management studios team) and Board Member/Marketing Lead for IGNITE

While we’re busy censoring ourselves or timidly waiting for the right moment to make ourselves heard, others are seizing those opportunities. ~ Cheryl Platz

What is your background and how did you get into the usability field?

I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. I also studied in their Entertainment Technology graduate program for a year, which helped me in my initial foray into video game production.

When I was still in high school, I was always very interested in art and computer science, and had difficulty choosing between the two when it came to looking at schools. It wasn’t until I visited Carnegie Mellon as a prospective student that I heard about interaction design for the first time. A field that combines computer science, visual design, and cognitive psychology? It sounded perfect, and I knew at that moment I had found the career I’d been searching for.

What is it about usability that you most enjoy, or find most rewarding?

Interaction design (known by any number of other terms – user experience design, usability engineering, etc) allows me to solve complex technical problems and to see how my changes are improving the lives of our users. Whether we’re working to lessen the chance of critical mistakes or simply removing frustration from someone’s life, we’re leaving things better than they were when we started. Often, we’re enabling someone to accomplish a task they weren’t able to complete previously. It’s extremely gratifying to see a happy reaction from one of our customers in real time.

What’s your favorite milestone in your career or business?

In a matter of months, it will be shipping System Center Configuration Manager 2012 – it’s by far the largest, most complicated challenge I’ve faced, and I’ve been working on the project for over 3 years now. In an increasingly agile software world, such extended projects are extremely rare.

But until that moment, my favorite professional accomplishment is my work as lead Producer on a Nintendo DS-exclusive video game called “Disney Friends” that takes inspiration from Nintendogs and allows kids to establish friendships with Disney characters. I’ve always been fond of positive, family friendly gaming and entertainment options, owing largely to my time working at a Sesame Street theme park for my first job. Disney Friends was the type of game I’d choose to make, and my entire team was extremely proud of the results. It’s interesting when you compare video game work to the interaction design on IT products that I’m doing now. Games, in a way, are just interfaces that tell a story.

Confidence is one of the most valuable assets a woman can have – confidence in herself, in her ability to learn and adapt, and in her ability to deliver results.

What major obstacle/barrier/conflict have you faced and how did you overcome it?

A common theme when working on interaction design at large companies is that the development teams have been operating for years without any collaboration with interaction designers. It is exceptionally hard to prove your worth to these teams, and my current project was no exception.

Early in the project, we made a point of getting quantitative measurements of how our work improved the user experience of the product. On my first feature engagement, where we redesigned a complex feature from the previous version of the product, we managed to increase task success rates on that feature by almost 50%. That presented a compelling case for our work, and over time we established very constructive partnerships with our program manager counterparts on the development team.

What are the common mistakes made by companies when it comes to usability?

The most common “mistake” is ignoring interaction design as a distinct discipline that benefits from specialized attention, assuming that it’s all common sense. The problem is largely that our goal is to make experiences intuitive and seamless – if we achieve this, then suddenly a product looks effortless. Outside observers don’t always realize how much interaction design work – subtle visual design choices like colors and alignment, or larger applications of cognitive psychology – makes a difference when it comes time to use a product.

Another “mistake” I see frequently is investing time and money in the investigation of  usability problems, but failing to commit resources to fix the problems that are discovered, whether big or small. A fix that seems trivial may have a disproportionately large positive impact on the end usability of the product, if only the time is taken to make the fix.

Which websites do you admire from a usability perspective?

That’s a tough one – one of the curses of being in usability and interaction design is that you see all the rough edges that could have been addressed differently!

One of the sites I find myself most fond of at the moment is mint.com, a free financial management website. Mint gives all sorts of information to me in a way that doesn’t overwhelm me, and it’s made me a far more active participant in my own financial management and retirement planning.

Do all websites need to do some form of usability testing? And if they do, how should they get started?  Can you recommend some tools that you use?

Any usability testing is better than no usability testing. Of course, it’s always great to get a large number of participants. But if you can’t afford a large test, even one or two participants is enough to get some valuable insight. One of the hardest challenges is finding the right participants (unless you’re working on development tools, your tests shouldn’t be on the product team). In addition, it’s important to remember to let your user do the talking – if you intervene too much or ask leading questions, you won’t be getting an honest, unbiased assessment.

One interesting approach that’s starting to emerge is remote testing, where a combination of video chat (like Skype) and desktop sharing can be used to watch a participant test in real time from anywhere in the world. If you don’t have access to a usability lab, you might be able to set something up along these lines.

You don’t need to change who you are to be successful, but at the same time there’s no reason not to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game.

What is the latest, greatest technology that helped you make a quantum leap in your work?

This is an interesting question, since most of the tools I use have been around for a while (Adobe CS4 products, the Microsoft Office suite, etc.) One of the greatest luxuries I’ve appreciated as an interaction designer at Microsoft is the ability to watch usability tests in real time from anywhere on or off campus. I think that over time, telepresence technologies like Skype will make it more feasible to test with users regardless of their physical location – a big boon for us, since our pool of test participants in the Seattle region is limited.

Outside of work you are involved in theater and perform all the time.  Have you found that having a creative outlet that is not tech related help you with your work?

Absolutely! The more I expose myself to the “outside” world, the more potential inspiration l find. In addition, acting is particularly helpful in user experience design in that it forces you to see the world through another person or character’s perspective.

While I do perform in a lot of musical theater, I find that it’s my time spent doing improv comedy that helps me the most on a daily basis. Learning to think on my feet helps me during those challenging question sessions after a presentation, and the games we use to warm up our minds before a show also turn out to be very useful brainstorming tools.

Cool! Can you describe some of the games that we can play to have more productive brainstorming sessions in our businesses?

There are hundreds of improv games out there, and a good number of them have the potential to improve a brainstorming session either directly or by increasing team connection and energy level. The easiest to play is “Wordball” – players simply stand in a circle and pass words to one another. When you receive a word, you have to pass the first word that comes to mind to another player via hand, speech, and eye contact. It doesn’t matter *why* you thought of the word, because the goal is to stop you from overthinking and getting in the way of your own ideas.

Another example game that might help with idea generation is “Categories” – players take turns choosing a category, and each time a category is chosen players go around the circle offering one thing that fits in that category, with no repetition. For team-building, one-word-at-a-time stories -where you go around the table or circle telling a story, but each person only contributes a single word on their turn – are a good way to get people in the habit of listening to each other. Even without using improv games, the principles of improvisation taught in any improv curriculum generally prepare you to be a better collaborator and free thinker at the office.

You volunteer your time to help expose young women to technology.  Can you share some of your experiences and what in your opinion is the biggest barrier to getting more girls involved in technology?

I strongly believe that the biggest problem we face is the continued perception that technology careers are solitary, masculine endeavors. In reality, an astonishing array of career options is available to technically proficient women – but that’s not the message these girls are receiving. I’m lucky enough to work on a team at Microsoft (the Server and Management Studios) that is nearly 50% female, but I know we’re not the norm and I’d love to help create a world where more women get this sort of opportunity.

The organization I work with, IGNITE (Inspiring Girls Now In Technology Evolution), makes a point of bringing professional technical women to local schools. As it turns out, many of these girls have never met a woman that holds a technical or engineering job. I was stunned to hear the girls confirm this in person. Their perception of these careers is thus driven by what they see in the media.

Another important point I make to the girls is that your job doesn’t have to define you. You don’t instantly become that geek caricature you see onscreen the moment you learn your first programming language. It is entirely possible to be a vibrant, feminine technology professional, thanks to the hard work of the pioneering ladies in technology that came before us. By sharing our stories in schools, we’re trying to get that message out there, one girl at a time.

What are the qualities & characteristics that a professional woman needs to succeed in today’s fast paced world of technology?

Well, many of the conditions for success are the same for women and men. Aside from those more common characteristics, women need to be ready to treat themselves and their own time with respect. We’re a bit more likely to encounter initial resistance when establishing ourselves with a new group. Confidence is one of the most valuable assets a woman can have – confidence in herself, in her ability to learn and adapt, and in her ability to deliver results,

I think it’s also tremendously helpful for women, especially women leaders, to understand the differences in the way men and women stereotypically communicate in an office environment.  I’ve been in some fascinating classes that go into the little subtleties, such as the fact that women are more likely to phrase things as questions rather than statements. You don’t need to change who you are to be successful, but at the same time there’s no reason not to familiarize yourself with the rules of the game.

What sage words of advice (words of wisdom) can you offer to other professional women to help them achieve their own success?

Never let someone else tell you that you don’t belong at the table – most of all yourself. We are often our own biggest enemy, and while we’re busy censoring ourselves or timidly waiting for the right moment to make ourselves heard, others are seizing those opportunities.

Sometimes I describe it in terms of acting – if you walk into a meeting and take on the character of the professional woman you want to be, others will treat you like that woman.

At the Interaction 11 conference you are speaking on “How Interaction Design can entice a new generation of women”.  Can you give us a little teaser from your talk?

My answer to the previous question is a big part of it – the continued perception problem that keeps girls away from technology careers due to the limited exposure they’ve had.

But it’s just as hard to retain technical women once they embark on a computer science education, and from my own personal experience I believe this is because many curriculums aren’t designed to adapt to the academic interests of female students.

Interaction design is a discipline that draws heavily from three subjects: visual design, cognitive psychology, and computer science. Visual design is typically a gender-balanced career choice, and psychology is actually a woman-dominated career. If we were to incorporate interaction design courses and problems into computer science curriculums, we could show how technology can apply to fields traditionally considered more desirable by female students, and hopefully increase the number of women who eventually choose technical careers in the process.

Related posts:

1. 5 Strategies for Success
2. Don’t blame the men? OK, I’ll just blame the arrogant windbags.
3. Facts About Women-Owned Businesses

Whether you are a designer, developer, writer, marketer, you need to understand usability to be able to create experiences that people would enjoy. Being aware of what is going on, also makes it easier for the team to work with a usability professional and move the project along.

Here are some resources where you can learn more about usability

1. Interaction Design Association. It is a global network dedicated to the professional practice of Interaction Design. With the help of more than 20,000 members since 2004, the IxDA network provides an online forum for the discussion of interaction design issues and other opportunities and platforms for people who are passionate about interaction design to gather and advance the discipline. Their website has a great list of resources with video talks from past events/conferences.
2. Interaction Conference – Every year, IxDA gathers the interaction design community to stretch our minds, sharpen our skills, and inspire each other.  We are very excited to be a media partner for the interaction ’11 conference in February and will be conducting interviews with some of the presenters and writing about some of our favorite sessions.  So stay tuned!
3. Learn from Other’s Successes  – Find other web applications that people are raving about and learn from them.  Here is a list of great web app interfaces to get you started.
4. Read books on the subject: 11 Usability, UX, Interface books you should own

Do you have other suggestions?  Please share with us in the comments!

testing blockquote

Related posts:

1. Design and Usability principles from the google team
2. Save Time & Money – Leverage the expertise by using Design Patterns
3. Webgrrl’s Finds: Free resources for web designers

Electronic voting is actually a broad term, encompassing voting by touchscreen, voting by optically-scanned paper ballot, or even simply counting votes electronically. In any form, though, e-voting is more efficient and more accessible than hand-counted paper ballots.

Why haven’t we fully adopted e-voting? In part, underfunded localities cannot afford to wholesale replace their voting systems. Even if they can, touchscreen and e-voting technology become obsolete as fast as anything else—even if they make an initial investment, it’s hard for localities to keep pace with upgrades and new systems.

Another answer, however, is that improved voting technology has been blocked in some cases by organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which harbors concerns about privacy, accuracy, and disenfranchisement. In the e-voting rush after 2000, we moved a little too quickly without thinking through those issues.

And so, ten years after Bush v. Gore, we’re in the middle of a transition from paper to computer. Some scanning, some punch cards, some touchscreens, some paper. In Washington, D.C. and other cities, voters are given the option of using touchscreen or paper ballots, which prompted my favorite response of the election season, from humor writer Gene Weingarten:

I voted this morning. Had a choice to use paper ballot or touch
screen. Chose touch screen, for the novelty, and the green, of it. Was
led to touch screen area, where it became apparent there was only one
touch screen, and a grumbly line; paper-ballot people were sailing
right through without a wait, and looking at touch-screen people with
sympathy. Why aren’t there more touch screens, I asked. “People don’t
seem to like ‘em,” I was told.

What do you think of e-voting? How do you vote at your polling place?

Related posts:

1. Accessibility in Technology: ADA marks 20 years
2. Suddenly I’m Surrounded by Touch Screens!
3. Forty Years of the Internet—Maybe

I use Google News when I am looking for the latest headlines, Blogger when writing for two different blogs, and Google Earth when I am interested in determining what the surroundings of any location in the world are. I also use Google Maps when figuring out driving directions, but this function alone has been problematic for me in the past, because I must admit I have gotten incorrect directions from it. As a safety and when I have time to look up directions, I check at least one other site to compare the routes and determine which I will trust and follow more. I am also a big fan of Picasa when sending and storing photographs to friends and family, which alleviates the fear of losing images forever if my computer or laptop crashes and I haven’t backed up all my data. I am avoiding the latter, just in case.

Looking back at the good, the bad, and everything in between, I have to admit that the Internet has been a very interesting place since Google was conceived and launched to an unsuspecting public. The online experience would be a very different place if it never existed, and that would not have been a  good thing.

Google has been an integral part of my Internet experience, and as a search engine it is the closest thing to perfection I have seen on the Internet. If the company keeps doing what it is doing while striving to innovate and improve all of its services and programs, Google will continue to be on top for years to come.

Related posts:

1. Does Ask.com Have a Chance Against Google?
2. Google Eye-Tracking Shows “Golden Triangle” Rule Holds Up Even With Images
3. Design and Usability principles from the google team

But designers no longer have to work in a vacuum to figure out the solutions. They can now leverage all of the expertise, user behavior analysis, and best practices of the great user interface design patterns that are available online.

What is a user interface design pattern?

A design pattern is good design that has been vetted and tested for usability by designers, User Interface (UI) experts, and even the design community that have been proven to work well for very specific user situations and user issues. It is a package of proven expertise that informs the designer of the principles behind the design and what is known to work.

Using known and researched principles in your design will save you time and money and make your applications more intuitive for the user and easy to use.

All design patterns answer the following questions:

• What is the Problem we are trying to solve?
• What is the Solution?
• When and why to use the pattern?

Where can I find design patterns?

• Yahoo Design Pattern Library
  Yahoo! breaks down their design patterns into five categories: Layout, Navigation, Selection, Rich Interaction, and Social.  Within each category you will find an array of design patterns that not only answer the standard questions of What, When & Why they also provide real world examples, code examples, related patterns, and similar patterns from non Yahoo! libraries.  They also have a community where you can discuss the design patterns with people who are trying to solve the same design problems.
• Welie.com
  The patterns on this site are grouped in a very meaningful way.  The main categories are broken down into:
  User needs which include navigating around, searching, shopping, making choices
  basic interactions, dealing with data, personalizing, making choices, giving input.
  Application needs which include drawing attention, feedback, simplifying interaction.
  Context of design which include site types, experiences, page types
• UI-Patterns.com
  This website provides a good number of design patters but what makes it different is that they offer a lot of examples of actual sites that use good design principles via their screenshot collections and their resources.
• Open Source Design Pattern Library
  This is a community where designers, developers, and other people interested in patterns can come to reference material, collaborate on patterns and designs, and share their knowledge with everyone.

Do you use other resources that I haven’t mentioned?  Let me know if the comments!

Related posts:

1. Design and Usability principles from the google team
2. 10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
3. Get Inspired by the 2008 International Design Excellence Winners

I work in online user experience for Barnes & Noble, so this is right up my alley. Plus, I’m always hesitant to join book clubs with friends because I can be a little particular about which fiction books I read. This is why the idea of a professional book club appeals to me so much. I have an ever growing list of fiction books I want to one day get to, but I wouldn’t mind a little help from my peers in choosing which books on user experience are the most relevant at this very moment. And I’d be thrilled if a group of peers wanted to read it at the same time and then link up to discuss—especially if it’s done leisurely over a glass of wine.

It looks like I’m not the only one excited about this idea. UX Book Clubs have sprouted in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East, and all over North and South America.

Boxes and Arrows, which features articles on information architecture and design, recently had an article profiling UX Book Clubs. In the article, the founder, Steve Baty writes, “In early Nov 2008, I started to talk to a few people about the idea of a book club in Sydney to discuss User Experience (UX) books….And then something surprising happened, people liked the idea so much that they started doing things to make it happen.”

Even if you don’t have one in your area, or if you can’t attend, you can still benefit. Each group gets an individual page on the site to post its mission and the list of books the group has read. Not every group has a robust page up yet, but still the rest of us can get ideas by digging through the various lists. It’s also interesting to see what the hot UX topic is in different parts of the world.

Here’s how the group describes itself on the website:

The UX Book Club seeks to enhance the abilities and knowledge of user experience professionals from information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, ixd design theory while building a passionate local community. Subjects of interest to this club span design theory, design research and user experience research practices and processes. The books include the strategy and business of design, UX design theory and history, methodology, usability research, and the ethics of UX professionals, while networking and having some fun….

And if you don’t see your city on the list, go to the UX Book Club site to start your own!

Related posts:

1. Experience Last Month’s IA Summit Online
2. Design and Usability principles from the google team
3. Best New Tool for User Testing: The Flip

I recently discovered a wonderful new use for the Flip: user testing. The small device allows user experience professionals to effortlessly capture user tests while allowing them to go to the participant. Until now, I’ve found it cumbersome and expensive to record any sort of usability session. But now, for around $200, you can have a portable video recorder to bring with you—in your pocket. This lets you go to the user and observe them in their natural environment—something that has previously been challenging.

When I was at IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab about four years ago, we had a usability lab with a not-so-inconspicuous “tree cam” that supposedly made people less conscious of the fact that we were filming them. Like participants didn’t notice a big fake potted plant with a 10-inch camcorder and wires hanging down! (I’m sure they’ve upgraded since then.)

I’ve also been on teams where we’ve rented out usability labs with sophisticated equipment that recorded both the participant and the screen itself. That nifty set up is great for us researches, but I’ve heard users say that it makes them uncomfortable because so many large device are pointing at them and recording their faces.

Last week while we were observing shoppers on Barnes & Noble.com, all we had to do was sit the phone-sized camera on the desk and aim it at the computer screen. The most AV set up we ever needed to do was to prop the camera up on a book if we needed to raise it an inch to better capture the screen.

You just push that big red button to start recording, and then you push it again to stop. Only the participant’s voice, not face, was captured.

I was skeptical about the quality of the video. One warning is that you’ve got to remember to speak up and keep reminding your participant to speak up. The mic isn’t the best. But the screen was clear to see. And we also were able to capture when people pointed at areas of the screen, (something I’ve lost in the past when the screen is recorded by software).  Here’s a screen cap from what we recorded during testing:

This small and relatively inexpensive device has removed most barriers that have inhibited us from doing more user testing in the past.

Related posts:

1. Test Your Site on Mobile Device Simulators
2. Design and Usability principles from the google team
3. DHTML Color Picker tool for your website

But with so many companies climbing on board to produce games, many end up with sub-par user experiences. Mark Hurst of Creative Good started a list of games with great user experiences. It’s a lengthy list of games ranging from 2005 to present. He has even taken the time to jot down if the game has a long or quick playtime.

There are of course the classics, like Hearts. But Mark has taken the time to identify his favorite version of online Hearts: Yahoo! Hearts. But Mark has also found odd games like Fishing Girl. As the site describes, in this game you get to “[r]eel in those fish one by one as you attempt to save a boy who’s trapped on the other side of the ocean.” Here’s what Mark says about this game: “Very nicely designed fishing game with a clever payoff.”

For anyone thinking of following the trend, take a look to see what sets some online games apart.

Related posts:

1. Uncle Mark’s 2009 Gift Guide for Inquisitive Minds
2. Online Behavior of Digital Moms
3. Online Music to Help You Design