These are strange and stressful times. Most of us have been confined in our homes. The isolation is starting to wear on us. We worry about the health of ourselves and the people we hold dear. On top of that,…
Usability testing with kids
Last year I worked on a prototype developed for young kids in the age of 5 to 8.
I did a lot of prototype testing during the process, and I’m going to share my experiences about that in this post.
We need to rethink affordances in interface design
Yesterday David Arno tweeted this:
“Use proper affordances — buttons should look like buttons” Why? How often do ppl press physical buttons compared with hitting touch areas? (source).
David hits the nail on the head. A touch area should look like a touch area – the button term in the “tactile transferred to touchscreen” is redundant. It’s redundant because the tactile button itself is pretty much extinct. Sure, there are physical buttons on kitchen devices etc., but many, many buttons today are placed on a digital interface.
Two thumbs up for gotoAndSki(‘Switzerland’)
I’m fresh back from a short trip to the Swiss Alps where I had the privilege of speaking at the gotoAndSki conference.
The conference took place in the little town of Stechelberg in the middle of the Alps, and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking.
An epiphany: Usability testing on high fidelity prototypes
I love usability testing. There is something extremely rewarding and challenging about interacting with actual users who will show you what works and what doesn’t.
And so, I was very excited to hear the last talk at the Future of Webdesign, the amazing conference I participated in recently. The talk was by Dan Rubin – and it absolutely blew me away. I had never thought to approach usability testing this way, so I’m very excited to share my epiphany with you.
FOWD #5: Dan Rubin on high fidelity usability testing
Dan Rubin – Blending usability testing with interface design, prototyping and rapid iteration
Dan’s talk was the last one of the conference for me – and he absolutely blew me away. He took us through a project he had been involved with where they had used something called inherent value testing and high fidelity prototypes.
FOWD #4: Aral Balkan on Emotional Design
Aral Balkan – the art of emotional design
Aral’s energy on stage is contagious, and it was a true delight to hear his talk.
I can’t summarise everything he talked about (because I was busy listening instead of taking notes :), but in short, what Aral said was:
FOWD #3: Simon Collison on Webdesign in 2012
Simon Collison – what webdesign will look like in 2012
Simon walked us through his own subjective views on how webdesign will lool in 2 years. His main point were:
FOWD #2: Paul Boag on 5 skills for webdesigners
Paul Boag – 5 new skills every webdesigner must know
Paul’s talk was highly inspirational, fun and provocative.
One of Paul’s statements that I really liked and agreed with was this: For most webdesigners, being a specialist is not an option. You need to be a generalist – because your clients will expect you to help them in many different areas.
FOWD #1: Sarah Parmenter on iPhone interface design
Sarah Parmenter – 10 tips for iPhone interface design
Sarah gave us a thorough walk through of her 10 tips. Her talk was extremely useful, and I can’t wait to watch it again when I receive the conference video.