American Banker

The Biggest Mistakes Banks Make in Mobile App Design by Penny Crosman, Jan 21, 2014

What are the biggest mistakes all app developers, but especially bank app developers, make?
How can banks make their mobile apps more competitive?

UserTesting.com

Interview with Greg Nudelman: Celebrate Fragmentation, Search is Dead & When to Not Build Apps
August 22, 2013

The name of the webinar you participated in is “Secrets of Mobile Success.” Without rehashing the whole webinar, can you give us some keys to success in mobile?
What are the obstacles preventing the vast majority of people from doing mobile apps well?
What are some examples of apps that you think are really doing it well right now?
How do companies decide between a responsive site, a mobile site, or a native app?
What is the landscape currently for search on mobile? Is it getting better?
The knock on Android is always fragmentation. In your book you say “celebrate fragmentation.” Can you explain that?
What is it that most excites you about the future of mobile development?

AndroidPolice.com

International Giveaway: Win One Of Ten Android Design Patterns Books From Wiley And Android Police
August 2, 2013

Congratulations to the winners who posted the best Android design questions:
Ezhik
DavidW
Ron Lamb
bertraze
mainAymard
Vaqueiro Ferreira Filho
kerjani
RoshanKarki
Vu Viet Anh
Anthony Restaino

Digital Journal

Via PRWEB.COM Newswire June 12, 2012
Topix CEO To Keynote Digital Cream San Jose on June 19

Digital Cream San Jose, by invitation only, will be held on June 19 at the San Jose Marriott. It has been designed as a “hands-on,” participatory event for industry leaders to determine the future of the industry. Each roundtable will be moderated and focuses on a specific topic, but the agendas will be determined by the participating delegates.

Event roundtables will feature Customer Experience & Conversion; Ecommerce Optimization and Attribution Modeling…Mobile Apps; Mobile Commerce; Online Conversion Rate & Optimization … SEO; Social Media; Web Analytics.

Moderators will include: …Greg Nudelman, Principal, DesignCaffiene, Inc.

Attendees will include top marketing executives from companies such as Apple, Bosch, Siemens, Cisco, Flixster, Franklin Templeton Investments, GUESS?, Harper One Publishers, HP, macys.com, Nature’s Best, Nokia, Shutterfly, Skype, and Snapfish.

Econsultancy is partnering with the following organizations to hold Digital Cream San Jose: CMO Council, DMA, BMA of Northern California, Mobile Marketing Association, and CMSwire.

Sponsors include EngageSciences, Maxymiser, SLI Systems, Slingshot SEO, Visual IQ and Yesmail Interactive.

Wired

May 11, 2012, by Damon Lavrinc
Why Flipping Through Paper-Like Pages Endures in the Digital World

“While largely abandoned on the iPhone, the page flip is alive and well in many iPad apps. Why? Because it works in the context of the task and the context of larger device. Page flip is a spectacular transition. It’s classy. It works well for magazine browsing book reading and other media consumption tasks, because it mimics the real world so well. Larger devices invite larger, more natural gestures, like swiping the page, especially if swiping is accompanied by a very responsive real-time interface representation of the page being flipped.

However, on smaller devices, such as iPhone, the transition never took off. Sure, people though iBooks was pretty slick, and a few of them did try the swipe transition for page flipping and even showed to their friends. Unfortunately, the screen size on the iPhone is simply too small to comfortably accommodate the swipe gesture necessary to convey the magic and physicality of the digital device acting as a magazine or book. Instead, people quickly learned to simply tap the corner of the screen as a shortcut to go to the next page, without physically ‘flipping’ the page by swiping it, loosing the charm and physically in the process. Also, the whole page flipping transition quickly became rather tedious. Pages on the iPhone are very small, and the overly frequent page flip transition quickly became distracting and cumulative effect of many transitions in the same reading session was rather time-consuming (or at least perceived that way). It was much more efficient and less disorienting to simply scroll down (Safari app) or slide (Kindle app) for more content.

If you look at my Cross-Channel UX Elements framework, you will see the multi-touch row (swipe) and screen size row that can be used to describe this dependency and why the page flip is more pertinent for large devices such as iPad, which can also house larger multi-touch gestures comfortably.” [more].

IATV Radio Berlin

March 04, 2012
Show 008 – Push It Nationwide

I speak with the awesome Jan Jursa from IATV Radio about designing from zero as a design and business philosophy, 3 deadly sins of zero results pages, mobile UX design strategy and Agile light-weight mobile design process. In addition to IATV, Jan also runs MobX, the premiere mobile conference in Europe. Here’s a small sample:

“The biggest challenge with Agile UX is that people feel that they are giving up control. People don’t know what’s going to happen when the process is time-bound, not deliverable bound. Increasingly, the reality we designers are facing, is that Agile teams want to code right away. User Experience tactics need to adopt along the same lines. We need to create lighter processes that no longer require 3-6 months for research and prototyping before any coding is done. In my work, I’ve been successfully using light-weight prototyping using post it notes that approximate the shape of a smart phone… it allows you to test the natural interaction with the device using motion and a meat pointer and is very easy to fix and update… We also have to get away from traditional 2-hour usability testing sessions. If it takes more than 15 minutes to test your process and you are planning to deploy it on mobile, you have to rethink your process. Agile is an opportunity to get to the core of what it means to design, what it means to have empathy toward your customer, what it means to have focus on them, from the standpoint of meeting them where they are using technology and understanding how they are going to go about doing this task…” [more (Interview starts at about 14:10)].

Aim Clear Blog

November 16th 2011, by Merry Morud
Does SEO Conflict with User-Friendly Websites? #SESChi

Grand Takeaways:

• Panda (Google’s new search algorithm) and humans do agree on a few things
• When they disagree, pay attention!
• Don’t forget user experience for humans AND pandas
• Panda does require some consideration as a “demographic”
• [more]

Practical eCommerce

November 3, 2011, by Jill Kocher
Does SEO Conflict with User-Friendly Websites?

Jill Kocher: “Google’s series of Panda algorithm updates focused primarily on site quality signals, such as unique, high-quality content. How do user experience strategies help send higher site quality signals to the search engines?”

Greg Nudelman: “…Interestingly enough, many accessibility recommendations also tend to ease issues for search engine robots. For example, when it comes to introducing sliders, Flex and other fancy user interface controls, accessibility suffers at the same time as SEO. And we find that simply throwing some fancy elements at the user interface often creates more problems than it solves, even for folks that do not require improved accessibility. For that reason, many etailers like Amazon will occasionally flirt with fancy user interface controls, but almost always revert back to standard HTML controls — like links and checkboxes… The Panda ranking factor itself arms a usability professional with the argument that a website should not totally compromise its usability for the latest fad in ranking factors — not only because it stinks for users, but also because various aspects of usability are judged indirectly as part of Panda. Pointing that out might not ease the tension between Search engine optimization and usability immediately, but it’s certainly a valid argument.” [more].

Wired

September 30, 2011, by Christina Bonnington
How the Kindle Fire Could Make 7-Inch Tablets Huge

“From the standpoint of the interface design, it’s a mistake to think of larger iPad-sized tablets and their mini-counterparts the same way. The ergonomics of each device are fairly different. Most mini-tablets (as are most smartphones) can usually be held in one hand, while multi-tasking or literally on the move, while holding on to the overhead bar in the Metro car. One-handed mini-tablet operation is possible because the device is lightweight and a typical adult can reach most of the controls on the screen with their right thumb, while holding the device in the same hand. It makes sense then for designers to optimize the touch controls accordingly for a one-handed operation. Even in most games, milti-touch interface controls on the mini-tablet are also somewhat limited to a smaller sub-set of touch gestures (such as a simple swipe) that can be comfortably executed on a small screen. Instead, accelerometer-driven controls such as shaking, tilting and rotating the entire device are called upon to shoulder some of the interaction complexity.” [more].

Fluid Blog

August 2nd, 2011, by Matt Sugihara
Book Review: Designing Search by Greg Nudelman

“Nudelman’s take on design for the iPad is spot on… He addresses everything from current use cases and ergonomics… to future and innovative uses for the newborn platform. Anyone new to designing for tablets would do well to pick up a copy for that section alone.” [more].

UXmatters

July 4, 2011, By Kristina Mausser
UX Strategies for Ecommerce Success: A Conversation with Greg Nudelman

Did you know that there are big profits to be made from no-search-results pages? Have you ever considered that your customers’ search results—rather than the products you offer for sale on your site—have the potential to make or break sales online? I hadn’t, until I read Greg Nudelman’s book, Designing Search: UX Strategies for Ecommerce Success.

As businesses strive to reach the elusive brass ring of the ultimate ecommerce experience—replicating the success of the customer-centric shopping experiences of the bricks-and mortar-world—Nudelman’s book can definitely help them to get closer to their business goals. I recently caught up with Greg to discuss his book, which covers ecommerce site search across desktop and mobile platforms. [more]

UIE: User Interface Engineering

May 1st, 2011, by Pete Bell, CEO of Endeca, co-author, Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success
Search as a Multi-channel Experience

Pete Bell: “Multi-channel no longer just means online and brick and mortar. Even web-only stores need to consider mobile and call center. Each channel brings its own expectations to search… Your users’ expectations of search features vary according to the context of the channel. They expect mobile to be location-aware, and in-store kiosks to be inventory-aware. They expect online to be optimized for a big screen, and mobile for a small one. And they expect the store to know which channel they used… Much of the seminar description above comes from a piece Pete wrote for Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success, authored by Greg Nudelman.” [more].