Someone recently asked me, “What is the most inventive thing you’ve done?†Woa. Full stop. Talk about a total brain freeze. You mean out of over 100 projects, patents, client engagements, talks, and workshops… I had to pick just one? But after only a moment’s hesitation, I realized that there was simply no debate.
#ItsNotAboutYou
“Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all,†Ancient One tells Dr. Strange. “It’s not about you.†Let me break this down into four key lessons that this particular arrogant and fearful fool had to learn the hard way.
12 Tips: “Code Smarter with UX” #DigitalIndustrial #IIoT
Video: 2-hr Sioux keynote in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Create the superior Digital Industrial UX with a Digital Twin, sparklines, applied Gestalt principles, “working graphs” with direct UI manipulation, metrics correlation for root cause analysis, and advanced data visualization.
What is the $1 Prototype Mobile Design Methodology? (Book Excerpt)
The state of your prototype must reflect the state of completion of your system. This simple guideline is also very profound. The degree of certainty in your design should be reflected in the level of completion of your prototype. The project starts with a rough storyboard which is highly uncertain and full of assumptions: no one knows if
the audience will find the product useful, if they will pay for it, or even if the product can (or should) be built.
Let Them Pee: Avoiding the Sign-Up/Sign-In Mobile Antipattern
Anything that slows down customers or gets in their way after they download your app is a bad thing. That includes sign-up/sign-in forms that show up even before potential customers can figure out if the app is actually worth using.
Three essentials of Android design DNA
For many years since its release, the Android OS has been behaving like a teenager in the grip of raging hormones. Growth has been nothing short of explosive and the changes have been sweeping and profound. With the release of Ice-Cream Sandwich OS, the UI standards and design elements have changed dramatically and the platform has really matured and even stabilized somewhat. Nevertheless, the OS has retained it’s rebellious hacker DNA with unique features that are authentically Android.
Mobile Welcome UX Antipattern: End User License Agreement (EULA)
Like the overzealous zombie cross-breed between a lawyer and a customs agent, End User License Agreements (EULAs) require multiple forms to be filled out in triplicate, while keeping the customers from enjoying the app they have so laboriously invested time and flash memory space to download.
HULT University Course: Advanced User Experience * July 2 – August 3, 2011 * San Francisco, CA
Course Description This course teaches how to create best-of-class cross-channel customer experiences on the mobile, tablet and web. Using Mobile-First design principles, students will learn the practical modern UX methods and best design approaches for each channel, with special focus on critical elements of mobile apps, search, navigation, forms and workflows. Although no technical expertise …
Digital Cream * June 19, 2012 * San Jose, California
E-Consultancy’s exclusive invitation-only roundtable event, Digital Cream San Jose is an opportunity for senior client-side digital marketers to discuss best practice and the reality of digital marketing with the industry’s ‘cream of the crop’.
The event is designed to help you meet your peers and learn from each other about the latest best practice, what’s working and what’s not.
It’s a ‘hands-on’ participatory event: you will network and learn through discussion, roundtables and debate. Attend FREE as my guest by subscribing to Mobile and Tablet Design Secrets.
Cross Channel UX Elements Framework
The Cross Channel UX Elements framework is a practical design tool you can use to create “Magic Moments†of flow and delight for your customers across the different channels in a more deliberate fashion, rather than arriving at great designs only through occasional happenstance.
Mobile Magic Moments: Transform the Trivial
When mobile or tablet design is executed well, the device feels like the extension of our bodies. Because interfaces respond even before we consciously give them a command. Often, the interface “dissolves in behavior†and we feel empowered, as though the device we hold in our hand is the equivalent of Iron Man’s suit of cybernetic armor, or Batman’s utility belt. I call this empowering experience a “Magic Momentâ€.
Virtual Seminar: Cross-Channel Design: Magic Mobile Moments
Why do some million-dollar apps fail, while simple apps like Instagram make billions? The answer is “Magic Moments”. And on May 16th, the author of best-selling book “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success” will show you how to create “Magic Moments” in your own Mobile and Tablet apps.
NOTE: Not for beginners. The Expert Strategy(TM) Series is aimed at mastery of advanced design principles.
Don’t Put a QR Code on Your Business Card
… until you read this article. I had a QR code on my business card for years, and studied how to engage people after the initial QR Code scan, and how to drive tangible value. Here I will reveal everything I learned about using QR Codes for personal and social connection, including using special formats like MECARD, and the secrets of linking to Twitter, LinkedIn, blog posts and custom landing pages.
Why we don’t do mobile usability tests (and neither should you)
In my experience, mobile usability tests, as they are popularly conducted, are a waste of time and resources and in vast majority of cases fail to lead to creation a better mobile product. Instead, I conduct RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) studies: the only methodology that I’ve actually experienced in the real life yielding more delightful, usable and successful mobile products in less time.
IA Summit * March 21 – 25, 2012 * New Orleans, Louisiana
Cross-Channel Search: Design Approaches for Mobile and Tablet
The rise of smartphones and tablets is an unprecedented opportunity for all kinds of search to escape traditional limits and become the single best way to access information. In context. Real-time. Come hear practical tips for designing search with tap-ahead, geo-location, still image and video input, voice and unprecedented personalization… While juggling crushing constraints: limited screen real estate, fat fingers, spotty connections, multi-tasking and shortened attention span. From the author of “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Success” (Wiley, 2011).
Mobile Websites, Tablet Apps and Hybrids: 7 Mobile Strategy Tips for 2012
Sites like YouTube and Facebook are already projecting mobile use to surpass desktop use as early as *this year*. What’s your mobile and tablet strategy? Allow me to humbly present the wisdom I got from the experience of walking the last 365 miles. Barefoot. In the snow. Uphill both ways.
Is Your UI Causing Zero Search Results Pages?
“Designing from Zero” – how to analyze UI challenges that are often the hidden cause of zero-results pages as a catalyst for creating powerful, original design solutions that create customer delight and business revenue.
Practical Ecommerce Search: UX Strategies for Success
I wrote the definitive book on the subject: “Designing Search: UX Strategies for eCommerce Successâ€. In this workshop, I help you understand and create a cross-channel digital search strategy and show you how to improve the search experience through practical, intuitive interface design patterns that create 10X or more in ROI.
Do Any Corporate Cultures Truly Embrace UX?
People often ask me if there are companies “out there” that truly embrace UX. In my experience, not one company I ever worked at was truly customer-centric. While some companies might say they are in their mission statement and even hire lots of designers/UX people, companies are only truly committed to one single thing: making …
Experience Partners: Giving Center Stage to Customer Delight
In this article I propose the concept of Experience Partners as a whole new way of thinking about our customers as partners in holistic product experiences. Experience Partners reflects an emerging paradigm shift from a focus on product features to instead conceptualizing holistic product experiences, and embodies our best understanding of how to design products that create delight and become integral, harmonious parts of people’s lives.