User experience

From a design and development standpoint, user experience is the applied practice of making technology accessible. From an end-user's standpoint, user experience determines how well elements such as layout, graphics, feature hierarchy and navigation combine to make a technology usable and painless.

As with any design practice applied to technology, user experience is a blend of both science and art. While drawing on scientific principles from the fields of cognitive psychology and human computer interaction, the creation of a positive user experiences requires both empathy and aesthetic sensibilities.

As technology becomes increasingly complex, so does the application of good user experience practices become more vital. Apple's continued success in the marketplace serves as an example that success need not hinge on superior hardware, but on the ability to imbue complex technologies with positive, personally rewarding user experiences.

User experience is also a major factor in the blogging and social media spheres: as the quantity, variety and interconnectedness of information increases, so does the importance of good user experience design in making said information more easily accessible. As information sharing becomes increasingly commoditized, the user experience of an online service can become its key differentiator.

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Latest blogosphere posts tagged “User experience”

• Survey: Developers Unhappy with Android Apps Performance

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 134
  Skyhook Wireless, which supplies location positioning to chipmakers, mobile hardware OEMs and apps publishers, published (.pdf) the results of an October survey of 30 mobile app developers. This is a follow-up of sorts to an early 2009 developer survey by Skyhook that sought to assess developer interest levels in ...
  4 hours ago

• Add a new standard Status field to Accounts & Contacts object

  
  Salesforce IdeaExchange — Authority: 133
  As a Consultant were often asked by clients "What is the best way to manage Contacts that move from one company to another?". We dont recommend deleting records nor do we recommend moving the Contact to the new Account because of the historical information. What we recommend is a Status (Active/Inactive)field. ...
  7 hours ago

• Apple to Take iPhone Maps Away from Google?

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 134
  The "tension" between Google and Apple is now well known. Indeed, Android and the iPhone are direct competitors (as are Apple and Google in several other contexts now) and Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned (or perhaps was ousted by Steve Jobs) from the Apple board a few months ago. read more
  13 hours ago

• Search-dropdown Hybrid Box

  
  Usability Post — Authority: 470
  Here’s an interesting interface element: a search and a drop-down menu in one. Search boxes now use dropdowns for live results and suggested searches but here it’s used as a basic navigation menu, combined with an ability to just type and search for what you want. This is from  Giraffe Restaurants website by  ...
  16 hours ago

• Podcast interview with Gerry Gaffney

  
  Column Two — Authority: 423
  The Step Two team have been very busy recently across every possible medium. Having been in the US for a week at KMWorld, I’ve fallen hopelessly behind in sharing all this. So this will be the first of a series of posts over the coming week that highlights our outputs… To start: I was interviewed by Gerry Gaffney ...
  1 day ago

• Roll-up Summary field for Lookup Relationship

  
  Salesforce IdeaExchange — Authority: 133
  There should be ability to Create Roll-up summary fields using Lookup Relationships. This can be helpful in Summarizing totals of records in Related List of records. Currently the ability of Roll-up fields is Supported Only by Master-Detail relationship but this ability also comes with a drawback and compulsion of ...
  1 day ago

• Understand Google Adwords - Killer Tips

  
  Internet Marketing Solutions — Authority: 492
  get out Adwords, must Google not simple you easily struggling a Google is Google reward do the the you the you in. Relevancy: So forget is they Google [...]
  1 day ago

• Microsoft enables Silverlight video streaming to iPhones

  
  Family Learning Center — Authority: 162
  [IMG: http://www.family-learning-center.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/01fa1_silverlight_video_iphone-thumb-230x130-10116-f.png]
  2 days ago

• scheduled report: do NOT send if no result returned

  
  Salesforce IdeaExchange — Authority: 133
  It would be nice to NOT send the scheduled report when there is no result returned from the report. For example, my boss wants a daily report on all closed lost opportunities. A lot of times this report returns nothing so it is not useful to send such. Or if we can filter it in the scheduling setting: send only when ...
  3 days ago

• Designing for Inaccuracy?

  
  UserGlue UserBlog — Authority: 92
  I know it might come across as crazy, but I think there’s something to be said about designing for inaccuracy. And, of course, someone else has already probably thought of this and there’s a fancy (or simple) name for it.  That’s okay; it’s on my mind and I’d like to rattle it out. The Back Story The ...
  3 days ago

• Webpage download speed, usability and search engine optimization

  
  Website usability + Internet marketing blog — Authority: 110
  Your webpage download speed will now most likely effect your rankings in google search engine results pages. Google’s new algorithm has shown to penalize webpages with slow download speed. Slow... Website usability, search engine optimization and social media marketing each contribute to a website’s ease-of-use. ...
  3 days ago

• Case Study: The Real-Time Web at the New York Times & EnjoysThings

  
  Family Learning Center — Authority: 162
  [IMG: http://www.family-learning-center.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/4adcf_rtwreportcoverfinal.jpg]
  4 days ago

• What’s New Today in Apple Patent-land: Touchy sound effects

  
  SensoryMetrics — Authority: 120
  Today’s feature Apple patent application is number 20090292993: Graphical User Interface Having Sound Effects For Operating Control Elements and Dragging Objects Abstract Systems and methods for providing an enhanced auditory behavior to a graphical user interface are described. Control elements portrayed by ...
  4 days ago

• Why SketchFlow is not a mockup software

  
  CodeClimber — Authority: 112
  After almost one year of using Balsamiq I decided to give Blend SketchFlow a try. After using it in one project, I realized it’s not a sketching/mockup tool. And here I’m telling you why. My definition of a sketching/mockup tool I think a sketching/mockup tool should be a replacement for sketching on ...
  4 days ago

• Je Tue Un Ami.comI’ve seen this web viral website...

  
  6ix Passions — Authority: 136
  Je Tue Un Ami.com I’ve seen this web viral website experience a while ago, but forgot to talk about it here. I’ve seen it back today and I enjoyed killing my colleagues again by Internet. The concept is simple: choose your murderer, upload the picture of your friend, and see him/her being killed by your ...
  4 days ago

• Email will never die!! Long Live Google Wave ;-)

  
  SensoryMetrics — Authority: 120
  Ok, so Wave is either the ultimate replacement for email or just a new tool to use for communication; not that different from instant messaging, Skype or Facebook. Truth is it depends on what you use your email for. If you like writing emails now, you will no doubt continue on using email. On the other hand if ...
  5 days ago

• SeatGeek

  
  One Day, One Job — Authority: 130
  Last spring when sports fans on the North Side of Chicago were still hopeful, Amy and I decided that we wanted to go to a Cubs game. It was the day of the game, and we didn’t have tickets. We checked out StubHub, and saw some pretty good prices, but we decided that waiting would get us even better prices. We waited. ...
  5 days ago

• Heretical Ideas – Stop Using Wireframes

  
  Man with no Blog — Authority: 100
  Over the years I have been trying to implement UX design tools and techniques into my day-to-day production cycle.   This would be very simple if all my projects where large ones with moderate size teams.   However business reality is that this is not often the case.  The projects I tend to work on, as an ...
  5 days ago

• A WiFi wonderland in the sky… and on the ground!

  
  WORDPRESS-TEMPLATES-PLUGINS-RSS — Authority: 145
  A WiFi wonderland in the sky… and on the ground! The holiday season is always about connecting with friends, family… and the web. During the holidays in particular, the web brings us closer to others through the email we send, YouTube videos we share, gifts we buy, holiday music we listen to and charitable ...
  5 days ago

• Emblaze’s First Else unveiled in London, promises to be a game-changer

  
  F-Default — Authority: 514
    Folks, today might be the day when you start to notice how ancient our smartphones have become, even if they only came out in last few months. Blame Else (formerly Emblaze Mobile ) for their confusingly-named First Else, a phone “built from scratch” over the last two years and now powered by Access Linux ...
  6 days ago

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