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”

• Why Swype When You Can Speak?

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 136
  Theres a lot of hype around Swype (sorry, couldnt resist). Swype is a text input methodology that is apparently easier than conventional typing; I havent used it so I cant comment from personal experience. read more
  23 hours ago

• Philips Releases new SpeechMike Air dictation device

  
  Desinformado.com — Authority: 441
  Philips Electronics today announced SpeechMike Air, the first wireless model of the company’s PC dictation device, is now available for purchase. The release of SpeechMike Air expands Philips’ line of digital dictation devices and provides users with the flexibility to dictate wirelessly. The latest product in ...
  1 day ago

• The Engadget Show – 003: Drew Bamford, Joystiq’s Chris Grant, Adamo XPS, and lots of game demos

  
  F-Default — Authority: 542
  This is a big one, folks. The new installment of The Engadget Show is jam-packed with goodness. First up, Josh sits down with HTC’s director of user experience Drew Bamford to discuss Android, Sense, Windows Mobile and a whole lot more. Read more from the original source: The Engadget Show – 003: Drew Bamford, ...
  1 day ago

• Teracent + AdMob: Dynamic Mobile Display Ads

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 136
  About an hour ago Google announced that it was buying a company called Teracent. Teracent provides display advertisers with the ability to create different versions of ads based on a range of creative elements and ad copy. The technology behind the platform appears pretty sophisticated. read more
  1 day ago

• Google Makes Mobile Coupon Push

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 136
  Google has had a big opportunity in local coupons that it has largely neglected perhaps until now. But now Google is making a push into mobile distribution of local coupons for small businesses. read more
  1 day ago

• Qwest and Herff Jones make CIO Top 100

  
  Anthony's Blog — Authority: 100
  Congrats to our team and our good friends at Qwest for making CIO Magazine’s Top 100 IT Projects list of 2009.Excerpt from the online article at both InfoWorld and CIO Magazine:Qwest Communications www.qwest.com/business Web Portal Project lead: Rick Wertheimer, Program Manager; Betsy Keyes, Director of ...
  1 day ago

• Interview with Freelance UI Designer & Developer Tanya Merone

  
  CMD+SHIFT DESIGN BLOG: Seattle Web Designer, Freelancer, Blogger and big time Internet Nerd! — Authority: 464
  Last month, I was listed in a post on Line 25 called 40 Amazing Female Role Models in Web Design — crazy , i know! I was pretty excited to be included on such a list of kick ass ladies, including a couple I’d already interviewed for this blog, including Niki Brown and Krissy Gogel . From this list, I let ...
  1 day ago

• What would Sally do? Personas for retail financial services

  
  dancingmango — Authority: 400
  Personas are ‘pen portraits’ that bring to life users or customers of a system, service or product.  Giving a personality and back story to your customers helps keep your thinking true to their real needs and goals.  Rather than using  ‘user’ or a segment descriptor such as ‘empty nester’, or ‘this is ...
  1 day ago

• So you wanna be a user experience designer — Step 2: Guiding Principles

  
  Pleasure and Pain — Authority: 112
  [This is part of a series titled So You Wanna Be a User Experience Designer . Check out the previous post, Step 1: Resources ] Five months ago I wrote a post titled, “ So you wanna be a user experience designer ,” in which I gathered all of the resources in my UX arsenal: publications and blogs, books, local ...
  1 day ago

• Redesigning Firefox’s Addons Manager

  
  Boriss' Blog — Authority: 388
  When I ask Firefox users why they love Firefox, the answer often isn’t because of Firefox. Rather, it’s a particular Firefox add-on that provides functionality that has become invaluable to users. From developer add-ons like Firebug to social add-ons like StumbleUpon, a single add-on can fundamentally change how ...
  2 days ago

• Watch Moshe Safdie’s “What makes a Building unique?” talk at TED

  
  { design@tive } information design — Authority: 130
  Looking back over his long career, architect Moshe Safdie delves into four of his design projects and explains how he labored to make each one truly unique for its site and its users. Moshe Safdie’s master’s thesis quickly became a cult building: his modular “Habitat” apartments for Montreal Expo 67 . ...
  2 days ago

• Article Title Unknown

  
  VVORK — Authority: 137
  “Interactive Infrasonic Installation”, 2007-2008 by Reinhard Gupfinger combines a 250-inch long organ pipe, a wind generator and a video-tracking interface for multi-user interaction. Pace and direction of the movements of users create a variable subsonic environment.
  2 days ago

• Google To Add Sidebar

  
  Gadget News and Reviews — Authority: 165
  While Google is doing quite well (to say the least) with its search business, it’s great to see that Google is still paying attention to details and willing to try out new stuff. Google’s vice president of search product and user experience has said that Google will soon start analyzing a new permanent sidebar on ...
  3 days ago

• Inspiring: A Peek at the Future of Interactive Storytelling!

  
  I2fly — Authority: 113
  “I was completely blown away by this video the first time through. Such a simple, low-tech, solution produces such an amazingly rich, engaging experience that’s just bursting with possibility for further creativity. While it’s just a concept at this point, you can see how it can make a new kind of storytelling ...
  3 days ago

• When the Mayor Can’t be Found

  
  SensoryMetrics — Authority: 123
  Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Facebook
  3 days ago

• Microsoft: Silverlight will a oeOptimize Everywherea

  
  Linux/Unix News - motd.ambians.com — Authority: 165
  Microsoft wants Silverlight to be optimized for every platform that it runs on, said Brian Goldfarb, director of developer and user experience platforms at Microsoft, during an interview at the companys Professional Developers Conference on Wednesday .
  3 days ago

• Usability in enterprise Apps: Workday 9

  
  Next Gen Enterprise — Authority: 130
  Usability in Enterprise Applications I recently saw a video of Workday 9 , and was not impressed with the apparent usability of one of the highly touted features of this release. I tweeted my impression, and got a quick and friendly response from the team at Workday. They didnt complain about my bias or lack of ...
  3 days ago

• Typographic howlers

  
  CyberText Newsletter — Authority: 129
  We’ve all heard of or seen the bloopers and technology howlers in movies (like the guy wearing a watch in a chariot scene from Ben Hur). In fact, there are TV shows, websites, blogs etc. dedicated to the science and technology portrayed in movies and how correct (or not) they are compared to real life. Movie ...
  3 days ago

• #UXMove: So long DC, Hello Philly, Jersey & NYC

  
  erova notebook — Authority: 100
  After 9 years in and around Washington DC, I’ve decided to uproot myself and my family and relocate to New Jersey in December for a number of personal and professional reasons. From a professional perspective, I’m beginning a long-term consulting position as a UX Strategist with a major pharmaceutical company to ...
  4 days ago

• 18 Impressive Web Form Validation Scripts to Enhance User Experience

  
  DesignBump - Published news — Authority: 448
  Forms are such a common element on the Internet we tend to blunder through them without too much thought. However, if the web site has added a few nice touches that make the process easier, it tends to speed up the process and reduce any frustration, hence i’ve collected these 18 Impressive Web Form Validation ...
  4 days ago

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