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”

• BIGresearch: Dislike for Mobile Marketing Has Increased

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 138
  Flying in the face of several recent reports that argue people are becoming more comfortable with mobile marketing BIGResearch has found the opposite. According to the firm, based on surveys of more than 15,000 US adults, "the percentage of people who don’t like mobile marketing has increased": read more
  5 hours ago

• Remote control design, makes its use remote and inaccessible

  
  disassociated.com — Authority: 443
  I am yet to encounter a TV or DVD/video remote control that is intuitive to use beyond its most basic functions such as play, stop, rewind, etc. In fact it is one device whose design has so far evaded a much needed user experience (UX) makeover. I can’t tell you how many design presentations I have begun with ...
  6 hours ago

• Apple iPhone Tech Talk London 2009: iPhone User Interface DesignEssentials

  
  Expanding horizons — Authority: 133
  Eric Hope ehope@apple.com — User Interface Evangelist solve a problem clearly defined style axes: (usage) serious / fun; (content) tool / entertainment serious tool use alignment well — see address book & settings for examples avoid redundancy if a word is showing up more than once on a screen, ...
  19 hours ago

• Designing for a sustainable world

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  To celebrate World Usability Day 2009 , System Concepts has put together a video podcast exploring how different stakeholders can enhance the user experience of their designs by including sustainability as a key requirement. The interviewees include: - Professor Ben Shneiderman – User Interface guru from the ...
  19 hours ago

• Towards human-centred knowledge management tools

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Institute for the Future just released its latest research report, Knowledge Tools of the Future , written by Alex Pang and Mike Love. The report takes an in-depth look at signals, drivers, and trends shaping how organizations will utilize knowledge management in the future, particularly how humans will drive ...
  21 hours ago

• Refining my Zencart site by joshlew

  
  Pro Freelance Projects — Authority: 177
  Improvements needed to my site www.littlefishaudio.com I am looking for the website to work in a much smarter, intuitive fashion. I am open to suggestions on ways to streamline and simplify the user experience on the site… (Budget: $250-750, Jobs: SEM / Adwords, SEO, Volusion, Website Design, Zen Cart)Go to ...
  1 day ago

• Droid Eris for $50? Yes

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 138
  I was on the phone with someone talking about the Verizon Droid line and was doing some searches on the HTC "Droid" Eris and found this offer: an Eris with a new contract for $49.99. Amazing. This is a third party vendor but Im sure you can get the same deal from Verizon itself.  With that kind of pricing were in ...
  1 day ago

• The future of usability

  
  Life In The Fast Lane — Authority: 103
  On the eve of this weekend’s UX Barcamp , I thought I’d share a few thoughts I have about the future of ‘usability’ – or perhaps more specifically, the future of the ‘usability practitioner’. For the best part of a decade, I’ve been involved in New Zealand’s ‘usability’ community. I still ...
  1 day ago

• Nokia The Way We Live Next 3.0

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  The third edition of Nokia’s The Way We Live Next conference took place yesterday and today in Espoo, Finland. Nokia’s blog, Nokia Conversations , reports on a few of the keynote presentations: Nokia’s vision of the future by Heikki Norta, Nokia’s Head of Corporate Strategy Smart ecosystems sits at ...
  1 day ago

• Growth of the Mobile Web: 126M by 2013

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 138
  Emarketer has put out its forecast for the growth of mobile Web usage in the US. The company is predicting 126 million users of the "mobile Internet" (begs for definition*) by 2013 from 68.6 million today. In September comScore said there were 198,378,000 users of the PC Internet in the US. We agree with the 68 ...
  1 day ago

• Using ethnography to improve user experience

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Bonny Colville-Hyde of CX Partners has written a good introductory article on the value of ethnographic research. How can you ensure your service stands out from its competitors in the marketplace as the one people want to use? One way is to uncover how your users interact with you and find new ways to support their ...
  1 day ago

• PLM Plus User Experience Minus Complexity On Demand

  
  Daily PLM Think Tank Blog — Authority: 124
  Few publications around a new company called PLM+ , which left stealth mode this week, drove my attention. There is not much information about PLM+ product. You can take a look on Josh Mings post in SolidSmack and Al Dean publication in develop3D as well as research PLMplus web site. So, I did. PLM+ hit me to ...
  1 day ago

• Accenture says tech-driven approach to CE innovation outdated

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Consumer electronics companies must rethink the old technology-driven approach to innovation because industry convergence has made this model obsolete, claims a study by Accenture . In the converging world, “high-performance businesses in the CE industry have begun to embrace a consumer-engagement-driven model of ...
  1 day ago

• How to create a long-tail user experience

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Andrew Maier of UXBooth reflects on how to cultivate (or dissolve) a community, or in other words how to create a long-tail user experience. Websites are social creatures. Or rather, their users are. In turn, the websites you visit are tempered by the users that interact with them. Your experience with a website, ...
  1 day ago

• User stories: a strategic design tool

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Collaborative design methods play a key role in aligning team members towards a shared and strategic project vision. In this article Penny Hagen and Michelle Gilmore describe how user stories stimulate and facilitate discussion and decision making with clients in the development of a User Experience Strategy. In our ...
  1 day ago

• Droids Solid Start, Nokias Blues

  
  Internet2Go - An Opus Research Advisory Service - — Authority: 138
  Analyst polling and estimates put the Motorola Droid weekend "box office" at about 100,000 units a "good start." According to Bloomberg : read more
  2 days ago

• Google’s holiday gift to travellers in US - free airport Wi-Fi

  
  Thaindian News — Authority: 706
  San Francisco, Nov 11 (DPA) Internet giant Google is offering travellers in the US a generous gift for the holidays. The Silicon Valley company said Tuesday it would provide free Wi-Fi service at 47 major airports throughout the US until Jan 15, 2010.“We’re very happy to extend our holiday Wi-Fi gift to the ...
  2 days ago

• Provide Word-Wrap for Long and/or Rich Text Fields

  
  Salesforce IdeaExchange — Authority: 129
  Salesforce needs to provide word-wrap for these type of fields as there is usually a large amount of text entered into these fields. Unfortunately the fields stretch the display/screen the entire length of the text and distorts the SFDC view. Users have to scroll quite a while to search for the fields on the ...
  2 days ago

• Designers vs Developers: Coming together to build the best RIAs

  
  Theresa Neil — Authority: 98
  Presented on Nov 3, 2009 at Øredev in Malmo, Sweden. What is the fastest way to get from a product idea to a rich internet application? By breaking down the communication barriers between designers and developers. This talk takes a quick look at how to build a shared vocabulary and use prototyping to bypass ...
  2 days ago

• Book: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media

  
  Putting people first — Authority: 430
  Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out Kids Living and Learning with New Media (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning) An examination of young people’s everyday new media practices—including video-game playing, text-messaging, digital media production, and ...
  2 days ago

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