Dan Keldsen's Library tagged usability →  View Popular, Search in Google

Whether you have mockups, sketches, images or real webpages, you can do remote usability testing. Glad to see this market coming alive - it's been a long time coming!

Found via appsumo offer.

usability testing ux tools usabilla tool prototyping mockup wireframe webdesign

Between Customer Development (Lean Startup) work, and Usability/User Experience testing lately, I'm more involved that ever in making useful interactions a reality.
Looking at usabilla as a possible feedback mechanism to give feedback that's not purely analytics driven, to balance out reports.

research usability testing usabilla

Between Customer Development (Lean Startup) work, and Usability/User Experience testing lately, I'm more involved that ever in making useful interactions a reality.
Looking at ethn.io as a possible panel-driven source for upcoming work to feed into other services, phone call interviews, etc.

research recruiting usability testing intercept ethnio

Between Customer Development (Lean Startup) work, and Usability/User Experience testing lately, I'm more involved that ever in making useful interactions a reality.

Looking at UserTesting as a possible panel-driven source for upcoming work.

usability testing ux usertesting tools

Interesting collection of tips, suggestions and techniques. I'm a bit bothered that some of the ideas appear to be completely untested - where's the before and after comparison of improved usability/user experience? It's not just about the look, folks.

usability webdesign login signup design form

Impressive collection of presentations from Luke. Caught the 90 minute edition of his Mobile First presentation at User Interface 15 in Boston. Absolutely agree with his approach. Mobile first helps to undo some of the damage that infinite screenspace on the desktop has done to UI/UX.

design ideation lukew ui UX user_experience usability presentations

Why re-invent? Examine a collection of existing design patterns that others have already winnowed, and steal, er, learn from working models.

webdesign web2.0 webdev design reference library ideas patterns graphics ux web inspiration showcase gallery usability Interface

Amazon reviews mark this as well worth it. Definitely relates to a very complex project we're working on that needs a whole lot of re-thinking towards simplicity. Have not yet read the PDF. Full version available here, free. Book is out of print.

"High-tech products have historically had notoriously poor design. Fortunately, companies have recently started to embrace user-centered design practices. This transition hasn't been smooth; many companies have difficulty transferring good design into final, shippable product. There is a political/cultural disconnect between the outward corporate desire for good design and the internal corporate culture that implements it. The Simplicity Shift is about moving the company culture to value, discover and implement simplicity, and to create a well-designed product.

This is the entire book as a large PDF (approximately 2MB), it was published 2002 by Cambridge University Press but is no longer in print."

design scott_jenson usability simplicity design_thinking

Interestng walkthru on various design patterns for the UI of portals.

design ui portal usability informationarchitecture information_architecture IA

Collection of a variety of IA tools from the IA Institute. Some social feedback on this collection would be might useful - and find it hard to believe that most of these artifacts haven't evolved since being posted between 1-7 years ago.

usability tools architecture wireframes resources IA information_architecture informationarchitecture

prototyping sketchflow dynamic informationarchitecture ia usability user_experience UX chris_bernard sara_summers

Flash-less, web-based application for wireframes. More options than ever in this space. Getting Enterprise designers/developers to actually use them? Priceless. (But be prepared to defend against "let's just build the full working site/app - that's the 'real test'" discussion...)

mockup wireframe mockingbird wireframes webdesign design tools web IA informationarchitecture usability ux

Example of usability testing using Loop11, and sourcing testers via Mechanical Turk.

usability website airline loop11 crowdsourcing

Create what LOOKS like paper prototypes. Interesting integration into various wiki platforms as a way to connect documentation code and the prototypes supporting them.

wireframe webdesign tools UI prototyping mockup mockups usability

Paper prototyping come to life. Interesting concept. Makes "distant paper prototyping" a reality.

mocklinkr prototyping mockups usability

Uh oh - another Facebook Beacon scenario in the making. This article is getting a LOT of heated commentary. This has to be the biggest stumble Google has made in the social realm, and perhaps in all of their online activities.

Interestingly, one person mentions that their Gmail account in the UK does not have the default-on options. Lines up with what we're finding the in the Enterprise 2.0 EU Privacy report we're publishing shortly. Personal/social data in the EU is tricky business.

google buzz privacy defaults usability transparency

From 2008, but interesting observations.

11 innovation lessons from creators of World of Warcraft:
1. RELY ON CRITICS
2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT
3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
4. GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
6. THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT FAILURES
7. MOVE QUICKLY, IN PIECES
8. STATISTICS BOLSTER EXPERIENCE
9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU’LL GET MEDIOCRITY
10. CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT
11. OFFER EMPLOYEES SOMETHING EXTRA

innovation management software World of Warcraft blizzard strategy success agile usability voice of customer six sigma

Interesting - very interesting take on the failures of over automation and complex systems... Anyone with more experience than I in flying or designing such systems care to comment?

See -> The Paradox of ‘Simplicity’

"Air France Flight 447 went down in a giant, dangerous, violent storm that might not have been survivable under any circumstances. But as the Airbus A-330 penetrated that huge system of thunderstorms, sensors, systems and computers on the plane started failing in a rapid cascade that would make any pilot’s head spin – even if he was not in the middle of extreme turbulence flying blind in the night..."

simplicity usability complexity failure

Just stumbled onto this - a series of "trading cards" relating to usability, IA, etc..

One in particular caught my eye, it describes "Baskcasting" where teams work from an ideal future state, and work backwards to the current state. Smells a lot like TRIZ (the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), and "Ideality." The more I think about future/backward approaches, the more sense it makes to me.

backcasting nform TRIZ ideality future-state current-state cards usability IA information_architecture

Continuing in my usability frame of mind of late, reminds me that many people have no idea what "low fidelity" prototyping is.

I met Carolyn Synder at a Boston UPA event a year or two ago, and while I have not (yet!) read her book on Paper Prototyping, I've read some great reviews.

She provides a list of the needed office supplies to execute paper prototyping on this page, and while you're there, take a peek at some of the example content from the book, checklists, etc..

paper_prototyping prototyping low_fidelity_prototyping carolyn_snyder usability testing