Must-Read Blog: UIE Brain Sparks
Designing a good user interface seems to be part intuition, part magic, and part focus group. How do you even know if you’ve got your user interface right?
These were some of the issues I was struggling with, on a project some 8 months ago, when I discovered User Interface Engineering. Unlike most think tanks, UIE publishes papers that are enjoyable to read and useful. If you attend local user-group meetings, you may have seen Jared Spool, Christine Perfetti, or Joshua Porter give an engaging talk on Web 2.0 or some other topic. (I recently saw one of Josh’s talks. I have to admit, however, that I went out of my way to attend, having recognized his name on the announcement.)
Anyway, back to my story. Imagine my pleasure when I then discovered their blog, UIE Brain Sparks. I began reading it religiously, and just tuning into the discussions there helped me understand the user-interface issues (which are a type of marketing issue) that had me stymied. Brain Sparks quickly became and has remained one of my must-read blogs.
Some recent posts include:
- Mommy, Where Do Trigger Words Come From? “Trigger words are the words or phrases on a web page that trigger the user into acting.” If you know your user’s trigger words, you can design a powerful and easy-to-use web site. But how do you know what your user’s trigger words are? And how do you know what they mean?
- Microsoft’s New Strategy for iPod’s Market Share. “Any competitor to Apple is going to need something more than a device with better technology. They are going to need a better experience.”
- Building and Managing a Successful User Experience Team. (article) “Producing a usable design takes time, money, and resources. It also requires the User Experience team’s dedication to focus on customer needs throughout the entire design process. Knowing how to identify and communicate the value of a User Experience project will substantially help it get approved and supported by an organization. Most organizations we work with understand the need for UX efforts, yet they still struggle with how to best incorporate the team into the development process.”
Check out UIE Brain Sparks.
-TimK
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