Adactio: Links

A Digital Tomorrow on Vimeo

A design fiction video depicting technology that helps and hinders in equal measure.

URLs are for people, not computers

Yes, yes, yes!

Moving on by Harry Brignull

I’m going to miss having Harry around at Clearleft. Sounds like he might miss Clearleft too:

What I’ve loved about Clearleft is that it’s just so different to any other agency I’ve worked at. There’s no company process – everyone’s encouraged to experiment and try different techniques to suit the client’s needs. There’s hardly any internal meetings. I’ve never once had a conversation about my billing efficiency. The focus is on quality, and profitability is almost seen as a by-product. You’re encouraged to share your learnings externally rather than keep them in-house. Everyone’s trusted and given a lot of independence.

Sensory Interfaces (SI) on O Danny Boy

Dan isn’t keen on the term “natural user interface.” Here’s why.

Springboard – Coming soon from Clearleft

The latest Clearleft product will be like having an intensive set of discovery, collaboration, and exploration workshops in a box. Perfect for startups and other small businesses short on time or budget.

It starts in Spring but you can register your interest now.

Designing with context : Cennydd Bowles

A great meaty piece from Cennydd, diving deep into the tricky question of context.

UX Job Title Generator

Like @jeremysjob, but specifically for UX roles.

Connecting (Full Film) on Vimeo

A short film about interaction design.

Solita: This is rude

Let’s be polite. Especially when starting relationships.

Responsive IA: IA in the touchscreen era - Martin Belam at EuroIA

A really terrific piece about wireframing for responsive designs. Again, it’s all about the prototypes.

The best interface is no interface | Cooper Journal

Interaction dissolving into the environment.

» 23 October 2012, baked by Leisa Reichelt @ The Pastry Box Project

Less wireframing, more prototyping.

—Leisa

User Experience Euphemisms | 90 Percent of Everything

Funny because it’s true.

The Computer for the 21st Century

A classic piece of design fiction written by Mark Weiser 21 years ago.

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.

Client/Agency Engagement is F*cked, Waterfall UX Design is a Symptom | disambiguity

Leisa nails it. The real stumbling block with trying to change the waterfall-esque nature of agency work (of which Clearleft has certainly been guilty) can be summed up in two words: sign off.

And from a client’s perspective, this emphasis on sign-off is completely understandable.

It takes a special kind of client to take the risk and develop the level of trust and integration required to work the way that Mr Popoff-Walker any many, many other inhabitants of agency world would like to work.

How to Make Progress Bars Feel Faster to Users - UX Movement

A fascinating insight into the psychological implications of animated progress indicators.

Sweep the Sleaze | Information Architects

Some sensible advice from Oliver Reichenstein. Cluttering your social media icons isn’t helping and may actively be hindering your audience.

From Print to iPad: Designing a Reading Experience

Harry’s 15 minute case-study presentation at UX London was excellent. He says the lesson is that we shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes, but there’s another lesson here too: testing with users will save your ass.

Style guide round-up

Anna goes through some of her favourite pattern libraries. It’s really, really great to see this stuff getting documented.

Thieves Are Your Best Customers in Waiting – Stuntbox

A great article from David with some concrete proposals for media companies.

By the way, how nice is David’s new responsive design? Very nice. Very nice indeed.

Apps vs The Web

Some interesting ideas on the commonalities and differences between native apps and the web.

Time to Kill Off Captchas: Scientific American

Yes, yes, yes! This article does an excellent job of explaining what Captchas are attempting to do and why, therefore, they are so utterly shit.

An introduction to Web Intents – an interview with Glenn Jones

Harry interviews Glenn about web intents (web actions). Glenn gives a good clear explanation of what they are.

Web Intents - Design Push

This looks like it’s going to be a great event on February 25th right here in Brighton: a gathering of minds to brainstorm around web intents. Get there if you can.

Buxton Collection

Bill Buxton’s collection of input devices going back thirty years.

Rebecca Cottrell » Where visual design fits in a design process

I think Rebecca is on to something here. Everyone has been so quick to self-identify as a UX designer while marginalising visual design as a purely surface-level layer …but it’s all part of the design process.

Choosing the Right Words – Web Intents — Glenn Jones

Glenn has written up the discussion that followed his UXCampBrighton talk on web actions.

Authentical: Random factoids I’ve encountered in authentication user research so far

Dana has put together an excellent grab-bag of data on people’s password habits.

FAUXGO

Fictional logos.

Web Actions: Identifying A New Building Block For The Web - Tantek

Tantek’s braindump of research he and Erin have been doing on web actions—verbs for the web, specifically interactions across sites: sharing, liking, and so on. I agree with him that this terminology feels better than “web intents.”

Button Sluts and Web Actions

Erin documents the next step after web intents.

shitty portmanteaux

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than “webinar.”

Designing for Content: Creating a Message Hierarchy - Web Standards Sherpa

Steph Hay takes a look at how websites can allow a narrative to unfold, with the Ben The Bodyguard site as a case study.

Pretenders: Why mobile Web apps should stop trying to act like native apps « cvil.ly

I agree with this. I like it. I plus one it. So to speak.

Designing the Wider Web

The dominance of the desktop browser is over – the web has become wider. After so long painting in a tiny corner of the canvas, it’s time to broaden our approach.

It’s understandable that the community is somewhat nervous about the changes ahead. So far, we’ve mostly responded by scratching around for device-specific tips, but this isn’t sustainable or scalable. We should transcend “platformism” and instead learn to design for diverse contexts, displays, connectivity, and inputs by breaking devices down into first principles. Instead of the defective dichotomy of the “desktop” and “mobile” web, designers should aim to create great user experiences using the truly fluid nature of the web.

Annoying.js: How to be an asshole • Javascript • Kilian Valkhof

All of the most irritating uses of JavaScript gathered together into one library.

Push Pop Press: Al Gore’s Our Choice

This looks like a beautiful way to present information, although it seems a real shame that the information is locked to just one class of device.

Developing the OAuth user experience at Twitter

Ben documents the improvements in Twitter’s OAuth flow. Maybe this will help to stop people blindly giving permission to dodgy third-party sites to update their Twitter stream.

More Responsive Design, Please « Jason Things

A good analysis of many of the factors involved in web design, of which responsiveness is clearly an important part.

Web-based prototyping software for interaction designers: Handcraft (formerly known as quplo)

A browser-based tool for creating HTML prototypes.

Client-side routing, the teenage years // James Aylett’s diary

James follows up on his previous excellent post on hashbangs by diving into the situations where client-side routing is desirable. Watch this space for a follow-up post on performance.

Experience Is What We Make It | UX Magazine

The Riegers are like emissaries from Planet Smart and we mere mortals are fortunate that they take the time to give us great articles like this.

The fall and rise of user experience : Cennydd Bowles on user experience

Cennydd’s closing remarks from this year’s IA Summit. Huzzah!

BBC News - Are you experienced? Business and the web user experience

A nice overview of the increasing importance of UX on the web, written by Bobbie with soundbites from Andy.

Flyer beware; real cost of flying Ryanair « Alan Colville

Superb in-depth analysis of Ryanair’s website dark patterns and nasty brand strategy.

The Mobile context

Yes! Yes! Yes! Mark nails it: just because someone visits a site with a certain kind of device doesn’t mean you can make assumptions about their intentions.

Mobile != low download speed
Context != intent

Publishing Experiences | booktwo.org

I wish I could’ve attended James’s talk at Tools of Change. It sounds like it was great.

It’s About People, Not Devices | UX Booth

An excellent article from Bryan, hammering home the point that there is no sharp dividing line between desktop and mobile.

Remember as well that the most ubiquitous of technologies, the common thread throughout many connected devices, is the browser. Browser-based experiences may not always be as sexy, but they are often far more capable of adapting to different contexts. In times of rapid change, adaptability—rather than features—may be your product’s greatest ally.

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop on Vimeo

One potential nightmare vision of the future …that looks kind of cool.

LukeW | Device Classes

Luke points to the sweet spot between creating endpoints for classes of devices, and using responsive design to allow them to adapt.

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Stuart McMillen - cartoon Recombinant Records

Pitching Orwell against Huxley in an argument that is ironically shallow: it only holds up if you accept the premise that activities involving the web, television and video games are inherently “bad” and anti-social: a pathetically, narrow-minded and condescending worldview.

9 hours (9h) Designer Capsule Hotel Review - Kyoto, Japan

A fascinating look at the experience design of the 9h brand of capsule hotel. I like the consistent use of colour, light and iconography.

Requiring email and passwords for new accounts - Instapaper Blog

A fascinating explanation of why Instapaper is migrating away from its passwordless sign-up.

Draggables

Watch this space. Glenn has a really interesting idea (and implementation) for exchanging structured data between browser windows using drag'n'drop.

Kitchen Interfaces Suck; Let's Break Down Why | Co.Design

Aza Raskin on the UI failings of kitchens.

Never finished, rarely simple - Preoccupations

An excellent overview of the evolution of the St. Paul's School website from David Smith, noting an increasing emphasis on mobile usage.

End hover abuse now : Cennydd Bowles on user experience

An excellent little rant by Cennydd that I agree with 100%: hovering does not demonstrate user intent.

Sweet Talking Your Computer - WSJ.com

Personality in software. Pieces of technology are people too.

Non Hover | Trent Walton

A timely reminder: don't hide information behind mouseover events.

UX Brighton 2010

Brighton gets its own UX conference.

» UX London report: day 1 Johnny Holland – It's all about interaction » Blog Archive

A comprehensive report of the excellent first day of UX London.

VaultPress — Apply for Beta

Another Huffduffer-style sign-up form, this time from the good folks at Automattic. Very cute.

Usability Testing: You are not your user. No matter how good you think you are.

A lesson from Google Buzz: a large sampling isn't always a representative sampling.

52 Weeks of UX

Joshua Porter and Joshua Brewer will write one post a week, kickstarting a discussion on user experience.

What deux yeux have teux deux teuxday?

A very nice take on the to-do list app.

Cadence & Slang is a book about interaction design. — Kickstarter

If you want to see this book published (and you should), why not pledge a little something to the cause?

Log in or sign up? - Leah Culver's Blog

Leah has some great ideas on combing "log in" and "sign up" forms into one.

Service Design Tools | Communication methods supporting design processes

A nice collection of design tools and methodologies.

Chroma-Hash Demo

Another interesting take on assigning a visual clue to password fields.

Contact Us « Kellan Studios

Nice Huffduffer-style contact form.

arc90 lab : experiments : HashMask - Another (More Secure!) Experiment in Password Masking

Here's an interesting idea: generating a sparkline when you input a password ...familiarity with the generated sparkline acts as a visual aid to the user.

Make them Care! - a book by Joshua Porter

Josh is writing another book. Part copywriting manifesto, part psychology handbook, part design manual.

Ping - Should Design Be Held Back by a Tyranny of Data? - NYTimes.com

Douglas is featured in The New York Times (and look: there's Dustin behind him).

Complex inferiority: user experience in the UK

A thoughtful piece by Cennydd on the state of UX in the UK.

UXBri

The UX Brighton website is sporting a new lick of paint and looking rather lovely.

Cooper Journal: One free interaction

Small interactions that serve no useful purpose but are nonetheless satisfying. "Design this interaction such that: It's “free,” i.e. having no significance to the task or content, It's discoverable in ordinary use of the product, It's quick and repeatable (Less than half a second.), It's pleasant"

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