We tell our clients this constantly: the organizations who are most successful are the ones who are on intimate terms with how and why their customers use their product. But how? To answer that question, we invited our friend Steve Portigal to host a UIE Virtual Seminar recently on the topic of interviewing. In this podcast we revisit the topic and answer several remaining questions from his seminar.

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The world of user experience design is made up of many disciplines. On the list, there is information architecture, usability testing, visual design, interactive design, copywriting, and prototyping (and this is just a sample of the list). At a minimum you need an understanding of the principles of these disciplines and often you need to [...]

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When was the last time you witnessed a web site redesign live at a conference? It’s exactly what Jason Fried of 37signals did in Minneapolis at the Web App Masters Tour. Jason shared with the audience the last 4 days of redesign that their Basecamp product went through. What’s unique about their process, is how [...]

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It seems we've failed to offend our international audience sufficiently, so this week we'll try again by chatting with Jay Vidyarthi, a designer hailing form Montréal, Québec, Canada. Jay is working on a project with social design aspects. He's helping design a site where the goal is to build "an involved and contributing community of users." He wants to know if there are any user experience techniques to encourage participation.

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The skills you need to discover and fix many common visual design problems don’t require an art degree. The term “web design” implies knowledge and understanding of visuals, creative, even artistic ability. But not everyone practicing web design comes from this background, and the process of improving your site’s design can be daunting. Thankfully, Dan Rubin [...]

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Some days, I sit and wonder what it will be like for our children’s children. After all, our parents’ parents didn’t think that houses came with plumbing. So what will our grandkids think? Computers, it seems, are here to stay for a while. However, they’re getting smaller, ubiquitous, and are far more connected. We’re already [...]

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Bill Scott's Designing for Interesting Moments was one of the highlights of the first stop on UIE's Web App Masters tour, in San Diego. We wanted everyone to benefit from his research into web interactions, so we're bringing you this audio and visual sample.

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What are the ingredients that drive teams to deliver consistently good experiences? Does the company size, business processes, organizational management, or executive management have anything to do with it? For the past 10 years, Jared Spool and our research team at User Interface Engineering studied the secrets behind successful teams and the factors driving their [...]

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The time has come to wrap up the final part of the Web App Masters interview series. Today we feature Ken Kellogg from Marriott and the authors of Designing Social Interfaces, Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone. Ken Kellogg’s podcast talks about navigating the design process within a large corporate world, and how customer research plays [...]

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Recently in UIEtips, we featured part 1 of the Interviews with the Masters. Julie Zhuo shared how Facebook handles design changes and public reaction to these changes. If you didn’t get a chance to listen, Julie’s podcast shares some fascinating Facebook processes that you’ll want to hear. Bill Scott’s podcast looked at design patterns and rich [...]

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Over the last couple months, I had the privilege of interviewing some of the leading experts in the world of web app design. These folks are the creme de la creme in their field and shared quite a bit of juicy information with me. In a 4-part series, we’ll feature audio interviews with these Masters. Today’s [...]

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As humans, we’re a social species, so it’s no surprise our applications are becoming social too. Our users want to connect, share, and collaborate, using the data and tools we’re designing. Building in social components adds new challenges and requirements: protecting privacy, curtailing inappropriate behavior, and encouraging participation. As we planned the topics for the Web [...]

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Forms are crucial for users to complete many online transactions, ranging from sign-up forms introducing new customers to your site, to checkout forms finalizing your users’ purchases. In last week’s UIEtips, we re-published the first part of an excellent article written by Luke Wroblewski, author of Web Form Design. Luke discusses tips for improving web forms [...]

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How effective are the forms on your web site? How do you measure that effectiveness? A scary but common answer to these questions is “we’re not sure.” Web forms are the linchpin to a user’s engagement with your design. All too often these forms, the last and most important step in a user’s journey, [...]

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When we put together the Masters line-up for the Web App Masters Tour, Bill Scott was a “must have” on the docket. Bill is the master when it comes to web app design patterns. If you’re using advanced or “rich” interactions in your web applications, than you’re probably familiar with his book Designing Web Interfaces. [...]

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