Breaking the Constraints
Two years ago, Nicholas Zakas wrote an article for Smashing Magazine entitled “It’s Time to Stop Blaming Internet Explorer,” in which he said: It’s not actually old browsers that are…
Exploring the Google Glass UX
For many UX designers, Google Glass evokes visions of an Iron Man-like interface with numerous controls and augmented reality features. Our team at ELEKS, too, fell victim to these assumptions.…
Using the Core Model and Top Tasks to design better web navigation
The essence of the Core Model design process is that you focus primarily on the top tasks of your customers. You make sure they can solve their problem, complete their…
Think Your App Is Beautiful? Not Without User Experience Design
Aspiring to beauty in our designs is admirable. But it doesn’t guarantee usability, nor is it a product or marketing strategy. Like “simple” and “easy” before it, “beautiful” says very…
The Right Way to Do Lean Research
Too many people just “do research” or “talk to customers” without having a plan for what they want to learn. What they end up with is a mass of information…
Breaking up with the User in User Experience Strategy?
Last April, the UX leadership at my company, Slalom Consulting, gathered at an off-site meeting to get aligned on how best to brand and market our UX capabilities to our…
Eye Tracking: What Is It For And When To Use It
Imagine a usability test in which John, the test participant, attempts to buy a bicycle. On the homepage John quickly finds the “bicycles” link, but on the next page he…
The Xbox One and Usability
Microsoft’s Xbox One has been out and available to the public for about 10 months at this point and is really just starting to hit its stride. It has certainly…
What To Do When You Can’t Run A Usability Test
In an ideal world, users would be involved in every stage of product development, including requirements gathering, iterative prototype testing and post release testing. However, there are a lot of…
The Ethics of UX Research
As a UX researcher for a social media operation, Ute considers different interface designs that might allow users to make more social contacts. Ute gets a radical idea to test…