UIE Brain Sparks

SpoolCast: Excelling at Interaction Design with Kim Goodwin Recorded: August 5th, 2008 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 29m | File size: 16 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Coming Soon. ] What is the difference between good and great interaction designers? That is the subject matter for this week’s show, which features a compelling conversation with Kim Goodwin. Kim is the VP of Design and General Manager at Cooper, one of the world s premier design consultancies, in San Francisco. She suggests that three traits of great designers include design judgment, communication skills, and the ability to observe people’s behavior and then design something that can give them a good experience. Design judgment is the ability to know if your solution is good or not. Great designers have the ability to look at their own work with a critical eye, and implement outside suggestions that make their solutions better. Effective critique is essential. The teams at Cooper follow the fifteen minute rule—if you’re experiencing difficulty with a design for fifteen minutes, get another brain in on the solution. Critique early, critique often. Critiques test your solutions and challenge your assumptions. Being solo is tough. Don t have the advantage of a design team? Kim suggests reading is huge supplier of continuous inspiration and education. Analyze well-designed products. Keep sharp by going out and meeting other designers. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment. Failure is part of the system. Failure is an experience imperative to growth. Communication skills are incredibly important. Active listening skills are important for extracting the most information out of a conversation. Active listening takes practice. Listen thoughtfully and dig for the needs behind the words. Approach any situation with the axiom I don’t know what I don’t know. Don’t lock yourself into a solution until you’ve really soaked in the full scope of the problem. When ideas inevitably pop-up, sketch them out quickly, so you can capture the ideas and then clear them away so they don t distract you from absorbing the total problem. Be open to the world. Kim’s advice is to make no assumptions, go see the problems. Accept that you may not know the problem as well as you think you do. There are people that may already have the context and solutions. Explore them. Simply be curious about your environment. Designers have boundless curiosity. Kim has even more thoughts in the podcast about concise communication, time management and collaboration skills, you ll want to give it a listen. You can hear Kim Goodwin present her workshop, The Essentials of Interaction Design at the User Interface 13 Conference in Cambridge, MA — October 13-16, 2008. She’ll cover fundamental skills like sketching, workflow, storyboarding; and explore innovative techniques to keep the ideas flowing and designers fresh. How are you staying sharp and curious as a designer? Share your questions and experiences in the comments.

SpoolCast: Creating a Culture of Innovation with Scott Berkun Recorded: July 23rd, 2008 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 31m | File size: 17.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Coming Soon. ] We’re struggling with how to measure how well we are innovating […] Are we innovating better this year than last year? How would I know? If you work in a larger company and you haven t heard a statement like this, you re going to. Innovation has become such a buzzword, it s nearly meaningless. But that doesn t mean innovation itself is dead. In this week’s show, we sat down with Scott Berkun, the dynamic speaker and author of The Myths of Innovation. Innovation is critical, but it’s not being defined for those folks challenged with implementing it. Innovation is hard work. Scott asks that we face facts here; to find big, new ideas that will change things for the better will never be easy. OK, how do we innovate? Scott suggests that the key word is risk. The best organizations (Google, Apple, Pixar and 3M are offered as examples) promote this through a culture where it’s OK to take risks, where failure is acceptable if valuable lessons can be learned. Whenever risks can be taken in a safe environment innovation is much more likely to be successful. Often times middle management is actually the key to fostering this environment. They see the organizational “big picture” and can shield the front line workers who are challenged with focusing on the work. It allows for in-house entrepreneurship, allowing for creativity and flexibility outside of their traditional responsibilities. Google s 20% time is a popular example of time where employees can branch out on self-made projects. In Google s case, it gave birth to products like GMail. Innovation happens in both small and large organizations, but in large companies, it takes dedicated resources, and the expectation of some amount of failure. Scott has found that in organizations resistant to change, you can find success in pitching that innovation is the tradition of the company. As for Innovation and User Experience, in the early design stage there s a delicate balance between collecting data from users and knowing where to take calculated risks that may run counter to the data. When taking a different approach, don t be afraid to step out on a limb. Then test to see if it works. Of course, this is just a taste of the half hour discussion we had, so you ll want to listen to the entire thing to get the most of Scott s insights on the subject. [ You can hear Scott Berkun speak more about Innovation at the User Interface 13 Conference in Cambridge, MA — October 13-16, 2008. The structure of his workshop, The Myths of Innovation: How to Lead Breakthrough Projects, will be broken out into the following: • What does a breakthrough mean? • Training from the history of great innovation • Jargon and terms in the business of innovation, and how to deal with them • Creative thinking For more information about UI13, check out our conference site, UIConf.com ] Does your organization foster innovation as well as it could? Share your questions and experiences with innovation in the comments.

SpoolCast: UX in an Agile Environment with Jeff Patton Recorded: July 25th, 2008 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 43m | File size: 24 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Coming Soon. ] The Agile development process is about breaking things into small pieces and acting on each piece really quickly. Yet, traditional user experience practices aren t used to working fast. How do we adjust our practices to survive in a fast-paced agile process? That s the question we posted to Jeff Patton, the noted independent UX/Agile consultant and speaker, who joined me on this week s show. During our conversation, Jeff and I discussed some of the issues surrounding development speed that UX practitioners encounter when working in an Agile development team. While we talked, Jeff shared these observations from successful teams: Rapid Iterations: We ve known for a while that fast iterations can help design, but now the rest of the team is iterating quickly too. Jeff proposed regularly using development partners people you revisit can help you with low-hassle usability testing and feedback sessions. Continuity: One of the key challenges in the agile environment is that working with small pieces of the project can lead to a lack of continuity between the pieces. Jeff suggested that a key role of the user experience professional on the team is to maintain the big picture: seeing what s been built and what s about to be built, and ensuring those pieces come together to form a coherent experience. Are your designers your users? It s been said that Apple s designers created the iPhone for themselves, without user testing. When the designers are avid users of a product, this can be successful, but such instances are rare. For most projects, it s nearly impossible for designers to consistently put themselves in their users shoes. In agile environments, there may be more temptation to skip the user testing and go with designer intuition. Successful designers acknowledge that this intuition, talented though it may be, is usually no substitute for real user research. The RITE Method: Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation, is a successful method developed at Microsoft. It combines fast iterations with testing, looking to make improvements after each participant. Jeff suggests this is something agile teams should investigate. Of course, I m not doing Jeff s ideas justice with this summary. You really want to listen to the entire interview to hear all of his wisdom. [Jeff is teaching a full-day workshop, “Bringing User-Centered Design Practices Into Agile Development Projects”, at our User Interface Conference this October in Cambridge, MA. If you work in a fast-paced agile environment, Jeff's seminar is for you.] Questions, comments? What have you done to adapt to the speed of the Agile process? Let us know about your experiences in the comments.

SpoolCast: Visual Design Misconceptions with Luke Wroblewski Recorded: June 6th, 2008 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 34m | File size: 19 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Available. ] Can you make it look pretty? Can you make the logo bigger? Can you make this more discoverable? Can you make that pop? Heard these before? Or said them? In this week’s show, our friend Luke Wroblewski, Senior Principle of Product Ideation and Design for Yahoo, joins me to discuss visual design on the web. Luke shares his thoughts on the concept of visual design and it’s importance in helping users accomplish core tasks and strategic business goals. Cues from Your Client such as can you make this look pretty? Do you understand why these common requests are red flags, and understand the danger in them? Visual design is more than just styling. A fresh coat of paint doesn’t solve core problems, good visual design can. Design is Inevitable and not a step that can be skipped or filled in. It can be good or bad, but any product will have design as a component. Luke suggests there are some core principles that can be used to prioritize the presentation of information, actions and interactivity. One recommendation is to spend time with the team to prioritize what’s important about the project and keep that content independent of the design layout. Visual Design is a Priority. Uncover the importance of starting with visual design. Luke’s experience shows that in successful projects the visual organization needs to be a key consideration early in the process. Do You Greek? When building something, such as a web page, be sure to include all the elements up front – even the text - to ensure that design will take into account every aspect. It’s important to use the visual presentation to form a hierarchy for this real information. Luke enforces the point that real elements and real constraints will help us understand if the end result will work. Set Context Appropriately for the team. Skip what do you think? and paint the picture underlying the design. Those making suggestions on fonts, colors, and layout may not be comfortable making decisions on the strategic direction for the product so they stick to these minor aspects in which everyone can have an opinion. Decisions like these made in isolation don’t always yield overall coherent design or balance. Luke Wroblewski is a Senior Principal of Product Ideation Design for Yahoo and has his own shop, LukeW Interface Designs. He is the author of two books, the new top seller Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks and the popular Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability. [Luke is teaching a full-day workshop, Visual Design for the Web: Communicating with Customers , at our User Interface 13 this October in Cambridge, MA. Luke is one of our most highly rated presenters from previous events.] Questions, comments? What experiences have you had wrangling visual design in your organization? Let us know in the comments.

SpoolCast: Followup Q A from The Scent of a Web Page Recorded: July 23rd, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24m 30s | File size: 14 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] Brian Christiansen and I recorded a special episode comprised entirely of questions from our customers. On July 17, we held the UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of a Web Page The Five Types of Navigation Pages. During the seminar, we received far more questions than time would allow answering. As is tradition, we put together this follow-up podcast to answer even more of your excellent questions. In this episode, we discussed: how we determined failure and success when we studied users how our research applies to college sites the undesirable trait of pogosticking up and down between levels of pages and why that s a sign of navigation failure examples of link-rich homepages that users love why, contrary to popular opinion, users still don t like to search In the podcast, we referred to an article we wrote a little while back, called Lifestyles of Link-Rich Pages, which provides more information on long-links and our home page research. If you missed our live seminar, a recording of the session is available for viewing. See The Scent of a Web Page for details. Still have questions about the five types of navigation pages? Ask them in the comments below!

Usability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 2 Recorded: July 3rd, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 34m | File size: 19 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Show Notes ] In this episode of Usability Tools, Brian Christiansen and I continue on how to moderate a usability test. As I mentioned last week, the episode got so long that we decided to break it into two parts. You can find part 1 here. This week s show focuses upon the step-by-step tasks of running the session with a participant and your observers. Good moderating is critically important to a successful session. Here are a few points we touched upon in the show: Practice and repetition improves your moderation skills. Start the session on the right foot by greeting your user on time and by laying out exactly what will happen during the session. Inform your user of their rights as a participant; their comfort is key. Have and follow a testing protocol which will lead you through all the information, and through all the testing steps. It should also govern your observers. End your session on time. Respecting the time of your participants and observers is paramount. Walk your user out, both out of politeness and because small talk may lead to critical insights. There s much more in the show. If you have questions about the role of the moderator, feel free to ask them in the comments. We ll try to answer them and may even work them into a future show. [This show is the first in a series we're going to do on the fundamentals of usability testing. In future shows, we'll cover the entire gamut of testing, from initial planning, through task design, to data analysis and beyond. We want to create a complete resource that you'll share with your entire team.]

Usability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 1 Recorded: July 3rd, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 33m | File size: 19 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Show Notes ] In this episode of Usability Tools, Brian Christiansen and I talk about how to moderate a usability test. Turns out, the episode got so long that we decided to break it into two parts. This week s show focuses upon the different roles a single moderator needs to take on during the session. The usability test moderator has a lot of influence on the success of the test. Moderating isn t rocket science, but you ll need to understand the basics before you sit down with your users. In this week s show, I talk about the three roles a moderator needs to play during the test. First is the scientist. The scientist makes sure your tasks get done, notes get taken, and keeps the show on track. Then we have the sportscaster. The sportscaster gives play-by-play so the design team members don t miss anything the user does. Lastly, there s the role of the flight attendant. This is the most important role. Keeping your test participant happy and comfortable is your number one job. Tune in to learn the specifics of each role and how they affect one another. If you have questions about the role of the moderator, feel free to ask them in the comments. We ll try to answer them and may even work them into a future show. Stay tuned for the second part of the Moderating show next week. [This show is the first in a series we're going to do on the fundamentals of usability testing. In future shows, we'll cover the entire gamut of testing, from initial planning, through task design, to data analysis and beyond. We want to create a complete resource that you'll share with your entire team.]

SpoolCast: Followup Q A from The Scent of Information Recorded: July 1st, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 27m | File size: 16 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] Brian Christiansen and I recorded a special episode comprised entirely of questions from our customers. Last week, we held the UIE Virtual Seminar: The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content. During the seminar, we received far more questions than time would allow answering. As is tradition, we put together this follow-up podcast to answer even more of your excellent questions. In this episode, we discussed where you can find your users trigger words, talked about our 7-12 word link recommendation, discussed if you should replace your home page with your site map, and shared some examples of sites that handle long links well. Tune in to hear these and the answers to other questions from our seminar attendees. If you missed our live seminar, a recording of the session is available for viewing. See The Scent of Information: Getting Users to Their Content for details. Still have questions about our research into the Scent of Information? Ask them in the comments below!

SpoolCast: Product Evolution with Adaptive Path s Peter Merholz Recorded: June 5th, 2008 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 37m | File size: 20 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Available ] This week, our good friend, Peter Merholz, joins us for the show. Peter is the President of Adaptive Path, a leading experience strategy and design consultancy. Peter is the co-author of the recently published book, Subject to Change, which discusses new strategies of thinking and working to adapt into innovative and commercially successful organizations. In our discussion, I ask Peter about mapping out a product s evolution. Launching a product is no simple task. Every new product falls on the spectrum somewhere between feature-complete, perfect execution and actually shipping with a pile of features on the cutting room floor. Realistically, most sway towards the latter. But that doesn t mean your products needs to feel unfinished. Peter and I discussed how the best products never offer their users an incomplete feeling experience. And with proper planning, future features won t feel simply tacked on. Listen in to our conversation for some real-life advice from Peter on how to actually accomplish this feat. [Peter Merholz and Andrew Crow will show you how to map out your product's evolution, plus several other techniques for creating great experiences, in their full-day seminar, Subject to Change: Product Strategy and Planning Tools for Great User Experiences, at our User Interface 13 conference that will take place this October 13-16, 2008 in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts.] We look forward to your questions and thoughts on this podcast. How is your organization staging its product rollouts? Are those rollouts working? Let us know what you think in the comments!

SpoolCast: Usability Guerillas with Dana Chisnell Recorded: June 7th, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24m | File size: 12.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Available ] This week, I had the great honor of speaking with Dana Chisnell, noted usability expert and principal at Usability Works, a consultancy based in San Francisco. Dana is also the co-author of the recently-released second edition of the Handbook of Usability Testing—a book so fine that I was thrilled when they asked me to write the foreword. In this interview, I asked Dana what makes the best user researchers better than the pack. Dana suggested that great user researchers dig deeper into who the users are. They don t just stop after watching novices interact with the design for the first time. Instead, they look to constantly learn about the full range of people who use the design. Also, the top user researchers look beyond the use of functionality to the entire experience. Dana shared how Enterprise Rent-a-Car spends a lot of time and energy thinking about every interaction they have with their customers. They stand around in their retail outlets and watch individuals getting their cars and turning the cars in, looking at how the experiences fit together. Dana had a lot more to say about what makes the best stand above the rest. You ll want to listen to the rest of the podcast to hear her thoughts on the subject of excellence in user research. [For even more insight, you'll want to attend Dana's full-day seminar, Usability Testing Guerilla Techniques: Collecting User Data on a Shoestring, at our User Interface 13 conference that will take place this October 13-16, 2008 in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts.] We look forward to your questions and thoughts on this podcast. How are you integrating usability testing into your organization? Let us know what you think in the comments!

SpoolCast: Ajax: Then and Now with Jeremy Keith Recorded: June 6th, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 40m | File size: 21 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript Coming Soon ] This week, Ajax design expert Jeremy Keith joins us from Brighton, England. Jeremy is the technical lead at Clearleft, a leading design consultancy in the UK. He s the author of the popular books, DOM scripting and Bulletproof Ajax. Ajax has really evolved since the term was coined. The technologies that we use to make responsive web pages and applications continue to evolve as well. Jeremy has his fingers on the pulse of these changes, and has a lot to tell us about the when, the where, and the why of using Ajax. Talking with Jeremy was fascinating and, during the interview, he offered several juicy nuggets about using Ajax effectively. For example, he suggested that we think twice about if our business logic should be in the client-side environment. He proposed the server should be doing the heavy lifting, since this is a controlled environment. The interactivity should appear within the browser, so the interactions appear quick and seamless. His rationale is interesting: Since browsers are diverse and quickly changing environments, Jeremy recommends we use them primarily for display and interaction, and we should resist the urge to process too much data with JavaScript. Instead, we should move the data to the server for processing. It may increase your bandwidth or server load, but both of these, he argues, are good problems to have—it means your app is popular! Of course, you ll want to listen to the rest of the podcast to hear the other wisdom that Jeremy has about using Ajax in production environments. [For even more wisdom, you'll want to attend Jeremy's full-day seminar, Bulletproof Ajax: Designing Interactive and Usable Ajax Solutions, at our User Interface 13 conference that will take place this October 13-16, 2008 in historic Cambridge, Massachusetts.] We look forward to your questions and thoughts on this podcast. How are you deploying Ajax to improve your experience? Let us know what you think in the comments!

SpoolCast: What Makes a Great IA with Donna (Maurer) Spencer Recorded: May 27th, 2007. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 33m | File size: 17.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript ] This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Donna (Maurer) Spencer, a world-renowned information architect and owner of the freelance agency MaadMob, based in Canberra, Australia. For nearly 10 years, Donna has been a prominent player in the information architecture world, sharing her experiences for designing some of the most challenging clients around: large government sites. For this interview, I asked Donna, What separates good information architects from great information architects? Donna said that she believes that great IAs can think structurally, can synthesize many inputs at once, can work strategically, and can work in the smallest details. A good IA can get by doing these things very occasionally, or not at all. But, great IAs do all of these constantly, bringing more value to the project. Over the years, Donna has come into contact with some diverse and multi-talented IAs. She noted that one thing they all have in common is they all do more than just information architecture. Donna told us how she keeps herself balanced by also practicing other user experience disciplines, such as interaction design. Donna also suggested that perhaps the strongest skill the great information architect needs is people skills. It s one thing to build a quality taxonomy or navigation system, but if you cannot interface with your own team or the client, you may find your usefulness diminishes greatly. This was a great interview. We had a lot of fun making it and I ll bet you ll enjoy listening to it. This October, Donna present a full-day workshop, Information Architecture Essentials: Best Practices for Organizing Your Site s Content , at the User Interface 13 Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It s a great place to learn what it takes to become a great information architect. We look forward to your questions and thoughts on this podcast. Do you agree with Donna about what it takes to become a great information architect? Is there anything she left out? Let us know what you think in the comments!

SpoolCast: Creating a Web Experience from Scratch with Sean Kane Recorded: December 7th, 2007 from the studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 33m | File size: 17.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text Transcript ] In this podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Sean Kane. Sean helped build one of the world’s most successful web applications as the Director of UI Engineering at Netflix. Last year, Sean left Netflix to co-found Get Listed, a start-up that is going to revolutionize the job search business. Moving from a mature organization that understands the role of experience design to a brand-new start-up environment without any of the same infrastructure or support can be a real challenge. A challenge that is not unlike the challenge that many UX practitioners face when trying to bootstrap their user experience efforts in a growing organization. I asked Sean to reflect a little on his previous experience at Netflix and about the challenges he s facing at Get Listed. We started by talking about Netflix s culture of metrics and the impact it has on their design. We then discussed the culture shock he s experienced as he moved to this new gig. Finally, we talked about building both a web app and and a web app team from scratch. It was interesting to see how the impact of his experience at Netflix is reflecting the decisions he’s making while shaping his new startup environment. I believe anyone who is building out their own user experience efforts will find Sean s thoughts inspiring. I think you’ll enjoy this podcast. We look forward to your questions and thoughts. Let us know what you think in the comments! [Note: We had prepared this podcast to be released earlier this year, but due to schedule conflicts, its release was delayed. As a result, the intro mentions the very successful 2008 Web App Summit as if it's still to come. But don't worry: we'll have another one next year, so stay tuned!]

SpoolCast: Design Patterns and Anti-Patterns with Bill Scott Recorded: November 30th, 2007 from the studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 39m | File size: 20 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Text transcript ] In this week’s SpoolCast, I had a chance to speak with Bill Scott. Bill has been one of my heroes for years, having really pushed the envelope as an evangelist for the public Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. He then went on to work on the Yahoo! Teachers project, where he took his knowledge of Ajax and Web 2.0 techniques and applied it to a creative solution for educators. Most recently, Bill has become the Director of UI Engineering at Netflix, where he now is driving how technology can enhance the user experience at one of the companies that understands what it takes. During our conversation, we talked about some of the innovative techniques he s using at Netflix, what he learned from the Yahoo! Teachers project, and his most recent work on Anti-patterns learning from what we shouldn t be doing. I think you’ll enjoy this podcast. We look forward to your questions and thoughts. Let us know in the comments! [Note: We had prepared this podcast to be released earlier this year, but due to schedule conflicts, its release was delayed. As a result, the intro mentions the very successful 2008 Web App Summit as if it s still to come. But don t worry: we ll have another one next year, so stay tuned!]

SpoolCast: Mental Models with Indi Young Recorded: February 29th, 2008 from the studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 43m | File size: 22 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Text transcript coming soon ] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] In February we held one of our most popular Virtual Seminars ever, Mental Models: Getting Into Your Customer s Head, presented by Indi Young. Indi explained her mental model method of organizing the beliefs and philosophies of users, then comparing them to the current and planned functionality, to see if the users needs align with the design. When we were done with the seminar, we had a number of compelling questions left over from the seminar. In this Podcast, we got back in touch with Indi and discussed some of the more interesting ones. Indi had some interesting opinions on: whether you use surveys for data collection, how long it will take to do a mental model assessment, how you ensure the accuracy of the interpretation of the data you collect, and much more [Note: Unfortunately, while we were recording, there was a motor running in the background and the mic was picking it up. Brian worked extremely hard to scrub this noise out as much as possible, but there are places where doing so would ve made it hard to understand what Indi was saying. We apologize in advance if the recording is a little difficult to listen to in places.] Later this month, Indi will be presenting her full-day workshop on this subject, Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior at our Web App Summit in Coronado, California. We ve almost sold out, sign up now for one of the few remaining seats! You won t want to miss it. In the podcast and seminar, Indi expounded upon the information in her new book, Mental Models, Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior. If you re interested in purchasing the book, enjoy a 10% discount with our compliments. Use the code FOUIE010 at checkout. (The code stands for Friends of UIE. )

Usability Tools Podcast: Applying Fitts Law in Design Recorded: January 25th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 14 min | File size: 8 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. A button is a button right? Move the mouse over it. Click. Not much to it, eh? Well, when it s a well-designed button, all the work your brain is doing to click the button is invisible to you. However, when it s poorly designed, things start to become harder. Maybe you overshoot the target area? Or maybe you have trouble clicking because the button is too small. Often its not difficult to recover, but it costs attention and attention is expensive. In this week s podcast, we discuss the implications of Fitts Law. In short, the law states, The time to acquire a target is a function of the distance to and size of the target. While this seems obvious, it s surprising how often it s forgotten and the trouble that causes. And there s magic that can happen when a designer takes special care to use Fitts law to its full advantage. Listen to the podcast to hear about how that can work. As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts.

Usability Tools Podcast: Useful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 2 Recorded: January 25th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 22min | File size: 12.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. In this week’s podcast, Brian Christiansen and I continue exploring usability techniques for web-based applications. Web-based applications are different from content-based web sites because the users are involved in a transaction. When we’re researching the usability of a content-based site, we’re focused on how users will find and react to the information. However, with web-based applications, there are many other considerations that we need to account for. If you missed the first part of the show, you can listen to it here: Usability Tools Podcast: Useful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 1 This week, we explore the usability technique toolbox, focusing on those methods that help us with web-based applications. In this episode we start with the basic usability test, move onto variants, then talk about field studies. In each case, we explore the web-app specific advantages and talk about how we get the information we need to make informed design decisions. Brian s compiled a nice list of UIE resources that could also be helpful when thinking about testing your web app: Demystifying Usability Tests: Learning the Basics a Virtual Seminar with Christine Perfetti Paper Prototyping: Streamlining the User-Centered Design Process a Virtual Seminar with Carolyn Snyder Articles about Paper Prototyping UIE Research Articles on Paper Prototyping UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Interview-Based Tasks for Usability Testing a podcast UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Inherent Value Tests a podcast Field Studies: The Ultimate Tool in Your Usability Toolbox a Virtual Seminar with Kate Gomoll The Field Study Handbook: A Common Sense Approach for Discovering User Needs a PDF Report by Kate Gomoll The WebApp Summit, March 2008 in beautiful Coronado, California We talked about several books in this episode: The Handbook of Usability Testing by Jeff Rubin A Practical Guide to Usability Testing by Ginny Reddish and Joe Dumas Paper Prototyping by Carolyn Snyder As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts.

Usability Tools Podcast: Useful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 1 Recorded: January 25th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 17 min | File size: 9.6 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. In this week s podcast, Brian Christiansen and I explore usability techniques for Web Applications. Our upcoming event, the WebApp Summit, has us excited and we wanted to share that with you! To get you on your way your web app, we started the discussion with what makes a web app different. Web apps are simply different from your everyday web site, the different ways we have test them become clear. When we determine that there are different classes of web apps, we realize each class needs its own kind usability techniques. In this episode we cover, What classes of web apps exist? Which techniques for which classes of web apps? At what stages do we test web apps? The five major classes of usability concerns to consider when testing web apps Here are some UIE resources on web apps that relate to this episode, Five Usability Challenges of Web-Based Applications Research Article The Designer s Guide to Web Applications: Web Apps Tour 2007 - Learning from Successful Designs PDF Report The Designer s Guide to Web Applications, Part I: Structure and Flows PDF Report The WebApp Summit, March 2008 in beautiful Coronado, California We had too much information to cram into just one episode, so we ll have the conclusion to our thrilling two-part series on useful web app usability techniques next week. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts.

SpoolCast Crew Episode 7 - The Book of Face Recorded: December 7th, 2007 from the studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 1h 18m | File size: 45 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] This week, we have the latest installment of the SpoolCast crew (which we recorded back in December, and then got busy sorry!). Almost every company has to struggle with the balance between customer needs and internal business objectives. In this episode the crew examines the recent situation at Facebook. While trying to please both users and build a business model, the fast moving organization has stepped on many toes. Our panel took a look at this delicate balance and how the future UX team at Facebook might help to resolve this. Facebook makes a fascinating business case from which to extract lessons, and we think you’ll enjoy it, too. Returning to the crew this week was our foreign UX correspondent based in Hong Kong, Mr. Danial Szuc. Dan is the Principal Usability consultant with Apogee Usability Asia Ltd. Joining the crew for the first time in this episode were special guests David Armano, VP of Experience Design for Critical Mass and Robert Hoekman, Jr., CEO of Miskeeto. You can learn more about David at DavidArmano.com and you can learn more about Robert at rhjr.net. I think you ll find their contributions to the panel insightful!

SpoolCast: Creating Advanced Web App Deliverables with D. Keith Robinson Recorded: December 29th, 2007 remotely from our studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 35m | File size: 18.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] How do you communicate complex and interactive design ideas to the development team? To answer this question, I had a chance to speak with with D. Keith Robinson, the Creative Director of Blue Flavor, a premier design and development shop based in Seattle, Washington. In addition to being one of the design experts we turn to for guidance, Keith was formerly the Editor-in-Chief of Digital Web Magazine. We had a great discussion regarding the “backstage” portion of web app design. I think Keith has some innovate ideas which will inspire your own projects. In our chat, we discussed: • “Projects from hell” • Where can communications break down when designing web apps? • How do effective deliverables affect the success of a project? • What’s involved in creating enhanced deliverables to improve communication and the interaction design process? We’re excited to have Keith speaking at our UIE Web App Summit this coming March. Keith will be discussing his successful communications methods for highly interactive designs, especially those where the design elements can t be captured with static images. You can catch his talk, Making the Translation: Critical Web App Design Deliverables on day 3 of the UIE Web App Summit!

SpoolCast: Making Data Engaging: A Talk with the New York Times Interactive Design Team Recorded: December 11th, 2007 from the studios at UIE. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24m | File size: 13MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] Today’s podcast features a fascinating conversation I had with New York Times graphic journalists, Andrew DeVigal and Steve Duenes. Andrew and Steve are part of the team responsible for taking data and raw information from the day s news and turning it into highly interactive and informative online experiences.. For example, the team built the NYTimes Debate Analyzer, a tool to explore the presidential debates. Readers can see how frequently a specific term, such as health care or iraq , is mentioned by each candidate. They can scroll to a specific answer in the transcript and the video automatically plays that section, bringing an entire new way to experience the debates. In this discussion, we also examined some of the NYTimes.com s other amazing interactive graphics and multimedia applications, including: Paths to the Top of the Home Run Charts - An interactive chart showing how quickly record holders beat the MLB home run record Trailer Living, Then and Now - Explore how vacation trailers have changed over the years Exonerated, Freed, and What Happened Then - An multimedia exploration of 200 prisoners exonerated by DNA evidence I think you ll enjoy my conversation with Steve and Andrew. You ll learn a great deal about the their journalistic techniques for building for successful interactive online experiences. I’m also greatly anticipating their presentation this March at our Web App Summit in San Diego, California. They will present the talk, Engaging an Audience: Using Out-of-the-Box Thinking to Create Great Designs.

Usability Tools Podcast: Avoiding Redesigns Recorded: November 20th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24 min | File size: 14 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. We ll share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. It s tempting to spend a ton of time creating slick flyout, dropdown, or pop-up navigation on our site, but is it worth the effort? This week, Brian Christiansen and I discuss interactive mouseover techniques for navigation. Are they a good idea when it comes to actually using your site? Based on our testing, we don’t think so. Some of the issues we address are: Why would designers want to use mouseover navigation? How do mouseovers become an obstacle to navigation? What effect does mouseover navigation have on users finding their trigger words? What sites are good examples of navigation without mouseovers? Here’s our list of referenced links for the episode: The UIE research article that started it all: User’s Decide First, Move Second Our research in link-rich home pages: an article, Lifestyles of Link-Rich Home Pages; a podcast, Home Page Design; and a 90-minute Virtual Seminar, Initial Scent: The Latest Thinking on Home Page Design. Our research on gallery pages: an article, Galleries: The Hardest Working Pages On Your Site; a podcast, Gallery Pages; and a 90-minute Virtual Seminar, Gallery Pages: The Hardest Working Pages on Your Site. Two sites we believe are good examples of link-rich designs: Staples.com and Analog.com. As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts. Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to win is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

SpoolCast: Accessibility with Derek Featherstone Recorded: September 22nd, 2007 from the Webmaster Jam Session, Dallas, Texas. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24m | File size: 14 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] In September, I had the opportunity to speak at the Webmaster Jam Session, in Dallas, Texas and was fortunate to meet Derek Featherstone. Derek travels the globe as a premier expert speaker on web accessibility, and was the closing keynote speaker at the conference. As expected, he gave a fascinating talk on real-world accessibility design for the web. I knew I had to pull him aside for an interview! Derek and I spoke about how accessibility is an often downplayed, yet critical aspect of web design. We discussed: • Accessibility is more than vision-impaired and screen reader access. What about mobility issues with touchscreens and people who use mouth and head wands? • Does achieving technical compliance actually result in a usable design for a user? • Can personas assist in designing for accessibility? • Updated browsers and standards-based code: how are they helping today? • The W3C Accessibility Checklist: Is it a goal for designers or just a starting point? During the session, Derek mentioned the following resources: Accessify.com WebAIM.org - Web Accessibility in Mind You can find Derek and his company at FurtherAhead.com, and his blog at Box of Chocolates.ca. Derek will be talking about how you can go beyond compliance and make truly accessible experiences at our upcoming Web App Summit. Derek has a lot to teach all of us. I think you’ll find our talk enjoyable and informative! New: Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to be eligible is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

Usability Tools Podcast: Avoiding Redesigns Recorded: November 20th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 13 min | File size: 7.6 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. This week, Brian Christiansen and I discuss avoiding redesigns. When we talk about avoiding redesigns, we don’t think your should stay anchored in the past, far from it. But we think the best route to change is through incremental deployment. Some of the issues we addressed were: • Why is a site-wide redesign in one major relaunch a bad idea? • What are some of the leading sites doing when they want a new design? • How can staged redesigns help avert risk? • How do users react to staged redesigns? We find the staged redesign is the most effective way to go about changing your site. Listen in to find out how you can harness this technique to make your next project more effective. As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts. Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to win is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

Slideshare.net s Slidecast technology is pretty slick. With very little effort, I easily added the soundtrack to the slides I d uploaded earlier: | View | Upload your own Kudos to Rashmi, Jon, and the folks at Slideshare. Thanks to Andy Budd at d.Construct 2007 for letting me use the audio. [Note: the slides don t completely match the audio, as I had to trim three slides due to time constraints when presenting.]

Usability Tools Podcast: On-Site Search Recorded: November 20th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 20.5 min | File size: 11 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. This week, Brian Christiansen and I discuss On-Site Search. Our research has shown us that no matter how great your search technology is, it will fail your users if the experience hasn’t been carefully crafted. You may be surprised by how easy it is for even the best sites to get it wrong. Some of the issues we addressed were: • Why are your users searching your site? • What separates the best search experiences from the worst? • What can be done to improve search results? • How can you tell Search is succeeding on your site? You’ll want to tune in and hear about the results of our Search Obstacle Course and to learn about the four types of search results. We feel a little time spent improving your site’s search can go a long way. As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts. Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to win is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

Usability Tools Podcast: Robust Personas Recorded: November 19th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 36 min | File size: 21.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, we will be sitting down to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. This week, we follow up our Virtual Seminar presentation on Building Robust Personas In 30 Days or Less, with answers to questions attendees asked during the session. I highly suggest you take a listen. You ll uncover some wonderful insights even if you didn t attend the seminar. During the podcast, Brian Christiansen and I discussed the following topics: » What are personas? » Should your organization have dedicated UX team members for maintaining updated personas? » Can just one person participate in the persona building process? » Should you develop scenarios for multiple personas that all fit one task? » Can you create personas based solely on survey results? » How do personas relate to Actors and Use Cases from the Rational Unified Process (RUP)? During the podcast, we also mentioned several valuable resources for incorporating personas into the development process: Steve Mulder s The User is Always Right Alan Cooper s About Face, 3rd edition Alan Cooper s The Inmates Are Running the Asylum John Pruit and Tamara Adlin s The Persona Lifecycle As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We love to create shows based on your questions, just like we did with this episode. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics we discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts. Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to win is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Statistical Significance Recorded: October 19th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 26 min | File size: 15.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast, I will be sitting down with UIE s Managing Director, Christine Perfetti to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. This week, Christine was tied up getting ready for our upcoming UI12 conference, so Brian Christiansen joins me for a show whose topic came from our reader, Colin. He wrote in to ask about the statistical significance of usability or field tests. Statistical significance revolves around having enough participants to make your findings valid. However, the number of participants necessary can vary widely, depending on what you re studying and how. During the podcast, Brian and I answered these common questions: » Many people talk about statistical significance, but what does it really mean? » How many people does it take to produce reliable results? » Why do usability tests require many fewer participants than surveys? » How do we know we ve gathered enough data from our research? As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? We d love to create a show based on your questions, just like we did with this episode. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics Christine and I discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. We ll also notify you in UIEtips when we publish new podcasts. New: Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to win is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

SpoolCast: An Interview with Cameron Moll Recorded: September 7th, 2007 from the d.Construct 2007 Conference, Brighton, England Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 30m | File size: 17 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] On my recent trip to the d.Construct 2007 conference in Brighton, England, I had the good fortune to sit down with acclaimed designer Cameron Moll. Cameron is the Interaction Design Manager for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the work he oversees reaches a world-wide audience. His very popular design blog Authentic Boredom, regularly features engaging articles and unleashed the wicked worn look across the web, which earned him a mention on NPR. Cameron s excellent talk at d.Construct was about the differences between good design and great design. (Fortunately, he s covering this topic and much more in his almost sold out full-day UI12 tutorial session.) I found Cameron s perspectives on graphic design theory, HCI principals, and his communication-centric approach both fascinating and stunningly effective. In our conversation, Cameron let me in on his background and his unusual journey to both design and the web. We discussed the importance of getting to know your customer before you make design decisions. We also discussed what to do after each project so you take its lessons forward. Like many of us, Cameron works in a large, complex organization. This means managing design decisions and wrestling (often inflexible) enterprise technology. He talked to me about how he has integrated his real-world experiences into his UI12 tutorial and how he is working on bringing elegance and great function to his complex work projects. Even though Cameron is recognized for his world-class design talent, I am surprised how friendly and humble he is. We had a fascinating conversation that I think you ll enjoy. New: Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to be eligible is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!

UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Are There Users Who Always Search? Recorded: September 26, 2007 from UIE s studios Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 21 min | File size: 12 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes. This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications. ] Each week in our Usability Tools Podcast series, I will be sitting down with UIE s Managing Director, Christine Perfetti to discuss tips and tools for improving your site s user experience. The goal of our weekly podcast is to share some of the most important findings from UIE s research on web design and usability. In the design world, there s always been an assumption that some users demonstrate search-dominant tendencies by going right to the search engine when they first visit a web site looking for content. But back in 2000, UIE made a groundbreaking claim that blew away the web design world. From our research, we concluded that users aren t Search dominant. A few years back, I wrote the article, Are There Users Who Always Search?, and have received tons of questions about the findings ever since. In this podcast, Christine Perfetti and I discuss the study, including: » Why no user always went to the search engine on a site » How the design of a site s page determines what location strategy users employ » How the design community reacted to UIE s research on Search Dominance » Why your site s navigation may be poorly designed if your users are gravitating to Search As always, we re very interested in hearing from you. Do you have questions or comments about this episode? Do you have suggestions for future episodes? We want to know. Please leave a comment below or email us directly at mailbag@uie.com. UIE s Latest Research: If you re interested in the topics Christine and I discuss in the podcasts, I highly suggest you sign up for our free newsletter, UIEtips, to read our latest usability and design research as soon as we publish it. (We first published the results of our research on Search Dominance in our email newsletter.) New: Survey and listener drawing! We would like to give you and your co-workers free admission to our next Virtual Seminar program, with full, lifetime access to the archived program as well! All you need to do to be eligible is give us your feedback on your podcast listening experience. Fill out the following survey and each week we ll randomly send one survey participant a free admission to the next UIE Virtual Seminar and Archive, a $169.00 value! We appreciate your input! Participate in our survey to win!