Recent posts in my Application design Category
August 21, 2012
Designing Contributoria the open source way
Contributoria is “a peer-based collaboration platform for storytellers”, which has been funded by the International Press Institute. In July I joined them for a week to work on some early sketches and wireframes of how the service might be realised.
April 16, 2012
3 must read articles on user experience and product development
I stopped keeping a linklog on here a while back, but in the space of a couple of hours today I saw three absolutely must read posts about user experience and product development which I thought worth passing along.
April 11, 2012
A handful of lessons from beta testing features on the Guardian’s website
If you subscribe to the theory that you should “release early, release often”, and that you want to “fail fast” and learn from those failings, then you end up in a world where you should be regularly testing variations of your digital product on your audience. If you don’t go about it the right way, this can be a bruising experience for all concerned. Today I wanted to outline some thoughts prompted by a recent trial of threaded comments on the guardian.co.uk site that I was involved in.
March 8, 2012
Your product is flawed. That should hurt.
Andrew Chen wrote an excellent blog post a few days back entitled “Why you’ll always think your product is shit” No digital product is ever finished, and the flaws in the one you work on should hurt you.
February 24, 2012
Journalist-centred design for the CMS
This is my contribution to February’s Carnival of Journalism. The topic this month, set by Steve Outing, is “What emerging technology or digital trend do you think will have a significant impact on journalism in the year or two ahead?” I’m hoping it might be journalist-centred design for the CMS.
December 14, 2011
UXmas at the Guardian
Last night we threw open the Guardian’s door for “UXmas” - a chance to meet people from the UX and design teams, hear a couple of talks, and eat some mince pies before retiring to the pub.
October 17, 2011
How the Guardian’s iPad app changed the way that I consumed news
We’ve had a lot of products launch over the last few weeks at the Guardian, including Android and Windows phone apps and our Facebook app, but none have been as high profile as our iPad launch. With a design team of Mark Porter, Andy Brockie, Barry Ainslie and John-Henry Barac, you wouldn’t expect it to be anything other than beautiful, and using it has changed the way that I consume news.
June 4, 2010
8 tips for making ambush 'guerilla user testing' clip reel videos
Yesterday I posted my 10 tips for ambush 'guerilla user testing'. Once you've got some footage of people using your website, you need to find the best way to present that back to the business. I like to make a summary clip reel of the testing, and here are my 8 tips on putting your clip reel together...
June 3, 2010
10 tips for 'ambush guerilla user testing'
Over the last couple of years I've been practicing 'ambush guerilla user testing', which is basically the art of pouncing on lone people in cafes and public spaces, and quickly filming them whilst they use a website for a couple of minutes. It isn't by any means a formal research technique, but you can soon build up a valuable clip library of initial reactions to you and your competitors' products, and tease out interesting anecdotal evidence about the way that people use and feel about your website. Approaching strangers in a public place and asking to video them using the Internet sounds pretty daunting, so here are my top 10 tips to help you get started....
June 2, 2010
Future of web design: Aarron Walter and Aral Balkan on making fantastic user experiences
In the last of this series of notes from the 'Future of web design' conference, here are two talks about building user interfaces and experiences that are fun, playful and a delight to use.
May 31, 2010
Future of Web Design conference iPhone app review
I recently spent a couple of days at Future of Web Design in London. Beforehand I downloaded the iPhone app, which put the conference programme straight into my pocket, and allowed me to share which sessions I was planning to attend. It was, though, missing one key feature.
April 30, 2010
The mobile digital general election - official party iPhone app review
As part of their election campaign, the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green parties have all launched official iPhone applications. I've reviewed and compared them.
December 15, 2009
Real-time web provides real-time feedback on The Guardian's iPhone application
Real-time web gives real-time feedback on Guardian iPhone app
Twitter is transforming the way that digital products are launched.
December 11, 2009
The curious case of the enterprise software design from the nineties that just would not die
Several presentations of enterprise software I've seen recently have made me wonder why we tolerate interfaces and interactions in this sphere which would never make it into production for web tools.
August 4, 2009
"Graceful Hacks" - UX, IA and interaction design tips for hack days
"Graceful Hacks"
UX, IA and interaction design tips for hack days