Elegant Interaction

Visual Design in Axure RP

2011-08-15T19:33:11Z

Had a productive week last week as I hooked up an Axure prototype based on my visual design direction. After I checked out Adobe's release of Muse today, one feature that caught my eye was the paragraph styles. I did not know that Axure also had this (albeit hidden) feature until I came across Fred Beecher's useful presentation on Managing Visual Design in Axure.

Managing Visual Design in Axure

View more presentations from Fred Beecher

Playing with Adobe Edge

2011-08-04T19:05:15Z

Started to play with Adobe Edge today. Watched this overview and found it pretty easy to follow along while I created my own version. While I've not created a lot of motion design in my career, I am familiar with Flash, and found Edge to be far more nimble. The HTML file in Edge exported a combination of CSS, jQuery and JavaScript.

While Edge doesn't yet fully support HTML5 (objects exported as divs instead of canvas), Adobe says they are moving in that direction. Too early to judge?

The Who, What and How

2011-08-03T18:30:00Z

A quick, sketchy diagram of UX tools and artifacts in the context of design process.

Brooks's Law and Babies

2011-08-03T17:48:05Z

During one of our training workshops on UX Estimation, I was introduced to Brooks's Law. As a best practice, one needs to strike the right balance of scope and people on a project. This needs to be done before the project starts; not during. As Brooks stated, "Nine women can't make a baby in one month." When you consider factors such as ramp-up time and communication overhead involved for each person added, it becomes clear why you need to get the estimation right the first time.

On Thinking on Your Feet

2011-07-21T01:12:38Z

As a consultant, it's important to be able to think on your feet. It's a skill that's not practiced often enough, and one that can strike fear into our hearts. In a group exercise led by our director, today our UX team was challenged to think on our feet when he asked each of us a specific, UX-related question. It really drove home the importance of having natural, rehearsed answers to questions about what we do.

Make the personal connection when explaining. When asked, "What do you do?" we could respond with, "I improve design so that you don't swear at your computer screen." Effective because people immediately connect with that.
Sample questions: What is UX? What does do? Why should we do Personas? What do you do at ?
How do we respond to objections? E.g., "We don't have time for wireframes. Can't you just jump into the visual design?" Or, "You're able to code the designs as well, right? We don't have the budget for an additional resource."
Pitfalls: We descend into jargon. E.g., "I'm a Visual Designer, not an Information Architect." Difficult to say "no" to clients.
Better ways to approach. E.g., "Here's why you don't want me to ____ . I'm maxed out at 40 hours a week. It's possible that our timeline will be blown."
Objections are opportunities to educate client on process and roles so that we can be preventative. E.g., "We have three roles. Here's why." Shows that it saves time to involve more people than less.
Put yourself in the client's shoes. Their interest is how they are going to get their product out.

Clarifying Brand Strategy

2011-05-25T17:54:37Z

An important part of any user experience project is to define the branding requirements. Sometimes we take the client's existing branding guidelines and extend them to the product we design. In new product development, most often the existing requirements do not exist, and it is on us to clarify the brand strategy. While I've always worked with a sound process that is rooted in clear rationale, this book has become a welcome new addition to my toolkit. What I liked most in Designing Brand Identity was its seemingly fresh take on ways to distill, synthesize, and illustrate this important part in the branding process. A great reference for any visual designer. Find it over at Amazon.

Transitions

2009-10-28T01:32:13Z

These past few months have seen the growing pains of a Visual Designer in her transition to a User Experience Architect role. I've been head down in an exciting new project that has allowed me to explore human centered design from the ground up. Lots of agonizing over the user's needs, goals, and motivations. Stacks of paper and whiteboards full of sketches. Rapid prototyping with Axure. There's something very satisfying about working so closely with business and user needs; seeing the big picture and then diving deep into details. I know one thing for sure — the next time I approach the visual design, I'll have gone in with an even broader perspective. The ability to see the big picture and connect all the dots is absolutely key.

Writing Email: Be Succinct

2009-06-18T21:05:03Z

When it comes to verbose work emails that force me to comb through each tedious paragraph for the main points, I find that my patience wears thin. It's perhaps for this very reason that I strive to be succint in my own email communication. I know that the inboxes of my recipients are flooded on a daily basis, so I don't want to add to the noise and clutter. A well-crafted, succinct message has a far greater chance to cut through the noise and get a response. The advantage is two-fold: not only does my recipient benefit, but I likewise benefit when I'm forced to boil my message down to its essence.

I'm a big fan of short paragraphs and bulleted lists. As a best practice, this is validated by Web content strategists. Brain Traffic, one such firm, offers this advice in their post on Web Writing for Email:

Don’t use ambiguous language.
Eliminate unnecessary words.
Keep your sentences and paragraphs short.
When making lists, use bullets.
When giving instruction or steps, use numbered lists.
Your last sentence should include a clear call to action.

On Beauty

2009-05-28T00:46:18Z

I've followed the buzz generated by UPA Boston's Mini UPA Conference, twittered via #miniupa. Came across Aye Moah's presentation, "What User Interface Designers Can Learn from Architecture." Slide 28 contains a great quote by Matthew Frederick: "Beauty is due more to harmonious relationships among the elements of a composition rather than to the elements themselves."

I couldn't help but think of LukeW's article, "Common Visual Design Misconceptions," where he dispels the myth that it's possible to evaluate visual design in pieces. It's critical that design decisions are made by looking at things holistically, rather than in isolation. As LukeW says, "When a designer adjusts one element, she needs to refactor the overall composition to restore balance. Design decisions made in isolation tend not to add up to a coherent whole."

'Women of UX' Mention via #followfriday

2009-05-16T03:24:25Z

Ok, so this totally made my day. Whitney Hess included me as one of the 'Women of UX' on Twitter. Listened to her IA Summit 09 "Evangelizing Yourself" podcast a couple weeks ago, and as a fellow introvert, have been inspired to reach out more into the UX community ever since. It doesn't always come easy to put myself 'out there', but it's nice to receive a nudge of validation and encouragement! Honorary #followfriday mention on Twitter