conferences

There are 59 posts filed in conferences (this is page 3 of 15).

UX London Tweets – Don Norman

Here is a dump of my live tweets during The Don’s presentation at UX London. I’m writing a more coherent version of this for Johnny Holland – coming soon!

  • Don Norman on the stage. Last speaker of the day at UX London
  • the Don opens with ‘Thank you, it is now time for questions’
  • whenever anyone says they want something, I oppose it. I question it. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Rules of complexity: Life is complex, The tools we build have to match life, the problem is understanding not simplicity #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Complexity is not bad. Complicated is bad. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • If you want to make something simple you compensate by making other things complex #uxlondon #TheDon
  • When @lukewdesign says ‘no one’ customises Yahoo.com he means ‘only 60million people’ #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Complex can be enjoyable. Some simple things can be horrible. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Don Normal talking about the doors. What a treat. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • ‘I highly recommend walking around with sticky green dots to remind yourself which way things should turn’ #uxlondon #TheDon
  • As a generalisation, Asian cultures prefer more complex interfaces #uxlondon #TheDon (123india.com vs google.com)
  • he even sounds a bit like a messiah, don’t you think?
    </starstruck>#uxlondon #TheDon
  • Magpies are the only bird that can pass the mirror test, can lie, they’re extremely intelligent #uxlondon #TheDon #WhoKnew
  • reading music is incredibly complex but it produces amazing things, we don’t complain about that complexity. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • People whose offices look messy often know where their stuff is & are better able to find things than ‘neat’ people. #uxlondon #TheDon Amen
  • Too simple is boring. To complex is frustrating. There’s an ideal amount. Experience moves the preferred complexity up. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Being distracted is sometimes a good thing, it can be how we learn things. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • some ‘simple’ tools take time to use well. eg. a silversmith’s hammer #uxlondon #TheDon
  • there’s a sweet spot for complexity & engaging things are found in that sweetspot, but it keeps shifting! #uxlondon #TheDon
  • As I get better at something, I need increased complexity to maintain interest, otherwise I get bored. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Complexity is good. It’s good to feel the world disappear as you engage in what you’re doing. It’s enjoyable & productive #uxlondon #TheDon
  • I think Don is proving his point re: complexity & understanding (unconvinced by his suggestion to redesign musical scales) #uxlondon #TheDon
  • @fred_beecher yes, he mentioned games re: complexity & shifting sweetspot #uxlondon #TheDon
  • we are sending seriously mixed messages – we say we want simplicity but we buy things because they’ve got more features #uxlondon #TheDon
  • we can’t resist features. Even when incredibly simple mobile phones are produced, we don’t buy them. We want features. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • quoting The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz – we have more choices than ever but less satisfaction. More is Less #uxlondon #TheDon
  • You can contain complexity by putting things in modular clumps so you only see options when you need them #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Google’s advanced search interfaces helps me do something complex in a supported way and starts to teach me Boolean search #uxlondon #TheDon
  • the solution: conceptual model #uxlondon #TheDon
  • eg file system interface is a fake. It doesn’t really exist but it helps me understand where to find things on my computer #uxlondon #TheDon
  • But the Graphical User Interface does not scale. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Another solution: Systems Thinking #uxlondon #TheDon
  • The reason the ipod is such a success is that it is a complete system. License music iTunes iPod #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Lots of the visiting US speakers are talking up the Kindle. And saying it’s increasing their reading volume. Jealous. #uxlondon #TheDon
  • Complexity can be fun – for example this very complicated coffee maker. I don’t know if it makes good coffee or not #uxlondon #TheDon
  • and that’s the end of Don Norman’s ‘In Favour of Complexity’ – what a treat! #uxlondon #TheDon
  • from the Q&A – if I can’t get my pictures out of my camera, it’s hopeless. The whole system has to work #uxlondon #TheDon
  • in the old days we suffered through technology, but now we are selling to everyday people. Things have to work. It really matters.

UX London Tweets – Jared Spool

Here is a dump of my live tweets during Jared’s presentation at UX London. I’m writing a more coherent version of this for Johnny Holland – coming soon!

  • warming up my twitter fingers in a vain attempt to keep up with @jmspool, who is up next at
  • ‘ …and they thought that was just a senseless waste of asterisks’ @jmspool is on form
  • designs can’t intuit anything, people intuit things, calling design ‘intuitive’ is a shortcut.
  • people become frustrated because they are no longer focussing on what they are doing, they are focussing on the design itself
  • novelty isn’t always responsible for unintuitive design, sometimes it is simplicity
  • intuitive design is a personal thing – it is based on what you currently know (your previous experiences)
  • intuitive design is evolutionary – as the technology matures, our expectation for intuitive design increases.
  • Current Knowledge (what the user brings with them to the design) & Target Knowledge (what they need to have to complete their task)
  • In between ‘Current’ and ‘Target’ knowledge = ‘The Gap’. Design happens in The Gap.
  • is anyone at #uxlondon heading over to tonight’s UX London bookclub? (via @Wandster) > I am! :)
  • Lots of excellent (but not so tweetable) comparisons of IM setup pages and their relative ‘intuitiveness’
  • wizards reduce Target Knowledge, which is great… as long as they work. If they don’t work, the user is screwed.
  • a design is intuitive if target and current knowledge are the same, or the knowledge gap imperceptibly small.
  • ethnography/field research: users in the mist @jmspool
  • Techniques for creating intuitive designs: Field Studies (Current Knowledge), Usability Studies (Target Knowledge)
  • use robust personas to store and communicate what you learn from your user studies
  • can’t believe @jmspool hasn’t cracked a ‘mind the gap’ joke yet

UX London Tweets – Dan Saffer

Here is a dump of my live tweets during Dan’s presentation at UX London. I’m writing a more coherent version of this for Johnny Holland – coming soon!

  • Designing from the Inside-Out: Behaviour as the Egine of Product Design with @odannyboy
  • @21five good pickup. We don’t customise on the web. Mobile is a completely different story
  • it is easier to focus on things like form than it is on behaviour.
  • many competitive products do very similar things, it is the behaviour of the products that differentiates them (eg iphone/nokia)
  • features are not a good long term strategy for product differentiation. eg. Flip Camcorders
  • behaviour led design can be a great defender against featuritis
  • very pretty KeyNote transitions @odannyboy. Esp the glistening obligatory Don Norman quote :)
  • It’s easy to replicate features but it is hard to copy how those features behave if care is taken to design them well
  • Stop looking for people’s goals and preferences and start looking for what they do and why they do it.
  • Focus on: Motivations, Expectations, Actions, not demographics or preferences for customer modeling
  • Transitions Matter #uxlondon (ref: previous tweet re: Dan’s keynote transitions. lol)
  • @odannyboy is talking about Buddha Nature (core activity) and the Hero Task. Think they would enjoy @lukewdesign‘s Parti
  • If the product was an action, what would that action be? There is a big difference btwn ‘design X’ and ‘design something to do X’
  • ‘So, am I saying form follows function? Somewhat, but don’t quote me’ @odannyboy

UX London Tweets – Luke Wroblewski

Here is a dump of my live tweets during Luke’s presentation at UX London. I’m writing a more coherent version of this for Johnny Holland – coming soon!

  • Next up at #uxlondon @lukewdesign talking about Parti & the Design Sandwich… cryptic much! :)
  • How do all the things like design patterns, best practices, design principles, design visions etc. fit together?
  • imagine having 590 Million customers and 10K stakeholders… that’s Yahoo.com. Design that homepage!
  • Parti = the big idea
  • A parti is different to a vision statement bc it is expressed through the language of design incl. experiential and aesthetic
  • tech opportunity, resource alightment, company strategy, market factors, customer insights, all contribute to Parti
  • Parti derives from usage metrics, customer feedback, market trends, corporate strategy, revenue objectives, concept testing….
  • Yahoo.com Parti – ‘the dashboard for what you love on the web’
  • emerging theme from #uxlondon – communicating your design work/principles effectively is as important as the design work you’re doing.
  • It’s not about having control over this big idea, it’s about being able to get everyone aligned around it.
  • no one customises/personalises. (@lukewdesign of Yahoo.com says so – tell your boss)
  • The top of the Design Sandwich is Design Principles (Jensen Harris’ MS Design Tenets on screen for the 2nd time today)
  • Good idea or no? Someone has an idea, evaluate that idea against your design principles – does that idea align with principle?
  • Design Considerations are at the bottom of the Design Sandwich (Opportunities & Limitations)
  • What is Best Practice? Not how you can solve a problem but how you should solve it.
  • in situations where bad decisions happened, people lacked some information that would have helped make the right decision @jmspool
  • the rest of the design sandwich (the filling) = design patterns, best practices and research/testing.
  • a poor designer will attempt to hold onto a failed parti, thus losing the integrity of the whole. Create another parti!