Lushai

The other night, I was up till quite late reading up on a popular portal solution. In the beginning, I thought everything made sense, and I was pretty happy that I “got it”. But after a while, probably about two hrs in, found myself googling or going to wikipedia to find the definitions of every other technical word, even the terms I thought I understood at the start. I found myself getting more and more confused about the thing I was reading. I was unsure of myself. This was because some generic terms you and I would use were taken to be part of the systems “default” term and concept and had given them their own definitions.

I don’t know about you, but I think terminology and jargon sessions need to be part of the process of any web project, particularly large ones. With new and different roles in the development lifecycle of software/online products, and different companies playing those different roles for one client, it becomes crucial to spend some time on being on the same page with everyone. If you don’t take time to flesh out the terminology to be used for that project it can create a sense of distrust and second-guessing amongst project members from different teams especially between the tech and the design team.

Since we all come from IT and read similar books and blogs, we tend to use the same words but interpret and use them slightly differently. This often leads to a debate on semantics. But in the end, we are all probably talking about the same thing.

Communicating design is one of the key skills a designer needs to have and part of the design process. I believe this must include a communication or explanation of the terms you use and the naming convention you will be using for your documentation for that project.

The benefits? If you have everyone understanding what you mean, people (like your clients and stakeholders) can give you better feedback and input without getting stuck on what something means. In fact, people want to understand more of these things, which means they are more curious, more involved and more aware of the process and are therefore less in the dark about what they are paying for. This can only lead to a successful project and more importantly the design.

• Posted in All Posts, Approach and Process, Experience Strategy, Interaction Design, Thoughts & Rants

This was going to be a top 10 at 10 but hey, it’s 8am and all is well.
Plus I only have eight links to get through this morning.

So a quick skim through feedly has given me some juicy links for a morning read. Well worth sharing.
I was even going to try and organise these but it’s too early to try and fancy IA stuff. Onwards

• iPlotz, Could be some competition for Mockingbird
• Perfecting User Experience Design with A/B Testing
• Beautiful Typography in Web Design
• Stop designing websites, start designing posters
• To Grid or Not to Grid: Advantages and Disadvantages
• How to Evaluate What CMS to Use
• The Most Influential Websites in the World
• Spriteme

• Posted in Thoughts & Rants

Ux stands for ‘user experience’.  It can be applied to a wide range of disciplines and we, at Lushai, work it in the online or web space (so far) and work it good.

It is about the experience that you create for your users (these are your customers and other interested visitors or people who stumble across your site from Google).  It permeates every facet of web design from your idea to content to code.

To me a great user experience is one you don’t notice, (it’s only us webby folk that would rave about it) but to your average user they are just satisfied the tool (website) has successfully enabled them to complete their task. Be it book tickets, find the content or article they were looking for or navigate through a photo album.

As the web becomes richer with multiple channels and levels of visual and physical emphasis it is sometimes best to step back and keep it simple.  We like to solve problems. We like to know what your users face as a challenge online and we want to solve it, preferably with you. We enjoy solving complex problems (and sometimes the not so complex problems) with simple solutions.

For us good UX equals smart business.  How could it not be? You are discovering what your user needs to solve their issues and problems.

How do we find out what their problems are?
We use a range of techniques.  One could be trailing them in their work place or their natural user environment. Asking them probing, to-the-point questions, leading questions and vague searching questions (you name it we ask them!) Then once we know your users and their problems we use this to inform our design and create the solution.

Example:

• You: You are a business, so you want insight into how the people that visit your site (your users) will think, act, and react when using your site right?
• Us: We’ll use UX research techniques to gather information from your users, yourself & your business.
• Users: What are their goals when they come to your site? How can you achieve these gracefully and successfully?
• Business: what are you wanting to achieve with your site? What are the business goals for your site?
• Together: We will work with you to create a site that reflects your business needs and your users needs. Design and wireframe the concepts we will walk through together. We’ll apply best practice principles, creativity and kick ass design to solve the problems and  needs of both parties.

With good UX  you can get your product or service connecting with your user and answering their needs.

What Ux means to me:  An overall experience that is as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Gracefully taking me from one useful piece of information to the other.  Anticipating my needs, meeting then and every now and then surprising and delighting me.

• Posted in Experience Strategy, Interaction Design

Well this is my first blog post to Lushai and I’m happy to be on the team! Instead of writing about me I thought i would share something a friend forwarded onto me recently.

So there is a guy who is writing a book on Interaction Design and he’s breaking the mold a little on this one by asking the user to fund the end result (that’s the book).  Usually this sort of stuff annoys me a little but after having read the intro I think I am starting to understand why he already has a fair few people backing him.

The book is called Cadence and Slang. Have a read of the ‘outline of the book’ (scroll a little down the homepage to the link to it) and see what you think.  I am relatively impressed with the few snippets that stood out to me such as:

“An interface should be understood at a minimal cognitive cost, which vanishes after enough practice.”

And

“Expectations are always multifaceted, and they are usually moving targets. It takes a sensitive, continually adaptive understanding of what those expectations are to make a good interface.”

It seems like it might be worth throwing him a dollar or two his way so he complete the thing. See what you think yourself.

• Posted in Interaction Design
• Tagged under Books

I’m back and I’m bad. It’s been like weeks and weeks since my last one. All due to large projects mixed with the small bread n butter plus all the usual distractions that come along.

Our current major project is for a large educational institute so it has brought up a host of challenges around all the facets of user experience (UX) design – visual design, information architecture, interaction design and all the smaller interactive components. The design needs to break the conventional mode for the sector (we wanted this one to pop). The UX has to be fun, easy and exceptional. Finally the interactive parts such as a course finder needs to be solid yet flexible, media galleries and landing pages all need to flow with ease as I like to say. The whole site needs to be quick, intuitive and fun.
Anyway we’ve swum through a large pool of research to help us get this far and here are some of the highlights.

UX and interactive

• University course finders suck
• Minimizing Complexity in User Interfaces
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/13/call-to-action-buttons-examples-and-best-practices/
• Communicating Value through Cause & Effect on Fanfeedr
• 3 ways to make your site stand out from the crowd

The techy stuff. Still if you’re in the web design business you should know it.

• @Fontface in depth
• SenCSs › Sensible Standards CSS Framework
• Guide to CSS Font Stacks: Techniques and Resources
• CSS Differences in Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8

And when you have to present it all: Make Yourself Presentable

• Posted in Interaction Design, Visual Design

Slack is the word! I have been trying to write one, maybe two blog posts a week here at Lushai but as you may or may not have noticed, last week was a fizzer. Due not so much to motivation as extreme workloads and baby demands.
So here is a short spewage of links and fun for a Monday morning, enjoy

I love it

• Danny Devito joins twitter and his nuts are on fire. Im following!
• Introducing Typedia by Jason Santa MariaTypedia. Will this solve a million hours of typeface digging?
• Bucket vac
• Webtrends are fun
• Kickin it with art direction on the web
• Excellant article about inline form validation from ala
• Augmented Reality Apps Proliferate
• The wall has fallen on Augmented reality Apps
• Handy JQuery drop down menu solutions

Space age retro images. Awesome!

• Posted in All Posts

I’ve had a resurgence of late with my posterous account. This due to a few reasons. My new iPhone, near new daughter Lola Grace and the excellant Pic Posterous app. Im also taking big steps into the IA world (I believe the saying is chucked into the deep end) so will chuck in a few useful posts for newbies.

Posterous, Pic Posterous and Tumblr

• Is Posterous the new TwitPic?
• Posterous Finally Has An iPhone App, Could Have Been Way Better
• Posterous for iPhone: Instant Photo and Video Blogging
• Posterous’ new iPhone app could make citizen journalism and lifestreaming the norm
• Posterous + iPhone = Perfect Mobile Platform

Information Architecture for beginners, sink or swim

• What is information architecture?
• Complete Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture
• An information architecture glossary (PDF) from the Argus Center for Information Architecture courtesy of ALA

Im a sucker for bold bright lavish design and Smashing mags latest post on festival design fits the bill.

And finally… Beautiful pictures, 8 Cities That Might Not Make It.

Reminds me of the Opiki suspension bridge in the Manawatu.

I would love to hear from anyone else digging deep into IA, any nuggets of wisdom or links would be much appreciated.

• Posted in Thoughts & Rants

A small wrap of stuff this week. It’s been a busy one with barely a blink to capture stuff outside of work.

If your into Dj sets as opposed to band albums or tracks check out a new online music startup called mugasha. It’s pretty sweet though I Can’t find Shadow on there yet.

Google maps gets busy using locals to make the maps wiki style. Nice.

Crowdsourcing rocks! It’s what powers my favourite company Theadlesss

Check out this awesome bike cover. Im not so sure how it will work in a Wellington wind though.

Don’t let branding kill your brand

And finally. The Golden age of advertising. These are almost like some sort of weird alternate reality shift. Wicked!

• Posted in Weekly wrap-up

Ideally this will be a quick post of my top 10 links at 10am on a Tuesday. In this case it’s more of an afternoon slot. Time being what it is not many things happen according to the clock, this is no exception. Enjoy.

Wicked stuff

!Free! Radiohead’s new track “These are my twisted words”.

The new Facebook for iPhone 3.0 app.

Unique tv shows that inspire creativity

Web world

Redesigning your own site. Let me say with the re-design of Lushai taking many months and itterations, I know the pain.
and on the subject of re-designs have a look at another artcle from ALA on the Erskin website redesign.

On the subject of art direction and web design. Have a look at Gregory Woods site. Gorgeous.

Good stuff

I love this! Shows what good people really can do.

Scotland does what NZ should be doing. It’s ethical duty.

It’s great t see a HUGE company taking a real stance and making a change for the environment. Go Walmart go!

And finally…Awkward family photos, ummm yeah

• Posted in Thoughts & Rants

This the first of many (fingers crossed) weekly wrap-up articles I will be posting with and insight into the wild world of web as seen by me over last week.

Highlights this week include the news that Microsoft word is banned from Texas?! and
This edition is playing catchup as it was started a few weeks ago but I wanted to hold it off until our new site was released. Some of the links a re a few weeks old now but it’s all worth a look I say.

All that social media guff

Twitter has a new front page. Mashable ponder over what and why?

Hootsuite. The professional Twitter client.

General web news

YouTube finally launches their new interface for the masses. Have a read of their blog post about the updates.

Everyone loves firefox(well I do), it may not be the fastest horse on the track but it’s the most versatile. Firefox 4.0 is on the horizon and Mashable have some early screenshots.

Apparently Apple don’t do market research. Pretty interesting article from Bokardo on why the hell not. And here is the og quote.

UX UX UX

Myself IM a fledgling UX designer, Lulu is the jedi master. Nick Finck writes a good post about Starting a career in User Experience Design and this post on ’10 Common misconceptions about User Experience Design’ offers a great understanding of what it’s all about.

Visual treats

Web designer depot talk about ‘The dos and dont’s of dark webdesign’.

In spite of the striking visual impact that these dark designs can have, many designers don’t know how to effectively pull them off without turning off the visitor

It’s a well written article with some great points.The one re-occuring theme seems to be white or dark space. They also reference the beautiful New Zealand based Black Estate website. Nice.

A nice read on the virtues of old tech from Jason Santa Maria. I always love the visual richness and variety in his posts.

I love colour so this little stumble is well worth a read. Incidently I can’t recommend highly enough Colourlovers.com, such a great resource for anything colour related and it’s fun to just troll on through.

You press the button. The story of Kodak

And thats a wrap.

• Posted in Thoughts & Rants, Weekly wrap-up