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Archive for the ‘Interaction Design’ Category

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Jun 16

Prototyping is Like An Onion – It Has Layers

Recently, I’ve had to create several in-depth interactive prototypes, and keeping all the various designs and interactions straight was a bit of a daunting task. Especially when the level of interactive fidelity was high. To ensure that I hooked up every piece of interaction and wrote every logic case needed, I took the development of the prototypes step by step, or layer by interactive layer. This post is  a brief description of the process I followed. I’d be interested to know how this relates to your own process and any other comments you might have.

May 27

Contextual Vibes

Why doesn’t the iPhone allow you to customize the vibration sequence based on the context of the notification? This has been bugging me for awhile, but thanks to Eduardo Ortiz and Diego Pulido I’m bugged enough by it now to write about it. During a standard work day, my phone stays in the silent mode more often than not. Between SMS message, Boxcar Notifications, and emails my phone buzzes a lot. Now I’m like many people and I keep my personal email open all day so I can easily switch it when I need to. Feeling an email “buzz” come from my leg would tell me to check this tab rather than pull out my phone. The more I think about this type of use, the more I want this feature.

Apr 27

The Philosophy of Function

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently was reminded of papers I wrote back in college for some philosophy courses that oddly deal directly with my professional life as a User Experience Designer. This next paper really resonated with my internal Interaction Designer, as it deals mainly with function and behavior.   Please bare in mind that my skills as a writer were not the greatest back then and I’m slightly embarrassed at the state in which I found them, regardless I hope you enjoy.

Nov 11

Conversation on Failure

I recently had the pleasure of being a guest on Jeff Parks i.a. podcast. This was my first time being both interviewed and recorded, and kudos to Jeff for making it an awesome experience! The conversation we had revolved around failure and why it’s so important for designers. The topics include concepts I brought up in my three part posting on the importance of failure, and feedback we received on the wiki he set up. Thank you to Christian Crumlish, Daniel Szuc, Jan Jursa, Valeska O’Leary, and Eric Reiss for that feedback btw! You can listen to the podcast either here or via iTunes. Hope you enjoy!

Oct 26

The Importance of Failure for Designers – Part 3

In the final part of this series on the importance of failure, I’ll be getting a little philosophical on the subject. Part 1 and Part 2 covered some practical means to take advantage of failure. The final two methods are meant more to change the mindsets of both individuals and organizational leadership to encourage an environment that takes full advantage of failure. Failure always has a negative connotation to it, and these final two approaches are perfect for finally putting a positive spin on the subject.

Oct 22

The Importance of Failure for Designers – Part 2

In Part 1, I showcased the first two methods for dealing with failure and learning from it. Part 2 will focus on activities that can be during a retrospective, or stand alone. These next two methods have a certain risk associated with them due to the emotions that can arise during the resulting conversations. If done successfully however, the passion these emotions invoke can help solidify the lessons that are available to be learned.

Oct 12

The Importance of Failure for Designers – Part 1

I’ve recently been working on a framework to help designers deal with failure. Failure can occur many times over the course of a project, and knowing how to use that failure effectively helps a team continue to work without losing steam. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be posting the methods I’ve identified two at a time that form the framework. The goal of these posts is to gather feedback on the value of these methods, and any suggestions you want to see that will help flush them out. In other words, have a nice virtual conversation around how to scare off the bogeyman that is Failure.

Sep 29

Advanced Prototyping Using Blend 3

The key to any advanced prototypes using Blend 3 w/ Skecthflow is using the SketchFlow Animation Panel, the more advanced States panel, or by adding common interactive behavior to controls. Now, if you happen to have any Flash background, setting up animations will feel very comfortable for you. Below are my thoughts on how to set up some of the behavior that is exhibited by another Silverlight Prototype I put together. (Please explore the prototype to see how feedback and annotations work.)

Sep 01

Prototyping with Blend 3 and Sketchflow

My first introduction to Blend wasn’t a pleasant one, so bad that when Blend2 came out I promptly ignored it. However, while attending the Day of .Net Conference I sat in on a demo of Blend 3 with Sketchflow. It was impressive to see the improvement that has been made in the Blend, and with the addition of Sketchflow.  To dive deep into the capabilities of Blend, I downloaded the trial version and set out to create a prototype for a future design of this blog (and do some R&D for how to use this on my project team). Below are some thoughts I had while cranking out this concept.

Aug 12

How do you learn from failing?

The art of designing is one filled with failing early and failing often. These iterations allow a designer to learn from their mistakes to get to a proper solution. Learning from your failures is real challenge though, especially if there is a close personal connection to a design. The slippery slope is when we don’t learn from our failures, for we are destined to make the same mistakes all over again. The act of ‘sucking less than I did last time’ is an art that any designer needs to learn if they hope to be successfully.

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