Fresh

While at SXSW, I was bombarded with concepts, names, and countless tidbits of knowledge throughout the panels, presentations and keynotes I attended. Christina Wodtke gave an informative presentation on Information Architecture. UX Team of One presented by Leah Buley of Adaptive Path and Design for the Wisdom of Crowds with Derek Powazek were terrific presentations covered on Fresh here and here respectively. The topics that I enjoyed the most involved user experience design concepts, human computer interaction and how cognitive sciences influence it all.

Some of the most popular web applications exist to satisfy basic human needs. Organizing and sharing information. Symmetrical and asymmetrical relationships within groups. These are well researched patterns of human behavior. Technology is a chaotic, constantly evolving mess but behind all the innovation is our own innate desires that bring it all about. Where technology is fleeting, trendy, and a futile struggle with obsolescence, designing for human interaction with technology can be timeless. Interaction designers and developers are conduits for translating human behavior into effective uses of communications technology. In order to craft experiences that influence behavior we can employ aspects of psychology, anthropology, computer science, graphic design, industrial design and cognitive science.

(more…)

One of the best panels I saw at SXSW was “UX Team of One”, presented by Leah Buley of Adaptive Path. Buley delivered a fast paced, info-packed presentation on how to deliver kick-ass UX design with limited resources.  While a lot of panels at SXSW are more esoteric and high-level, “UX Team of One” was all about being in the trenches and getting design work done.  Throughout the whole talk I was furiously scribbling notes on practical tools and techniques for generating ideas quickly and efficiently.  But you won’t need to read my chicken scratch notes, she has all the resources, worksheets, slides and inspiration collected on her website.  Best of all you can see a video of her whole presentation, recorded by an audience member.  Sync it up with the Slideshare slides and it’ll feel like you were there.

(more…)

In this years’ election the Internet played a new, critical role in politics that gave us a glimpse at what’s to come and the future of the World Wide Web as a multi-functional tool that has already been used to accomplish everything from organizing grass-roots campaign efforts, raising campaign funds, creating discussion boards, inspiring countless blogs to becoming the constant face of a whole campaign.

The key word here is constant. Anyone at anytime could go to a candidates website and learn their views on the issues and how they plan to deal with them. They were taking advantage of higher bandwidths to show video and audio clips of rallies, speeches and even supporters’ home videos.

They were also taking full advantage of the e-commerce aspects of the web by not only offering sections to donate to the campaigns but also pages to buy t-shirts, buttons, coffee mugs and signs. The Obama-Biden site even has selected products for sale directly on the home page.

A major difference in their e-commerce sections was the user experience. Once in the McCain-Palin store each section takes you to a different looking third party e-com site that doesn’t even attempt to carry over any design or feel from the home site. This is in stark contrast to the Obama-Biden store experience that was fluid and consistent with no disconnect as the store carries every aspect of the design into their e-commerce interface.

Obama’s Store Page               Mccain’s Store Page

(more…)