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“…no one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” – Julia Child, My Life in France Or, to paraphrase the late great Julia — no one is born a great designer, one learns by doing (and testing). Cooks test out their recipes with an audience, and the same principle applies to new products…
There are a lot of great mobile app user experiences out there these days. This is great — we’ve won! Unfortunately there are so many that some really great examples can get lost in the noise. As a follow-up to my previous post of iPad gems, here are some more amazing implementations of great user…
As a designer, I’m a perfectionist. I enjoy solving problems, analyzing human intuition, and testing all the available research tools to turn ideas into something viable and realistically executable. This heuristic, analytical approach to design was what shifted me from advertising into software in the first place. I enjoyed leading creative teams, driving process innovation,…
Last weekend I went through another terrible online registration experience when trying to buy a ticket for a popular regional beer release. Over the last few years, I’ve had similarly poor experiences for high demand, online, mass registration events. I’m continually surprised that companies specializing in online registration services struggle to deliver positive customer experiences….
The other day, I was having a conversation with a colleague about some user testing she was looking to do on a project. “I need to get permission from the client,” she said, “and even once we do it, I’m not sure how much information it will provide. We’ve already done a few tests already;…
Last week Software GR hosted Dan Klyn from The Understanding Group, the world’s largest information architecture consultancy. Dan’s talk shared some background on where information architecture comes from and what it’s all about, and then went on to show us a tool he’s used successfully called “performance continuums.” Catch the video after the jump.
Brittany and I recently created a usability test overview that aimed to summarize our test findings with clarity and brevity. You can download the template here. We designed our test scenarios using our usability starter kit templates. The starter kit templates made sure our testing session was organized and our tests were consistent. Rather than…
Good usability testing takes a fair amount of planning. In order to get quality feedback from your test participants, it is essential to carefully craft your tasks ahead of time, make sure your software is ready for users to play with it, and make sure everyone on your team is in agreement when it comes…
Recently one of our teams at AO worked with a client to do 2 days’ worth of usability testing with real users. I acted as the test facilitator for this project. As the test facilitator, I greeted test participants when they showed up, explained how the test would work, and walked them through the tasks…
I recently enjoyed being a panel speaker at a Michigan Agile Enthusiasts event about big visible charts. During the event, I spoke about the UX display boards we have been using at Atomic and how they complement some of the developer-centric data radiators in the office. While preparing for the MAE event, I had the…
Carl is the president and co-founder of Atomic Object