UX folks can’t get enough of workshops. Whenever we get asked what kind of sessions we want at conferences, we always answer “Workshops!” and “Hands-on activities!” Why? Because of the sad fact that a lot of us don’t get to do much beyond wireframes. Continue reading »

From reports to policy documents to forms to user guides, PDFs are ubiquitous on higher-ed websites. When designing websites, we spend time on details like colors, typography, navigation, branding and accessibility, but usually ignore these details within PDF documents. Gaurav Gupta says we need to craft the same high quality user experience into our PDFs as we do our web sites. Continue reading »

It’s not often that we see “user interface” and “brand” in the same sentence, but these two concepts are more intertwined than you may believe. When people think about brand they usually envision a logo or slogan. In reality, brand is a person’s gut feeling about a service, product or … Continue reading »

VCU Web Systems Librarian, Erin White, shares what she learned about community, growth, failure and purpose at Code4Lib, a conference for library tech-types. Continue reading »

Inspired by Don Norman’s fantastic book The Design of Everyday Things, I set out to identify usability issues in the things I encounter every day.

1 – The lock on my car door
2 – My Samsung Galaxy Tablet
3 – The toilet down the hall from my office Continue reading »

November 30th is the sixth international “Blue Beanie Day“, a day when Jeffrey Zeldman encourages web professionals all over the world to don the iconic blue beanie to show their support for web standards. I keep a copy of Zeldman’s “Designing With Web Standards” book on my book shelf and … Continue reading »

In honor of World Usability Day we’re happy to share this presentation from Stephanie Hay at edUi 2012. Writing Content for Usability Slide Deck (pdf) About Stephanie Stephanie Hay is a writer, project manager, and information architect with an uncanny ability to seamlessly guide users from point A to point … Continue reading »

Jeff Parks talks with Derek Featherstone on the Radio Johnny podcast about the importance of accessible design in the creation of great experiences for every user. Continue reading »

Jeff Parks talks with Eric Phetteplace, Emerging Technologies Librarian at Chesapeake College. Eric argues that performance cannot be an afterthought but should be a distinct development concern in every project. He describes the most important improvements to make, shares tools that can automate performance improvements, as well as the specific problems libraries and educational institutions typically encounter. Continue reading »