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User Experience - Mar 23, 2009 11:10 - 7 Comments

Recommended reading from the 2009 Interaction and IA Summit conferences

Yellow diner chairs

In February 2009 I attended the Interaction Design Association conference in Vancouver, Canada and in March I attended the Information Architecture Summit in Memphis, Tennessee. These are the premiere conferences for designers in the field of user experience, interaction, and information architecture.

My purpose in attending these conferences was to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges facing User Experience Designers and learn what I can do to help make Web sites easier to understand and easier to use.

Each conference provided me with fresh perspective, new ideas, and a wealth of information gained from participating in sessions, keynotes, hallway conversation, drinks, meals, and social networks.

The amazing people that I met at these conferences were welcoming, supportive, kind, warm, friendly, and overwhelmingly positive. I owe them all a great debt and promise to do my part to champion the ideas they’ve been so kind to share.

Throughout each conference (and particularly at IA Summit) I made a point to jot down any book recommendation or article mentioned. What follows is an unordered and by no means exhaustive list so please add your own recommendations in the comments.

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User Experience - Feb 17, 2009 8:17 - 0 Comments

Constructive Criticism: Radar for the iPhone

A perspective picture of my Caltrain ride home

Radar is a free (advertising-supported) service for sharing pictures taken with a camera phone. Radar can be used with a mobile web browser or dedicated iPhone application.

Radar is intuitive, easy to use and fun. The iPhone application allows a new user to register for the service and immediately begin sharing photos.

In the interest of providing constructive criticism for the fine folks at Tiny Pictures I’ve crafted this page-by-page report on a few areas I feel could use improvement.

This report is free and released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

If you’re interested in receiving constructive criticism on your own application or website please contact research@likewowonline.net for details.

The research contained in this report is based on a review of Radar version 1.0 for the iPhone.

Download the full report in PDF: Constructive Criticism: Radar for the iPhone

User Experience - Jan 29, 2009 13:58 - 2 Comments

Shimone.info – A crowdSPRING Success Story

Shimone Samuel

From early challenges to eventual success, my experience with crowdSPRING has also been educational and gratifying. The design of Shimone.info is more beautiful and unique than I could have imagined.

I look forward to explaining the code and technology which power Shimone.info, but for now I will describe my experience as a crowdSPRING Buyer.

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