A good diagram explaining the different areas in user experience design and how they are affected by content. Several more models and theories can be found at Challis Hodge’s UX blog.
“Interaction Design (IxD) is a reverse blanket term that describes how people apply many theories in psychology and physiology, including Heuristics, Cybernetics, Ergonomics, Planning Theory, and even more disparate fields dealing with Audio and Visual design.
To reduce that. Interface Design is about where buttons appear on a page, and what those buttons look like. IxD is whether or not that page needs to exist at all.
Or
Interface Design will tell you how best to ask a user for his address, IxD will tell you to harvest it from somewhere that you already have it stored.
Or
Interface Designers design interfaces, IxDs design ways to avoid them.”
Read in a discussion at interactiondesigners.com. The members are discussing the difference between Interface Design and Interaction Design.
Think for a moment about your daily routine. You probably wake up to an alarm clock of some sort. You may or may not eat breakfast. You get ready and dressed for work and commute using either public transportation or your own vehicle. Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones whose commute is to the home office. You sit at a desk and work on a computer. Perhaps you work outdoors or down in a hole. You go out to lunch or bring your own. You travel home at the end of the day and spend time with family, go out with friends, or watch TV alone.
Whatever your routine, you live in a world filled with user experiences. From the toaster that makes your bread golden brown to the wireless mouse that selects text or graphics on the screen, you have the opportunity to appreciate (or hate) design every day. How does this affect you? Are the majority of your experiences transparent, or do you have several daily complaints? Have you ever made an effort to change a painful experience or publicly applauded a fantastic one?
What I’d like to know from our readers is what you feel makes a truly great user experience—the defining factors that create happiness, efficiency, ease, and simplicity.
This is my new favorite site as of late. The design of the site itself is not terribly impressive, but the content is fantastic. Great design inspiration.
I have spent the last several months studying creativity and the creative process as they relate to what we do here at the Church. There have been many talks given by Church leaders on creativity that serve to enlighten, inspire, and instruct. I am in the process of documenting the things I have learned and turning them into something interesting, but that is a little ways off. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few of the more thought-provoking bits of wisdom I found.
We believe in meetings, all that have been scheduled, all that are now scheduled, and we believe that there will yet be many great and important meetings scheduled. We have endured many meetings and hope to be able to endure all meetings. Indeed, we may say that if there is a meeting or anything that resembles a meeting or anything that we may possibly turn into a meeting, we seek after these things.
Matt and I were leaving the Triad Center today after the conclusion of a meeting. He was kind enough to offer me a ride over the the COB to my next appointment for which I was already late. We headed down the elevator to the parking garage, and upon disembarking, found a group of people standing around in the basement. One suited man turned to us and said quietly, “Stand tall, boys.” I was not sure what he was talking about, and was very curious as we turned the corner. There, standing in the midst of a group of people and telling a story of how someone had earned the name of “Bucket” was our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson.
Wow.
I stopped in my tracks and gasped, “Oh my!” We stood there for a minute as he finished his story and after doing so he was whisked away by his security guards. I have pondered that chance meeting for the remainder of the day today, wondering what would have happened had I decided to walk to the COB. I probably never would have known he was even there. Even though I didn’t get to shake his hand or say anything to him, I felt his spirit the moment I turned the corner. I knew I was in the midst of the Prophet of God. I am really grateful to be working for the Church and downtown near all these great men. Are we sure we want to move our department to Riverton?
Mac Magleby recently retired from his post as Professor of Illustration at the U of U. Upon being asked in an interview with Susen Sawatzki of AdNews whether he’d done a “last lecture”, he presented some pages he had been handing out to his graduating classes since 1987.
The first, titled, “Creativity-How to be Creative” goes as follows:
Creativity is the act of bringing into existence that which is unknown, uncommon, or unexpected. Being creative is risky; however, where the risks are great, the rewards are greater! To be creative, you need to be comfortable feeling lost and in deep trouble. You need to enjoy absurd, contradictory, outrageous possibilities. You need to be a lover of exploring uncharted territory, and, most of all, you need enough self-confidence to fail.
Another sheet makes a comparison.
How To Be Creative:
Do preliminary research into the problem. Get a thorough background, understand the nature of the problem. Work in a restful environment. Know you can do it. Have faith the idea will come. Minimize interruptions. Relax, let ideas start to flow. Walk around. Wash your hands in warm water. Go with the flow. Add some stimulus, look at inspirational sources—books, photos, nature, etc. Join ideas together. Ask, “What if…?” Use free association. Let creativity take from naturally. Start with simple, build to complex. Don’t force it. Get away. Relax. Take another direction. Change surroundings. Add new stimulation. Use other sources as a springboard. Let the idea expand and improve. Build on that idea. Refine the idea, test it, and if it works, go with it. If it doesn’t work, reject it and repeat the process. Work hard. Don’t give up!
How Not to Be Creative:
Work in a hectic environment. Start working right away. Be negative. Tell yourself that it can’t be done. Stare at a blank sheet of paper. Get all uptight. Worry about job security. Sit in one place. Dress in a suit and tie. Sit up straight an be rigid. Keep those muscles tight. Work in a vacuum. Use no outside resources. Sit in one place. Force the idea to come. Make the problem complex. Reject ideas. Fear new, unproven ideas. Don’t take risks. Throw up your hands. Quit.
“Thus creativity involves both a process and a result. It springs out of our seeing possibilities we have not seen before, seeing connections between patches of truth and beauty, and responding to them in ways we have not done before. Feelings that lead to poetry, mental imagery that leads to painting, and pondering that gives birth to prose are but examples.
Creativity, therefore, is not simply innovation but organization. Self-discipline is required as part and parcel of that self-discovery which is paralleled by the discovery of the universes, vast and small, of which we are a part.
Gospel gladness can give us a precious perspective about all these things and can spur us on to share that beauty which our Father in Heaven helps us to create. It is a process that should not trouble itself overmuch, initially, with questions of originality and utility but, rather, with quality and excellence.”
Neal A. Maxwell, “Start Making Chips,” New Era, Sep 1998, 4
“When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling.”
