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UX Posts

Article  |  UX

14 Things I Learned at WebVisions - Day 1

23 May 2012

I visited sunny Portland, Oregon (I’ve lived here for 7 years but let’s pretend, shall we) to attend this year’s WebVisions conference. Did you know that Portland has over 400 days of sunshine per year? Don’t attempt to do the math- it’s complicated. To extrapolate from my WebVisions experience, I’ve determined that Portlandites predominantly use MacBooks, are all men, wear ill-fitting trousers, and smell kinda funny. Besides that, I’ve compiled a list of 14 THINGS I LEARNED AT WEBVISIONS, the first half of which are presented here in no particular order. Enjoy!

Convention Center hall

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Article  |  UX

The Mobile Viewport, Short and Sweet

17 Apr 2012

Peter-Paul Koch, of quirksmode fame, recently gave an enlightening presentation about the mobile viewport which, quite fortunately for all of us, is available in video and slide form. “A pixel is not a pixel”, clocking in at just over an hour, is quite thorough and enjoyably dense, so watch it. But, if you don’t have an hour to spare, this is the gist of it:

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Article  |  UX

WebVisions 2011

1 Jun 2011

Allison, Brian, and I attended WebVisions in Portland, OR on May 26-27. It was a great event, and I appreciated that time limits for speakers were mostly set at 15-30 minutes. This made for a more energetic conference than most, and speakers needed to get to the point quickly or risk not getting time to make one at all.

I attended as many design related presentations as I could, and this year the talk in web design has shifted from visual design to emotional and interaction design. What makes a user return? What excites them? How can you guide them through your site? Having a pleasing visual design isn’t a big deal anymore, because now that’s just expected.

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Article  |  UX

Empathy is just a few words away

24 Aug 2010

I recently received a welcome packet in the mail from our overpriced health insurance provider, which encouraged me to head to their web site to setup my account. They assure me that it is going to change how I manage my health!

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Photo  |  UX

CAPTCHA Challenge-Response

18 Aug 2010

CAPTCHA Challenge-Response

What kind of user experience does an empty CAPTCHA field produce? If you guessed annoying and frustrating – you win!

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