UX Puppy

"247 web usability guidelines Although designing usable systems requires far more than simply applying guidelines, guidelines can still make a significant contribution to usability by promoting consistency and good practice. We use this list of guidelines in our consultancy work. For best results, remember to interpret the guideline in context - this requires a bit more thought but ensures you will get a lot more from your review."

an oldie... no, a classic and classics never go out of style.

digging into Google Analytics and custom segments

"Design Research is defense against the dark arts - SEO"

by Leanna Gingras

Wanna learn UX?, perhaps we can learn from a Baker. Guild system can teach us about learning a master trade.

Market research group based in the neighborhood - Chapel Hill NC. They set up surveys and data collection but also do online communities.

Great article and primer on IA process

Slides advance every 15. Whole talk lasts 5 minutes. Awesome!

Jeff Gothelf, Director of UX, TheLadders.com. @jboogie Ignite Talk: "How to 'Do' Lean UX in 5 Easy Steps" -- Ignite is a fast-paced presentation style that gives tech entrepreneurs the opportunity to share lessons learned with a room full of drunk entrepreneurs. But there's a catch: presentations are limited to exactly five minutes and twenty slides--and those slides advance automatically every 15 seconds.

UX conference in Isreal!

"Storytelling for User Experience,"

Nice interview with a UX writer and practitioner by Craig Tomlin

"Hey Spool, Mike and Steve, Nice post! Krug's Rocket Surgery book where I learned about developing good tasks. Basically, he says to test the participants interaction with the site not their ability to read. "buy a bookcase" tests the participants ability to read and, in this case search. That's not bad! It gets at the usability / mechanical functionality of a site. But, you don't need to go through the trouble to recruit users to collect this type of data. Anyone hanging around the hallway will do. However, if you want to dig down to the other parts of the experience (findable, desirable, Morville's honeycomb types), then a more authentic, believable, contextual task is important. By changing the directive command - "Find a bookcase" - to a more contextual based question - "How would you do that?" - you were able to get a different and possibly more insightful / actionable result. As a matter of fact, from now on, I'm using this format for all my user tests. Done and Done, Mr. Spool. @Mike - (A/B) test your (user) test? I smell recursion and an out of memory error. :) cheers! newman"

analysis of your twitter account

This is a good way to get a bead on your audience... shhhh, helpful for persona creation.

A new way to do the 'website tour'. Pretty cool actually.

It would be interesting to watch the users move through this on Clicktale or Inspectlet. hmmm, interesting...

Landing pages and scrolling. Good article and tests about the 'whatnots and whathaveyous' of page scrolling.

A UX designer community forum. Brilliant idea

A stackExchange or StackOverflow message board. Great discussion going on here

"Six Thinking Hats® is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. And once learned, the tools can be applied immediately! You and your team members can learn how to separate thinking into six clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a colored symbolic "thinking hat." By mentally wearing and switching "hats," you can easily focus or redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting. "

I've been meaning to get this in the group. Edward de Bono not only has a kick ass name, he may have a solution to our 'Design meetings suck' problem. Our problem is easy to define: Too much pressure is but on the designer. They become either aggressive or passive aggressive. The solution is obvious. Someone needs to 'step-up' (not man-up, you gender bias asshole) and 'set the tone' of the meeting and relationship. Easier said than done. But, along comes de Bono. His 6 hats, parallel thinking process does exactly that - it sets a tone and create enough structure to the sessions. It nurtures the productive and chokes the counter-productive. Of course, I've never tried it. I think hats are for keeping the sun out of your eyes. Otherwise, they are stoopid. But, I'm willing to try these.

More on Arguing and design meetings. Could Brainstorming be bad? counter-productive and fear inducing? ... hmmm.

knowing is half the battle. GI JOE!!!!

Paul from Usabilla draws the connection between Learning and UX - Awesome!

The UX puppy says "I'd chase the crap out of that squirrel"

"3 fantastic days with User Experience Professionals from all over the world. 16 workshops to develop your skills, 10 talks to inspire you and 16 slots open for you to share your experiences. All this coupled with lots of parties and meetups in sunny Lisbon."