UXer's blog

Catching up on email on a Saturday morning, I see I missed this from a month ago:

Waterfall 2006 conference:

• User Interaction: It Was Hard to Build, It Should Be Hard to Use
• User Stories and Other Lies Users Tell Us
• User Feedback: Eliminating the Main Cause of Project Overruns

My first participation in a podcast, about UXnet, with Tim and Tom of Design Critique.

• DesignCritique10_InstoneUXNet.mp3

I was hunting for sites about "innovation" this weekend and stumbled across BusinessWeek's Innovation section. Quite literally, out of the corner of my eye, a familiar face registered in my brain...

World Usability Day was a big success! The web site hiccupped only a little as we maxed out at about 400 simultaneously visitors (rough count). Parts of the site were dynamic (db-intensive) and we were ready to take those features down if needed to keep the whole site running, but that never had to be done.

Press coverage was more than I expected and now we wait for the stories from each event to roll in. [broken links removed 2006-Sep-16]

I now get to relax and enjoy DUX.

World Usability Day has been keeping me busy. I am learning a lot about CivicSpace (see the case study).

The map is our "cool" feature but it has been a challenge getting it to work on most browsers. We are a vicitm of our own success - with so many events, the map is becoming slow.

Welcome, Blue Flavor, four guys who list the experience economy as something they believe in. I wonder what these two guys think of this?

Jess just started up bpplusd.org, his blog on the intersection of business and design.

His information architecture gives you a sense of the direction he is going: Books, People, Schools, Firms, Events.

As far as topics, "design thinking" is the early focus (but it has been only 2 weeks). Peter Merholz mentions it too - must be the latest buzz-phrase.

Jeremy Zawodny is going to help direct marketers 'harness the buzz power of blogs' but what I find more interesting are the usability sessions on the DMA 05 conference program.

Christina Wodtke points out this article:

• Better by design from the RSA e-journal (August 2005). RSA is The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce.

Summary: Design used to be associated purely with aesthetics. Today it has been embraced by business leaders and is advocated for social policy development.