Designing Interactive : User Research, Usability and Web Development

April 9, 2009

Earlier this week I spoke at the Cleveland Web Standards Association on the importance of thinking before building.   The talk included a walkthrough of my UX design procedure, and why I feel it is a superior way of designing for interaction.

I’m frequently asked how to make interfaces simpler, as if we all already have pristine, usable interfaces  buried inside of our current cluttered interfaces.  Removing elements from your interface makes them simpler and easier to understand… right?  Wrong.

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February 25, 2009

This coming weekend on February 28th, Josh Walsh will be speaking at Ignite Cleveland.   The event will be hosted at Lean Dog Software, a good friend of D-I who has their office on a barge overlooking a submarine… pretty cool venue.

What Is Ignite?

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Could you keep up? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.
Read about our topic »

February 18, 2009

When mocking up a web design or creative of some kind I often find myself dividing areas into equal spaced rows or columns.   This is a simple task when dividing into 2 parts, since your guides snap to the center of a selected object.  Dividing into 3’s is a little more difficult.  Dividing into 4’s isn’t too bad since you can just divide by 2, then subsequently split the divisions by 2.  There’s got to be a better way, and alas… there is.

Note: This applies to Photoshop CS2.  There may be a more prominent way to do this in newer versions. Continue Reading

February 17, 2009

Small companies  should consider outsourcing their usability testing instead of doing it in-house.  On the surface, it makes perfect sense to have a designer/developer who has a deep understanding of the project be in charge of usability testing, but in fact this can cause serious problems.

A developer will always look at the product you are testing from the inside out.  They have internalized the entire product and know it inside and out.  This has negative connotations on the evaluation of a test.

It may be appealing to delegate usability testing to a graphic designer on the project, but this also has issues.  Artists minds are naturally focuses on aesthetics and many usability problems arise from confusing visual elements.

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January 30, 2009

Here is a list of 50 things that I keep in mind on every website that I build.  Some of these are secrets I have acquired from the best designers in the world, and some of them are standard every day practices.  Either way, these tips will improve your visitors experience on your website.

Read all 50 tips

January 13, 2009

2009 is going to be an exciting year for D-I, and will largely build on the successes of 2008.

Last year we started our transition from a consulting company into a product company, culminating in the release of our flagship product Simpli5 in September.  We also launched a free web service for generating barcodes called Barcodes4.me.  Our development framework Sandstone continued to evolve and grow stronger.  We moved completely to GIT.

2009 brings a new product, an online university where you can signup as a teacher and get paid when students take your class.  Most importantly, 2009 will focus on getting more eyes looking at us and more hands on our products.

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