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Column: On Good Behavior

UXmatters has published 7 editions of the column On Good Behavior.

Top 3 Trending On Good Behavior Columns

  1. Design Is a Process, Not a Methodology

    On Good Behavior

    The essentials of interaction design

    July 19, 2010

    My last column, “Specifying Behavior,” focused on the importance of interaction designers’ taking full responsibility for designing and clearly communicating the behavior of product user interfaces. At the conclusion of the Design Phase for a product release, interaction designers’ provide key design deliverables that play a crucial role in ensuring their solutions to design problems actually get built. These deliverables might take the form of high-fidelity, interactive prototypes; detailed storyboards that show every state of a user interface in sequence; detailed, comprehensive interaction design specifications; or some combination of these. Whatever form they take, producing these interaction design deliverables is a fundamental part of a successful product design process.

    In this installment of On Good Behavior, I’ll provide an overview of a product design process, then discuss some indispensable activities that are part of an effective design process, with a particular focus on those activities that are essential for good interaction design. Although this column focuses primarily on activities that are typically the responsibility of interaction designers, this discussion of the product design process applies to all aspects of UX design. Read More

  2. If It Isn’t Broken, Don’t Fix It

    On Good Behavior

    The essentials of interaction design

    March 10, 2014

    Over the last few years, I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend in UX design: changes in the design of successful software user interfaces that actually degrade rather than enhance the user experience. This seems to happen for a variety of reasons—for example, because of

    • designers conforming slavishly to current design trends such as minimalism or flat design rather than focusing on meeting users’ needs
    • companies’ leaders wanting their UX designers to create “cool” rather than usable user interfaces
    • UX teams not doing usability testing or other user research that would validate a new design approach rather than being committed to doing user-centered design
    • designers disregarding the power of users’ kinesthetic memory when rethinking application layouts rather than giving it the respect that it warrants
    • designers succumbing to the egotistical desire to put their personal stamp on the design of software user interfaces rather than recognizing and preserving the value that products have long provided to users
    • designers making changes for the sake of change alone rather than strategically driving change to deliver greater value to users
    • companies engaging in feature wars with their competitors—causing their software user interfaces to become bloated with unnecessary features—rather than striving to differentiate their offerings in the marketplace
    • companies crafting user experiences that selfishly further their business goals rather than deriving business value by meeting users’ needs better
    • companies releasing software whose quality is not up to snuff because they’ve rushed it to market without adequate testing and debugging

    Read More

  3. The Role of Constraints in Design Innovation

    On Good Behavior

    The essentials of interaction design

    May 31, 2016

    In differentiating an organization’s products from those of its competitors, design innovation is just as important as technology innovation. Both are vital to the continued success of an organization’s products in the marketplace. Successful innovation requires more than just generating a lot of creative ideas. It’s about execution—actually bringing products to market that embody innovative design solutions and deliver business impact.

    What is the role of constraints in design innovation? In this article, I’ll discuss three types of constraints: technical constraints, business constraints, and design constraints. According to Charles Eames:

    “Design depends largely on constraints. … Here is one of the few effective keys to the design problem—the ability of the designer to recognize as many of the constraints as possible—his willingness and enthusiasm for working within these constraints….” Read More

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