Volkside - Interaction and Information Design, User Experience and Usability

Tip: Reuse your designs with OmniGraffle shared layers

Jussi — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:38:52 +0000

When designing wireframes you typically have common elements like header and footer that you want to include on several separate screens. Read the full post on how to use OmniGraffle Pro shared layers to maintain and reuse these common elements.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Jussi — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 02:06:41 +0000

Thank you readers, clients, partners and friends for a great 2009 - we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2010!

Tip: Print out your usability testing tasks

Jussi — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:48:15 +0000

Moderated, task-based testing is the mainstay of usability testing and most practitioners are familiar with it. At Volkside we normally give participants their tasks verbally, however more recently we have experimented with also giving them a printed copy of each task. Read the full post for more.

Keep your memos to one page or less

Jussi — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:06:16 +0000

Ricardo Semler urges us to keep our memos short: "If you really want someone to evaluate a project's chances, only give them a single page to do it — and make them write a headline that gets to the point, as in a newspaper." Semler is the CEO of the industrial conglomerate Semco and the author of Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace (1993). Read the full post for more.

Poster: Card sorting guidelines for participants

Jussi — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:50:51 +0000

In recent card sorting sessions, we have made a poster with "card sorting guidelines" available to the participants. These guidelines serve as a quick reference when the participants are immersed in sorting the cards and remind them of the "do's" and "don'ts" in grouping and labelling. Read the full post for more.

Design detail: An easier music video directory

Jussi — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:37:39 +0000

We helped redesign an online service called Dancentral, "the ultimate dance music video directory." See the full post for 'before' and 'after' screenshots and further details.

Test your information architecture using C-Inspector

Jussi — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:39:27 +0000

It is important that users can easily find the information they are looking for on your website - otherwise they'll leave. It's a good idea to test your new information architecture with real users before building the site. Read the full post on how to run effective IA testing using a new tool called C-Inspector and how it compares to Optimal Workshop's Treejack.

Introducing Spiritedd: Share your favourite drives online

Jussi — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:45:14 +0000

We have just launched a new online service Spiritedd - "inspiring drives for spirited drivers." It allows you to post your favourite drives online and share them with fellow spirited drivers. Read the full post for background and further information.

Naview videos: Introduction and sharing navigation structures

Jussi — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:10:34 +0000

Read the full post for a video introduction to Naview and an overview of the new sharing functionality.

CV and resume pointers for user experience designers

Jussi — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:40:40 +0000

A friend of mine recently wanted to pick my brains on CVs and resumes for User Experience designers. Read the full post for my response with useful pointers to various online resources.