Monetizing social media is an elusive but desirable target for retailers both large and small. According to Forrester Research’s annual retail study with Shop.org, 72% of retailers plan to increase social marketing spending in 2011, and the ever-popular Facebook is unsurprisingly central to their strategy.

User Insight’s Kevin O’Connor shares some exciting results from his company’s latest study, The Social TV Experiment and explains what they might mean for Interaction Designers today.

In an effort to provide a quality experience to our users, it’s necessary to be consistent in the design and content of a website. Consistency is a word we tend to hear frequently. The reason for this is: A harmonious user experience separates an amateur from a professional.

Ready to get your feet wet in Interaction Design? In this article the author touches briefly on all aspects of Interaction Design: the history, guiding principles, noted designers, their tools and more. Even if you’re an interaction designer yourself, give the article a read and share your thoughts.

Design has a reputation for being one of the more ambiguous areas of product development. In this post, Andrew details one of the tools that he uses to blueprint his interaction design work, providing a guideline for design that drives users towards their goals.

When it comes to sketching user experiences, should we opt for state-of-the-art software, or a good notepad and set of markers?

While you’ve probably heard the saying, “Content is King,” the sites that reign supreme in today’s Web world don’t just produce great content, they create a culture of passionate participants and a community of conversation.

Last week I was honored to give a talk at the Front End Design Conference titled “Affordances in Modern Web Design.” In preparation for the talk, I did plenty of research; and while the slides are available for download, I’d like to provide readers with a written overview of the history and application of affordances in web design

So you think your work is aesthetically pleasing and meets your client’s goals? Then, why not showcase it with a user-friendly portfolio? Selling your company’s services involves more than slapping up a screenshot and a link. If users find your portfolio difficult to navigate or it lacking information then prepare to lose business to your competitors.

The “Extras on Demand” pattern is described in Jennifer Tidwell’s book, Designing Interfaces. In this tutorial we will explain what that pattern is, and how you can implement this into your interface using jQuery.