: Steve Portigal, whom I’ve met and whom I don’t think is insane, recently said in a presentation that “personas are user-centered bullshit”. But he didn’t stop there. He then went on to write an article in this months ACM Interactions magazine extolling the evils of personas which is provoking quite a reaction among designers. [...]

: There seems to be this idea going around that usability testing is bad, or that the cool kids don’t do it. That it’s old skool. That designers don’t need to do it. What if I told you that usability testing is the hottest thing in experience design research? Every time a person has a [...]

: The first step most companies take when trying to build a new site is to create some sort of rough site map or wireframe to depict their information architecture. They do this to help figure out how the site will function and where different sections and pages will be located. : http://www.newfangled.com/website_planning_information_architecture

: Taking a look at how you present the first steps of user experience to a client depending on their priorities. : http://blog.amadeusconsulting.com/mobile-app-ux-priorities-budget-vs-innovation/

: While most children and teens still rely on feature phones, college students have graduated to the world of mobile internet devices—including smartphones, tablets and mobile game consoles. : http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008032

: Once the script is written – how do you effective communicate the visual direction of your film? The answer is storyboards – essentially a scene-by-scene visual guide to the screenplay of the film. Storyboards are a vital part of the pre-visualization process, as well as being an important tool for preproduction and on the [...]

: Why should you test? One simple reason: You are not your customer. This is not a situation specific to SaaS – from novelists to hi-rise architects, it’s common for the end user to not be the creator. NASA space station engineers, for example, are not astronauts, yet it is imperative that the space station [...]

: Change is in the air, or perhaps more accurately, in the airwaves. It’s visible every time a child presses a finger to a laptop screen, expecting it to respond, and in business meetings where projectors are left unused in favor of the more intimate, shared visual experience of an iPad. : http://uxmag.com/technology/mobile-user-experience-trends-on-the-horizon

: Interesting video describing an alternative way for a user to pass data between websites. : http://draggables.com/

: Having a nice “toolbox” of resources on hand makes life easier, as a user experience designer. In this post I will provide a quick product review, and share some ways that I have used it to help me work on improving the sites and products I work on. : http://www.thisisaaronslife.com/product-review-clicktale/