from: stephenpa 4 weeks ago

We all work with information. In our web sites. Our web apps. Print communications. Graphs, and charts. But how exactly do you present information in a way that simplifies the complex, communicates powerfully, and actually delights people? In this presentation, Travis Isaacs and I share some of our information design secrets. From travel plans to search results to quarterly earnings statements—here's a handful of information design and data visualization case studies, identifying principles that apply to just about any project. Learn how to identify and group related information, create a visual hierarchy, draw focus to the most important content, use images appropriately, see familiar data in a fresh new way, and much more!

Tags: form forms tufte infographics thinking

from: stephenpa 3 months ago

(My presentation from Adaptive Path MX) You’ve got an idea. Maybe it’s a better process that’s a bit unorthodox. Or maybe it’s a new product idea you need to push through your organization. The question is: How does that idea become reality? Between procedure, politics, and other pushbacks, implementing visionary ideas — however promising — requires a lot more than a good prototype or story. To understand how unorthodox ideas can make it through an organization, we’ll look outside the design industry to filmmaking. Specifically, we’ll look at what it took to make the one of the most influential — and disruptive — films of all time: the original Star Wars movie. If we look behind the scenes, what did it take to get George Lucas’s space fantasy from script to screen? From assembling the right team to navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping into powerful universal patterns, speaker Stephen P. Anderson will share six lessons that we as UX Managers — and leaders — can all learn from Lucas’ adventure.

Tags: mx adaptivepath casestudy mx08 business

from: stephenpa 4 months ago

(My presentation from the IA Summit 2008) Want a fresh perspective on UI design? Look around. Not at other web sites or desktop applications but at other interactive media. Tivo, the iPhone, the Wii software interface, the ‘Sugar’ OS for the XO Laptop… there’s a world of new UI inspiration that is already being proven out in other devices.

Tags: interfacedesign interface ui inspiration ia

from: stephenpa 7 months ago

Where do you get inspiration for online social features? One approach is to copy or offer a variation on something someone else has already created. But this approach lacks vision and often results in ‘me-too’ applications. A better approach is to look at real-world social interactions, and then translate these into online social features. And where better to observe these interactions than someplace like the mall, college campus, or conference? We’ll spend the first half of this presentation looking at some different ways that natural human and social behaviors have guided product development— and ‘filled the well’ with original new feature requests. Then, we’ll apply this approach in a workshop type environment to generate some of our own innovative social media ideas.

Tags: entrepreneur innovation productstrategy motivations socialdesign

from: stephenpa 8 months ago

Presentation I gave at PhizzPop Austin

Tags: visionary entrepreneur design maverick rebel

from: stephenpa 8 months ago

You’ve got an idea. Maybe it’s a new idea for a web application. Maybe it’s a new product idea you need to push through your organization. The question is: How do you turn an idea into reality? To answer this question, we’ll look at the making of Star Wars. We’ll look behind the scenes at what it took to get George Lucas’s space fantasy from script to screen. From assembling the right team to navigating the Hollywood corporate studio environment to tapping into powerful universal patterns—this presentation suggests more than a dozen lessons UX designers (and developers!) can all learn from this adventure.

Tags: vision leadership process webdesign startup

from: stephenpa 9 months ago

Visual design is more than styling. It is function. And not only because it communicates, but also because it makes us feel. And between feeling and communication, people find things easier to use.

Tags: feel communication informationdesign interface business

from: stephenpa 10 months ago

An increasingly complex ecosystem requires business leaders to adopt a different kind of skillset and mindset, a mindset that is common among design professionals.

Tags: organisms organisations complexity design business

from: stephenpa 1 year ago

internal presentation, given in mid January 2007, to introduce our newly formed user experience group to the development team...

Tags: None

from: stephenpa 1 year ago

With the proliferation of rich Internet applications and interactions more closely aligned with how people think, we face some interesting challenges: * Do we design for one common audience and common tasks, or tailor applications around specific audiences and their unique activities? * How do we resolve the tension between creating simple applications that ‘do less’ and the demand for new features that some people really do need? * As we move beyond usability to create desirable interfaces, how do we handle a subjective domain like emotions? These types of challenges could all be addressed by creating a truly ‘adaptive' interface. More than removing unused menu options or collaborative filtering, this would include functionality that is revealed over time as well as interface elements that change based on usage. Imagine the web-based email client that begins offering three forms fields for attachments instead of the default one, because it 'noticed' that you frequently upload more than one file. Or the navigation menu that disappears because it is not relevant to the task at hand. Sound scary? Look at the world of game design, where inconsistency has never been an issue and where users learn new functions over time, as needed. In the same ways that ads are becoming more targeted around context and behavior, we can also create interfaces that respond, suggest, or change based on actual usage data. While much of this is still speculative, we'll explore some concrete examples of how such ideas have already been used, and other instances where they could be used. We'll also take a brief look at what technologies might support these interactions, as well as some of the rules engines that might make this possible. And, to ground this in the past, we'll at some existing navigational theories and research that might support this argument for an interface that is truly conversational and context aware.

Tags: adaptiveinterface ui pleasurable personalization iasummit07

from: stephenpa 1 year ago

My presentation at Refresh 06

Tags: interfacedesign emotions pleasure