UX is not just about building huge coherent web architectures. We have become digital nomads - building tents, rather than building houses, in environments that suit our needs. People no longer inhabit worlds built by designers, but in worlds built by themselves. Increasingly it is about building applications and understanding how applications interact with each other and their embedded environment. It is about forging relevant links with technologies that are appropriate. Relevance has surpassed usability as the most important factor of web strategy and web design. Context defines how usable your experience needs to be, and we are steadily moving from interface design to concept design...IA and UX has for many years looked at the web in a traditional one way communications paradigm, where it is all about conveying a message to the end user. But the Internet is NOT the new newspaper, the new radio or the new television. The web is actually not a medium at all, if anything it is a paradigm of interaction. It is something completely different which as a discipline we need to demonstrate with an open approach to our design work, that is documented, shared and refined. Those involved in the field must realize that usability is becoming more bound by context and relevance to individual needs, it cannot be merely prescriptive.

1. Usability
17 June 2009
Interaction Design Day
SIGCHI Copenhagen ITU
is dead...
James Kelway

2. Some background

3. Who am I?
Senior IA @
before that...
designer
coder
art director
design manager
agency partner

4. ”
User centred
design NEVER
worked”
flickr: Jesper Rønn-Jensen

5. ”
...what is clear to me
now is that there is
no such thing as an
information
architect”
flickr: Jorge Arango

6. The landscape

7. 2006

8. We are
social
flickr: Seite-3

9. We are
networked
Flickr: luc legay

10. Geek is
becoming
mainstream
flickr: juliaroy

11. You are
(mostly)
here

12. ...and
(maybe)
here

13. Context

14. The context of our
experience makes
it unique
flickr: bright star

15. Context defines
how usable the
experience
needs to be
flickr: jaremfan

16. The mobile is a
social object that
also is anchored
in a context
flickr: Phil Hilfiker

17. Who we are, will
influence what we
see and how we
use it
flickr: premasagar

18. Relevance
Context and the relevance
to the user has surpassed
usability as the most
important factor of web
design and strategy
flickr: aleksiev

19. My world

20. flickr: matt hamm

23. Facebook TweetDeck
Tweetie
Twitter

24. Multiple places and
multiple mediums

25. Technology is
relevant
to the individual
flickr: hichako

26. Interfaces are becoming more adaptive

27. Behaviour

29. Our
behaviour
defines
our work
flickr: julianbleeker

30. It benefits us to
know WHY we
think like we do
flickr: toyfoo

31. flickr: nicolasnova
changes everything

33. The web

34. Our challenge is that our work
is becoming more complex
The challenge is our
work is becoming
more complex
flickr: kingofjive

35. flickr: Will Lion

36. Usability and user centred design will
be stretched and changed by these
developments
flickr: nerovivo

37. The web is
not a medium

38. It is everywhere
Shift
Image: Fibre Design UK

39. What can we do?

40. Collaborate more
flickr: toyfoo

42. Use appropriate tools

43. Build a relevant experience
not a prescriptive one
flickr: photolovesyoutoo

44. Experience wins
flickr: cogdogblog

45. Be flexible

46. Be culturally aware
flickr: jerome sadou

47. Give meaning beyond
an interface
flickr: thinkmobi

48. Summing up

49. UX is a solution
and a process...
flickr: pieterbaert

50. ...and Usability is more alive than ever

51. Thank you
jk@hellogroup.com
www.hellogroup.com
Blog: www.userpathways.com