I was having an interesting conversation with Alex Jones the other day, remarking about the usability studies by Peter Steen Høgenhaug around the ‘link’ iconography in CMS software. Alex touched on this in his blog with Usability of the Link Icon and earlier with Replacing the Save Icon. It’s interesting when we encounter patterns in systems that other designs tend to perpetuate and we create learned patterns that users who interact with our systems get used to over time.

As Alex points out, Høgenhaug did test with users unfamiliar with the CMS software and were not used to patterns in those systems even though many systems use very, very similar iconography. It would be interesting to see that case applied to frequent users (a simple pattern learned once, to be sure).

I’m a big fan of re-evaluating systems on a regular basis because I think it keeps UX professionals fresh. I’m always worried that too often, as technology changes, as systems become more complex and evolved, we rely on older iconography, older user patterns, and the ‘traditional’ ways of thinking. I feel that we should be looking deeply at the user base to come up with new and innovative methods to teach users new structures rather than relying on old habits and patterns. Saving to a disk may no longer be a useful user action, versions could be closer to the path you want users to take. Sharing, Tweeting, Manipulation – new and interesting actions have cropped up for users. It’s up to designers to take a step back and look at how these actions are taken in the system and craft designs which encourage these actions but are not confusing.

John – Agency Creative Director

• 38 years old, married with children and a dog – enjoys painting in his spare time.
• John has been the creative director of a mid-sized agency for 3 years.
• John’s looking for an online portfolio, attention to detail, and some idea of style and taste.
• In addition to creative samples, John wants to see a good knowledge base, experience, and contact information .
• John spends a fair amount of time on the Web and as such can appreciate good design and the latest trends both in Web development and design. He speaks the lingo and is on the forefront with best practices to fulfill a wide variety of customer/ client needs.
• John takes an analytical, critical approach to sites. The need to find information quickly and effectively is important as he is constantly judging the interface.

Andrea – Local Web Designer

• 31 years old, has a boyfriend and a cat – enjoys indie music and good beer.
• Andrea is a local tech/ design geek who keeps up her relationships in the industry.
• Andrea enjoys reading tech and design blogs (mostly through her Google Reader) to stay on top of the latest tools of her trade and also for inspiration for her next design.
• Industry news is very important and she keeps up with what’s happening with her peers by attending several professional events as well as discussions online. Beer Summits are her favorite.
• She is most likely to find a new blog to read through her contacts in the industry or through meeting with the authors at professional meetups

Any and all thoughts are welcome, I’m still kind of fleshing the personas out as I begin to focus on a new information architecture that I’ll post within the next few days. I’m still looking to see if, in fact, I need another persona or if these two would capture the majority of those who would look at my site.

I finally got the shirt that I ordered off Fab (FYI, if you want an invite, I’d be glad to send you one) from the wonderfully creative Out Of Print clothing company. They make amazing shirts featuring artwork from out-of-print editions of great works. They also have a mission (from their site):

Out of Print celebrates the world’s great stories through fashion. Our shirts feature iconic and often out of print book covers. Some are classics, some are just curious enough to make great t-shirts, but all are striking works of art.

We work closely with artists, authors and publishers to license the content that ends up in our collections. Each shirt is treated to feel soft and worn like a well-read book.

In addition to spreading the joy of reading through our tees, we acknowledge that many parts of the world don’t have access to books at all. We are working to change that. For each shirt we sell, one book is donated to a community in need through our partner Books For Africa.

How we read is changing as we move further into the digital age. It’s unclear what the role of the book cover will be in this new era, but we feel it’s more important than ever to reflect on our own individual experiences with great literary art before it’s forever changed.

The one thing I was really struck by was the shirt’s tag. It’s always a great feeling to see that someone cared enough about the whole user experience to seamlessly meld ideas into a cohesive, coherent brand package. For a group concerned with literary tradition, they nailed the concept – my clothing tag was an old punch library card with the names of all the creatives involved in the project.

Details matter. The experience doesn’t stop with a purchase or a click through.

So Chris made these two all pretty-like! It might be cliched, but I’m a huge fan of Helvetica (can’t you tell?), and I plan on using modern fonts in addition to the bug. Evenly spacing the letterforms in the name helps block out the design. Chris threw in some color after looking at the black-and-white and chose a few at random (I’m still looking through PMS swatch-books), the final one will come a bit later. After discussion, I wanted to go with the combined letterforms, keeping a more ‘angular’ look. I wanted the ‘Y’ to stand out a bit, so we talked about differentiating with color.

Chris knows that I’m a huge drooling fan of International Yves Klein Blue (IKB). This will pose some issues as there’s no way to (100%) properly display that color exactly with RGB hex values, but that’s one reason I love it. The color is very interesting, Klein had to create a new color that he felt would best represent his artistic interpretations (he had chosen, early in his career, to represent air and the sky as his elements). It blends a brilliant amount of chemistry, color theory, and amounts to something like super-science in color. Of course, all this means much longer drying times as well as costs surrounding the pigment, but what can you do?

Chris and I are both huge William Gibson fans and having both worked in advertising, can readily identify with the brilliant, eccentric Belgian: Hubertus Bigend. The character owns a suit in IKB simply because the blue makes others uncomfortable.

In addition to exploring color, we discussed the shadow of the letterform (would removing the shadow in favor of a border ruin the effect – making the logo bug too ‘flat’) as well as emphasizing the ‘Y’ shape (through adding color in the branch of the ‘W’ – would it ruin the ‘a-ha!’ of the ‘Y’ or would it harm readability of the ‘W’?) or leaving it the hell alone. Here are those concepts:

I’m still thinking over color choices, I’m looking into swatches of oranges to pair with the IKB. I’ll post the finished product when I finally choose a few colors and then decide on the ‘Y’ shape. I’ll also post my new site personas later on today. I needed to move through those before hitting the wireframes.

Many thanks to Chris Harris for helping me out with some amazing logo sketches. I’m really loving the one on the lower right. I’m trying to go for a bug that will work over several themes and still look pretty bold on the Web.

I’m still going through a lot of the Web stuff too – I’ll post some of the personas and wireframes I’ve been playing with. I’m really trying to pull myself above the project (one of the reasons I asked for Chris’ help). I feel that my last design was a long time coming because I was knee-deep in the design and moving farther from treating myself as a client. I really want to go through the motions to do this redesign differently. I think it’s also a more ‘true’ redesign in that I’m changing everything and slightly repositioning myself more towards interaction design and user experience at a higher level.

I’m hoping that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I know what types of planning and design make interfaces work for clients and the like, I’m just trying to apply all the same steps to my design, trying not to be as personally wrapped up in the nitty gritty and following a design plan I’ve set out for myself.

I’m opening up comments on this post and I’d love to hear some thoughts on the sketches, what you think of my ideas to process everything from a detached point-of-view, and pretty much whatever’s on your mind.

I love this interview with Dieter Rams about his influence in product and industrial design. He speaks about how he developed his ‘ten principles’ and why he felt there was a need for products to be devoid of excess, yet still allow for customization on the part of the consumer.

Rams also discusses how the concept of “Less, but Better” can be though of as a way towards user-centered design. It’s easy to see why Jonathan Ive is his spiritual successor at Apple, creating thoughtful details which make the product work without making the user feel forced.

I got my copy of A List Apart’s book on Responsive Web Design and it’s a great way to get into thinking about responsive Web techniques. Ethan Marcotte does a great job of guiding readers through a simple, clean example of manipulation starting at the flexible grid level, moving through flexible images, and finally rounding out at media queries.

The book is small, short, and to the point – this means that it’s not an end-all-be-all to responsive techniques but rather guiding readers through ways to make their sites future ready. With more and more traffic coming from mobile devices, Ethan recommends a philosophy of “Mobile First”. This doesn’t mean think about what functionality needs to get cut, in fact quite the oposite: think about mobile habits, design for their use cases, and you will improve the overall usability of the site.

There’s a lot of overall philosophy to the book, but it’s a great introduction to some techniques that are easy to master and fun to play with. I feel that there might be some elements lacking (how to handle heights, break points, etc.) but overall the book keeps readers engaged. Ethan Marcotte has an easy style and the book is peppered with links to resources as well as large figures to illustrate key points. Get responsive.

I’ve started work on a redesign of everything.

I don’t just mean this site, but my resume, my cover letter design, my branding, my business cards, invoices, my Tumblr, my Twitter, everything.

I’ve not gotten to really get involved in my personal projects in a while so I’m deciding that I’m going all out on this project. I want to model everything after early-mid 1960s style ‘golden age of air travel’. I love the aesthetic that was produced at the time, but more importantly I love the concept of a user experience I’ll never be able to enjoy.

Air Travel used to be grand: everything was branded just so, every need was catered to, and the airlines encouraged an experience rather than just a service. I wasn’t alive to enjoy it, so I’m sure I romantize the experience a bit; but I’m enthralled with all the good design from huge companies really pouring money into a hard sell. I wish more companies would put that kind of money into their user experiences again, but with travel, sadly, I worry those days are long long gone never to return. Flying is now an uncomfortable chore, a thing you have to remove clothing to do, something that makes you feel flustered, and generally user-unfriendly.

I’m looking through lots of old inspiring tags, boarding passes, and materials from that era, trying to pick out graphic design elements that I can put my own twist on, update and make modern. I want to showcase how important every facet of the user experience was to the continued success of an industry and hopeful the exercise will make me a better user experience designer for it.

I’ll post wireframes, sketches, personas, and designs as I make them, so watch this space for big changes!

My buddy Devin Price (over at WPTheming) turned me on to a really near magazine concept, called COLORS. The site is really, really well done and the magazine is published in two languages of your choice (want a copy in French and Portuguese? Done.) with brilliant layouts and well written articles.

I was really drawn in by their use of Meta-Serif, it really works as an accent for them. They have a very clean and open layout that brings the content front and center, so their choice for typography was unobtrusive and clean.

““The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products used every day have an effect on people and their well-being.” – Dieter Rams

I’m not gonna argue with the man. I’ve been thinking a lot lately of how much stuff I have. It’s all about what I have vs. what I want vs. what I need. “You don’t need more, you need better,” seems like it should be my mantra. I have a good feeling that the fewer things I have, but the better they are, the more I’ll enjoy interacting with them.