Getting to the Heart of the Appeal of Video Games

"'A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,' explained Dr. Przybylski. 'The attraction to playing videogames and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.' .... 'I was heartened by the findings which showed that people were not running away from themselves but running towards their ideals. They are not escaping to nowhere they are escaping to somewhere.'"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110803133553.htm

Steve Jobs Lost in Translation

This post will be especially interesting for readers who understand English as well as German. (For those of you who do not understand German, I included some explanations to give you an idea of the things I'm talking about.)
Most of you know that after the recent events, the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson was rescheduled and published earlier than initially planned. This led to rescheduled international publications that of course had to be translated first and then rushed to the market. Unfortunately, in case of the German translation (done by six translators) this shows all too clearly with issues ranging from "weird" to just plain wrong translations. So here are some "highlights".

Forget About the Details in UX Design

The title of this post may strike you as weird. After all, we know how important details are for UX, right? There are lots of descriptions of design details and the impact they had, and, not least, Steve Jobs' obsession with details is legendary. (See, e.g., “The Tweaker – The real genius of Steve Jobs”.) So why this post?

Well, because there is a right time for everything, and this also applies to dealing with details. Or, put differently: just because you are obsessing over details does not mean you are contributing to UX in a significant way, quite the contrary may be true.

A Cynic's View on the UX Community

Twitter and other (largely) public online forums are used by the UX community to publish thoughts, exchange ideas and discuss current issues. But of course, the audience consuming all that information is not limited to UX professionals. Anyone who wants to gain some insight into the UX community can tap into this constant stream of information, which is especially easy on Twitter - just filter for the #UX tag and there you go.

On the downside, tweets have to be short, leaving little room for context or differentiation. In addition, there's also a tendency to make messages "stick" by phrasing them in a strong and simplistic way. In some cases, this tendency continues in the sources the respective tweets point to.

Suppose "outsiders" (e.g. potential clients) go online and sample some of this information, would they have to be very cynical to arrive at some (or all) of the following conclusions regarding the UX community?

Oscar Wilde on art, criticism and usefulness

"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely."

(From the preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray")

We are doing this for over 20 years...

When redesigning a user interface (and all the more when creating a completely new one), it is a good idea to conduct user task analyses, contextual analyses and the like in advance. This helps immensely in gaining a deep understanding of the domain, users, their requirements and their workflows. For usability engineers who are regularly engaging in these kinds of activities, the benefits are obvious. Project teams that already work in the respective domain for a longer time and that are not accustomed with these analyses, can sometimes be doubtful and react with statements like "You know, we are doing this for over 20 years, we know exactly how this should work".
But then, as this TED Talk by Terry Moore shows, just because you are doing something for 20 years or more does not necessarily mean that you are doing it right or in the best possible way. Challenging assumptions from time to time and being open to learning new and unexpected stuff can make all the difference.

(At Least) Two Sides to Every Story

Twitter is not only a constant source of information, but also a constant source of opinions. With the way Twitter handles dialogs, you may at some times receive only one point of view, e.g., a link to a piece about the benefits of wireframing, but you may miss out on the other side of the story, in case it is contributed by people who you are not following.

It can often be valuable to reflect on both sides of a story, regardless of which side of the fence you are standing on. Therefore, I collected three examples from the field of UX design, which each one including two points of view that I conveniently subsumed under a catchy (i.e. simplified) heading and classified as “pro” or “con”, respectively. The individual sources are more nuanced, of course, but the headings and pro/con-distinction provide some starting point.

If you stumble across any more “UX design pro/con” stuff, let me know.

"Cognitive Load Should be Reduced"

Pro: http://uxmag.com/articles/cognition-the-intrinsic-user-experience

Con (or rather, more diffentiated): http://www.solidstateux.com/interaction-design/think-like-an-instructional-de...

"Wireframing is a good thing"

Pro: http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/wireframing-benefits/

Con: http://www.attackofdesign.com/why-wireframes-can-hurt-your-project/

"UX designers should be jacks of all trades"

Pro: http://www.uxforthemasses.com/what-makes-good-ux-designer/

Con: http://www.elisabethhubert.com/?p=1229

"UX and marketing go along well"

Pro: http://uxmag.com/strategy/a-designer-and-a-marketer-walk-into-a-bar

Con: http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2010/11/18/the-pernicious-effects-of-adverti...