Everyone can ask questions, right? Unfortunately, that's not the case. Interviewing Users provides invaluable interviewing techniques and tools that enable you to conduct informative interviews with anyone. You'll move from simply gathering data to uncovering powerful insights about people.Interviewing Users will explain how to succeed with interviewing, including:* Embracing how other people see the world* Building rapport to create engaging and exciting interactions* Listening in order to build rapport.With this book, Steve Portigal uses stories and examples from his 15 years of experience to show how interviewing can be incorporated into the design process, helping you learn the best and right information to inform and inspire your design.

    The ability to effectively articulate design decisions is critical to the success of a project, because the most articulate person often wins. This practical book provides principles, tactics, and actionable methods for talking about designs with executives, managers, developers, marketers, and other stakeholders who have influence over the project with the goal of winning them over and creating the best user experience.

    That's a daunting task indeed. Thankfully, design systems are here to help.Atomic Design details all that goes into creating and maintaining robust design systems, allowing you to roll out higher quality, more consistent UIs faster than ever before. This book introduces a methodology for thinking of our UIs as thoughtful hierarchies, discusses the qualities of effective pattern libraries, and showcases techniques to transform your team's design and development workflow.

    Designers of digital technology products no longer regard their job as designing a physical object--beautiful or utilitarian--but as designing our interactions with it. In Designing Interactions, award-winning designer Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology. Moggridge, designer of the first laptop computer (the GRiD Compass, 1981) and a founder of the design firm IDEO, tells us these stories from an industry insider's viewpoint, tracing the evolution of ideas from inspiration to outcome. The innovators he interviews--including Will Wright, creator of The Sims, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, and Doug Engelbart, Bill Atkinson, and others involved in the invention and development of the mouse and the desktop--have been instrumental in making a difference in the design of interactions. Their stories chart the history of entrepreneurial design development for technology.Moggridge and his interviewees discuss such questions as why a personal computer has a window in a desktop, what made Palm's handheld organizers so successful, what turns a game into a hobby, why Google is the search engine of choice, and why 30 million people in Japan choose the i-mode service for their cell phones. And Moggridge tells the story of his own design process and explains the focus on people and prototypes that has been successful at IDEO--how the needs and desires of people can inspire innovative designs and how prototyping methods are evolving for the design of digital technology.Designing Interactions is illustrated with more than 700 images, with color throughout. Accompanying the book is a DVD that contains segments from all the interviews intercut with examples of the interactions under discussion.Interviews with: Bill Atkinson - Durrell Bishop - Brendan Boyle - Dennis Boyle - Paul Bradley - Duane Bray - Sergey Brin - Stu Card - Gillian Crampton Smith - Chris Downs- Tony Dunne - John Ellenby - Doug Englebart - Jane Fulton Suri - Bill Gaver - Bing Gordon - Rob Haitani - Jeff Hawkins - Matt Hunter - Hiroshi Ishii - Bert Keely - David Kelley - Rikako Kojima - Brenda Laurel - David Liddle - Lavrans L?vlie - John Maeda - Paul Mercer - Tim Mott - Joy Mountford - Takeshi Natsuno - Larry Page - Mark Podlaseck - Fiona Raby - Cordell Ratzlaff - Ben Reason - Jun Rekimoto - Steve Rogers - Fran Samalionis - Larry Tesler - Bill Verplank - Terry Winograd - Will Wright

    Observing the User Experience will help you bridge that gap to understand what your users want and need from your product, and whether they'll be able to use what you've created.Filled with real-world experience and a wealth of practical information, this book presents a complete toolbox of techniques to help designers and developers see through the eyes of their users. It provides in-depth coverage of 13 user experience research techniques that will provide a basis for developing better products, whether they're Web, software or mobile based. In addition, it's written with an understanding of how software is developed in the real world, taking tight budgets, short schedules, and existing processes into account.

    Ironically, I must recommend that you read her every word so that you can find out why your customers won't read very many words on your website -- and what to do about it.-- Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group"There are at least twelve billion web pages out there. Twelve billion voices talking, but saying mostly nothing. If just 1% of those pages followed Ginny's practical, clear advice, the world would be a better place. Fortunately, you can follow her advice for 100% of your own site's pages, so pick up a copy of Letting Go of the Words and start communicating effectively today."--Lou Rosenfeld, co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide WebOn the web, whether on the job or at home, we usually want to grab information and use it quickly. We go to the web to get answers to questions or to complete tasks - to gather information, reading only what we need. We are all too busy to read much on the web.This book helps you write successfully for web users. It offers strategy, process, and tactics for creating or revising content for the web. It helps you plan, organize, write, design, and test web content that will make web users come back again and again to your site.Learn how to create usable and useful content for the web from the master - Ginny Redish. Ginny has taught and mentored hundreds of writers, information designers, and content owners in the principles and secrets of creating web information that is easy to scan, easy to read, and easy to use.This practical, informative book will help anyone creating web content do it better.Features* Clearly-explained guidelines with full color illustrations and examples from actual web sites throughout the book. * Written in easy-to-read style with many befores and afters.* Specific guidelines for web-based press releases, legal notices, and other documents.* Tips on making web content accessible for people with special needs.Janice (Ginny) Redish has been helping clients and colleagues communicate clearly for more than 20 years. For the past ten years, her focus has been helping people create usable and useful web sites. She is co-author of two classic books on usability: A Practical Guide to Usability Testing (with Joseph Dumas), and User and Task Analysis for Interface Design (with JoAnn Hackos), and is the recipient of many awards.

    Because no one can be an expert on everything, designers have always had to scramble to find the information and know-how required to make a design work - until now. Universal Principles of Design is the first cross-disciplinary reference of design. Richly illustrated and easy to navigate, this book pairs clear explanations of the design concepts featured with visual examples of those concepts applied in practice. From the 80/20 rule to chunking, from baby-face bias to Ockham's razor, and from self-similarity to storytelling, 100 design concepts are defined and illustrated for readers to expand their knowledge.This landmark reference will become the standard for designers, engineers, architects, and students who seek to broaden and improve their design expertise.

    One of the best ways is to understand users' reasons for doing things. Mental Models gives you the tools to help you grasp, and design for, those reasons. Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written a roll-up-your-sleeves book for designers, managers, and anyone else interested in making design strategic, and successful.

    Designing sites that foster user interaction and community-building is a valuable skill for web developers and designers today, but it's not that easy to understand the nuances of the social web. Now you have help. Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone share hard-won insights into what works, what doesn't, and why. You'll learn how to balance opposing factions and grow healthy online communities by co-creating them with your users.Understand the overarching principles you need to consider for every website you createLearn basic design patterns for adding social components to an existing siteRein in misbehaving users on an active community siteBuild a social experience around a product or service and invite people to joinDevelop a social utility without having to build an entirely new infrastructureEnable users of your site's content to interact with one anotherOffer your members the opportunity to connect in the real worldLearn to recognize and avoid antipatterns: emergent bad practices in the social network and social media space

    With this book, new UX designers will learn the practical skills they need to get started in the field, skills that can be immediately applied to real-world UX projects. "UX for Beginners" is broken into one hundred short, illustrated lessons, a user-friendly approach that makes learning fun and gives you the foundation you need to succeed as a UX designer. This book is based on the popular UX Crash Course blog at The Hipper Element, which has more than 400,000 readers."

    A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes "good design" Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more Throughout the book, you'll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book's full-color layout and large format (8" x 10") make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.Editorial Reviews"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a good book to kick start your graphic-design journey. The biggest benefit that I got from this book is the knowledge to learn from great designs as opposed to just admiring them in a state of awe." - Slashdot.org"Jason is a great writer, and the book is quite easy to read. It's put together wonderfully, including many full color screenshots and other forms of imagery that make the book a pleasure to read. I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone in Web design." - MondayByNoon"Jason Beaird covers web design in a way that non-designers can understand. He walks you through all of the aspects of design development from initial meeting to finished product. If you are just getting into web development, this is a must read." - Blogcritics.org"This is a thoroughly practical guide to web design that is very well written: good technical depth in easy-to-understand language with excellent illustrations and graphics that support the text. For many users it will be the only web-design text they will need. For those who want to further advance their skills and knowledge it will provide a sound foundation." - PC Update"His "Don't just tell, show!" style makes this book accessible to everyone... It strikes a carefully thought-out balance between describing principles and illustrating them. It is clear and well structured, with practical examples in every chapter." - Mitch Wheat

    Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process—in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.

    Approaching persuasive design from the dark side, this book melds psychology, marketing, and design concepts to show why we're susceptible to certain persuasive techniques. Packed with examples from every nook and cranny of the web, it provides easily digestible and applicable patterns for putting these design techniques to work. Organized by the seven deadly sins, it includes:Pride -- use social proof to position your product in line with your visitors' values Sloth -- build a path of least resistance that leads users where you want them to go Gluttony -- escalate customers' commitment and use loss aversion to keep them there Anger -- understand the power of metaphysical arguments and anonymity Envy -- create a culture of status around your product and feed aspirational desires Lust -- turn desire into commitment by using emotion to defeat rational behavior Greed -- keep customers engaged by reinforcing the behaviors you desire Now you too can leverage human fallibility to create powerful persuasive interfaces that people will love to use -- but will you use your new knowledge for good or evil? Learn more on the companion website, evilbydesign.info.

    They explore each metric, considering best methods for collecting, analyzing, and presenting the data. They provide step-by-step guidance for measuring the usability of any type of product using any type of technology.This book is recommended for usability professionals, developers, programmers, information architects, interaction designers, market researchers, and students in an HCI or HFE program.

    The rules? No marketing budget, no PR stunts, and it must be sustainably successful. No short-term fads.This is not a game of chance. It is a game of skill and strategy.And it begins with a single question: given competing products of equal pricing, promotion, and perceived quality, why does one outsell the others?The answer doesn’t live in the sustainably successful products or services. The answer lives in those who use them.Our goal is to craft a strategy for creating successful users. And that strategy is full of surprising, counter-intuitive, and astonishingly simple techniques that don’t depend on a massive marketing or development budget. Techniques typically overlooked by even the most well-funded, well-staffed product teams.Every role is a key player in this game. Product development, engineering, marketing, user experience, support—everyone on the team. Even if that team is a start-up of one. Armed with a surprisingly overlooked science and a unique POV, we can can reduce the role of luck. We can build sustainably successful products and services that rely not on unethical persuasive marketing tricks but on helping our users have deeper, richer experiences. Not just in the moments while they’re using our product but, more importantly, in the moments when they aren’t.