User Experience
The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly of Customer Experience
September 10, 2009
“Please see the cashier inside to get your receipt” It was the second straight time that I had received this message after pumping gas at a neighborhood station. Doesn’t that sort of defeat the whole purpose of paying at the pump. I want convenience. I want to be able to pump my gas, get my receipt, […]
The Importance of Customer (User) Experience
July 9, 2009
“In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didn’t deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I […]
CMS Light
July 2, 2009
I just finished reading Chris Coyier’s article, The “Light” CMS trend. For those of you who don’t know, CMS stands for “content management system.” The content is stored in a database and then served up on a page using a predefined template. The idea behind a CMS is to allow non-technical people the ability to […]
What is a Browser?
June 30, 2009
A very telling video about what the average person is thinking when they use the Web. I listened to an interesting discussion about this subject on Sitepoint’s podcast. I think the reason there is confusion about the difference between a browser and a search engine is the integration of search into the Web browser. Search […]
Beyond the Web site
June 4, 2009
Yesterday afternoon, I received this email from raysbaseball.com. I had bought tickets over the weekend to see today’s game. I was really impressed with the information in this email. It told me about the starting pitchers for both teams and had links to relevant statistics. There were also links to information about visiting Tropicana Field. […]
That’s Clever
March 24, 2009
A talk from SXSW on the clever things designers put in their design to add pleasure to the experience. I listened to the audio but look forward to viewing the slides since this was a very visual presentation. I would like to think more about the ideas presented here. It goes on usability to adding […]
What can brown do for you?
November 9, 2007
I found this site through Design Meltdown, a gallery of design styles. This site is a good example of nice design which gets recognized by a gallery but has some usability issues when you actually use it. First, You have to go to the top right to a “home†graphic to link back to the home […]
Connecting to Real Experiences
October 30, 2007
I came across Baldwin Wallace’s Web site as I was thumbing through Step Into Design magazine at Barnes and Noble. This is another example of a trend I have seen in college Web sites. This site is drawing you into the world of being a student at Baldwin Wallace. Jared Spool classifies this kind of content […]
A Bad Experience with Bank of America
October 17, 2007
I just received a new business credit card. As with all credit cards, you have to activate it by calling a phone number. I called the number, pressed 2 for English and then entered my card number. Then I was asked for a verification code. What? I look through the letter that came with my card. […]
Helpful, Practical Feature from AirTran
August 22, 2007
Last week I booked a flight to Boston for November using the AirTran. On the last page of the process, I found a feature that I really liked. It gave me the option to import both my departing flight and returning flight into Outlook. All the information that I needed to create a calendar event […]
Design or Content? Wrong Question
May 18, 2007
I like what this comic from Josh Porter communicates and I like how he chose to communicate it. those that read/use our Web sites are not so concerned about which is more important, design or content. What is important to them is that they can use it or that they want to use it. MySpace is […]
The “Experience” of Martha Stewart’s New Web site
April 5, 2007
I saw Martha Stewart’s new Web site for the first time tonight. I was pretty impressed by what I saw. The site takes advantage of Flash video, sIFR, and Javascripting that all contribute to experiencing the Martha Stewart brand online. You can take a tour of the new features which uses Flash video. It combines […]
Difference between Useability and User Experience
April 5, 2007
This comes from Jared Spool on BrainSparks: Usability answers the question, “Can the user accomplish their goal?� User experience answers the question, “Did the user have as delightful an experience as possible?� Read the full post by Jared (one of my Web design superheroes)
Empowering Users to Improve Their Life
May 5, 2006
I have been challenged recently to think backwards to consider “what problem is a website trying to solve?” Or what ministry problem is the site or Web app trying to solve? I think these are good questions to consider and to go back to as you consider if your site is staying on course or […]
Experience Design
April 19, 2006
As it becomes easier and easier for designers to pack more features into the little boxes they want us to buy, it’s going to become more and more important to ask the questions about which features should be included and how will those features improve our lives. This is what experience design is all about… This […]
Web 2.0 is about empowering the user
February 8, 2006
See Dave Rogers’ article, Web 2.0: Mistaking the Forest for the Trees? It helped me to make another step in understanding and being able to explain this concept that has been termed “Web 2.0.” Web 2.0 is the application of the reality that most designers and companies have been slow to embrace. The Web is […]
About Time Amazon
August 26, 2005
When I am interested in a book, I will usually add that book to my Wishlist at Amazon.com. Then when I am ready to buy the book, I go to my wishlist and add it to my cart and purchase it. In the past, I have thought it would be really nice if once I […]
