Hot answers tagged learning
6
Introduction
Read
The Design of Everyday Things for usability
Don't Make Me Think for empathy.
Then read Sketching User Experiences for sketching, learn what a persona is (google it or read the entire book The Inmates Are Running the Asylumn), and Emotional Design for desirabity.
Good solutions are usable, useful, and desirable.
To start ...
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Compared to horizontal top-of-page menus, vertical left-side navigation has been found to yield faster navigation and greater user satisfaction. This may be simply due to vertical navigation bars being so common that users are used to them, but it may also be due to it being easier to scan down a menu than across. Interestingly, it appears you can combine a ...
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User testing.
Even if an initial design is poor, its worst aspects can be ameliorated so long as the designer understands the value of usability testing. If they can write good tasks that don't lead the user, and understand the kinds of issues they should be looking for, they will be equipped to create a solid application. Maybe nothing amazing, but ...
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Underlying all the principles of design and UX tools and techniques is understanding users - the psychology of how people think and see - how they make decisions, what motivates them, what engages them, how memories are strengthened, how fallible we are and how mistakes are made.
Beginners like to know how something matters to them, so introducing topics ...
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Personally I really hate when a program updates and I can't get information about the update. You could insert a link to all improvements somewhere in about this program or something like that.
It sound like a huge improvement, so you could make a small message appear, when the user opens the program for the first time since the update. Here you could tell ...
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Design a dashboard of data. Allow users to drill down and edit the content.
That sounds like a very specific task, but it's actually one that would expose students to many facets of UX:
The visual display of quantitative information
Discoverability of content and information scenting
Relationships between views and drilldowns; when to use modal windows
...
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I can't speak for the sites that you mentioned, but anything that you do which gets you to understand how people use products and services will help you learn more about UX.
The closer you get to users, the better - and doing testing is about as close as you will get.
However, to get the most out of it follow these steps:
Analyse what you will be testing ...
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Design an android/iphone/windows class schedule phone app for a specific user group as students . The user research part would involve studying about the best design practices for such an app and interviewing students to find out how they would want such an app to be. Other research aspects could be an contextual enquiry into situations where users might ...
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Well of course hanging around on UX Stack Exchange and actively participating in discussion is a great way to learn.
Can I also recommend a free online course that is coming to the web this october. Alan Dix is co-author of one of the best Human Computer Interaction text books. In October he is going to be running a free online HCI course - Alan is an ...
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I am not a UI expert by any means, learning some UX tricks by hanging out here, here is what I found:
Recommended: In website navigation, what are the pros and cons of horizontal menus vs vertical menus, and is one better than the other?
The Case Against Vertical Navigation
Vertical vs Horizontal Global Navigation (any usability studies?)
But I would ...
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Whenever I release a new update, I give my users a choice to switch to the new version. Give a link on the existing one and asking them if they want to try it, gives user a lot of confidence and a sense of control. Giving user a sense of control is one of the primary element I try to introduce in all my designs.
Once they select, thank them and tell them ...
2
I've been attempting to navigate this transition for about five years, and I've learned a lot along the way.
First, experience is almost everything. As mentioned in another answer, the 10,000 hours thing (although it's a Gladwell gimmick) is fairly good as a first approximation. But it matters what kind of experience you have.
All of my experience is in ...
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The first pattern that comes to mind is something like the forget password flow.
User fills out and submits form requesting "certification".
(You forget password but know your information, enter email and request new one)
Certifier receives request, authorizes. An email is sent to user with an account specific link with access to perscribed content.
...
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This is commonly referred to as an "Approval" process, you may have better luck researching that term.
However, I've done this on multiple systems in multiple industries. My suggestions are to have the following:
Home page with quick access to "My pending approvals" and "Create prescription" (substitute with whatever is relevant)
Concise notification area ...
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I think you shouldn't teach how to send sms 'in general'. It's enough to mention something like 'Refer to user manual of your cell phone on how to send SMS'. The main reason is that if you provide some service - teaching SMS sending - and you don't succeed, your customer has reason to be dissatisfied you. Especcially when your instructions are misleading in ...
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John's answer was great, but I wanted to elaborate a bit on the portfolio aspect.
I'm also starting out in UX and I don't have much experience beyond a six-month course I took. Here's what I've done to build a portfolio:
Start a blog and post everyday.
Contact and talk to every professional UX person you can
Learn how to use tools that will increase your ...
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User experience isn't only about designing the user interface,
it is about planning the user's interaction with the product.
This affects the requirements, not only the interface.
The design of the actual interface builds on this and adds readability, emphasis, lack of distractions and aesthetics.
There are good books you can read such as " Don't make me ...
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Maybe it would be a good idea if you let your students use their own creativity and choose their own assignment/subject/project that they would like to develop throughout your whole course. If it is their own project and it involves creativity, they may be more likely to keep going.
I had a professional course about user centered analysis and conceptual ...
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I think getting people to think about affordances is one of the relatively easy ways to get a person's mind to wrap around the idea of designing things for use, so it's where I often start when I give a high-level overview of UX.
I think Don Norman gives people a really terrific understanding of what affordances are and how to understand them in this video ...
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As someone who moved from the software development field ( I was doing datawarehousing and database management ) to UX, here are the things I did right (and wrong)
Look at the skills you can transfer to your new role: Your background has been in web design which already gives you a heads up over other designers who have no experience with coding and the ...
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