InfoQ Homepage User Experience Content on InfoQ
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Constantine on combining Agile and User Experience
Usability and Teamwork author and consultant Larry Constantine recently wrote two articles about the “Interfaith Marriage” between experience design and agile development. He examines the inherent conflict between the agile and UX perspectives and provides some concrete advice on how to integrate the two into a creative and productive union.
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Agile 2010 - Make Stuff People Can Use
There were a number of sessions at Agile 2010 focused on usability and user experience. Samantha Starmer from REI presented a session titled "Make stuff people can use" that provided practical advice and pragmatic ideas on bringing usability into agile projects, even when there isn't a usability expert as a member of the team.
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Microsoft Ribbon for WPF
Microsoft has released a new preview of their WPF-based Ribbon control. Though not the final version, it includes a go live license and a copy of the source code. The quality is quite high and it appears that all of the bugs and API design flaws from last year’s preview have been corrected. While the source code is available, the license only permits read-only access for debugging purposes.
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Software Programming as Craft
The Cutter IT Journal recently published a special issue on software craftsmanship that included articles on what it means to be a software craftsman, software engineering vs. software craft, the relationship between Agile and craftsmanship, and crafting the user experience.
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Wireframes or No Wireframes
The adage "A picture is worth a thousand words", is sometimes forgotten in the Agile world. At least, this is what many designers on Agile teams believe. In some teams, designers are required to create small increments of the design and this process does not necessarily produce the best results. For other teams wireframes are considered to be bureaucracy which gets in the way of development.
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Top Usability Books for Programmers
Most programmers would strive hard to build a robust product with Agile practices and clean code. However, the focus on usability leaves much to be desired. This is despite the well known fact that a good user interface design can spell the difference between acceptance of a software product and its failure. If the end users do not like the UI then the product has little chance of success.
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Harmonizing Agile With "User-Centered Design"
UX specialist Anthony Colfelt presents a case for how agile, alone, might not be sufficient and a thorough and engaging look into how User-Centered Design can, and should, be merged with it.
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Where has the innovation gone?
Some commentators are questioning the level of innovation happening in the Agile space. Does iterative and incremental development lead us away from innovation towards reusing old solutions, building on what we already know rather than creating truly "out of the box" solutions. Adding an R&D stream is suggested as a way to bring innovation into Agile projects.
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Evaluating the 'Ease of Use'
Mostly usability of a system is ascertained on gut feel rather than being based on some statistical analysis. In a recent discussion on the Agile Usability group, members discuss various ways to evaluate system usability in an objective manner.
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Scott Guthrie on Web Technologies During MIX 09
In an interview held by Channel 9, Scott Guthrie talks about MIX 2009, Silverlight 3, upcoming VS 2010 Tools for Silverlight, and Expression.
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Presentation: Agile Methods and User Centered Design
In this presentation filmed during ThoughtWorks’ Quarterly Technology Briefing, Dave Robertson and John Johnston explain what the Agile and User Centered Design’s (UCD) common denominators are, common values being the most important one in their opinion.
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Agile Usability
Jakob Nielsen, usability guru and author of Usability Engineering, raises the concern that Agile methods are a threat to traditional approaches to designing usability. He goes on to propose solutions so that usability designers can work together in the Agile world. In addition Alistair Cockburn, while generally supporting Jakob, takes issue with a few of his points.
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Is Stream-oriented a better UI paradigm than Document-oriented for today's knowledge workers?
In Bryce Harrington’s opinion, document-oriented paradigm of user interface is not any longer optimal. Most often people deal with streams of information rather than static documents. Harrington advocates for a shift towards a new UI paradigm that would make stream management easier. Many tools and technologies are already based on stream-oriented approach; others are instrumental for adopting it.
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Presentation: Laurence Moroney on Silverlight
In this presentation Laurence Maroney provides an overview of the Microsoft UX platform focusing on Silverlight.
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Differentiated UX: Expression of an Emerging UI Design Trend?
Introduced with the rollout of the Windows Presentation Foundation, the concept of Differentiated UX (Differentiated User Experience) was intended to help promote a new capability associated with this technology for delivering enhanced user experiences. Recently, Brian Noyes and Dax Pandhi provided a more concrete explanation of the term and described its relevance to UI designers and developers.