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Future Of The Magazine

The future of the magazine, and no less is what you'll see here. It is a concept video put together by the design collective BERG and an idea of how a digital magazine might look in the near future, based on a tablet type gadget.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/dec/18/berg-bonnier-magplus

Wake Up Call To Your Marketing Departement

Marketingwise too many companies are still managed as if they were stuck in the 1960s. Yet never before have companies had such great opportunities to interact directly with customers, collecting and mining information about them, and tailoring their offerings accordingly. 

I had to nod a great deal while reading this article in the Haward Business Review.

Intimacy And The Web

I recently came by this interesting and rather surprising talk care of TED. The talk is by Stefana Broadbent and the topic is: How Internet enables intimacy. 

Broadbent is an anthropologist and visiting researcher at University College of London.  

Tip of the hat to Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path.

User Experience Is Your Brand, Dummy!

I'm loving this insightful article on the clash between corporate branding guidelines and actual user experience in UX Magazine. 

When corporate marketing departments dream of brand design, they only dream as far as they need. The expensive and time consuming process of extending the brand into an interactive concept is usually pushed off until it becomes absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, by the time some serious rethinking is required, a lot of people have gotten stuck in the mud of static branding. It’s completely natural for companies to resist straying from the handful of predefined styles that were never meant to address web forms, widgets, calendars and menuing systems.

It describes the situation in many organizations spot on and also excels by not solely blaiming the marketing department for this problem. So if your work has the slightest to do with branding and communication go read it.

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Prototyping With XHTML And Javascript - Why On Earth?

In the past months I have come across quite a few UI-guys arguing that prototyping web interfaces should be done using  XHTML and  javascript. The underlying argument being that it's much easier to produce a fair representation of the final product if designers get into code mode.

At UX London Richard Rutter and James Box from Clearleft  held a workshop about wireframing. They gave a presentation on how they use html and javascript to go from paper to functional html-prototypes in an effort to mimic the ajax responses of real world web pages. The two designers said that the code needed wasn't that hard to learn and that you really ought to know how to build a web page, when you are an interface designer.

Admittedly they both seemed like very skilled designers and they definitely knew what they were doing. What's more I certainly agree that building a functional prototype will take you much closer to the target than static screen dumps. But I don't think designers need to know code much less be able to code a web page from scratch. It simply isn't their job and concentrating on it will eventually take their focus away from the core task of delivering great user experience. 

I also noticed a lot of worried frowns on the foreheads of Rutter and Box's spectators when they whipped out the actual code needed.

Now, I'm nearing 41 years of age and really don't need those extra frowns so I stay as much away from code as I can. In stead I use Axure RP which is an easy to learn wysiwyg tool that doesn't require any coding skills. All the same the software is able to mimic ajax functionality at any rate.

This means that I don't have to spend my time with divs, ids and scripting. I am able to simply drag and drop the desired functionality into place. If I went the extra mile and coded the application there is little doubt that programmers would frown at the result. In other words: My code would suck.

So why go the extra mile of the Clearleft people and code the darn thing from head to body?  Well, I think the main problem of many UI-designers is that they are Mac-people and as of now Axure RP is not available for Mac. I think it will be in the not to distant future. But until then if you really want fast results without code, you have to switch to a pc.

Disclaimer: I do not work for Axure, nor was I paid for this post. I am simply a happy customer :-)

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The Complicated Matter Of User Experience

Working with web communication can be a task containing many disciplines. But take a good look at The Spectrum of User Experience.

This little sucker of a model shows you just how complex and interwoven matters can be.

Via Adpative Path

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Is Card Sorting Via Web A Good Thing

The grand old usability discipline, card sorting, is now fully webified. No more low tech feel with all the little cardboard cards cramped in sweaty hands.

I haven't tried the service, so I don't know if this tool is actually useful. But it honestly seems like a bit much to take this process online, though.

Also, I think live user feedback is one of good things you gain from card sorting. So taking it online kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

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Is Adobe Captivate 4 Flawed?

So I've downloaded Adobe Captivate 4 at work to evaluate whether it's the right tool to use for software demonstrations.

I'm still testing it, but I just had to write this warning: If you expect to find a program with the level of usability and stability that you're used to from Adobe you'll probably be disappointed.

The program is just not very intuitive to use. I have used it for two weeks now and still feel like a blind bat most of the time when using it (I am a fairly skilled Photoshop and Flash user).

The other thing, which is worse, is that the program seems to crash a lot.

I'll do some more testing and give you guys a review in detail later.

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Axure For Mac Is On The Way

Axure is reportedly working on an Apple OS version of their famed prototyping software. They have set up a web site about the matter at http://www.axureformac.com/.

No news about a beta release date yet, though.

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Customer Independence

Have you ever read The Cluetrain Manifesto? If not, do so, soon. It is an amazing book about the workings of the new marketplace. Or should I say "old market place" since the Manifesto will soon celebrate its ten year anniversary?

One of the co-authors of the book, Doc Searls, is still looking into customer independence and vendor engagement. In fact he has a entire blog on the subject over at Project VRM Blog

There among other interesting entries on the subject of vendor-customer relationship you'll find Searl's stab at a Declaration of Customer Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all customers are born free, that they are endowed by the market with innate abilities to relate, to converse and to transact — on their own terms, and in their own ways. When sellers have labored long and hard to restrict those freedoms, and to ignore and insult the capacities enjoyed naturally by customers — by speaking, for example, of “capturing,” “acquiring,” “retaining,” “locking in” and otherwise “owning” customers as if they were slaves [...] it is the right of customers to obsolete the coercive systems to which both sellers and customers have become accustomed. We will do this by providing ourselves with new tools for leveraging our native powers, for the good of ourselves and sellers alike."

Go read more on Searl's blog.

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