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Lois loves Superman

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:49:07 +0000

Margot Kidder via these sites.

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How Cognitive Biases Shape User Experience

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:22:46 +0000

Advertise here with BSA

Everyone develops opinions regarding how things should look, how things should behave, and what things should be called. These cognitive biases make up the filter between what actually exists, and what we perceive to be true.

The field of experience design attempts to realize a user’s cognitive biases, or opinions, and rationalizes design decisions that make use of those biases.

If a UX designer or UX strategist does not go through the process of identifying and incorporating users’ cognitive biases into their work, it stands to be misinterpreted, and site goals stand to be unachieved.

What many UX professionals tend to forget is that they also develop cognitive biases that influence the work they produce. If these biases aren’t recognized and accounted for, the produced experience could be optimized for the designer, rather than the user. A common issue in agency life involves catering an experience to the cognitive biases present in the room (the stakeholders), rather than those identified through research and ethnography.

What follows are examples of cognitive biases of site users as well as stakeholders.

Users’ Cognitive Biases

Let’s discuss some cognitive biases our users bring with them when they use our site.

"I know where it should be located"

Users tend to have a preconceived understanding about where certain page elements are likely to be located. For example, many users will look for a sign-in button in the upper right corner of page.

Mint sign-in/login and sign-up buttons are at the top right of the web page, where users expect them to be.

Consideration: Placement of key/common page elements that are crucial to completing critical user flows should be handled with care and purpose.

"I know how it should look"

Users develop preconceived ideas regarding how many page elements should look. For example, a beveled edge on a graphic can give the impression that the element functions as a button.

A call-to-action button with a hover state. Learn how to make it by reading the tutorial.

Consideration: Visual appearance of key elements and groupings of content is important to the user experience. Analogies to physical objects should be adhered to, but should not be taken literally. Principles of Gestalt psychology should be applied in order to compose logical visual hierarchies and content groups.

"I know how it should behave"

Interactions with everyday things — both online and offline — influence a user’s cognitive biases when performing site actions. For example, users will tend to expect linked content to appear in the same format and location as the origin, unless explicitly told otherwise. This applies to PDFs and pop-up windows. If content will appear as a PDF or within a pop-up window, an explicit label should be associated with the call-to-action.

Consideration: Interaction design should be well thought out. Interaction design is often given a back seat to information architecture, but the two must work in unison for an effective site experience. It’s often the job of the web developer to interpret the interaction design. However, the UX professional can create prototypes that illustrate the desired interactions or create a set of interaction design flows and storyboards.

"I know what it should be called"

It’s widely known that Internet users tend to scan web pages for information, rather than reading and evaluating all information offered on the page. This scanning pattern causes users to seek out a keyword or a set of keywords.

For example, users often associate the term "contact us" with all forms of contact information. If the user is looking for a phone number, address, or email address, they’ll be scanning your site for the keyword phrase "contact us".

Techi, a technology news site, has a "contact us" link at the footer of all web pages.

Consideration: Taxonomy and nomenclature is important for taking advantage of this cognitive bias. Using common/recognizable nomenclature and categorization labels is one of the most important parts of UX design.

Often, taxonomy and nomenclature is given a back seat to visual design. Although visual design is very important, it’s not as important as creating the proper taxonomy and nomenclature.

Cognitive Biases of Stakeholders

Clients and project team members also have preconceived notions concerning the user experience. The following are some of them.

"I know what the user wants"

Stakeholders often transfer their own opinions to the user. If the stakeholder behaves a certain way, they often believe it’s a common way for others to behave.

Consideration: How was this bias established? Was it through reason/logic, experience, testing, research or secondhand knowledge?

"I know what the business wants"

It is the job of stakeholders to interpret (and prioritize) the wants and needs of the business. Aligning business needs with customer needs is where a UX professional is required to rely on creativity and social sciences.

There are many different ways (and timelines) for achieving what the business wants. The majority of businesses want their users to be happy, so balancing this with specific use cases will be important.

Consideration: What makes a user happy? Creating a pleasing experience is second only to a usable experience. If you have to sacrifice the experience of 10 people to improve the experience for 1, you’ll need to consider the value of that 1 user.

"I know what’s technically possible"

Stakeholders are often inhibited by their IT or technical team. Redesigns are often undertaken without thinking about "re-platforming" or new technological advances that could support the redesign.

Broken or mismanaged IT systems often inhibit user experiences. This should be much rarer than it is. (See Adaptive Path’s Cake/Cupcake Model.)

Consideration: Which systems govern the core functionality of the user experience? Are there system integration issues across digital properties? What could prevent future scalability?

"I know what best practices are"

UX professionals tend to be egotistical in terms of understanding the fundamental best practices in web design. Understanding that there are multiple ways to solve a problem, and that the most innovative design patterns require out-of-the-box thinking, a UX professional can make recommendations without ignoring the possibility of improving a standard convention.

Consideration: Although there are some fundamental best practices, there are always new conventions being established. They can be used as guidelines, but should not discourage the creation of innovative user experiences.

Summary

With this framework, you can quickly identify key areas you can target for user research and ethnographic activities to derive cognitive bias insights from. These insights should influence your design decisions and help guide your overarching experience plan.

About the Author

Jordan Julien an independent consultant who focuses on user experience strategy, digital planning, social media strategy, and SEO. Jordan has recently worked with clients like VISA, RBC, P&G, GE, Telus, Toyota, Coke, Nike, Critical Mass, The Hive, and many others. You can follow Jordan on Twitter @thejordanrules and see more of his work on his blog.

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Dacs United 2011

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:06:39 +0000

About a year ago, we’ve featured an exhibition called ‘Exposé’ from Dacs. It’s a design collective that enables creatives from all over the world to rise up against the sex trade. This year, they’re back with a new exhibition ‘Episodes’ and calling designers to join their network for the next exhibition happening in late June.

We are a group of artists with a passion for making a difference in our world. We leverage our unique gifts and styles to produce artwork, to raise awareness of the injustice of sex trafficking and inspiring others to use their talents to impact the world around us.

Dacs is the vision of John Mark Herskind, a young talented designer from South Carolina, US. You can check his work on Johnmarkherskind.com , follow his work on Behance.net or follow him on Twitter @jmherskind .

About DACS

We want to see how effective artists can be when they start breaking the boundaries of culture, race, religion, and backgrounds to unite for a just cause, and use their unique styles and talents to give a voice to the voiceless.

Not to mention that all the submissions will be judged by Jennifer Cirpici from Breakingcanvas.com and Richard Roberts from Theotherstream.com.

For more information about Dacs, you can visit Dacsunited.com , follow them on Twitter @dacsunited or follow them on Tumblr .

Exposé 2010 Video

Exposé from Designers Against Child Slavery on Vimeo.

Exposé 2010 in Pictures

by Sarah Blake

by Richard Roberts

by Carole Wilmet

by Man-Tsun

by Nathan Walker

by Andries Pries

by Cait Maloney

by Yee Von Chan

Information about the next exhibit ‘Episodes’

This exhibition is all about telling the story of a trafficking victim, through our art work. So we will be literally illustrating the “Episodes” of a victims story.

Deadline for Entries:
Friday, May 20th, 2011

Submission details:
Image Size: 40.64 cm x 50.8 cm
Color Mode: CMYK
Resolution: 300 dpi

About the author

My name’s François Hoang and my alias’s Aoiro Studio. I am a self-taught freelance graphic designer from Montreal, Canada. I’ve been designing for the last 4 years and really have a huge passion for creative work that makes a difference in our world. If you wanna requests some posts; I can be found on Twitter or feel free to contact me.

Gunter Rambow book posters

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:38:06 +0000

We’ve been admirers of Gunter Rambow’s 2-color posters, but we previously missed the book posters he designed in the 1970s for Frankfurt-based publishing house, S. Fischer Verlag.

(rediscovered the work of Gunter Rambow via Rosa Maria on tumblr)

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Introducing AppData Watch Lists

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:24:34 +0000

This week, we’ve just released a new feature for AppData Pro, our data service tracking app and developer growth on social platforms. AppData Watch Lists allow developers to simplify several key steps in the process of analyzing performance by app and across categories. More details on AppData Watch Lists: Automate app monitoring. Creating a Watch [...]

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Logo Design: Bears

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:09:40 +0000

The Logo Design series is up and running! We’re thinking ahead and we want to find new ways to sort these listings. Last week we had a post on Mexican themed logos… today it’s all about logos with bears!

As usual, we’ll search for logos in these galleries: Logopond, Logo Faves, Logo Moose, Logo from Dreams, Logo Gala, WS Logos, The Logo Mix and Wolda. We hope you all enjoy our selection! Cheers.

About the author

Hello, everyone! I’m Paulo Gabriel, a 26 year old designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil. I have worked as a webdesigner since 2006, but websites and blogs have been a hobby for me since 1999. Here in Abduzeedo, I try to bring only the hot stuff for you… and hope that all of you enjoy my posts! For more cool stuff, you may also follow me on Twitter.

How Sony Can Recover From Their PSN Nightmare

Matthew — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:19:31 +0000

If you were in the management team at Sony – especially Sony Computer Entertainment – life is probably a little stressful right now. Knowing that you may have lost the personal data of 77 million of your customers, maybe even including their credit card info is cataclysmic. All companies have their ups and downs but this is a huge deal, and the impact of Sony’s

Good thing Sony weren’t trying to start a business in the cloud or anything. Oh, right. Oops.

But presented with a massive PR bungle, companies have no choice but to try and repair the damage and recover. So how does Sony, a company that already has a checkered past go about fixing this massive mess?

Refund paying customers

This should be obvious, but anyone who pays for PSN+ (regular PSN service being free) should be a refund for more than the amount of time the network is down. It’s a no-brainer, but it needs to be said. You cannot simply refund members for the exact number of days PSN was inaccessible in a PR disaster like this.

Give out free stuff

This is crass, but there’s no solution to angry customers like free stuff.

Ideally, the solution should be some kind of voucher system that includes both movie and games. Send out codes that can be redeemed for or for use on the Playstation Store for downloadable titles, DLC, and movies/TV from the Video Store.

But, that solution could cost Sony a couple of hundred million dollars, which may be too much. Better perhaps to have days of discounts or freebies on the Playstation Network where users could get cheap or free access to games or movies on specific days.

Make transparency a new mission.

Sony have already come under fire for what is at least perceived as far too long a gap between the network going down and an announcement of a personal data breach.

So now what they must do is not only be open about their new security (as much as they can, obviously), they must also simply make the functioning, terms and conditions and limitations of their network clear.

Now is not the time to say “yes, we’ve taken care of the problem, trust us”.

Increase the availability of prepaid cards

Wit users understandably edgy about giving credit card details, it’s time to make sure everyone knows about prepaid PSN cards. Print off a hundred thousand or so of those cards, maybe even sell them at a discount. Do what you must to get people using your service again.

Distract users with new services

Again, it’s crass, but it’ll work. Add features to PSN. NOW would be the time to add cross-game chat, a feature users have been clamoring for forever.

But any and all features that would entice users to come back to the network would be a boon for the now beleaguered service.

What about you? What would it take for you to start using the PSN again once it’s back up?

http://bit.ly/faZ77d

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Wampa and his lovie

Matthew — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 23:47:16 +0000

Scott Morse posted a few Hoth-centric paintings for sale.

*Buy Tauntauns at eBay.

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Daily Inspiration #807

Matthew — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:08:10 +0000

This post is part of our daily series of posts showing the most inspiring images selected by some of the Abduzeedo’s writers and users. If you want to participate and share your graphic design inspiration, just send us, via email, the image with the link from where you found it, also use “Daily Inspiration” in the subject, and don’t forget to send your Abduzeedo username; or via Twitter sending to http://twitter.com/abduzeedo.

If possible use the HTML code:

Do you want to see all images from all Daily Inspirations? Check out http://daily.abduzeedo.com

Abban

al b sure

alex tass

Anderson Tomazi

Best Bookmarks

binkore

Conrado Arduini

Coolvibe

cuded

Daniel Coutinho

Edu Lanzoni

Eugene Kim

Fabiano

Fabio

fantasyinspiration

fksd

Gisele

HdK

Justin Barber

mangomarin

Maria Alejandra Parrish

Meng To

multifrag

Newyorkiz

NoahLibotte

Oscar Henderson-Pennington

shelbywhite

xarsenal96

Zidane 13

Via Twitter

Send your suggestions via Twitter to http://twitter.com/abduzeedo using #abdz in the end of the tweet.

@allrox

@daniel_nelson

@sidgambarini

About the author

I’m from Brazil, co-founder of Zee with Fabio. Nowadays I like to play with Fireworks, Photoshop and improve my skills in CSS. If you wanna request some posts, please feel free to contact me or follow on Twitter.

Cashflow The Market Investing Course

Matthew — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:40:18 +0000

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DesignFools

Lois loves Superman

How Cognitive Biases Shape User Experience

Users’ Cognitive Biases

"I know where it should be located"

"I know how it should look"

"I know how it should behave"

"I know what it should be called"

Cognitive Biases of Stakeholders

"I know what the user wants"

"I know what the business wants"

"I know what’s technically possible"

"I know what best practices are"

Summary

Related Content

About the Author

Dacs United 2011

About DACS

Exposé 2010 Video

Exposé 2010 in Pictures

Information about the next exhibit ‘Episodes’

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Gunter Rambow book posters

Introducing AppData Watch Lists

Logo Design: Bears

The Logo Design series is up and running! We’re thinking ahead and we want to find new ways to sort these listings. Last week we had a post on Mexican themed logos… today it’s all about logos with bears!

About the author

Sponsored Links:

How Sony Can Recover From Their PSN Nightmare

Refund paying customers

Give out free stuff

Make transparency a new mission.

Increase the availability of prepaid cards

Distract users with new services

Wampa and his lovie

Daily Inspiration #807

Do you want to see all images from all Daily Inspirations? Check out http://daily.abduzeedo.com

Abban

al b sure

alex tass

Anderson Tomazi

Best Bookmarks

binkore

Conrado Arduini

Coolvibe

cuded

Daniel Coutinho

Edu Lanzoni

Eugene Kim

Fabiano

Fabio

fantasyinspiration

fksd

Gisele

HdK

Justin Barber

mangomarin

Maria Alejandra Parrish

Meng To

multifrag

Newyorkiz

NoahLibotte

Oscar Henderson-Pennington

shelbywhite

xarsenal96

Zidane 13

Via Twitter

@allrox

@daniel_nelson

@sidgambarini

About the author

Sponsored Links:

Cashflow The Market Investing Course