UXDesignCast

Karel’s guest for this episode is Alex Wright who is Director of User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times.  Topics include the user experience design work that is carried out at the Times, how that work is helping to address the challenges that traditional media is facing in an increasingly digital world, how the Times designs for multiple platforms, future trends in user experience design and advice for those just starting in the field.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), Ben Sykes (UX Design Strategy Consultant at Interactoid), and Shawn O’Keefe (Interactive Festival Producer and Web Developer at SXSW.  The panel discusses recent design related news from the last month or two, the biggest user experience design innovations of the last decade, and predictions about what the next decade holds in store.

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Learn about the design of social software for the enterprise.  Joining Karel on this episode are Ethan Perry (Product Designer and UX Team Lead, IBM Lotus Connections) and Marty Moore (Product Designer, IBM Lotus Connections) discussing the design of IBM Lotus Connections 2.5.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Mahmood Ashek (Solutions Architect, Mobile Applications Practice, IBM Interactive) and Phouphet Sihavong (Interface Designer/User Experience Specialist, IBM Interactive) discussing the architecture, design, and development work their team at IBM did to create the highly successful Air Canada iPhone app.  For more details, read the story and view the demo at ibm.com/design.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  The panel discusses the new way of using Web 2.0 including microblogging behind corporate firewalls with IBM Lotus Connections 2.5, the recent typography choices make by IKEA and what impact they may have, the need to consider the total cloud user experience importantly including ISPs, the implications for designers of Google’s Chrome Frame, key principles for and examples of effective Rich Internet Application (RIA) design, and planning for World Usability Day.

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Joining Karel for this episode are Davis Neable (User Experience Professional, IBM Software Group) and Cale Vardy (Visual Designer, IBM Software Group Media Design Studio) talking about the design of IBM Business Space Powered by WebSphere. After introductions, the user research that was carried out is outlined as is the development of persona and user stories, the early wireframe designs and over time high fidelity designs, and the user feedback that was collected throughout the project.  Design challenges are summarized together with the innovative design solutions. In addition, the pros and cons of distributed design and development were discussed as well as the technologies the team used to optimize their design work.

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Karel’s guest for this episode is Bill Curtis-Davidson of the IBM Ability and Accessibility Center. Bill describes the IBM’s kiosk business, outlines the accessiblity challenges with kiosks, details the innovative solution he designed, and summarizes the feedback he’s received on the design. Karel and Bill also discuss the generalizability of the solutions discussed to other touch-based user interfaces beyond kiosks.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Julie Santilli (IBM Visual Design Community and Tools Lead ), David Schwartz (IBM UI Architecture, Patterns, & Assets Lead), and Bob Jones (IBM User Experience Community & Tools Strategy Lead). The episode provides advice on organizational optimization of user experience design.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  The panel discusses the recent announcements of Bing and Chrome OS, followed by a description of the Ryerson Digital Playground and the poll results relating to the design impact on purchase decisions. The interesting link for this month is the what is a browser video and the community news regarding the call for papers for CHI 2009 and the new UX Book Club initiative.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio), and our newest member of the panel Jay Trimble (Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group, NASA Ames Research Center).  The panel discusses the Palm Pre and Palm’s new WebOS, an update on the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) including an innovative perspective on design called Evil by Design, a summary of the trend toward what has recently called the real-time web including design features of Google Wave and recent experiences regarding Twitter. The interesting website of the month that was discussed is spezify.com and the community news concerned the IxDA organization. The Mozilla Labs design challenge together with IxDA was also discussed.

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Joining Karel on this episode are Julie Santilli (IBM Visual Design Community and Tools Lead ), David Schwartz (IBM UI Architecture, Patterns, & Assets Lead), and Bob Jones (IBM User Experience Community & Tools Strategy Lead). The episode provides advice on designing dynamic forms, on constructing effective surveys, and discusses design quotes and recommended reading that provide design insight, advice, and inspiration.

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Panelists joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, IBM CIO’s Office, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio). The panel discusses the Sixth Sense research project, the future of internet search, data-driven design, and what’s messing up our UIs.

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Karel’s guests for this project design review of IBM Lotus iNotes ultra-light for the iPhone are Margo Ezekiel (User Experience Professional), Carrie Tracy (Senior Visual Designer), and Michelle Cooper (Usability Specialist).

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Joining Karel on this episode are Julie Santilli (IBM Visual Design Community and Tools Lead ), David Schwartz (IBM UI Architecture, Patterns, & Assets Lead), and Bob Jones (IBM User Experience Community & Tools Strategy Lead). The group discusses trends in visual and interaction design and in user research and user feedback.

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Find out about the incredible visual and interaction design, user experience research and evaluation, and development team collaboration that went into the Agile design and development of IBM Rational Asset Manager.  Joining Karel for this episode are Heather Frantz (User Experience Practitioner), Janet Mockler (Visual Designer), and Michael Stokes (User Experience and Design Manager and Practitioner).

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Panelists joining Karel on this episode are Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio) and Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, User Experience Design, ibm.com). The panel discusses Karel’s blog post designing for the cloud, the IBM Blue Spruce project, the 10 harsh truths about corporate websites, the intelligent software assistant, and Microsoft’s glimpse of the future.

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What to know how IBM Lotus Notes is designed and what user interface features are in the latest release? Joining Karel for this episode are Mary Beth Raven (Lead User Experience Designer for Lotus Notes) and John Lance (Product Designer for Lotus Notes Calendar and Scheduling). The episode starts off by providing an overview of IBM Lotus Notes and its history.  The various methods that are used to get customer input and feedback are described next. The central role of persona play is discussed as well as the influence they have on design.  Mary Beth and John discuss the challenges of designing a product that has a current user base of 140 million and the methods they use to ensure that new designs will satisfy users.  They also outline the major new user interface features available in the latest release and describe the various ways users can find out more about and get involved with the Lotus Notes design.

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This is the second of our tutorial sessions.  Karel is joined by David Schwartz and Bob Jones of his team at IBM to discuss the various ways user experience design can be optimized within an Agile development approach.  Specific recommendations of best practices are provided based on the experiences of practitioners at IBM and elsewhere.

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Panelists joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovation Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, User Experience Design, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  The panel discusses the how design is becoming a product differentiator in particular markets, the success of Facebook despite design challenges, the increasing importance of design, what user experience design is, and misconceptions about user experience design.

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Panelists joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovation Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, User Experience Design, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  The panel discusses the possible impact the new full screen, multi-touch interfaces on devices like the iPhone, Google G1, and Blackberry Storm may have on computing devices in the future, a book about the business success resulting from and a deep focus on design, and trends in uses of social software.

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This is the first of what will be a regular feature providing guidance on various design topics.  David R. Schwartz joins Karel and outlines two important User Interface Design Patterns, Details on Demand and Auto-complete.  Additional information on these patterns is available at www.ibm.com/design.

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Panelists joining Karel on this episode are Val Fox (Director, Innovation Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, User Experience Design, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  The panel discusses Google’s new Gmail colors and themes, Wire magazine’s article “Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look so 2004″, the increasing pervasiveness of mobile touch user interfaces, and the introduction of a major new design and how to make it successful.

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This is the first of what will become a regular project review session podcast which this episode features the IBM BladeCenter S project.  Karel interviews Mark Molander who is a User Experience Architect in IBM’s Systems Group and who served as the user experience and design project lead for BladeCenter S.  Additional information and a video about the project are available on the Design@IBM site.

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This is the first of what will become a regular panel session podcast discussing recent news, trends, and insights regarding User Experience and Design.  Panelists joining Karel on this episode included Val Fox (Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, Ryerson University), Keith Instone (Information Architecture Lead, User Experience Design, IBM.com), and Eliane Tozman (User Interface Designer, IBM Media Design Studio).  This month the panel discusses the new Google browser Chrome, innovative tablet-based education, Mozilla Labs’s Ubiquity UI experiment, the reappearance of the command line interface, the influence of comics on design, and the iPhone WritingPad app from IBM Research.

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Lisa Kamm is User Experience Manager at Google.  Lisa outlines what her role entails and how User Experience Design is carried out at Google.  She describes the design principles that pervade Google’s culture and the impact that they have on projects.  Lisa enumerates the UX projects that have been carried out as a result of the company’s policy of letting employees spend 20 percent of their time on projects of their own choosing.  She lists the disciplines and skills that Google employs in its UX organizations.  Karel and Lisa discuss the benefits and challenges of designing Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that run in a browser and the podcast finishes up with Lisa summarizing what advice she would give to those just starting in this field.  Here are the links Lisa mentioned in the podcast interview with regard to the design principles and Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization work.  

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John Karat is a Research Scientist within IBM’s Research Division.  John outlines the role the research division plays at IBM and summarizes some of product user interaction inventions that have come out of the division.  He also describes his own current research program and the impact that it has had on knowledge and products.  John and Karel discuss the process of taking projects from the research laboratory to product, point out some recent successes, and consider what the future of user interfaces might look like.  They also talk about John’s involvement in professional organizations including the Life Time Service Award he was recently awarded by the Computer-Human Interaction or CHI organization.  John also articulates what he believes are the benefits and the challenges of working in a commercial research organization.  John has a personal web page and a recent project page as well.

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Kevin Bury is Principal Interaction Designer at LinkedIn and was previously Director, User Experience Design, at Yahoo! where he managed a team of designers responsible for all of Yahoo’s “Front Door” products - including the Yahoo! Front Page (www.yahoo.com), My Yahoo! (www.my.yahoo.com), Yahoo! Buzz (www.buzz.yahoo.com), and Yahoo! Glue. Kevin describes his roles at LinkedIn and Yahoo!, characterizes the type of User Experience Design approaches used at both companies, and shares the design work he is most proud of over his long and distinguished career.  Kevin and Karel discuss the importance of a design culture in companies, the trend toward the realization of the importance of the business value of design, and the benefits and challenges of designing in a Web 2.0 world.  Kevin shares his insights on the most important skills that designers should have in order to be successful in commercial design.  He also describes how he keeps up on new developments in discipline and technology directions.  Kevin naturally has a profile on LinkedIn and he also has a blog at kevinbury.com.

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Valerie Fox is Director, Innovative Technology Solutions, at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.  Karel interviews Val in her office at the university.  Val starts off by describing Ryerson and her role there.  She outlines the transformation she went through from being the creative director for web and other digital user experiences in previous jobs to this one which essentially involves her designing a university.  Val articulates what she believes are the portable skills she brings as a designer to her role at the university and reinforces what she believes are the fundamental techniques and skills all successful designers should possess.  Val’s job is a one-of-a-kind one and demonstrates how well-rounded designers can effectively apply their knowledge and skill to virtually any canvas.

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Mike Beltzner is Phenomenologist at Mozilla. He describes what that interesting job title is all about, his company’s approach to user experience design, the transformation they went through in adopting a design culture (a particular challenge for an open source organization), and how he and his staff work with the rest of Mozilla. Mike outlines the benefits and challenges of working with 160 million users. He also summarizes the work that went into Firefox 3 and points out the user experience and design enhancements included in this latest version of the popular browser. Mike and Karel also discuss the role a browser now plays in a world of cloud computing and the influence of Web 2.0 and visual design trends. The session finishes up with Mike providing advice on the skills and techniques he thinks are critical for user experience designers to have in order to be optimally effective. Check out the main Mozilla site as well as a screencast of the new features in Firefox 3. Please note: we experienced technical difficulties during the first part of the podcast recording which were resolved during the later part. We apologize for the impact that this had on sound quality.

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Karel Vredenburg interviews John Robertson who is Director of User Experience and Development, Internet Channel, at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). John describes CIBC and the Internet Channel organization as well as his two teams who design and develop the bank’s websites and web applications. He outlines the transformation the bank has gone through in arriving at the current organization and focus. John summarizes the ways in which his teams design and develop visual and interaction designs and the role his user interface developers play in creating early and iterative prototypes for user evaluation and the ways in which that work is used directly by the technology developers. John and Karel discuss the impact of Web 2.0 and visual design trends. John explores the types of skills he has on his team and provides insights and advice on the most effective skills to develop to be effective today.  Check out some of John’s team’s design work by visiting the CIBC main site.

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Karel Vredenburg interviews Victor Chan who is User Experience Designer at Dow Jones based in New York City. Victor describes his role and how user experience design work is carried out at Dow Jones. He discusses some of the benefits and challenges of designing business and financial communication content in a rapidly changing Web 2.0 world. Having been a successful designer at several companies, Victor outlines what he feels are the most important skills for designers to acquire and knowledge to have as well as approaches to take in order to product truly innovative and creative designs.

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Karel Vredenburg interviews Gale Moore who is Director of the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI) at the University of Toronto. Gale outlines the mandate and origins of KMDI and outlines the kind of projects carried out at the institute. An exploration of Gale’s background as a Sociologist leads to a wide ranging discussion of the numerous Web 2.0 trends impacting the social fabric of societies worldwide. Also discussed are the various positive and negative impacts of Web 2.0 in the areas of social interaction, university education, academic peer review, intellectual property review, and organizational transformation.  For further information, learn more about KMDI, its faculty, the ePresence Interactive Media project, Project Open Source|Open Access, and access the KMDI newsletter archive and to subscribe to it send to info@kmdi.utoronto.ca.

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Karel Vredenburg interviews Jay Trimble who is Computer Scientist at NASA ARC and the Group Lead for the User Centered Technology Group. Jay tells about the NASA Ames Research Center, the major types of work they do, how user-centered approaches have been introduced there, what has worked best, and what the major contributions have been to the overall NASA program.

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Karel Vredenburg summarizes some recent research on the business impact of design in terms of the importance of a well-designed user interface to enterprise purchase decisions.  He also outlines the three attributes that must come together in order to design for delight.

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Karel Vredenburg interviews Ilona Posner about her career, views on UX opportunities and challenges, the importance of visual and interaction design, and advice for students and beginning practitioners.

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Welcome to the first episode of this new podcast series. This is a short episode that simply introduces the podcast series, the topics to be covered, the formats which will be used, and the audience it is intended to address.

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I’m delighted to announce the availability of this new podcast series dealing with user experience design. It will feature interviews with leaders in the field, a regular panel discussion of recent topics of interest to UXD practitioners, as well as my own thoughts, ideas, and experiences.