Foolproof blog

Whenever I have worked on mobile phone projects, the issue of security always seems to become a topic of discussion both in regards to what people are willing to share on social networking sites, as well as their propensity to purchase or bank.

Tuesday night we ran a round-table session to unpack experience design and how it’s viewed within our client’s organisations.  We had perspectives from diverse sectors like financial services, gaming, and energy.  Despite this sector mix, as well as a B2B and B2C split, a common issue emerged:

How do you convince C-suites (CEO, CTO, CFO etc) that putting customers at the heart of your brand experience will improve shareholder value?

Author: Jan Srutek, Flow Interactive.

Prague was the place to be for Web and UX people this September. Two great conferences took place simultaneously (!) between the 22^nd and the 24^th. EuroIA and WebExpo 2011 both had great speaker lineups. I was invited to give a talk at WebExpo (Central Europe’s largest web design and online business conference), and therefore missed the EuroIA, but good coverage of EuroIA can already be found online.

Friday’s Great Outdoors of Design (GOOD) conference in London had a number of thought-provoking presentations and group discussions around design research. We covered topics on organisations, social change, product and service innovation. What caught my interest was seeing researchers taking a business perspective to design.

There’s a growing trend in presentations for the Steve Jobs style presentation with large images but little text.

As you can imagine I watch a lot of presentations in my line of work, some good and some bad. I find that it’s usually the use of images that makes or breaks them.

Cookies are technical solutions… but responding to the requirements of the EU E-Privacy Directive is not primarily a technical challenge. If organisations take steps to comply without due attention to the experience, the end users will go elsewhere.

I recently saw Mike Lynch, CEO of the UK software giant Autonomy, speak about his experiences of building his company from four people and a broom cupboard (which had its own part to play in their early successes) to the company that today HP values at $10billion.

He spoke about three ‘catch phrases’ that have become cornerstones to the success of Autonomy, all of which I felt had messages for anyone in business today.

Comic strips are not new to user research; in fact we’ve been using them for some time to illustrate personas and user journeys. But have you considered using them as a way of introducing respondents to research before the interview?

If you’re interested in getting a job in user experience (UX), what should you do to make a great first impression? I spoke to Leslie Fountain, Experience Design Director, and Karen Varnavas, HR Co-ordinator, to find out what you should think about when putting together your CV, covering letter and portfolio.

On Friday, we made our annual trip to Brighton for the dConstruct conference, this year billed as exploring “how designers can bridge the gap between the physical and digital world”. It sold out in only seven hours and yes, you should join the scrum too if you’re looking for commentary from old and new voices on the future, but not if you’re looking for practical tips to take away.