Thoughts, ideas and solutions on UX, web accessibility and design
The final part of Mike Harris' 'Talking Psych to non-Psychologists' tackles that practical reality of agency life – acting like an expert from your first day onwards. The article presents three thinking tools for meetings and other situations requiring expertise.
I describe my job in many different ways depending on the situation – though I often use the words applied psychology. ‘Applying’ a subject typically means using the core body of knowledge to inform another area of work and life, rather than extending that body of knowledge itself. In part 2 of this blog, Mike Harris explains how we can better communicate psychology so people feel confident with complex concepts.
Psychology is a crucial discipline for all UX people – whether they started there or discovered it via other routes. However, it may come as a surprise, but not everyone spends all day philosophising on how the mind works. These ‘non-psychologists’ actually have other things that they think about. Who knew?! So for all fellow psychologists out there (and everyone else - please apply this to whatever your domain expertise is) if you find yourself starting to boulder on about ‘choice paralysis’ to a room full of furrowed brows and wandering eyes, please read the following advice...
The roles and experiences of both the user and facilitator within the usability testing process need to be considered as an active, contributory factor in the outcomes of traditional usability testing. When a user comes into our test lab to volunteer for a usability testing session, we need to acknowledge that they are a not simply a unanimous voice of our audience but a person entering a novel environment, with all of the concerns and behaviours that entails.
‘So how does a psychology graduate end up in web design?’ - a question I've been asked many times since landing a job at Nomensa. I want to explain how intrinsically linked psychology and UX design are.
Printers and typesetters have used lorem ipsum for over 500 years to demonstrate visual design elements. Meaningless chunks of Latin makes sure everyone involved in the visual design process focuses solely on font, typography and layout - rather than the words. But this tradition is under attack in the digital sector: in particular, the rise of agile methods and content strategy are conspiring against it.
A summary of the key concepts and ideas from the 5 articles in the meaning series. We human beings are hungry for meaning in all aspects of our lives. The meaning-first manifesto is a philosophy for researching and designing meaningful interaction.
It seems the only people who enjoy forms in any way are those who get to criticise them for a living.
You may also think there to be masochistic form creators out there who enjoy deliberately creating frustrating experiences; but I believe they are simply failing to grasp how many problems a set of questions and answer fields can run into.