Card sorting – online editions

Here are couple of sites for doing card sorting interactively and online. Best part is you can invite participants online to contribute and provide their input. This list is provided by the very awesome UX blog Sixrevisions.

OptimalSort

OptimalSort offers a quality card-sorting and usability-testing service for a monthly fee. Create cards and options, and then send a link to the study to chosen participants. Or tweet the link and get random participants who are willing to help you out. The application offers real-time results and graphs, and the interface is sleek and smart.

WebSort

WebSort is another online application with which designers can create card-sorting usability tests and send a link to the public or to chosen participants. It also has a great interface and calculates results and graphs just like OptimalSort. WebSort, however, has a unique drag-and-drop interface to simplify organization.

User Zoom

Pre-organize data into groups and sub-categories. With User Zoom you can have unlimited participants, and there is an option to include your own questions (such as, Why did you choose to place this content here, or Why did you group these items like this?). Tailored questions will get direct answers from participants and help you analyze their thought processes and improve the user experience.

xSort

xSort is an application for Macs that creates a drag-and-drop interface for card sorting that mimics physical cards. It also calculates and presents the results for you to use on screen or print out for future reference.

CardZort

CardZort, a standalone application for Windows, Mac and Linux, offers a simple approach to digital card sorting. Two programs are available: CardZort, the standard drag-and-drop card-sorting application, and CardCluster, which works with CardZort to create a detailed cluster analysis of the results. This lightweight tool is a great free option that gets right to the point of traditional card sorting.

History of the Button

Ten Commandments of User Experience

Nick Finck and Raina Van Cleave’s presentation slides from the SXSWi talk are up. Here’s a summary:

User experiences are your everyday experiences—anything from operating a car, to making a pot of coffee, to ordering a pair of shoes online. User experience is the result of your interactions with a product or service, specifically how it’s delivered and its related artifacts according to the design.

In this presentation Nick Finck and Raina Van Cleave will explore the ten characteristics of a great user experience. They will cover all aspects of user experience design such as user research, information architecture, information design, technical writing, interaction design, visual design, brand identity design, accessibly, usability and web analytics. Nick and Raina will also explain how following the ten commandments can boost your web sites, web app, or mobile app’s ease of use, appeal, conversion rates, and more.
→ Learn more

50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files – Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine gathered a collection of wireframing kits: utencils, indesign libraries, omni graffle stuff, iPhone templates…. No excuse for us to wire an idea any longer than 5 mins.

50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files – Smashing Magazine.

Interaction that is designed right: proved.

We were all interested in digital interfaces. But we were all being reminded about how we interacted with physical things naturally. We were all reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. We, as designers, were starting to think if our mothers and our kids could use the product we design.

This is where we came, and it makes me smile in the name of today’s great designers:

Sustainable Web Design (??)

So, for a second, think about those days in the automotive industry of 1960s, when the oil prices were low while cars were an oil hog. And nobody was wondering to ask about CO2 emissions of a vehicle to a car dealer. Now that, climate change is on the news and green products are all the engineers and designers working on, it is ok to seek for the car with the highest mpg. That’s how we are becoming more aware of the sustainable design, and learning to be more sustainable as individuals.

Now, for yet another second, think about a concept I would call Sustainable Web Design.

Can we make websites that are more sustainable?

→ Learn more

BMW

I have been working on BMW account at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, since the summer of 2008. Working as an interaction designer in their interactive group, Dotglu, my major responsibility is to make sure this automotive giant’s website bmwusa.com is providing the best user experience, akin to its 6 geared, 230+ horsepowered Ultimate Driving Machines.
→ Learn more

OpenProcessing

I design and develop OpenProcessing.org, an online community platform for Processing developers and artists to upload and share their interactive sketches, browse and comment on each other’s works, and study the open-source code of any sketch.
OpenProcessing.org provides users to collaborate within this unique community, and support the open source sharing and learning. To support the community and sharing truely, OpenProcessing licenses any sketches uploaded with Creative Commons GNU GPL license.
→ Learn more

Intimate Game Controllers

I worked with Jenny Chowdhury on concepting and game design on her thesis project: A simple video game that is controlled by a pair of bra and men’s boxer. The game is using intimacy and the sense of touch as the major assets of the experience for players/couples. This two player game is played by one standing behind the other and each touching the parts on the undergarments once they see the related icons on the video game. On the further levels, the game gets faster (hence, harder) as they proceed each level. Storyline of the game also conveys an intimate dating.
→ Learn more