Explain IA by Heather McGaw
This is our submission for the ExplainIA competition put on by the IA Institute. It was a really fun project to work on - you should go check out the other submissions as well, if you haven’t yet. Lots of... | February 5, 2010
IA is a Lens by Dennis Breen
People who know me know that I love metaphors and analogies (annoyingly so). So when I decided to make a poster for the Explain IA contest it was only natural that I’d choose a metaphor. For me, IA is a... | January 27, 2010
Doing a content audit or inventory by Scott Baldwin
This past couple weeks I've been doing a large content audit and inventory. With the increased attention on content strategy the audit/inventory seems to be making a comeback. In this post I'm going to share my recent approach and talk... | January 26, 2010
With the release of its new tablet, will Apple finally fix the App Store? by Gene Smith
If the rumours are true, tomorrow Apple will release a tablet device that runs the iPhone operating system. Like millions of other geeks, I'll be following Steve Jobs's keynote to see the big reveal. But I'll also be watching... | January 26, 2010
Farewells by Gene Smith
This month Jess McMullin and Toby Spendiff, two friends and long-time employees of nForm, are leaving to pursue new adventures. | January 21, 2010
Building Trust - Edmonton UX Book Club November Meeting (Part 1) by Ammneh Azeim
Trust means making an exchange with someone when you do not have full knowledge about them, their intent or the things they are offering you. In our November UX Book Club meeting, we had a full agenda in which the... | January 17, 2010
Five User Experience Trends I'll be Watching in 2010 by Gene Smith
Predictions. They're invariably wrong, but we still love to make them. (Remember the Kitchen of Tomorrow?) Today I'm sharing five trends I'll be watching over the coming year (and beyond) along with some thoughts about how they might change our... | January 12, 2010
Swimlane diagram now in EightShapes Unify by Yvonne Shek
We were privileged to have Nathan Curtis come speak at CanUX in November 2009. After his talk, I caught up with Nathan and asked him about entering the Swimlane page pattern into the EightShapes Unify collection. It didn’t take long.... | January 7, 2010
The fine art of listening by Scott Baldwin
As UX practitioners we help create things that are better, more usable, better organized, easier to engage with, help sell more stuff or reduce costs (a non-exhaustive list). Many of our methodologies and approaches leverage a single important skill –... | December 22, 2009
Edmonton UX Book Club - A Project Guide to UX Design (A discussion with the author Russ Unger) by Ammneh Azeim
"User experience design is the discipline of creating a useful and usable website or application - one that's easily navigated and meets the needs of both the site owner and its users. But there's a lot more to successful... | November 23, 2009
Introducing Scott Baldwin by Yvonne Shek
We are thrilled and excited to announce that Scott Baldwin is joining our nForm team! We want to extend our warmest welcome and introduce Scott to our friends, colleagues, clients, and community: Scott has a passion for understanding the intersection... | October 28, 2009
CanUX Interview with Nathan Curtis by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
Our very own Jess McMullin caught up with Nathan Curtis, principal at EightShapes and author of the recently published book Modular Web Design: Creating Reusable Components for User Experience Design and Documentation. In the interview, Nathan talks a little about... | October 28, 2009
Edmonton UX Book Club - Wired to Care (A discussion with the author Peter Mortensen) by Ammneh Azeim
"This is the story of how companies, and indeed organizations of all kinds, prosper when they tap into a power that every one of us already has: the ability to reach outside ourselves and connect with other people. And... | October 19, 2009
Content Strategy at CanUX with Kristina Halvorson and Rahel Bailie by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
We have two great content strategy speakers this year at CanUX, Kristina Halvorson and Rahel Bailie. Each bring a unique perspective and plenty of experience and knowledge to the topic. Last week I sat down with each of them individually... | October 15, 2009
Edmonton UX book club – Designing for Social Web (A discussion with the author Joshua Porter) by Ammneh Azeim
We had our first author conversation at Edmonton UX Book Club at the July meeting. I would like to thank Joshua Porter,author of the book, Designing for Social Web, for agreeing to meet with us and Gene Smith for contacting... | October 7, 2009
Equity in Service Design by Yvonne Shek
As kids head back to school, it is the season for signing up for various programs around the City. My husband and I decided to enroll our 6-year old daughter in a swim program. The City of Toronto offers three... | September 28, 2009
We are hiring again: Intermediate-Snr Interaction Designer / Information Architect in our Toronto office by Yvonne Shek
As an nForm consultant, your primary responsibility will be gathering business and customer insight and translating that insight into concrete plans and prototypes, such as conceptual models, interaction flows, wireframes, and functional specs. You will work with clients, their users,... | September 4, 2009
[Press] Kiiro: SharePoint-based Collaboration That Just Works by Gene Smith
ReadWriteEnterprise published a nice piece on Kiiro a couple of days ago. In an article called "Kiiro: SharePoint-based Collaboration That Just Works", Steve Walling writes: "Kiiro is one of the best-looking and easiest-to-use SharePoint tools we've seen to date.... this... | August 28, 2009
Prototyping and Bikes by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
I'm sure that many of you have read Bill Buxton's excellent book Sketching User Experiences. In it he uses bicycle design as an example of good sketching practice, so when I stumbled upon this short video of a new Trek... | August 19, 2009
More Kiiro: Project Sync by Gene Smith
A screencast of Kiiro's simple two-way sync between SharePoint and MS Project. | August 13, 2009
On Backpacks, Rain Jackets and User Experience by Dennis Breen
A few years ago I bought a rain jacket for a cycling trip in Ireland. As people say there: "it doesn't rain all day, but it does rain every day". Although the jacket was alleged to be good quality, I... | August 6, 2009
Introducing Kiiro, Simple Project Management and Collaboration for SharePoint by Gene Smith
Long-time readers will know that we've been working on a project management and collaboration application for Microsoft SharePoint. We're ready to release the product, and we've even picked a new name: Kiiro. Kiiro is a simple collaboration and project management... | June 18, 2009
CanUX 2009 by Jess McMullin
We're excited to offer CanUX, the Canadian User Experience Workshop in Banff on November 12-14, 2009. Save the date, since we're putting together a world-class program that offers incredible value. Canada's best user experience event combines a breathtaking venue and... | June 16, 2009
2009 Web Strategy Summit - A word with Dianne Howie by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
At the upcoming Web Strategy Summit Dianne Howie and Heather Searl will speak about the role of research in their session "Going Beyond Web Analytics to Dig into the Minds of Your Users." I was lucky enough to get a... | April 1, 2009
Web Strategy Summit Early Registration Extended by Dennis Breen
Great news if you're thinking about attending the Web Strategy Summit! We've extended the early registration deadline to March 27. You can sign up for the conference and two workshops for about $1000. Speakers include Avinash Kaushik from Google and... | March 20, 2009
IA Summit 2009 by Gene Smith
Ten years. That's how long ASIST has been running the information architecture community's flagship event, the IA Summit. The first summit I attended was in 2001, and even then the practice seemed like it was just getting its legs. I've... | March 16, 2009
Web Strategy Summit Starting Line-Up by Gene Smith
Yesterday I posted the starting line-up for Web Strategy Summit speakers. (The official session descriptions are over at the Web Strategy Summit site if you want to read through them.) But I wanted to write a few words here about... | March 12, 2009
Interaction'09 Redux by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
From February 5th to 9th I attended the second annual Interaction Design Association conference, Interaction’09, in Vancouver. Over the course of the event a few major themes emerged from keynote presenters, sessions, and general conversation: Making the world better (Sustainability)... | March 12, 2009
Dulce de Leche and Discovery by Heather McGaw
During the discovery phase of a project sometimes it can be hard to see how the pieces are going to come together. It's important for us, as designers, to have confidence in the processes we're using. I had a... | March 9, 2009
Edmonton UX Book Club! by Ammneh Azeim
We are glad to announce the start of Edmonton UX book club! The Edmonton UX book club is for local user experience practitioners who want to expand their knowledge of user experience and meet with the UX community. The... | March 7, 2009
My Web Favorites by Gene Smith
Last June I spoke at Peachpit's Voices That Matter conference in Nashville about Tagging (here's my presentation if you're interested). While I was there I recorded a video with Nikki McDonald about my book and handful of other subjects. The... | February 12, 2009
Web Strategy Summit registration Open! by Dennis Breen
Hey everyone, Web Strategy Summit registration is now open. Woot! The full WSS conference runs on May 5th, and it will cost you just $399 before March 20. Four half-day workshops run on May 4th and are priced at $299... | February 6, 2009
UX in Time of Cholera by Yvonne Shek
Things we can do or focus on during this terrible economic downturn: 1. Scenario planning through workshops/facilitation. This could be for our clients or for our own team/projects/company. 2. Collecting and interpretation of research to help companies/clients make tough decisions,... | January 29, 2009
Web Strategy Summit Submissions Due Saturday by Gene Smith
We're working hard on finalizing the workshops and registration for Web Strategy Summit this week. The program is really coming together and I'm looking forward to sharing more details in a few days. But in the meantime, one important... | January 26, 2009
An Obama quote that applies to design by Yvonne Shek
In a recent interview between Time magazine execs Richard Stengel, David Von Drehle, and John Huey, then President-elect Obama was asked what success measures would voters be looking at in 2 years time, Obama said a number of things, including... | January 21, 2009
Schauer on Strategy by Gene Smith
Over on the Adaptive Path blog our friend (and CanUX alumni) Brandon Schauer has posted the six questions he uses to discover an organization's business strategy. It's a smart and simple method for probing an organization and its approach to... | January 12, 2009
We have filled this position: Interaction Designer / Information Architect by Yvonne Shek
Full Time Permanent Position in Toronto, ON (working remotely for the Edmonton office). We have filled this position as of January 16, 2009. Thank you all for your interest. As an nForm consultant, your primary responsibility will be translating business... | December 18, 2008
Announcing the Web Strategy Summit (May 4 & 5, 2009) by Gene Smith
For the past couple of months we've been planning a unique new event and we're excited to pull back the curtain on it. The Web Strategy Summit is a two-day conference for web managers, executives, IT managers, developers and... | December 16, 2008
The Big Trading Card Give-away by Gene Smith
Over the last two years we've produced a set of UX trading cards to give away at conferences. We've got cards for ethnography, card sorting, experience maps, sketchboards, wireframes and a variety of other methods, tools and techniques. The... | November 25, 2008
iPhones @ CanUX by Dennis Breen
As one might expect at a gathering of UX types, there were a number of iPhones on display at CanUX. Oh, there were Blackberries and other mobile devices as well, but they certainly weren't as visible. I made two observations... | November 21, 2008
CanUX 2008: That's a wrap! by Gene Smith
Earlier this week we wrapped another successful CanUX workshop/conference. Around 85 people from Canada and the US (but mostly Canada) gathered in Banff to talk about user experience, design, creativity, teamwork and a multitude of other topics. (There was also... | November 21, 2008
We're Hiring: Business Development Manager by Gene Smith
Update: We've filled this position. We're looking for a Business Development Manager to help us grow our existing professional services business and our emerging product sales and licensing business. We've never had (or needed) a business development person, but we... | November 10, 2008
Luke Wroblewski on forms, visuals, and making smart decisions by Dennis Breen
When I began exploring the world of user experience one of my first online mentors was Luke Wroblewski. I've long been a fan of how he's able to merge deep design insights with compelling aesthetics. I recently interviewed Luke, who... | October 31, 2008
An Interview with Dave Gray by Dennis Breen
One of the great perks of working for a company that hosts a UX conference is that I get to talk to some of the very top people in the business. One of those people is Dave Gray of XPLANE.... | October 30, 2008
A few words with Brandon Schauer by Dennis Breen
Adaptive Path's Brandon Schauer recently shared a bit of insight with me in a short email interview. Those of you coming to CanUX will have a chance to ask him some questions of your own. Dennis: At CanUX you're going... | October 27, 2008
Swimlanes session at CanUX by Yvonne Shek
I am excited to share with you a method and fancy deliverable at CanUX this year, known as the Swimlane Document. This is the deliverable that I blogged about earlier this year, and the same one that won the IA... | October 21, 2008
Brandon Schauer will Wow us at CanUX by Dennis Breen
One of the speakers at CanUX that I'm excited about is Brandon Schauer, Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path. Brandon is co-author of "Subject to Change", the book that Don Norman calls: "...the one perfect book that summarizes the essence... | October 20, 2008
CanUX 2008: Late Registration Deadline is October 22 by Gene Smith
We've been hard at work over the last few weeks finalizing the CanUX 2008 program, pulling together materials for UX Bootcamp and brainstorming ways to make CanUX '08 the best ever. If you're thinking of registering, the prices go up... | October 16, 2008
CanUX is XPLANED by Dennis Breen
Everyone here at nForm is excited that Dave Gray, CEO and founder of XPLANE is coming to CanUX. XPLANE does very cool work, making complicated information understandable by creating visualizations. If you want to get a sense of what that... | October 14, 2008
Who wants an iPod shuffle? by Gene Smith
I have a green 1GB iPod shuffle on my desk that's leftover from one of our earlier promotions. This Friday (October 10) I'm going to give it away to one of our newsletter subscribers. If you're not already subscribed, consider... | October 7, 2008
CanUX 2008: Meet the Microsoft Surface UX team by Gene Smith
We just got news that Lisa Anderson and Dennis Wixon of the Microsoft Surface team will be joining us at CanUX to deliver the closing keynote. Large-scale multi-touch interaction design is becoming more and more popular (anyone watching John King's... | September 29, 2008
Midori is now in Beta! by Toby Spendiff
Our project management add-on to SharePoint called Midori is now in beta. The website is up at http://www.getmidori.com. If your organization is managing projects and is considering leveraging SharePoint, Midori may well be the ideal solution. We are in beta... | September 24, 2008
We're Hiring: Senior/Intermediate SharePoint Developer by Toby Spendiff
We are looking for a Senior or Intermediate .Net SharePoint developer to join our rapidly expanding team focused on our Midori product also client engagements. If the job description below sounds like you, please drop us a line at careers@nform.ca.... | September 19, 2008
New article - Tagging: Emerging Trends by Gene Smith
A few months ago I compiled a couple of presentations plus some material from my book into an article on emerging trends in tagging for the ASIST Bulletin's special issue on information architecture. They published it a few weeks ago,... | September 9, 2008
We're Hiring: Senior Visual Designer by Gene Smith
Update: This position is now filled. Over past few months we've found that our clients and projects (in particular Midori) need the skills of an experienced interface/interactive designer. So we've decided to bring on a Senior Visual Designer to round... | August 20, 2008
CanUX Registration now Available by Jess McMullin
We're thrilled to open up registration to CanUX, the Canadian User Experience workshop in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Running November 16-18, 2008, CanUX brings together world-class experts for three days of in-depth conversation and activities. Registration begins at 1:00 pm with... | July 31, 2008
Keynoting KM Australia by Gene Smith
I'm really excited to be heading to Melbourne today to keynote KM Australia. I get to speak at a lot of conferences and this is one of the most interesting events I'll attend this year. Melbourne at Night by sobriquet.net... | July 16, 2008
Book Excerpt: Seven Business Benefits of Tagging by Gene Smith
Over on Peachpit.com you'll find an excerpt from chapter two of my book, Return on Investment: Seven Business Benefits of Tagging. Here's a taste: Let's look at one important side of the value-centered design equation: return on investment. Whether you're... | June 23, 2008
CanUX 2008 speakers and dates by Jess McMullin
We're excited to announce our lineup for CanUX 2008. Dave Gray, XPLANE; Brandon Schauer, AdaptivePath; Luke Wroblewski, Yahoo! and LukeW Interface Designs; the Banff Leadership Arts Ensemble, and the nForm team, with more to come! Join us November... | June 18, 2008
Plug: Check out EightShapes' documentation workshop on August 8th by Gene Smith
Our friends at EightShapes are putting on a one-day documentation workshop in Washington, DC, on August 8th. Dan and Nathan are the go-to guys when it comes to design documentation and this workshop is a great opportunity to learn about... | June 16, 2008
DemoCamp + Midori by Gene Smith
We'll be at Edmonton's second DemoCamp tonight showing off Midori, our SharePoint-based project management application. Midori was built by Toby and his team (they've been working on it in stealth mode for a while now). We began using it internally... | May 20, 2008
We are hiring: Business Analyst by Yvonne Shek
Full Time Permanent Position in Edmonton, AB As a business analyst, your primary responsibility will be research and discovery that drives business, customer, and technical insight. You will work closely with clients, their customers, and others using interviews, workshops, and... | May 8, 2008
Video: Dave Gray's Forms, Fields and Flows by Gene Smith
In this video, Xplane founder Dave Gray explains some of the basics of visual language. It's just seven minutes, but packed with goodness--well worth your time if you're interested in visual thinking or design. If you liked this have a... | April 30, 2008
Swimlanes: More Information and Templates by Yvonne Shek
Thanks for the post about the swimlanes document, Gene. It has actually been a long process that resulted in a set of well-targeted wireframes (done by Dennis Breen). I think that the strength of this deliverable isn't so much in... | April 21, 2008
Swimlanes for the Win! by Gene Smith
Jess, Yvonne, Dennis and I just wrapped our annual trek to the Information Architecture Summit. It was, as always, a fun and stimulating event that gives us a chance to re-connect with old friends and make some new ones. This... | April 16, 2008
Survey: Should we sell our UX Trading Cards? by Jess McMullin
The number one question I've been asked about our UX Trading Cards is where people can get more sets or last year's set. If you'd like to have us reprint and sell the cards, please let us know by taking... | April 14, 2008
We have a Winner! by Jess McMullin
Thanks to everyone who responded to our trading card suggestion contest. We've selected VML rockstar Amy Silvers' suggestion of Search Analytics as our winning entry. Amy will receive a copy of Gene Smith's book Tagging: People Powered Metadata for the... | March 14, 2008
Why Agile sucks (most of the time) by Yvonne Shek
Recently, a client of ours sent me this article on Agile development by David Longstreet (PDF), and asked me what I thought of it. Here are my thoughts: 1. This article is highly entertaining! At first, the graphics put me... | March 9, 2008
nForm's 2008 UX Trading Cards Contest by Jess McMullin
I'm finishing up the copy for our 2008 UX Trading Cards for this year's IA Summit, and thought it would be fun to involve the community in coming up with ideas for one of the cards in the deck. We'll... | February 27, 2008
Tagging 101, my Northern Voice presentation by Gene Smith
I thought I'd post the slides from my Northern Voice InternetBootCamp talk Tagging 101. If you're new to tagging this is a good place to start (Common Craft also has a great video Social Bookmarking in Plain English). | View... | February 23, 2008
nForm Kicks Off Conference Season by Jess McMullin
We're getting into conference season, and nForm will be at a few events over the next few months, from our own backyard to around the continent and all the way to Melbourne, Australia. We'll be at Northern Voice, the IA Summit, DocTrain West, WebVisions, Voices that Matter, NEOS, UPA 2008, and KM Australia - come say hi if you're there too. Dates and links after the jump. | February 14, 2008
nForm heading to Miami for 2008 IA Summit by Jess McMullin
We're excited to head to Miami this coming April for the 2008 IA Summit. We've got a workshop, 3 talks, and a panel. We're also sponsoring the conference and offering trading cards again...look for some exciting news there soon. | January 25, 2008
Jess makes the London Times by Gene Smith
A couple of months ago Jess wrote an open letter to Apple's board suggesting that Jonathan Ive be considered as a successor to Steve Jobs. The London Times just picked up on this meme in their article One step from... | December 10, 2007
Datejs: Designing for developers by Gene Smith
Our friend Geoff McGill has developed a new open-source Javascript library, Datejs, for handling dates. Normally this wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd blog about, but Geoff's done an excellent job designing the library so that it's usable. That's... | December 5, 2007
CanUX '07: The Business of Experience by Gene Smith
We wrapped up CanUX 2007 on Tuesday but I'm still catching up on posting the presentations. Our own Jess McMullin closed the first day of CanUX with a talk on the business of experience. I've seen this talk evolve over... | November 29, 2007
CanUX '07: Tagging by Gene Smith
I gave a short talk on tagging at CanUX '07 yesterday. I thought it went well, and I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who already *got* it. At the start of my session I asked how many... | November 29, 2007
CanUX '07: Eating Your Own Dog Food by Gene Smith
Lou Rosenfeld opened CanUX '07 with a talk on building his new company on UX principles. | November 27, 2007
Client conversations are better than RFPs by Gene Smith
Like a lot of consulting companies, we respond to RFPs. We have to; many of our favourite clients are forced to follow stringent procurement procedures. Responding to their RFPs is the only way we can continue to do business with... | November 22, 2007
Four spots left for CanUX - register soon! by Gene Smith
It's been insanely busy at nForm HQ over the past couple of months. I've been writing a book, Jess has been getting ready for his European tour, the team has been working away on assorted projects, and we've been busily... | November 2, 2007
We're hiring: Business Analyst by Jess McMullin
As a business analyst, your primary responsibility will be research and discovery that drives business, customer, and technical insight. You will work closely with clients, their customers, and others using interviews, workshops, and other methods to develop understanding of both the big picture and the details. You will use this insight to develop clear vision, requirements, and functional design for client systems. Your work will create the foundation for successful projects... | September 21, 2007
Jess McMullin delivering keynote at Italian IA Summit by Jess McMullin
I've been invited to share some thoughts as a keynote speaker at the Italian IA Summit in Trento, Italy on November 16-17. It looks like a great lineup is coming together there...I'm excited to see what else is on tap.
I'll be speaking about the Business of Experience, sharing thoughts on business fluency and how user experience practitioners can increase their influence in the organizations they work with.
| September 21, 2007
Jess McMullin speaking at German IA Conference by Jess McMullin
I'm excited to announce that I'm joining some other fantastic people November 9 and 10 in Stuttgart for the German IA Conference. I'll be sharing a talk about user experience, design thinking, and innovation and offering a half-day workshop on... | September 17, 2007
UPA2007 REDUX: Becoming a Usability Coach: Proving Success One Champion at a Time by Yvonne Shek
After speaking at the UPA annual conference in June, one of the attendees asked if I could do a redux for her colleagues over lunch. I agreed and we are opening it up to anyone else who might be interested.... | August 29, 2007
Farewell to Trevor by Jess McMullin
Trevor van Gorp was nForm's first hire, and after almost 3 years he's moving on to other opportunities. We've appreciated his humor, his Ahnold Schwarzenegger imitations, and his contributions to the practice. Thanks for the last 3 years, and we wish Trevor the very best in the future. Check the full entry for a secret nForm prototyping technique ;-) | July 25, 2007
We're hiring: Interaction Designer / Information Architect by Jess McMullin
As an nForm consultant, your primary responsibility will be translating business and customer insight into concrete plans and prototypes, such as conceptual models, site architectures, interaction flows, wireframes, and functional specs. You will work with clients, their users, and nForm colleagues to understand, define, and solve problems to create business and user value through designing fantastic user experiences. | July 23, 2007
Globe and Mail on the Social Web by Gene Smith
Today's Globe and Mail has a good article on the social web (that just happens to include a photo and a couple of quotes from me). The story covers Forrester's social technographics model, Web 2.0 and how companies can engage... | July 18, 2007
The Conversational Sketching Toolkit by Jess McMullin
One of the simplest tools we use in our early stage work to align project stakeholders is sketching. I call our approach conversational sketching, because the point isn't to draw the solution, it's to give people a tool to talk about their needs and perspective. In this post, I talk about our approach, outline the materials we use in our toolkit, and provide a PDF template to print your own sketching sheets. | July 10, 2007
Becoming a Usability Coach presentation at UPA2007 by Yvonne Shek
I just came back from UPA2007, where I gave this talk: For those who attended my talk and either sent in their feedback or talked with me about it afterwards, thank you! I had a great time meeting up with... | June 21, 2007
Yvonne Shek speaking at UPA 2007 by Yvonne Shek
I'll be speaking at the UPA annual conference next week in Austin, TX. The title of the talk is: Becoming a Usability Coach: Proving Success One Champion at a Time. This talk is aimed at UX professionals who feel that... | June 5, 2007
Orienteering vs. teleporting by Gene Smith
We often use the fuzzy terms "browsing" and "searching" to describe people's information seeking behavious. A recent CHI paper suggests two better metaphors: "orienteering" and "teleporting." | May 22, 2007
A few announcements by Gene Smith
Are there better ways to spend Friday afternoon than writing up some neglected company news? Sure there are, but they all make me feel guilty. Here, then, are a few minor announcements: CanUX 2007 is on. We'll be announcing our... | May 18, 2007
Jess McMullin invited to speak at Adaptive Path's UX Week by Jess McMullin
I'm so excited to finally be able to share that I'll be speaking at Adaptive Path's 2007 User Experience Week conference in Washington D.C. this August. I'll be talking about Smoothing the Way: the Designer as Facilitator. Thanks to Sarah Nelson and the rest of the Adaptive Path crew for inviting me to share some of the thinking and practice here at nForm about building buy-in and consensus across different project stakeholders. | April 30, 2007
Visualizing and Communicating Information by Trevor van Gorp
When it comes to communicating information in a way that resonates persuasively with people, it's important to tailor how that information is displayed. You have the data, but how do you communicate that information to your audience persuasively? | April 26, 2007
Accelerator Workshop Memory Palace by Yvonne Shek
Recently, I have been thinking about ways to make the Accelerator Workshop even more effective, enjoyable, and increase the number of attendees. One of the things I remember from Psych 100 is the idea of the Memory Palace, or... | April 11, 2007
Jess McMullin speaking in Orlando at DigitalNow by Jess McMullin
I'm off to Orlando next week to talk at the DigitalNow conference. My presentation is "Why Methods Trump Methodology, and Other Execution Secrets for User Experience Success". I'll be discussing some user experience foundations, UX implications for Web 2.0, talk about best practices for tackling web projects, and how managers can avoid common pitfalls and create teams with the right skillsets. | April 5, 2007
New article on social software by Gene Smith
I just published an article called Social Software Building Blocks that covers some of the research I did for my recent IA Summit workshop. It looks at the seven building blocks of a social software system and features a nifty... | April 4, 2007
Twitter trading by Gene Smith
I just got back from the IA Summit where our trading card game went smashingly well. A high point for me was watching people coordinate their trading over Twitter: You can find out more about the cards and the game... | March 27, 2007
IA Summit Trading Cards - Sneak Peek by Jess McMullin
Last week I announced that we're sponsoring the 2007 IA Summit with a user experience trading card game. The cards are printed, we've got some fabulous prizes, and I'm excited to see things move ahead.
Here's a snapshot of some of the proofs,,, | March 17, 2007
Transit Ethnography by Jess McMullin
A couple years ago, I was doing a web project supporting youth and addiction. Getting teens to provide insight into their motiviations for substance abuse is something that takes time, and we didn't have a large research budget. So instead of cultivating relationships with teens, arranging interviews and on-site visits, I rode the bus. | March 17, 2007
PaidPOV Update by Gene Smith
Last summer I introduced PaidPOV, a web-based research recruiting product we're developing. Here's a short description of the product from the post on my blog: [PaidPOV is] a tool for research recruiting that will make setting up usability tests, focus... | March 12, 2007
Building Web Applications Workshop Recap by Trevor van Gorp
Last weekend, I was honoured to be one of the speakers at the "Inside the Production Pipeline: Building Web Applications" workshop in Banff, Alberta, Canada. I was asked to offer a user-centered perspective on website and application development. | March 9, 2007
nForm sponsors IA Summit with UX Trading Card game by Jess McMullin
I'm excited to let people know that we're sponsoring the upcoming 2007 Information Architecture Summit in Las Vegas. And this sponsorship deal isn't just that we spend some money and get our name on the program - we're running a... | March 7, 2007
We're hiring: Junior Designer by Jess McMullin
Join an experienced, smart team that works with a range of clients, from the Fortune 500 to leading public sector institutions. As a junior interface designer, your primary responsibility will be to create production visual designs following senior creative direction, wireframe specifications, and visual style guides. | February 21, 2007
Creating a Culture of Iteration and Innovation by Gene Smith
I'm at Microsoft Canada's UX roundtable for the next couple of days (in lovely Bellevue, Washington). One of our first presentations was on the much-touted ribbon UI for Office 2007. The ribbon UI in Microsoft Word There's been a lot... | February 20, 2007
Some useful SharePoint links by Toby Spendiff
Here are some great links for Windows SharePoint Service 3 (WSS 3) and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) architecture and development. | February 15, 2007
Simple site maps with MS Project by Gene Smith
Project is just an outliner grafted to a database, and that makes it a powerful tool for doing simple site maps and inventories. | February 8, 2007
Building Web Applications Workshop in Banff by Trevor van Gorp
From March 2-4, I'll be at the Building Web Applications workshop at the Banff Centre. The workshop is part of the Banff New Media Institute Accelerator program and is being put on by Digital Alberta. It sounds like it's going... | February 5, 2007
Introducing Portholes by Gene Smith
After several months of development (and occasional neglect as we tended to other work) we finally rolled out version three of our website this afternoon. I'm calling this design Portholes, because the small images on the main pages are like... | January 29, 2007
Accelerator Workshop by Yvonne Shek
Jess and I will be doing this workshop on workshops at the IA Summit pre conference this year. Although we have been using this method for quite some time now, the idea came to me during CanUX 2006, when one... | January 23, 2007
The IIBA and you by Toby Spendiff
I had the pleasure of being a guest at the International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) last night. Admittedly, I was hesitant about going at first. I mean wouldn't my time be better spent working on feature based development in... | January 19, 2007
IA Summit bound by Gene Smith
Jess, Yvonne and I will be headed to the IA Summit at the end of March. It's in Vegas, but it won't be a vacation (at least not until the end). Here's what we'll be up to: Social Information Architecture... | January 18, 2007
Toby Spendiff joins nForm by Gene Smith
A few months ago we welcomed Toby Spendiff to the nForm team. Toby came from Upside Software where he helped architect their product and managed dozens of developers through several major product releases. We're delighted to have him. He's a... | December 1, 2006
