The UX of Alcohol Abuse - Model View Culture

A cautionary tale to individuals and organizations, a call to action to be more proactive against alcohol abuse, and the start of a dialogue within our community.

Think Fast! Using Heuristics to Increase Use of Your Product - Smashing Magazine

People have many tough decisions to make; whether they should use your application or website to accomplish a task shouldn’t be one of them. Your design team can take advantage of our knowledge of the human mind and human behavior by accounting for a number of heuristics, or mental shortcuts, that researchers have identified.

Ensuring the Usability of your Design: The Case for User Research - Wireless Design and Development

Wireless product design is complex and constantly evolving. The usefulness of any wireless product only extends as far as its usability. User research allows wireless design and development teams to ensure products are usable, and to identify trouble areas that might require redesign or more focused user training. No wireless strategy is complete without accounting for user research on current and future wireless products.

How to Have Users Spread Your Innovation Like Wildfire - Smashing Magazine

Victor Yocco explains the diffusion of innovation and discusses two main components: different types of adopters and key steps in the adoption process.

Incorporating Six Principles of Andragogy into Design - UX Booth

Most digital experiences require users to learn something new, which makes it our responsibility to teach them. This week, author Victor Yocco teaches how to use andragogy, the study of how people learn, to improve the UX of our designs.

Framing Effective Messages to Motivate Your Users - Smashing Magazine

What you say in a user experience matters. How you say it matters equally. The way you frame communication, or how you say something, could be extremely effective at persuading people to start using your product (or to use it more).

So, how do you frame messages effectively? This article explains how design teams can do so in a way that resonates with their users.

UX Researcher: A User's Manual - Boxes and Arrows

This article is a guide on what to expect, and how to get the most from your UX researcher–a user manual, if you will.

You will invest a lot in your researcher and you deserve the greatest return. You should have high expectations for this critical component of your UX team, and following the recommendations presented in this article will help maximize your return.

Social Influence: Incorporating Social Identity Theory Into Design - Smashing Magazine

No person is immune from the influence of the people and groups they encounter. As much as we would like to think that every thought we have is original, that every opinion we express is informed by facts alone, the truth is that we use others around us as a reference point for much of our attitudes and behavior. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s human nature.

In this article, we’ll focus on how concepts related to social identity theory — a theory within the psychological field of social influence - can help ux professionals to more effectively incorporate social influence in their work.

Persuasion: Applying the Elaboration Likelihood Model to Design - A List Apart

Persuasion isn’t a slick ad pitch or a campaign promise. It’s inherent to the content, style, and delivery of our messages, for better or for worse. Everything we say, do, and design has an impact on how our message is perceived—so why not put that power to work for you on the web? Victor Yocco shows us how to incorporate a deeper understanding of the psychological underpinnings of persuasion into our designs, allowing us to better reach—and win—the hearts of our users.