Category: Uncategorized

  • What’s a user experience architect at the BBC do?

    What’s a user experience architect at the BBC do?

    What is information architecture? In my experience it’s a question that information architects aren’t too confident answering. It’s ironic that for a professional discipline so focused on classification we sometimes have a hard time describing what it is we do. I make information architecture. I’m a user experience architect at the BBC. But how can you…

  • Hick’s Law – a matter of choice

    Hick’s Law – a matter of choice

    Bill Hicks has obtained legendary status in the world of stand up comedy. At least part of this is probably down to the fact that he died young. There are recordings of Hicks, but relatively few. We don’t have much on which to build a picture of who he was, but what we have is…

  • The wisdom of thumbs* – design heuristics

    The wisdom of thumbs* – design heuristics

    I like to think of design heuristics as rules of thumb. Testing is definitely the surest, cheapest and most interesting way to ensure that the thing you’re building is the thing that the people you’re building it for want. But I think the wisdom of our thumbs is just as important as the wisdom of…

  • Trajectories at the BBC – after two days*

    Trajectories at the BBC – after two days*

    Steve Benford describes Trajectories as offering a new way of thinking about the design of extended user experiences. I think the more ways we have to think about the design of experiences the better. Structured methods for interrogating the result of our designs forces us to move our focus from the design of objects to…

  • My experience design manifesto

    My experience design manifesto

    My experience design manifesto is based on the idea of experiences being floopy, gloopy things suspended in the flowing stream of our lives. Picture life as a river, and imagine cleaning a paintbrush in it (which isn’t very environmentally friendly and the imaginary version of yourself should feel ashamed of being bullied into it by…