Johnny’s Top 10 UX Articles of 2011

10. “Checklist Thinking” for UX Professionals: Retaining Your Sanity in a Complex Project

Author: Greg Laugero
It’s common knowledge (or it should be) that discovering requirements during page design is a recipe for madness. But no matter how much we believe this and strive to avoid this, it still happens. In this article Greg let’s us take control again.

9. Experience Design Models: Minding the Gap Between Ideas & Interfaces

Author: Marc Sasinski
What can we do to better communicate experience design vision during that window of opportunity between raw ideas and design deliverables? How can we use our abilities to visualize for the greater good? Enter experience modeling.

8. Designing a Reason to Come Back

Author: Stephen Anderson
In this article Stephen shares some of his ideas on how to get people back to your website. He explains the significance of rituals and even gives us a design challenge.

7. The Theory Behind Social Interaction Design

Author: Adrian Chan
Via this article I would like to give you the big picture introduction to the theory behind social interaction design. Many of my articles on this topic are anchored in social theory but don’t make explicit reference to it, so I thought an overview might be in order.

6. Aristotle’s Storytelling Framework for Interactive Products

Author: Jeroen van Geel
Throughout the centuries people have told stories to share knowledge between generations. Storytelling is an important skill each interaction designer should have. It helps create engaging products and services. But how should we start doing this? I came up with a framework.

5. Where Innovation Belongs in User Centered Design

Author: Jake Truemper
User Experience designers have a unique opportunity to become the facilitators of holistic design and the advocates of innovation. By combining traditional user-centered activities with a greater emphasis on creating engaging designs we can bring usability into alignment with innovation in the design process.

4. Design Research and Innovation: an Interview with Don Norman

Author: Jeroen van Geel
I got the chance to interview one of my heroes: Don Norman. This May he was one of the keynote speakers at UX Lisbon in Portugal. I spoke to him about innovation, design research, and emotional design.

3. User Experience and the design of news at BBC World Service

Author: Tammy Gur
Designing a setting for the torrent of content that passes daily through a news website is a challenge unlike any other. the BBC World Service has got a user experience and design team which designs and develops news sites for the web and mobile devices in 27 languages, catering for audiences across world. In this article Tammy shares some of their experiences with you.

2. The ‘IxD Bauhaus’: What Happens Next?

Author: Rahul Sen
Occasionally, amidst the rapid rise and fall of trends, fashion and fancy, we are faced with true revolution: paradigm shifts that throw out excess baggage of some kind and usher in new ways of thinking and seeing altogether. The catch is that you need to have the benefit of hindsight to truly measure their effectiveness. With this in mind, Rahuk believes that the interaction design community is witnessing an important revolution — an ‘IxD Bauhaus’ of sorts.

1. How Your Coffee Mug Controls Your Feelings

Author: Seth Snyder
What would you say if Seth told you that objects you use every day are now believed to be practicing a form of mind control on you? Sounds crazy, right? Well, although cognitive scientists probably wouldn’t use the term “mind control”, they wouldn’t disagree that while we interact with physical elements of our environment, our brains are performing what’s known as embodied cognition, a sneaky sort of intuition that drives how we feel and behave and is breaking down century-old mind/body link claims with a vengeance.