Category Archives: Application Usability

User Experience Experts are in Demand

As an independent user experience (UX) consultant, this year has been very busy, with more and more companies and clients realizing that user experience and usability is a critical component of any product or device’s design and and development process. … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Product Design, Product Development, Technology, Usability Consulting, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience | Leave a comment

Design Tools Get the Human Touch

I was recently interviewed by Beth Stackpole for DesignNews magazine on how traditional CAD and design tool software is being made over to deliver a more natural and compelling user experience for engineers and designers. Here’s my section of the … Continue reading

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EMR Usability – Standardization vs Usability and Innovation

This is a classic debate – whether it is nobler to be consistent or to be usable! EMRs have notoriously been both inconsistent and also very unusable. So, what to do – fix the inconsistencies or fix the usability issues? … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Product Design, Product Development, Real-World Usability, Technology, Users | 2 Comments

NIST, ONC plan measures, testing to improve health IT usability

I’ve worked in healthcare usability for a long time and with the impetus to move all of healthcare to electronic platforms, there have been many, many unusable implementations of EHRs and EMRs. The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) … Continue reading

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Healthcare Experience Design Conference – Boston, Mass – April 11, 2011

As a user experience professional designing EMR, EHR and case management software in the healthcare industry, there are few opportunities to educate, learn, network and focus on UX in healthcare. Well, look no longer!! I’m excited to hear about the … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Mobile Usability, Real-World Usability, Technology, Usability Consulting, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience, Web Usability | Leave a comment

Why are User Experience (UX) and User-Centered Design (UCD) getting a bad rap?

There have been a number of recent articles, blog posts and list comments trashing user experience design (UX) as unneeded, misguided and counter-productive to good product design and development. As a long-time user experience practitioner, I was taken aback by these … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Marketing Usability, Mobile Usability, Product Design, Product Development, Technology, Usability Consulting, User Centered Design (UCD), User Experience, Web Usability | 1 Comment

Theo Mandel and Larry Marine present “Agile – When Theory Meets Reality” at RM PDMA

Theo Mandel and Larry Marine present “Agile – When Theory Meets Reality” at the Rocky Mountain PDMA monthly meeting on September 16, 2010. Larry Marine, NPDP, is President at Intuitive Design Group and member of RM PDMA. The Product Development and Management … Continue reading

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Healthcare IT News: Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge

This is a wonderful community effort! The Health 2.0 2010 Developer Challenge was launched on June 2nd, 2010 at the Community Health Data Initiative (CHDI) meeting at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), with support from the Department of Health and … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Healthcare Usability, Real-World Usability, Social Networking, Technology, User Centered Design (UCD), Web 2.0, Web Usability | Leave a comment

Smashing Magazine: 40+ Helpful Resources On User Interface Design Patterns

User interface design patterns are common researched and reusable solutions to frequent user interface problems. There are a number of user interface pattern repositories. This article in Smashing Magazine lists over 40 resources for user interface design patterns. Here’s what they … Continue reading

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“Mad Libs” Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%

UI designers are always looking for new ways to do common tasks better and faster. This new style of filling in forms may prove to be one of those new twists that makes people think, “Why didn’t I think of … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Marketing Usability, User Centered Design (UCD), Users, Web 2.0, Web Content, Web Usability | Leave a comment

Usability Guidelines for Heuristic Evaluation

Very nice overview of heuristic evaluation guidelines for websites. >

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UX Problems at American Airlines

Dustin Curtis wrote a blog article about American Airlines’ poor website design. He received an e-mail from an Interaction Designer within the company explaining the corporate culture at American Airlines with regard to the website. The designer was promptly fired … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Marketing Usability, Real-World Usability, Technology, Web Usability | 1 Comment

Classic “This is Broken” Seth Godin Video

Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change in his Gel 2006 video. Why are so many things broken? In this entertaining talk – one of the favorites of Gel 2006 – Seth Godin gives a tour of things … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Marketing Usability, Real-World Usability, Usability Bloopers, Usability Humor, User Centered Design (UCD), Web Usability | Leave a comment

Usability of Electronic Medical Records

CHICAGO (July 1, 2009) A new white paper, Defining and Testing EMR Usability: Principles and Proposed Methods of EMR Usability Evaluation and Rating, identifies usability of clinical software systems for the electronic medical record as one of the major … Continue reading

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Designers Who Wireframe: Pros and Cons

Most UI/usability/information designers/architects create various types of wireframes when we design. This article discusses the different types of wireframes and their pros and cons. The article also shows good examples of diffferent types of wireframes and the final website design. … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Prototyping, User Centered Design (UCD), Web Usability | 1 Comment

12 steps to stellar software design

Practitioners can always use good advice. David Crow, usability adviser at Microsoft Canada, and Jay Goldman, president of Radiant Core in Toronto, speaking at the Free Software and Open Source Symposium at Seneca College in Toronto last month, offered a … Continue reading

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Business-Software Vendor Finds Business Software Impossible to Use

The Business Technology Blog in Wall Street Journal describes a software vendor’s study: IFS, a business-software vendor, sent us a report titled The Increasing Importance of Usability in Enterprise Software the results of a survey earlier this year of … Continue reading

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Scientific Web Design: 23 Actionable Lessons from Eye-Tracking Studies

I conducted eye-movement research on reading comprehension in my graduate work on my M.A. and Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology back in the early 80′s. Eye-tracking hardware and software have come a long way since then and they provide very interesting … Continue reading

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Computer Usability – Need we say more?

Police excuse angry computer user for outburst Reuters, Tuesday July 17, 2007 2:35pm EDT (View article) BERLIN (Reuters) – A German man who startled his neighbors when he hurled his computer out of the window in the middle of the … Continue reading

Posted in Application Usability, Technology, Usability Humor | 2 Comments

History of GUIs: Interview with Larry Tesler

Good interview with Larry Tesler, one of the innovators from Xerox PARC who created the early GUIs with icons and folders on the desktop. After the Xerox PARC years, he worked at Apple on the early GUI products, the Apple … Continue reading

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