List of blog posts

// purecaffeine.com, UX, design, social media and Gov 2.0 blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

A Comic Sans font replacement for Balsamiq

Don't like Comic Sans on your Balsamiq wireframes but can't find an alternative font? Use your own custom font made from your handwriting!

A good user experience can be subtle

It can be the subtle aspects of a user's interaction with a user interface that make the difference between a good and bad experience.

A higher order of specification

While terms used by UX designers are often regarded as vague I believe that they should be considered a higher order of specification that collates and expands upon lower-level requirements.

A perspective on innovation

An innovation should produce significant change in the marketplace and/or in people's lives.

ABC/XYZ testing

The important thing about A/B testing is that there is a single variable that changes across the test samples. Not a dozen.

Artificial user-system feedback loops

Artificial feedback loops are ones closed with assumptions and not real system feedback upon the completion of a process such as saving information in a database.

Balsamiq Mockups: UI screen design tool

A review of Balsamiq, an easy-to-use tool for rapidly assembling screen interfaces, wireframes and prototypes for applications, websites and iPhone apps.

BarCampCanberra 2010 preparations are underway

BarCamp is a community conference with free attendance where anyone can come along and present an interesting idea or problem, or something they've built or developed. Our third local BarCamp is scheduled for mid-February 2010.

Blogs and government response to citizens

Should government apply the same rules on responding to citizen inquiries to social media as is applied to direct letters and emails?

Book review: Change by Design

CEO of IDEO Tim Brown's 2009 book Change by Design is a light but interesting read and a great introduction to the potential for design thinking in organisations and society.

Building a design library

I need your help putting together a design thinking shopping list.

Canberra ASIX solution design and architecture evening

Ahead of the main ASIX social innovation SICamp event taking place next year in 2010 we are starting to looking at progressing some of the proposed ideas to the next level and we'd like you to be involved.

Canberra Freelancers and Entrepreneurs Coffee

Come and meet like-minded, passionate creators and innovators on Monday 23 November at CREAM Cafe in Civic, Canberra.

Canberra Times article on Twitter

My thoughts on the power and attraction of Twitter as a real-time communication and collaboration tool with some tips on how to cope in this new social medium.

Co-design is not the evolution of design

Inviting customers and users into your design studio can be of immense benefit but make sure you manage the process well.

Consistency: You're just being obsessive-compulsive

All this talk of UI and interaction patterns, style guides, Gestalt psychology, pixel accuracy and visual defects ... is it really important?

Coworking is finally here!

We've been trying for over 2 years to establish an affordable and casual shared office for freelancers in Canberra and now we're very excited to announce we finally have secured a space in Mitchell.

Data visualisation in user experience design

Whilst a technique that requires significant graphic design and sometimes mathematical talent to implement, data visualisation can significantly increase data accessibility and comprehensibility.

Designers need negative space

All creative non-process workers need mental padding to think and innovate. It's up to you to design your work environment.

Desire paths

The foot-worn paths of people who take shortcuts are called desire paths and they reflect a failure of the designers to be mindful of the goals of users.

Edge of the Web 2009

The Edge of the Web conference is an annual web industry event held in Perth, Western Australia.

Ethnography in UX on UXmatters

An article I wrote about ethnography and its application to social experience design.

Evolving technology and the boiling frog

Sometimes technology and platforms slowly become something that's no longer desirable for your purposes.

Experience design for collaboration

Intentionally including mistakes and seams in your work and documentation you share with your colleagues to enhance the collaborative experience.

Facebook faux pas

Genuine expression of personality is an important part of social media, but if you don't know where to draw the line it can hurt you.

Fastest isn't always good

An example of a real-world physical system where a deliberate delay could provide a better user experience.

Gov 2.0 Taskforce report to lead way for citizen engagement

The Australian Government 2.0 Taskforce recently released a draft of the 159-page report "Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0" for comment.

Government 2.0 - Bringing back the town hall

I liken one objective of Government 2.0 to that of the traditional town hall and town meetings.

Government Blog: blog.training.gov.au

An explanation of the Federal Government blog I set up for the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) for the Training.gov.au project.

Humanitarian design is fine if done right

My thoughts on the debate: Is Humanitarian Design a New Kind of Imperialism?

I tried telling you gently ...

Lessons from elevators and alarm clocks, effective feedback and how to be confident you can get users' attention without annoying them.

Ignore overall experience at your peril!

Step back. Don't focus on just one link in the chain. Design the overall experience. Think big.

Illustrated user scenario development techniques

Using visual user stories for depicting a user's interaction with a product or service and capturing the essence of that interaction using techniques taken from comic strip illustration.

In search of an identity

Is "User Experience Designer" really the best we can come up with to communicate what we do?

Innovative Ideas Forum 2010

Summary of my two favourite presentations from the National Library of Australia's annual Forum that drew people (mostly librarians) from across the country.

Interactive Sketching Notation

An under-development notation system for user interaction interaction design documentation.

Interview with Allyeska Photography

My interview with Jenny on her use of web 2.0 and social media with her photography business.

Interviewed on social media in government

Interviewed by Alistair at the Government 2.0 BarCamp BBQ in Canberra regarding a social media initiative I ran in Federal Government.

Introduction to Government 2.0

A brief overview of Gov 2.0 I presented internally at the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations in July 2009.

Is topic context? Is context constraint?

A look at defining topics as context for conversations and the adverse effect that being too specific can have on conversation.

Johnny Holland - New Flickr groups

JH has just started five groups on Flickr for the collection and sharing of examples of UX patterns, errors and examples.

Keyboard navigation testing with Selenium IDE

How to use keyPress, keyDown and keyUp in Selenium IDE including sample script with Mozilla Firefox to test keyboard controls and navigation with web user interfaces.

Lessons from photography in experience design

Some wandering thoughts about designing context into social networks, experience design and why the art of photography might be a useful example of how to create context in online conversations.

Local ambassador for UXnet in Canberra

Local professional and social events in Canberra, the web and tech community and professional network and what it's like working in Canberra.

Melbourne's first OpenAustralia hackfest

Following on from OpenAustralia's first and highly successful hackfest in Sydney, the next hackfest will be held in Melbourne on 26 September.

Mental Notes - Psychology in design

After an anxious eight-month wait Stephen Anderson's Mental Notes card decks have been finished and shipped.

My first visit to the dentist

Design research from both a third-person relayed or observed perspective, and first-person experience.

Neglected social media

If people think you're not listening to them when you've actually invited them to participate, they'll hate you for it.

Online conversations: Limitations and opportunities

Be mindful of artificial boundaries that limit and guide social interactions on websites.

Open source software: Designer-developer collaboration

How can front-end user interaction and user experience designers get more involved in open source development projects?

Organised approach to emotional response testing

Suggested approaches to categorising feeling words including the Product Reaction Cards and developing a reduced or custom set of cards.

Our designer came up with this, now I want you to implement it

User experience and interaction designers, usability and accessibility specialists and information architects often get given a back seat in the design process. Don't accept it.

Persistence of social media engagement capability

What happens when someone who's been the face of your organisation through social media to customers and the world leaves that position and takes that relationship with the community out the door with them?

Politics of government committees

The careful orchestration of membership, agendas, negotiations and diplomacy that goes on within government ... is it all bad?

Protocols for online media participation

Government employees are clearly now permitted by new APS guidelines to engage with government policy opinion and conversation outside their departments and agencies.

Public Sphere 2

Summary of the second Public Sphere event held in Canberra, the topic being Government 2.0: Policy and Practice.

purecaffeine.com featured design blog

1 of 9 Australian design blogs that deserve your attention.

Remember me?

Should websites that require you to log in be focussed on convenience or personal information privacy and security?

Sketching

Much of the work of user interaction designers is behind the scenes and doesn't end up in user interface specifications.

Social experience design in online conversation

Some of my ideas and sketches for a platform that supports online conversation and collaboration that seeks to support human behaviour online rather than mimic real-world behaviour.

Social Innovation Meetup Canberra

A fun evening of smart people workshopping some interesting ideas around social innovation and change to benefit the community, hosted by the Australian Social Innovation Exchange, Pia Waugh and Senator Kate Lundy.

Staff collaboration: Social is not a dirty word!

Organisations should recognise the "social" aspect of social networking technologies deployed to facilitate staff collaboration and allow people to interact as real people.

Stupid or safe? Cars of the future

An example of designing technology where the emphasis is on designing a good experience for people other than the direct users.

Style guides and UI implementation

Why good, readable style guides are so vital for translating wireframes to final web user interface screens to ensure consistency, quality and reduce the number of defects.

Style guides and UI implementation: Part 2

A sequel to my previous article on style guides with some principles, checklists and examples of how to write a good style guide to ensure implementation of a higher-quality user interface.

Survey results: Websites that keep users logged in

An analysis of the responses to the survey I conducted earlier this week on websites that "remember" users with some interesting perspectives provided on personal information security.

The "countryside" user-generated content network

Why I believe that new players in the user-generated content market have an opportunity to exploit their very lack of UGC to their advantage.

Transient feedback

It can be an efficient way of providing unobtrusive feedback and make an interface feel cleaner and smarter but doesn't work in every situation.

User Experience Design Heuristics presentation

A presentation on user experience design heuristics including usability and accessibility, published on SlideShare.

User Experience Freelancers network

A new network for self-employed UX professionals, plus other events for freelancers and entrepreneurs in Canberra.

User interface and interaction design patterns

A list of web IxD/UI design pattern resources assembled by the UX Exchange community.

User testing: You don't know everything

Looking at road design and engineering as an example of how you cannot possibly anticipate the unintended consequences and outcomes of design in every unique situation. User testing is absolutely necessary.

UX Australia - Day One

My summary of the first day of the inaugural UX Australia conference in Canberra and thoughts on the presentations of Alex Wright, Darren Menachemson, Ben Kraal, Lachlan Hardy, Penny Hagen and Michelle Gilmore, and Shane Morris and Matt Morphett.

UX Australia - Day Two and wrap up

My thoughts and notes on the second and last day of the UX Australia conference. Fantastic presentations by Will Evans, Aynne Valencia and Guillermo Torres, Ash Donaldson and Stephen Cox.

UX Australia 2010

Next year's UX Australia event has been announced to take place in Melbourne in August 2010.

UX bookclub Canberra, June 2010

Review of the Canberra UX community's June bookclub meeting.

Vertical and horizontal experiences

The benefits of self-contained user experiences versus shared, common platforms across the web.

Water conservation in Canberra

My analysis of local water conservation campaigns and recommendations to use relevant, meaningful information and technology to inform and persuade citizens to act.

What co-design isn't

In an attempt to clear up the confusion around participatory and collaborative design I provide a clear definition of how not to work with consumers and citizens.

What is a user experience designer?

Why the term "user experience" is an umbrella occupation that covers a ranges of skills, jobs and specialisations and how to market and present yourself to ensure you are valued and respected.

What is social media: The diagram

There is no "it" in social media and no corporation. Only real people sharing information, ideas, stories and experiences.

What makes a site social?

The necessary depth of social interactions between users of social networks and Web 2.0 websites.

Why I like books

I know my collection of books weighs over a 100kg and it takes forever to find a specific passage, but I'll take that over e-books any day.

Why I quit Facebook

My explanation for closing down my Facebook account.

You can't please everyone

Variances in desires, what is a good experience and how far an experience can be designed.

You gotta keep 'em separated

Should designers code just because they know how? Where does design stop and code begin?

You may also want to visit the blogs and websites of my colleagues:

Alison Young, Alistair Nicholson, Ash Donaldson, Ben Winter-Giles, Bronwen Clune, Cameron Reilly, Clare, Craig Thomler, Dean Klemick, Des Walsh, Steve 'Doc' Baty / Meld Consulting, Donna Spencer, Elizabeth Buie, Gary Barber, Gavin Tapp, James Fridley, Jeff Howard, Jodie Miners, Joshua Withers, Justin Kerr-Stevens, Jye Smith, Kieran Salsone, Kristin Rohan, Lachlan Hardy, Laurel Papworth, Lauren Cochrane, Leisa Reichelt, Lisa Herrod, Matt Balara, Matthew Hodgson, Matt Marlor, Michael Specht, Miles Burke, Mo Kargas, Myles Eftos, Nick Hodge, Peter Holland, Rachel Greaves, Ross Hill, Russ Weakley, Ruth Ellison, Sarah Stokely, Simon Pascal Klein, Stephen Collins, Teresa Watts, Tom Voirol, Whitney Hess, Will Evans, Yuval Ararat

I also suggest you check out these UX-related blogs:

A List Apart, Adaptive Path, Bokardo, Boxes and Arrows, EverydayUX, Konigi, Logic + Emotion, UIE Brain Sparks, inspireUX, Johnny Holland, Usability Post, UX Booth, UX Magazine, UX Matters