Digital media requires something different, though. It’s not sufficient to just publish a narrative to the Internet. You have to build an experience around it, a system that lets the user experience the narrative but also one that responds to his or her inputs and contributions.

Khoi Vinh

Hypertext systems should take about 1/4 second to move from one place to another. If the delay is longer, people may be distracted; if the delay is much longer, people will stop using the system. If the delay is much shorter, people may not realize that the display has changed.

Akscyn's law, coined in the early 80s during the development of the ZOG hypertext system.

UX design begins by learning about the business model, doing user research and understanding how a service can fit into the users’ lives in a meaningful way. Thus UX design has a crucial part in defining the business strategy, providing baselines for business decisions with such design deliverables as personas or user stories. A UX-driven process doesn’t end with the UIs either, it’s also about testing with people, supporting development, making ongoing adjustments even after the launch.

UX Myths - Myth #31: UX design is a step in a project.

Found on Vimeo after joining a group.

It’s unlikely that my definition of “important” will be the same as theirs. Does this mean I’ll get an email every time a video is added to the group? When someone joins or leaves? What about forum postings? There should at least be an explanation of what constitutes “important”.

Ambiguous options kill kittens.

A lovely example of naturalistic copy writing as interface from Magcloud. This neat concise paragraph sits above the normal bog-standard order confirmation table layout telling you everything you need to know right at that moment.

I’m not sure “sadly” is the right word, “inconveniently” feels more apt. Who’s at fault here? Chrome for not being able to read a file from disk or Firefox for having a strange lock on that file?

I have to deal with this as a user? It’s no wonder people don’t upgrade.

No design survives contact with the user. Just like most people change the house they live in, most people change design artifacts to suit their needs and taste.

The Experience belongs to the User, from 52 Weeks of UX.

Really nice mad-libs style form on the Vaultpress beta-application. The hint text has real character too; “I’m most interested in VaultPress because [aliens are after my server].”

…losing your read position is a form of minor data loss.

Marco Arment sweating the details on how he deals with the iPhone status bar scrollback in instapaper.