Analytic Design Group

One of the main attributes of the design work we at ADGi do (and when I say design I mean interaction design and information architecture, not so much visual design) is that all of it is evidence-based. That is, all of it, and I really mean all of it, every interaction, every node in the site map, is driven out of user research and expert analysis. I also insist that the designers who work here can articulate what the evidence or expert analysis is that led them to making the design decision they did.

Much buzz has been generated about two new e-reader technologies announced at the cusp of CES 2010. 

In November I was lucky enough to be invited by my boss Karyn to go with her and Carol, our Senior Account Strategist, to a morning program offered through the Entrepreneurs Organization, called “Harvard Mini Business Program – Service Excellence Your Competitive Advantage”.

It’s been a year full of wonderful (travel!, new job!) and some not so wonderful experiences – lots of false starts and surprises. Thankfully, things have turned out very well in the end, but the trend continues through December. As a last test for my endurance and patience, my husband got very sick with the H1N1 flu and was unable to help with any holiday preparations. None. My young son and I kept waiting for him to get better so that we could cut down a tree (repurposing a tree from our crowded yard), but the days kept on sliding by.

I am a search engine junky. Whenever I have a technical issue that I need to resolve, my first line of attack is to Google it. With an abundance of people sharing their knowledge and experiences on the Internet, I am confident that the answer to my question is out there somewhere.

Thanks to the brains behind today's search algorithms, searching for things we know is incredibly easy. It's what we don't know that is difficult to find.

The On Demand Books ‘Espresso’ machine, that prints out a fully bound book in minutes, seems much in the news lately.

A usability study, is that like a focus group?

Clients sometimes ask this question when we start talking about doing usability testing on their website or product. The answer is “well sort of, but not really.”

You know those funny, interesting, inspirational, and distracting  links emailed from friends?  StumbleUpon takes this concept to the next level in terms of scale.

When I’m in meetings or workshops I often have small epiphanies based on what is being discussed, that I write down as memos to self. A few weeks ago, my memo said: “Remember external communications”.

It came up as a reminder to myself when my client commented that she knew that things were happening but there was a lull of a couple of weeks (while we were busy producing a deliverable) where she didn’t hear from us and ‘kind of wondered if things were okay’. Ouch.