http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com News and ideas on user experience. Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:53:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en According to the latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index UK, e-commerce sales grew by only 5% in January 2010, in comparison to January 2009 . At the same time, some retailers have posted large year on year online increases, House of Fraser and Faith have both posted sales growth of 91 ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2010/02/26/retailers-do-you-really-know-your-customers/ We’re very proud to announce that the Ergonomics Society has awarded User Experience Consultant Frankie Pagnacco their Ulf Aberg Award for her Masters project. Frankie completed the project on sensemaking in the control of Rapid Urban Transit systems in 2008, as part of her MSc in Human-Computer Interaction with Ergonomics, at ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2010/02/17/ergonomics-award-for-flows-frankie-pagnacco/ Working with users during the design process will untie project knots and boost team productivity and focus. But there always seems to be an excuse for not testing. Here are 4 ways to counter the excuses and make usability testing happen. Testing a paper prototype Excuse 1: “It’ll slow us ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2010/01/20/4-ways-to-combat-usability-testing-avoidance/ Flow helped British Association of Occupational Therapists and College of Occupational Therapists (BAOT/COT) understand what their members and non-members wanted from an online resource and then designed a better online experience for practitioners and students. The brief The British Association and College of Occupational Therapists (BAOT/COT) is the national professional body for ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/12/03/flow-project-british-association-of-occupational-therapists-website-redesign/ This may sound controversial but I admit it, I don’t love my iPhone. I realise I could get into trouble for admitting this publicly but I’m prepared to accept that, to get these thoughts off my chest. I was considering going to a self-help group, especially as I am surrounded ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/10/11/i-don%e2%80%99t-love-my-iphone/ This is the second in a series of posts about UX Camp London. The first one can be found here. Back to the Roots: If email is the past, is Google Wave the future? Ex-Flowster Johanna Kollmann, now doing great things at Vodafone, shared her experience of using Google Wave with a ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/09/23/highlights-of-ux-camp-london-part-two/ London’s first UX Camp, a BarCamp-inspired unconference for the User Experience community, happened on August 22 at Gumtree’s offices in Richmond. Over the next few days I’ll be posting my rather belated reactions to some of the best sessions. X-Ray Listening Judy Rees, co-author of Clean Language showed us how she ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/09/21/highlights-of-ux-camp-london-part-one/ There is a school of thought within usability that asserts that during facilitation, moderators should not speak to the participant as this interaction affects behaviour, and so invalidates the research. It’s similar to the idea in ethnography that the very presence of an observer will lead to modifications and unnatural behaviour. There is ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/09/01/how-to-ask-why/ Last week, visiting consultant Nick Bowmast and Flow’s Karl Sabino reported back to us about a new tool they've been using, called Treejack. This is Nick’s account of what they found out: If you want to find out how well your website navigation structure works for your customers, Treejack is a ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/08/12/using-treejack-to-evaluate-site-navigation/ Ethnographic research involves the study of people and groups as they go about their everyday lives.  The ethnographer participates in daily routines within the context of the research setting, observes what is going on and systematically records his or her experiences and thoughts. Participation based on social and physical proximity ... http://www.thinkflowinteractive.com/2009/05/28/a-journey-from-ethnography-to-design-coastal-erosion-risk-mapping-project/