In 2009, interest in the capacity of games to solve real-world problems spontaneously began to erupt within general culture. This was an idea that a lot of people had been promoting for a some time through initiatives like Serious Games, Games for Health, and Games for Change, but their message had mostly flown under the public?s radar.

As a UX practitioner, I had long been fascinated with exploring how games could effect positive change in people and achieve things that would otherwise be difficult through conventional design. It was clear to me that the UX community could benefit from expanding its toolkit of competencies to include game design, and by gaining greater exposure to the innovative work being done in video games. So...read more
By John Ferrara

I look back on going into second-hand stores and finding little treasures and that actually meant more to me ?cause it was more of a stab in the dark, you didn?t know if you could afford it or even know what you were really looking for. ? Kurt Cobain

As smartphones continue to cement their position as the digital hub of the consumer universe, and people engage with digital experiences across an increasingly diverse range of devices, the term "user experience" encompasses an ever-growing array of interfaces and contexts. We read recipes on iPads in the kitchen, dance with a virtual Michael Jackson in front of the TV, swipe an Oyster card in the London Underground, co-create a business document using Google Docs, and comment on friends? pictures on Facebook. We are constantly assimilating new ways of interacting across the digital...read more
By Rob Le Quesne

It?s important for designers to translate the ideas in their heads into a tangible form that stakeholders can relate to. Prior to writing any code, wireframes are a great way to quickly map out the functionality and flow of a website or application. This helps anticipate conflicts (?That's not what I had in mind") early in the process, at a point where they are painless to correct.

Dedicated wireframing tools are in abundance, so you might be surprised that my weapon of choice for sketching wireframes is Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint makes it possible for stakeholders and non-techies to participate in the design process. When exchanging PowerPoint slides over email, you can be fairly certain everyone will be able to view and edit them. The software?s widespread availability and low barrier to entry make it an excellent communication tool, able...read more
By Andreas Wulf

An increasing number of companies are appointing a single executive to lead customer experience efforts for a business unit or the entire company. Whether firms calls these executives chief customer officer (CCO) or give them some other label, these executives are driving change at organizations as diverse as CEMEX, Fidelity, General Motors, Maersk Line, and The Washington Post. And as diverse as the companies are that they work for, these leaders come from a wide range of backgrounds. To better understand the profile of a CCO, we recently gathered data on 165 executives in charge of enterprise wide customer experience. What did we find?

• Title: "chief customer officer." Similar to last year, "chief customer officer" remains the most popular title at 30% of firms, followed by "chief client officer" at 15% and "chief experience officer" at 10%. The remaining 45% go by a wide variety of...read more
  By Paul Hagen, Forrester Research
  
  
  
  
  
• Announcing UX Magazine's New Jobs Board
  
  

  Over the past few years, we?ve heard from a lot of business and hiring managers that they find it hard to find qualified UX professionals and UX-minded businesspeople to fill vacant jobs in their organizations. We?ve also heard from UX pros who say that, in a world where anyone can claim to be able to ?do UX,? it?s hard to stand out from throngs of job seekers on high-volume sites such as Monster.com and Indeed.com.

  We?re therefore pleased to announce that we?ve launched a new jobs board exclusively for the UX community. We believe that UX Magazine?s strong reputation in and focus on the UX community, coupled with the very high traffic volume our site receives, will mean our jobs board will be valuable to job seekers and employers alike.

  You can find our new jobs board by going to uxmag.com/uxjobs, or by clicking ?UX Jobs? in the nav bar from anywhere on UX...read more
  By UX Magazine Staff
  

  
  
  
  
• App Review: Weathermob - Express How You Feel About the Weather
  
  

  Weathermob is a niche social networking service for sharing information about local weather, much as Instagram is a service for sharing pictures. It lets you share what you?re feeling about local weather and see what your friends are saying about theirs. A lot of weather apps allow users to share the weather report with Facebook, Twitter, and so on, but what?s interesting with Weathermob is the manner in which it helps the user put together an engaging story.

  This is a great example how to make a utility application engaging. It takes a basic function?viewing a weather report?and helps users create whole stories around local weather to express themselves.

  Inviting, Conversational Language

  ...read more
  By Sachendra Yadav
  

  
  
  
  
• Raising the Bar for Mobile Standards
  
  

  During a break in a long research day, I was speaking to a client about a project I was working on to develop iOS standards for a global financial company. Their initial response was, ?What, you?re creating something beyond the Apple iOS Standards? What else is there to it?? We ended up having a lengthy discussion about mobile standards?what they are, what they are not, and what they should be. Apple, for instance, does a great job of explaining their touch interaction model and the individual UI elements of iOS, giving examples of when and how they are used. But there?s more to it than that.

  From this conversation and other experiences I?ve had with creating standards, I realized that most companies approach standards from a branding perspective. Some may even approach them from...read more
  By Megan Geyer
  

  
  
  
  
• Trend Guide for 2012 CES
  
  

  For anyone interested in trends in consumer electronics or in this year's Consumer Electronic's Show (CES), the folks at Upstream have put together an interesting trend guide. In their words:

   

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  In advance of this year?s show, we?ve created a trend report. We hope it will serve as a valuable guide for visitors, placing the products, services and experiences they see into the larger context of 5 macro-trends:

  QUANTIFIED SELF & M-HEALTH

  Personal biometrics and digital enabled behavior analysis will increasingly let consumers discreetly track and manage their lives more effectively.

  GESTURAL INTERFACES & AUGMENTED REALITY 

  New natural interfaces based on movement will allow more intuitive control of tech, increasing access to information and digital content.

  SoLOMo...read more
  By UX Magazine Staff
  

  
  
  
  
• Paying Attention: The Most Valuable Skill in UX Research
  
  

  When you read about UX research you find lots of emphasis on the planning and structure of the research sessions. Where will you do research at a person's home or in a research facility? Will you go through a recruiting agency or recruit from your own network? Are you looking for target users? Can remote methods play a part?

  These questions are all important in developing a solid research plan, but they don't speak much to the actual experience of asking people questions and listening to what they tell you.

  You might not hear many people admit that user research can sometimes be boring. Especially when you're doing something like classic usability research, where you have...read more
  By Juliette Melton
  

  
  
  
  
• Seven UX Best Practices of Community Design
  
  

  Business strategists have long preached the advice, ?Adapt or die.? Adaptation is happening in the social pond with a user?s social graphs influencing online and offline decisions. A user?s community is more important than ever. Businesses are mining online communities for valuable consumer information that can influence every phase in their go-to-market cycle, from product innovation to fostering repeat purchases. The definitive tome on the social movement, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, foretells, ?Within a few...read more
  By Kristin Zibell