http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com web, interface design and usability for the lay person Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:05:23 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As a follow up to my article "Four Steps to Successful Banner Ads", it’s only apt that I address some best practices that should be followed for online advertising in general. From a usability point of view it is necessary to follow these best practices so that user's are attracted ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2008/03/26/7-more-steps-for-successful-online-advertising/ This week am working on a project that includes banner ads. These need to promote the brand of the company on its website. The question was: What kind of features should an ad have to help catch the attention of users and increase sales as well. Online Ads have to follow ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/four-steps-to-boost-clickthrough-rates-on-ads/ I had the good fortune to conduct user and stakeholder interviews with regard to an application that the client had developed 6 months ago. The application was up and running and this project was launched in order to look at streamlining the application and making it more intelligent and easy ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/13-steps-to-effective-userstakeholder-interviews/ Just thought I'd share my favorite UCD blogs with you. These are sites I read to keep in touch with the research on usability. They also make for very interesting reading. Experience Dynamics: Frank spiller's blog is something that every User experience professional should read. Frank has the happy knack to hitting the nail on ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/10-user-centered-design-blogs-you-ought-to-read/ Apparently I have earned myself a master's degree in Web 2.0! You might wanna try it out yourself... its fun. You get to figure out the trademark features of web 2.0 sites. It will make you think for sure! http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/23/ Our user experience team in office decided to form a small group that promotes the awareness and usage of usability. With this focus, we got to work brainstorming on the best way to put usability, interaction design and information architecture, in laymen's terms. We decided the best way to do this ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/11/17/information-architecture-simplified/ Stumbled on this interesting website today. Its got a nifty little quiz that determines the kind of blogger you are! I found that http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/11/15/what-kind-of-blogger-are-you/ Take a look at these resources of free icon and font sets.  Its the designer's proverbial pot of gold. Whats more... there are pointers to places where you can find even more. Iconsets Silk Icons: “Silk” is a smooth, free icon set, containing over 700 16-by-16 pixel icons. There are a large variety of ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/free-iconsets-fonts-and-templates-for-the-designer/ When there is a site to design, there are a lot of people who become information architects at the drop of a hat. Everyone considers himself/herself an expert on the topic. All of a sudden the designer becomes a mere puppet and is reduced to someone who simply executes everyone's ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/homepage-usability/ Tables can be a nightmare to deal with, especially because they have become the mainstay of many a developer who throws the standards to the winds. Of course if tables are used to do what they are meant to do, displaying tabular data, they can make life a lot easier.  Enter ... http://hookedondesign.wordpress.com/2007/10/26/style-your-table-with-tablecloth/