General UX | Akendi UX Reflections

Designing for Different Mental Models

By Michelle Brown

03.04.2018

There’s no such thing as easy to use for everyone. I’ve bought many transportation tickets in my life before. I’ve even muddled my way through machines where I couldn’t read the language. I have a great track record. However, the...

The Art of Asking Questions in Usability Testing

By Hamilton Hernandez

27.03.2018

The first post in this series talked about the fundamentals of asking questions in UX research. This article describes how we ask questions during the most common Usability Testing studies. I will briefly touch on some...

The UX of IoT Devices

By Dominira Saul

30.01.2018

If you’ve survived the gift-giving frenzy of the recent holiday season, then perhaps you gave or received a connected device. Whether it was a smartwatch, an activity tracker, a home appliance, or some other bit of technology, you may...

Do Client’s Know What They’re Approving?

By Yvonne Shek

25.01.2018

I am currently renovating my kitchen. It’s a pre-fab kitchen from a well-known company that sells furniture and home furnishings. They sell entire kitchens and all the components in-store and online. I looked at the cabinets and...

Getting Stakeholder Buy-in

By Foong Ling Chen

22.01.2018

In the past year, I’ve been to a fair share of talks, panels, and conferences. Without a doubt, the question the audience always asks is, “How do you show the value of research to top management?” or “How do you convince management...

Hawaiian Missile Crisis: A Result From Design Error Not Human Error

By Dan Iaboni

16.01.2018

After 40 panic-inducing minutes on Saturday, January 13th, when residents of Hawaii believed that missiles were on the way, the message that the alert was a false alarm was finally broadcasted and life returned to its normal pace. In...

Top 10 UX Blogs of 2017

By Amanda Billark

04.01.2018

To celebrate the new year we've rounded up our top 10 most read blogs of 2017: The Art of Asking Questions: The quality of the information relies entirely on the quality of the questions we ask. This article explains...

The secret to ‘Wow’ users through interaction design

By Leo Poll

23.10.2017

Interaction design is the phase almost all UX professionals enjoy the most, as this is where they finally get to create that experience that will blow users away - Something that will make people say; ‘Wow that works so well, why didn’t...

Interactive Prototyping with OmniGraffle

By Sanaz Hafezi

17.10.2017

I recently completed a project where I had to prototype with a high level of interaction on OmniGraffle. While going through this process, I learned a few tricks which I thought I could share. Plan your Project This point may...

The Toronto Police Car Design Dilemma

By Dan Iaboni

28.09.2017

It’s never as simple as just changing the colour. A little while back there was a bit of controversy over the decision by the Toronto police to change the design of the police cars. The police chief wanted the fleet to look...

UX thinking = a remarkable experience

By Leo Poll

26.09.2017

I remember a phone call I received when I still worked for Philips Research from somebody who lived close to the labs. This gentleman owned a Philips Television that had stopped working. He must have thought: "Luckily I live close to...

Beware of UX Charlatans

By Michelle Brown

14.09.2017

The television faith healers of the digital era. The Rise of the Charlatans A lot of companies are becoming more familiar with the terms “UX”, “User Experience”, and “Usability”, and this is great! There’s a growing community of...

Everyone is talking UX

By Leo Poll

22.08.2017

And if they are not then they should! Why? Because the creation and/or delivery of a customer/user experience is team work. Just think of all the skills that are involved to develop an experience that fits your end-user as a glove. Just...

Ontario Medical Association Responsive Web Redesign

By Jessica Murray

01.08.2017

1. Background/Brief OMA (Ontario Medical Association) works for medical professionals across Ontario representing their political, clinical and economic interests. Advocating for the wellbeing and success of...

The Three Steps to Time Management Success

By Michelle Brown

13.07.2017

I’m going to break a bit from my usual discussion of improving experiences to talk about a more universal topic: time management. This is essentially a basic human life skill. Despite that, a lot of people struggle with...

Are Luxury Features Always Better?

By Sanaz Hafezi

11.07.2017

I started my morning just like any other; I woke up, did my morning routine, and had quality family bonding time discussing the topic of German luxury cars at the breakfast table. As my family was swooning over the styling and...

How to Make Your Museum Exhibit Stand Out

By Daniella Briotto Faustino

06.07.2017

It is a fact that museums have always amused me. Since I was a little girl, I would spend hours viewing paintings, sculptures and historical artefacts with my family and friends. In some cases, the art pieces viewed would create an...

When a Business Case is not Enough, add the Experience Case (XC)

By Tedde van Gelderen

05.07.2017

Just this morning I was reminded of something I’d used in past talks and I wanted to revisit the concept. The conversation I had was around our Experience Thinking process that we apply at Akendi. We talked about things like why you do...

An Accessible World