Sure, Path 2.0 design is amazing. However, amazing design is not enough. It is like fashion. Everybody is excited about it at the beginning, but then people are getting used to it and eventually it wears out. After it does, the user is left with the essence of the user experience and what Path misses most is a compelling and unique user experience that will make using it worthwhile.

People appreciate mobile apps that feel as though they were designed expressly for the device. For example, when an app fits well on the device screen and responds to the gestures that people know, it provides much of the experience people are looking for. And, although people might not be aware of human interface design principles, such as direct manipulation or consistency, they can tell when apps follow them and when they don’t.

Over the past four months, I've been using Omnigraffle as my go-to diagramming app. During that time, I've collected a small set of tricks that make wireframing and diagramming easier.

If you're a grizzled 'graffle veteran or someone who reads manuals, some of these might be old hat. But maybe not – so check them out. If you've got any of your own, post them in the comments.

I present to you the cornerstone of my book collection on UX: 16 highly recommended books on User Experience by UX professionals. If you are looking for books about user research, interface design, information architecture or UX strategy, you will find a book to your liking.

Users obtain information on the web in one of two ways: searching or browsing. Browsing – moving through a multi-faceted content structure – is made easier when information architects present users with an intuitive navigation hierarchy. This article discusses two techniques to that end.

One big change change driven by starting to build earlier is that of condensing up-front design work down to Just Enough. In other words, we go from doing a lot of analyzing and creating a lot of documents, sometimes for months, to committing to start delivering some kernel of the real product within weeks of project inception.

For practicing User Experience Designers, one of the most important laws isn't Fitts's Law, which helps us understand how to design interactive elements. Nor is it Hick's Law, which describes how long people take to make decisions.

As I was waiting for a table at a local restaurant the other day, I flipped through a couple of the free classified papers. I was shocked to realize how dependent I’ve grown on three simple features that just aren’t available in the analog world: search, sort and filter.

While the task of designing Web applications and sites for multiple devices can be daunting, two techniques can make the process more manageable: classifying device experiences and designing/building responsively. Here's how these two approaches can work together to optimize interface designs across a wide range of connected devices.

Use our handy graph paper with browser chrome on top to sketch out your UI and website ideas. The grid matches the scale on our Web Stencil Kit. Easily tear off sheets for review and pin-up.

Welcome to 1889. The field of photography was just changed forever. Up until recently, the process of taking and developing photos was expensive and cumbersome. As a result photography was available only to professional photographers or rich people.

A design library is a collection of guidelines & standards that describe a design system and maybe template assets to go with it. Creating a library for an experience of any scale is no trivial matter. It's not like you open up a code editor, chop things up, throw a ZIP file to some marketer and say "Here you go. Enjoy!" You've got to have a plan.

Listed below are our design principles and examples of how we've used them so far. These build on, and add to, our original 7 digital principles.

We all seem to be talking about changing behaviour through good design…but changing behaviour is actually really hard. Working as a psychologist in a detox unit at the start of my career has admittedly shaped my view of what it takes to change someone’s behaviour; and whilst I learnt it certainly isn’t impossible, it often takes time. Combine this with the fact that most human behaviour is not considered to be overly planned, with ‘conscious thought’ playing, at best, a small role in shaping our choices…things start to become a little tricky for us as designers. So how do we start to make sense of what influences someone to change their behaviour, given we are often charged with creating designs that are ultimately intended to encourage, if not drive, some form of behaviour change?

I was meeting with a potential client a few weeks back who wanted a usability test. “Tell me about your users,” I asked, hoping that I could then use this information as the basis for a recruitment screener.

“Well, it’s aimed at everyone really, so you don’t need to recruit any special kind of user,” came the reply.

For a mobile phone user, the most familiar design patterns are the ones in their own phone. As such, developers should follow the target platform's design guidelines when creating apps.

As more organizations realize they need to invest heavily in multi-device Web designs, the inevitable question of “how” comes up. Responsive Web design, separate sites, or something in between? Here’s how I’ve tried to simplify this decision:

Real empathy is when you quit viewing empathy as a way to get users to connect with YOU and instead use empathy as a way to connect users to *whatever it is they really want to do*. That is where UX practitioners (or people doing work related to the user’s experience) recognize that the Draper approach is, yeah, the opposite of what actually matters.

RT @whatterz: Omnigraffle Stencil for Twitter Bootstrap 2 /via @konigi #ux

I gave a talk yesterday at the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) conference about managing user experience teams. (It's a version of a talk that I gave last year at the IA Summit and again at UX Week.) In it, I talk about the importance of personality in hiring, and how personality and can make or break a fit.

The Web has entered an era of user-centricity. If businesses are to attract new customers and retain existing ones, they must create websites and apps that deliver intuitive and tailored experiences. Whether you run an online retailer or a not-for-profit community website, the user experience is mission critical.

The role of the user experience designer is changing. It’s becoming less about ‘owning’ experience and actual design and more about facilitation and collaboration, says Lee Allen of TH_NK

RT @McCoyDigital: Great #UI #jQuery slider, looking forward to giving it a play #UX

RT @antonio_grillo: Managing UX Teams via @zite #ux

Back in the early days of PC computing, we were interested in how people used all those options, controls, and settings that software designers put into their applications. How much do users customize their applications?

For designers, it’s easy to jump right into the design phase of a website before giving the user experience the consideration it deserves. Too often, we prematurely turn our focus to page design and information architecture, when we should focus on the user flows that need to be supported by our designs. It’s time to make the user flows a bigger priority in our design process.

RT @mikejthompson: Useful paper on post-task subj. ratings in usability tests:

RT @whatterz: A great article: Design the Invisible to Tell Better Stories on the Web by @robertmills

RT @Foolproof_UX: How User Experience Strategy can bridge the gap between brand promise and customer reality #ux #s ...

RT @whatterz: Programming Languages Suck at UX #ux #programming

RT @hellofisher: The slides are up from my presentation "Designing The Experience" #HOWidc

'mobile internet usage to overtake desktop usage by 2015 in US' why you should be planning for mobile

RT @whatterz: Heatmap.js | HTML5 Canvas Heatmap Library #ux #hci

RT @whatterz: The UX of User Stories, Part 1 /via @zite #ux

RT @johannakoll: Short and to the point. @jboogie's deck from #LeanIgnite NYC: How to "Do" Lean #UX in 5 Easy Steps ...

#N9 UX guidelines. Really nicely done.

Everyware Icons

RT @whatterz: Essential UX Layers for Agile and Lean Design Teams #ux #agile #lean

RT @davegray: RT @GuyKawasaki: Hot new thing: Hand-drawn timelines #vizthink

RT @adactio: Liveblogging a very exciting unveiling from @beep at @AnEventApart.

RT @Folletto: Smart Objects in Omnigraffle: how to.
It's an awesome hidden feature for Omnigraffle Masters!

RT @teppo: Human-centered design meets Agile Development #ux #ixd

RT @Folletto: RT @leeander: Essential and Desirable Skills for a UX Designer (via @uxmatters)

RT @andybudd: Agile+UX

superb article on social design patterns/anti-patterns

Test little and often