"We don't have to maintain the pretense of a magical process that guarantees optimal results, but neither are we given free license to design whatever we want. Our decisions become accountable to the best available evidence whenever possible."

It's time to reinvent the discipline of web design. Web designers are faced with a challenge: to be professional web site architects, or to seek work as decorators.

A good usability professional must identify high-priority problems and make appropriate recommendations. But a good designer must also be able to design well in the first place. This is one area in which usability testing has the power to hone designers’ instincts without the cost of formal testing on every project. from a list apart.

An organization that reaches the managed usability stage still has far to go to reach usability nirvana. Attaining these higher maturity levels requires many years of effort. from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox.

User research helps you make good, solid, confident decisions about design. The good news is that it doesn’t need to be complicated. from a list apart.

An open collection of communication tools used in design processes that deal with complex systems.

It's easy to bias study participants, whether in user testing or in card sorting, if they focus on matching stimulus words instead of working on the underlying problem.

Hard skills from a soft science. from the MIT Sloan Management Review.

presentation slides and transcript, Andy Clarke at An Event Apart Boston and @media2009 London.

a view into the redesign proces of mozilla.org

A solid and common understanding of goals, organization, layout, personality, and fit and finish will create an environment in which you (and the project owner) can rely on rigorously discussed and well documented ideas. Together, you’ll create smaller margins of error, purposeful exploration, fewer broken expectations, and, ultimately, a better design.

by douglas bowman at stopdesign.

the little things lead to success. from a list apart.

6 steps for building successful websites. from smashing magazine.

six hats, six types of thinking to aid our design process.

set aside immediate technical and situational constraints.