Pleasure and Pain

Improving the human experience one day at a time

Pleasure and Pain: photos by Whitney G. Hess

Entries Tagged as 'User Experience'

If the product doesn’t work, its “user experience” doesn’t matter

August 18th, 2010 · 7 Comments · User Experience

I recently edited an article for UX Magazine (When You Startup with UX) in which I interviewed four startups on what User Experience means to them.
Of all the things that people said, the quote that stood out to me the most was from Mike Singleton, a developer at Foursquare:

“…when you only have three users, but [...]


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My Best Advice for Conducting User Interviews

July 7th, 2010 · 19 Comments · Research, User Experience

In a previous life, I was a Professional Writing major and part-time journalist. I contributed to my school’s student newspaper, as well as the faculty and staff newspaper, and almost every week for two years, I wrote an arts column for the Pittsburgh City Paper — Western PA’s leading alternative newsweekly [read my old clips]. [...]


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Watch me on The Big Web Show

June 22nd, 2010 · 1 Comment · Consulting, Pleasure, Twitter, User Experience

Last Thursday I had the absolute pleasure of joining the lovely Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin on the eighth episode of The Big Web Show (read my previous post).
If you weren’t able to catch the live broadcast, be sure to check out the video and podcast.
We talked about how I’ve used Twitter to build my [...]


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Photo of the day: Visualizing Genres

June 17th, 2010 · 7 Comments · Gadgetry, Pain, Photography, User Experience

Hotel alarm clocks are usually a big pain in the butt. Hampton Inn aims to fix all that — and takes simplicity to inconceivable levels.
They go so far past easy to use and intuitive that they come back around to obscure and pointless.
They visualize musical genres.

Columns for Classical
Stream for Soft Rock
Cows for Country
Cadillac for Oldies
Bleachers [...]


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User Experience on The Big Web Show

June 16th, 2010 · No Comments · Pleasure, User Experience

I’m honored to be joining Jeffrey Zeldman and Dan Benjamin on tomorrow’s episode of The Big Web Show. Tune in at 1pm ET as they interview me live about all things user experience. Nothing scripted, nothing planned — just uncensored, unadulterated UX pleasure.
If you can’t make it during that time, the video and podcast will [...]


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