[Sigia-l] Real World UI Design Failure

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

I like to remind myself that the default mode of design is failure. Quite
often though, failure that can be hard to isolate or pin reasons to. But if
anyone's interested, I've written up some stuff about what I think is quite
a clear cut failure of mine:

http://webtorque.org/?p=1141

In summary: I thought we might be able to achieve a "polite" (ie noticeable,
but not intrusive) prominence to part of a search results UI by using a
pinned header. However, I've now found strong indications that I was wrong.
The good news is that I *might* have found a clue in the form of some recent
tired party research about out why I was wrong:
http://visionlab.harvard.edu/silencing/

Incidentally, here at hotels.com, we log major assumptions about our website
in a database (in this case the assumption is "Pinning items to the screen
increases their visual prominence") and then attach research and other
findings to them that may strengthen or weaken those assumptions over time.
This allows designers to keep their heads above the raging tide of data that
our analysts pump out, as well as our own qualitative research, and that of
our Expedia big brothers and sisters.

Jonathan

PS: I'm recruiting for 2 permanent IA/UX positions. Do you have at least 5
years UX design experience, preferably with some ecommerce in there? Would
like to join a UX team of 12 in London's Covent Garden working on what is
probably one of the most well-resourced commercial websites in the world?
Then send me your CV because I'm having a hell of a time finding the right
people.