Infographics Roundup: 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Almost as soon as the initial shaking from the Tohoku Earthquake, writers, translators, designers and developers around the world began to think about how to use their own talents to make sense of the immense tragedy, the sudden barrage of evolving information and unfamiliar terminology, and lingering risks. By Paul Baron

What we can learn about service design from Google+

The tools that weave themselves deepest into the way humans communicate, do so with our help. The designer releases their invention into the world with a few bold statements, and then it’s up to us to tell them what the significance of the tool is, and how best to use it. By Chris Palmieri

Transforming User Experience

Four elements of transformational design:

• Emotional design
• Profound effect
• Visceral connection
• Resonance
  

By Karen Bachmann

The UX of User Stories, Part 2

This posting covers the looking at the relationship between stories and UI exploration. By Anders Ramsay

The UX of User Stories, Part 1

If you are a UX designer who wants to quickly get up to speed with integrating Agile and UX, there are few better places to start than with User Stories. By Anders Ramsay

Change on a dime: Agile Design

What does it mean to have a good experience? Think of your favorite restaurant, the interior of your car, and the software on your phone; how do people craft these experiences? What details, planning, and design go into the process? By UX Magazine

Designing for tomorrow

When designing a client’s next big website, we like to think ahead of the best-practice curve. Technology changes fast and there is always a risk that what is great today will be so-so six months later, and positively tired in two years. So how can you design something that maintains lasting relevance? By UX Magazine

Think outside the box

Imagine if every time you walked into a McDonald’s the menu was different, the food was different, or the prices were different. If you had to relearn McDonald’s every time you walked in, it would be less attractive as a fast food restaurant. By UX Magazine

5 low-hanging ux tips

People are always looking for ways to improve their websites or applications, and oftentimes we come up with very big and overly complicated ideas on how to do that. Here are some simple ways to greatly improve the user experience of an app. By UX Magazine

7 steps to a kick-ass ux portfolio

The first step is to take a step back and re-imagine the problem space. By UX Magazine

Dreamy interfaces

These days, almost everything we do is digitized into discrete units. Our phone, video, and e-mail communications are digital. Economies, businesses, web searches, and even vehicle traffic are all controlled by sophisticated mathematical models performed by computers. This is the defining characteristic of the information age, and has caused much soul-searching over the past 50 years. By UX Magazine

Rethinking the tv experience

Have you ever felt it’s harder to find something to watch on television now than it was when there were fewer choices? This can partly be attributed to the dilution of content quality, but a greater problem is that operating a television and discovering content is much more complicated than it used to be. By UX Magazine

Efficiency

Efficiency is key to successful organizations as they look to minimize costs in competitive marketplaces. However, organizations that focus on only their inner workings can easily fail to appreciate the impact that day-to-day operations and internal “efficiency drives” have on their customers. By UX Magazine

Why mobile ux is more than 'users on-the-go'

It’s a common misconception that UX for mobile is all about creating something for users on-the-go—users with little time, checking in on their mobile on the train or at the bus stop waiting for a bus. By UX Magazine

The Fold Exists but Does it Matter?

The phrase “the fold” comes from broadsheet newspapers. It refers to the top half of the front page, the only piece of content visible without picking up the newspaper. Whatever content is on the fold helps determine the salability of the paper because it’s either interesting or it’s not. By Design Festival

The impact of 'undesigned' service experiences

Organizations that otherwise pride themselves in delivering exceptional customer experiences, can be myopic to the design of less tangible aspects of their services. By Meld Studios

Showing the story behind the data

The name Nicholas Feltron will be familiar to many people, many more than might have thought they’d be interested in looking at graphs. By Meld Studios

A Service Design Approach Is Required To Deliver Great Customer Experiences

For commercial contexts, that's true. But there is so much more...By Meld Studios

More Detail On Apple's New Foster-Designed Headquarters

Some additional information surrounding the upcoming new Apple campus. By TreeHugger

Cell Phone Design

Timekeeping gets a radical makeover with the LOAD Watch

Ever since cellphones with built-in clocks came into our lives, the first dress-up essential to get the boot was the timepiece. By Designbuzz

Facebook’s Design Strategy: A Status Update

It seems odd, if not entirely counterintuitive, to find any building on Facebook’s main campus devoid of devices connected to the social-networking site. By Design Mind

Bang & Olufsen's Gorgeous BeoSound 5, A $3,555 Home Stereo For Luddites

Bang & Olufsen’s new BeoSound 5 Encore tries to sidestep iTunes navigation system while offering high-end digital audio. By James Gaddy

Game Developer Kevin Slavin On How Algorithms Mold Our Cities

Slavin, a noted game developer, notes that entire city neighborhoods are being remade to resemble computer chips. And we've barely even noticed. By James Gaddy

5 Ways That Standardization Can Lead To Innovation

We'd like to think that innovation comes from freewheeling chaos. Think again: It's extreme order that begets breakthroughs in business. By Henry King

"Float" App Adds Easy-Reading Interfaces To Your Social Media Feeds

It's like Readability meets Twitter, but with a couple extra touches that make the reading experience smoother than ever. By John Pavlus

Imogen Heap's Digital Gloves Let Her Sculpt Music Out of Gestures

She can mix and manipulate sounds into music live on stage with a gestural interface. By John Pavlus

The Creator Of TED Aims To Reinvent Conferences Once Again

Wurman’s plan is to stage a series of improvisational one-to-one conversations, held in front of a small invitation-only audience and then disseminated via a high-quality app. By Warren Berger

How Twitter And Facebook Helped Bing Thom Design A Public Library

Where most architects would rely on town-hall meetings and focus groups to learn what the community wanted, Bing Thom had to rely on Facebook and Twitter to meet an exacting deadline. By Linda Tischler

Arduino-Controlled Robot “Paints” Like Georges Seurat

French designer Paul Ferragut has built a robot that throws a bunch of dots on canvas and calls it art. (That’s also known as the entire career of Georges Seurat.) By Suzanne Labarre

A multifunctional gadget formed by joining various elements

As a child, you must have played a game in which bits and pieces are to be placed together. This results in interesting shapes of different sizes and is a fun-filled activity. By Designbuzz

Rail Whale concept for new-age trams

You’ve seen trams and London’s double-decker buses. But clearly, nobody has ever thought of combining the two. Until now, it has the length of the average tram and has two levels. It’s just a concept for now, but a great idea which could be realized and made practical. By Designbuzz