Another special discount: 2008 An Event Apart conferences
Adaptive Path hearts Rosenfeld Media (see >yesterday’s announcement). So does A List Apart. They’re providing a discount to friends of Rosenfeld Media to attend their wonderful An Event Apart conferences, the design conference “for people who make websites”. Luke Wroblewski, Liz Danzico, and Lou Rosenfeld are RMers who’ve spoken at An Event Apart, and we’ve all enjoyed an excellent experience as both presenters and attendees.
This is truly a great value, and it’s even better with the Rosenfeld Media discount. Use code AEASKLR to save $200 off at the An Event Apart site. We hope to see you at one of this year’s AEA conferences:
- Boston: June 23/24
- San Francisco: August 18/19
- Chicago: October 13/14
Single feed for combined author postings
You may have noticed on more recent tweak to the Rosenfeld Media main page: we now feature recent author postings from our book sites alongside general announcements (like this one). Want to keep up with our authors’ postings via RSS? Piece of cake.
Expert Interview: Christian Crumlish
You may know Christian, one of our crew of UX experts, from Designing Social Interfaces (O’Reilly, 2009), which he co-authored with Erin Malone. Or if you’ve spent time in the Bay Area, you’ve surely crossed paths with him at a BayCHI meeting. We asked Christian to help us better understand designing for social.
RM: What’s a common mistake people make when it comes to designing social websites and applications?
CC: Oh, there are so many. Let’s see, a few of the most common are to build far too much before launch based on hypotheticals. Much better to build something focused and amazing, invite some people in, and then start working with behavior.
Another common one these days is a sort of mindless “gamification” in the form of highly mechanical point systems, badges, or the like. They usually fail as games and can have many unintended distorting effects if not designed carefully as part of an overall engagement strategy.
RM: As you’ve investigated how clients approach the design of social experience, what’s one thing that’s really surprised you?
CC: Very little has surprised me on that front. Folks take all sorts of approaches, most commonly based on imitating or mashing together some effective, newly familiar models. I try to get people to take a step back and look at things on the ecosystem level, model things out a bit more, do a bunch of UX exploration and ideation, and then get back into the weeds of a roadmap and defining specific features and flows.
Honestly, the surprises always come from the users. A well-designed social experience establishes a framework and some ground rules, and operates as a good host and an honest broker. The real vitality of any such application or service comes from the critical mass of participants. Kindling the participation is one phase of things and has its own challenges, but beyond that the “folkways” of a social experience tend to ultimately invent uses and customs that might never otherwise have occurred to the founders and inventors. At that level, when a social environment is really humming along, it’s nothing but surprises, and the real challenge is figuring out which behaviors to amplify and reinforce.
RM: Thanks, Christian!
Is it a redesign?
Here in Mr. Rosenfeld’s neighborhood, we’re careful to avoid the word redesign. But whatever it’s called, you may have noticed that we’ve indeed changed a lot of things about the Rosenfeld Media site:
- The visual design is quite different. Dave Shea’s lovely work on UX Zeitgeist has now been adapted for the “main” site. Next we’ll apply this design to individual book sites.
- The shopping cart has been radically changed and, we hope, improved. We’ve applied the principles from a certain useful book while swapping out Kryptronic and installing Xcart, which seems a bit more flexible.
This is all well and good, and we hope you enjoy the new design and functionality. (And you’ll let us know what could be better, won’t you? In fact, how about a nice discount as an incentive to try it out? Use code WHEW before this Sunday for 30% any individual Rosenfeld Media book or webinar.)
Actually, the biggest change we’ve made is the one you can’t see: getting our back office in order so we can start selling many other types of products. As you may notice, the new main page makes our webinars more prominent; over the coming months you’ll see other product types showing up there. It’s all part of the one-year plan to move from publisher of UX books to purveyor of UX expertise in all logical formats.
Wish us luck!
Ironing out some kinks
Bright Creative’s Dave Shea, esteemed designer of this site, follows up on the two issues that a number of you raised with the site’s design:
New book signing: “Playful Design” by John Ferrara
Many designers and developers are finding that their applications and sites are far more engaging when they incorporate game-like qualities. So we’re thrilled that John Ferrara will be tackling this topic in his new book, Playful Design: Creating Game Experiences in Everyday Interfaces.
(more…)
Kristina Halvorson’s Content Strategy webinar recording on sale
Content strategy is (finally) being recognized as critical to any web site’s health, and Kristina Halvorson is regarded as one of the world’s top content strategists. See (and hear) why: purchase her hour-long webinar recording “Content Strategy for Websites” for US$69. This was one of our most widely attended live webinars; here’s your chance to get up to speed with content strategy.
Explore Rosenfeld’s Newest Release, Design That Scales: Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice
As the world becomes increasingly more digital, design systems are becoming increasingly more important. With roughly five billion daily internet users, designing websites and apps at scale is critical to meeting the increasing demand for online information and services. But building successful design systems is no easy feat, and limited resources exist to support designers, engineers, and product people as they advance in their careers.
In his forthcoming book, Design That Scales: Creating a Sustainable Design System Practice, design-systems expert Dan Mall draws upon his experiences helping popular brands create sustainable, successful design practices.
What will you gain from reading Design That Scales?
Design systems are not just for designers. Mall notes that these systems are highly valuable because they “serve the proverbial three-legged stool of design, engineering, and product.” Unfortunately, however, “most design systems fail because they aren’t integrated early enough into the grain of how an organization operates.” Design That Scales serves to guide readers away from that pitfall.
Not only will you learn how to create, manage, and sustain a successful design system, you will also gain a comprehensive understanding of the various components of a design system—and how they contribute to success. You’ll foster a culture of collaboration by discerning where each contributor fits within a design system team. You’ll learn how to measure a design system’s impact and demonstrate its value to stakeholders. Plus, end-of-chapter questions will help you steer your design system towards a profitable outcome.
Design That Scales is a must-read for:
- Individuals involved in building and maintaining design systems, regardless of size
- Designers, engineers, and product managers seeking more efficient ways of working
- Leaders and executives looking to drive meaningful change within their organization
- Those who have experience designing web forms and tables but are unsure what’s next
What readers are saying about Design That Scales
Nadine Sarraj, Product Designer at 365 Retail Markets, says, “Dan’s book is a game-changer for our approach to design systems, leading to significant changes at my company, making it a must-read for streamlining anyone’s complex design systems! This book equips you with everything you need for your next design system transformation.”
Afyia Smith, Design Manager at Epic Games, says Design That Scales “will be my go-to resource for creating and managing design systems as they grow.”
Take a sneak peek inside the book
Design That Scales is a treasure trove of wisdom for both design system novices and seasoned practitioners alike. It not only provides guidance on building a successful design system, but also delves into the crucial aspects of measuring its success.
Want more? Check out a sample chapter for a taste of what you’ll find.
Happy reading, and enjoy your journey into the world of design systems!
Meet the author
Hailing from Philly, Dan Mall is a multi-talented creative force: an esteemed teacher, creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur. To help enterprise teams design at scale, he crafts, collects, and curates curriculum, content, and community at Design System University, his brainchild. Previously, he helmed SuperFriendly, a renowned design system consultancy. Dan discusses design systems, process, leadership, and more on his website, danmall.com.
Luke Wroblewski to write book on web form design
We’re proud to announce that Luke Wroblewski has begun work on Rosenfeld Media’s newest title, Web Form Design Best Practices. You can visit Luke’s book-in-progress site and subscribe to its RSS feed.
Form design is one of those topics that, at first glance, may seem narrow. But form design is critical to the success of just about any web site. If forms don’t work, then transactions of all types—making a purchase, signing up for a mailing list, applying for a job, completing a personal health profile—won’t be’t completed successfully. Luke’s book will be a valuable tool to help web developers, interaction designers, and others plug this narrow but deep gap in their sites’ user experience.
Luke is an ideal author to tackle this topic. He’s currently Senior Principal of Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo! Inc. and Principal of LukeW Interface Designs. He’s the author of Site-Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability, as well as numerous articles on design methodologies, strategies and applications including those featured in his own online publication, Functioning Form. And Luke’s recent articles and talks on web form design have been extremely well received.
Because we envision our books as dialogues, all Rosenfeld Media books are developed with extensive reader input. Each of our books has a dedicated site where you and the author can share information on (and questions about) the topic. Please visit Luke’s book site, subscribe to its RSS feed, and spread the word.
Mobile Typography: Don’t Make This Mistake
On September 12, we’re putting on our next event (a virtual one)—The Mobile UX Summit. We’ve hit up Josh Clark, Brad Frost, Theresa Neil, Greg Nudelman, Jason CranfordTeague, and Mike Fisher for 27 tips and 2 case studies on designing mobile experiences. You’ll walk away with new mobile UX insight and skills, get some questions answered—and the session recordings are included with your registration.
This week we asked Jason CranfordTeague about the most important mistake to avoid with mobile typography:
Don’t think that you can simply squeeze the desktop/laptop screen type into a smaller area. Working with responsive typography is more than just proportionally scaling text up or down for the screen; you’ve also got to consider its context.
For example, it’s common to use HTML links for navigation to articles (e.g., “Read More”). In most cases these need to be scaled up or converted into more finger friendly buttons for a mobile device. It’s so frustrating, though, when even some “responsive” web sites make me keep stabbing my finger at a tiny navigation link until I finally hit its contact area.
Instead of just resizing text, remember to consider how the text will actually be read or used. Links should be easily clickable, and headers may need to scale down more than body copy to prevent very short lines of text. I’ll give you some tips on how to do this at The Mobile UX Summit.
Sign up now to reserve your virtual seat at our Mobile UX Summit on September 12!
