What is UX?

Right, I'm aware that 'UX' isn't a familiar term outside of the industry, and telling someone that you're a User Experience Architect often meets some blank faces and results in that person turning around and trying to find someone normal to talk to. So, courtesy of Smashing Magazine, here is a fairly concise definition of UX.

"User experience (abbreviated as UX) is how a person feels when interfacing with a system. The system could be a website, a web application or desktop software and, in modern contexts, is generally denoted by some form of human-computer interaction (HCI).

Those who work on UX (called UX designers) study and evaluate how users feel about a system, looking at such things as ease of use, perception of the value of the system, utility, efficiency in performing tasks and so forth."

via Smashing Magazine

10 Best Jobs Of The Future

I'm obsessed with the future; the technologies that are visible on the horizon and are just out of reach, how our lives have changed so drastically in the past ten years, and how the next ten years will make life today (in 2010) seem like we were living in the middle-ages. Children today have grown up with the Internet all around them, and our lives have become irreversibly intertwined with something that isn't tangible - it's everywhere and nowhere.

Check out this brilliant gallery of the 10 best jobs of the future after the jump.

via PopSci


If you're interested in future technologies, check out my other blog - Links From The Future

Taxonomy of Rap Names

Fantastic example of taxonomy - the most popular rappers all categorised and plotted on one chart. Check out a more hi-res image to see the smaller details after the jump.

via WFDJ

The Cube carpark

A new car park in Birmingham has a sophisticated £2m robotic system that enables cars to park themselves. Whilst this space-saving technique has been used in Japan for years, this is a great example of planning, labelling, and archiving items.

via BBC

Extreme Planning

Incredible display of planning taken to the extreme. If you didn't / haven't played Sim City, then this won't be as impressive.

Human Landscapes

South West Florida has experienced a dramatic boom and bust in residential development. Many homes there are empty and have been for years. Huge developments sit partially completed among densely built up neighborhoods and swampland. There are "enough housing lots in Charlotte County to last for more than 100 years".

Having played a lot of Sim City during my childhood, it makes me wonder about the minds of the people who created these structures and the beauty that comes with carefully crafting a population's living space. More images after the jump.

via Boston Big Picture

Army rations

Troops from nearly 50 countries eat military rations every day that remind them of home. Photographer Ashley Gilbertson and food stylist Maria Washburn have done a lovely job of labelling and categorising each ration pack.

"Each year, among the countries with troops in Afghanistan — the current number is 47 — tens of millions of dollars are spent researching how to fit the most calories, nutrition and either comfort or fun into a small, light package. The menus and accompaniments are intended not just to nourish but also to remind the soldier of home."

via NY Times

Wireframes

Often worked up from sketches to formal documentation, wireframes show the layout of an interface screen. Describes each element and behaviour. The focus is on layout, labels, and interactions. Avoids finished design elements such as color and photos, instead using placeholders for images, and sometimes copy.

They are used to communicate the specifications for individual pages or templates. Also used as prototype for usability testing. Prevents premature conversations about surface issues like color, instead focuses discussion on correct and complete content and functionality.

Wireframe sketches and final documentation are quite often kept confidential and aren't made available to the public. But the Wireframe Showcase site offers a rare glimpse at the UX work underneath the surface of the site.

via Wireframe Showcase

and OneXtraPixel

and Flickr Group - UX Sketches

The blueprints to the Eiffel Tower

Fantastic blueprints of the Eiffel Tower via La Tour Eiffel

It's busy in orbit

Since the advent of the space-age over five decades ago, more than thirty-five thousand man-made objects have been cataloged by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. Nearly twenty-thousand of those objects remain in orbit today, ninety-four percent of which are non-functioning orbital debris. These figures do not include the hundreds-of-thousands of objects too small to be cataloged, but still large enough to pose a threat to approximately nine-hundred operational satellites in orbit around the Earth. In addition, collisions between debris objects could potentially lead to a continuously growing debris population, thus increasing the risk to operational satellites.




via SmartPlanet and Popsci