Jesmond Allen - Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences

UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences

Jesmond Allen
James Chudley

This edition first published 2012

2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

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978-0-470-66685-2

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 10/12 Minion Pro Regular by Indianapolis Composition Services

Printed in the UK by Bell and Bain.

For Robbie, Caitlin, and Edie
Jesmond Allen

For Lou, Matilda, and Jack
- James Chudley

Publishers Acknowledgments

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Editorial and Production

VP Consumer and Technology Publishing Director: Michelle Leete

Associate DirectorBook Content Management: Martin Tribe

Associate Publisher: Chris Webb

Publishing Assistant: Ellie Scott

Development Editor: Kezia Endsley

Copy Editor: Kezia Endsley

Technical Editor: Ben Bywater

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Senior Project Editor: Sara Shlaer

Editorial Assistant: Leslie Saxman

Marketing

Senior Marketing Manager: Louise Breinholt

Marketing Executive: Kate Parrett

Composition Services

Compositor: Indianapolis Composition Services

Proofreaders: Melissa Cossell, Susan Hobbs

Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Photography: James Chudley

Illustrations: Jesmond Allen and James Chudley

About the Authors

James and Jesmond are User Experience Directors at cxpartners, a UK-based user experience consultancy.

James Chudley has been working in UX for 14 years for UX consultancies, full-service digital agencies, within academia and client side in the public sector. He has grown and managed UX teams, managed digital products, and provided UX research and design consultancy to some of the webs biggest brands.

In his role as UX Director at cxpartners, James runs large user-centered design projects for clients such as Expedia, Aardman, Hotels.com, Lovefilm, Vodafone, Kelkoo, Moneysupermarket.com, and Channel 4.

James is actively involved in the UX community. He writes for Smashing Magazine and sits on their UX experts panel. He regularly speaks at local and international UX events and co-founded UXBristol in 2011.

Jesmond Allen is a skilled user experience consultant. She has many years experience designing user interfaces and information architectures for web, mobile, and computer applications. Jesmond has a BA in Fine Art and an MSc in Computer Science and has worked in the Internet industry since 1996. She has a passion for good design and wants usable to also mean beautiful.

Jesmond has worked with clients such as TUI Travel, Nokia, Kelkoo, Microsoft, and UKTV to create compelling, usable interfaces. Jesmond led the Charles Tyrwhitt project that won Redesign Of The Year at the 2011 National eCommerce Awards in London.

Authors Acknowledgments

This book couldnt have been written without the support of our wonderful colleagues at cxpartners. In particular the ownersRichard Caddick and Giles Colborneencouraged us and provided unfailing support. And to everyone else at cxpartners, a big thank you for letting us pick your brains and take photos of you in various UX posesAmy McGuinness, Anna Thompson, Chloe Furlong, Chris Berridge, Chui Chui Tan, Fiz Yazdi, Mandy Milton, Neil Schwarz, Nik Lazell, Rob Matthews, Steve Cable, James Rosenberg, Jay Spanton, Joe Leech, Karina Cockell, Tamlyn Driver, Verity Whitmore, and Walt Buchan.

Thank you to all our clients for making our work so interesting, and for providing the experience that underpins this book. Thanks in particular to Jennie Blythe and Luke Kingsnorth at Charles Tyrwhitt and to Stephen Molloy and Paul Burrows at iExplore for being fantastic and allowing us to write about our work for them. Thanks to David Jarvis at Specialist Holiday Group for helping us to understand what life is like as a client and also for his motivational tweets as we wrote this.

Thanks also to all the companies and individuals who granted us permission to use their work in our figures and illustrations.

We want to extend a huge thank you to the wonderful team at Wiley who have supported us through the process of writing this book. In particular we would like to thank Chris Webb, Sara Shlaer, Kezia Endsley, and Ellie Scott, for their advice, guidance, and support.

Thank you to Ben Bywater for casting a UX eye across everything and for providing suggestions and improvements along the way.

Thank you to the people we spoke to at the beginning of the project that helped us work out the right book to write, as well as those who provided feedback along the way. In particular Michael McKelvaney, Kit Allen, and Mark Skinner.

A personal thanks from Jesmond: Thank you Robbie for encouraging me to do this, and for all the practical support along the way. Thank you Caitlin and Edie for being wonderful, and for understanding that I had to spend a lot of time writing. I promise to be around at weekends from now on. Thank you Mum and Dad for all the support over the years.

A personal thanks from James: Lou, your love and support has been incredible. The timing of this was awful but we made it work and I will be forever grateful for your patience and understanding. Matilda and Jack you are everything a daddy could wish for, you make me so proud. Thank you Mum and Dad for all your love, support, and encouragement over the years; you are an inspiration! Thank you Anna and Peter for all your tireless help looking after Matilda and Jack; we are so grateful for everything you have done for us. Thank you Mum, Dad, Laura, and Simon for all your support, encouragement and friendship. I am blessed to have such a wonderful family and I love you all.