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Aug/12

Poster Design Contest “Redesign The Web”: The Best Entries

by Smashing Editorial under Feeds, Web Design

Yes, it’s time to announce the winners! A couple of weeks ago we had announced the “Redesign The Web” Poster Design Contest that encouraged you to design a thought-provoking poster. We wanted to encourage everyone to actively get involved in making the Web a more accessible and usable place today.

Among the entries, many have picked up the idea of the globe. We received clean and minimalistic designs, complex artworks, illustrations, inspirational quotes and call-ups, as well as a comic strip. One participant even produced a poster using only HTML5 and CSS3 (including the bleed and trim marks inside the print style sheet).

We’d like to sincerely thank all the contributors who had taken on this challenge and had sent us their work! Overall, we’ve received over 150 entries, and in a thorough review process, selected 35 of the best entries (which are now presented in the article below). And trust us—it was no piece of cake to choose the best from many excellent poster submissions. Of course, the owner of each poster owns all the copyrights for their artwork.

Winners

Rafal Tomal — Redesign The Web

Hugo Tobío — Boiled Web

Danae Botha — Limit is the Sky

“I believe true simplicity is achieved through regressing to a child-like state. It’s about seeing what is really there, as well as all the possibilities available. Deriving joy from the uncomplicated, and rejecting the clutter.”

Bonzzu — Webworld

“Redesign the Web one pixel at at time; redesign the world one individual at a time. The gap between digital and analog is disappearing fast and we have the power to change the world for the better.”

Radomir “Wingerie” Kupfer — Redesign the Web

“Itâ€™s simple, but everyone whoâ€™s connected to Web development will surely understand the message.”

Congratulations to all the winners of the contest! You should have been contacted already. We sincerely appreciate your time and support!

Below, you’ll find more selected entries submitted by our dear readers across the world for the “Redesign The Web, Redesign The World” contest.

Selected Entries

Kimberly Passmore — Rhythmatical

Jacob Greif — Redesign The Web

Maren Katelaan — Redesign The Web II

Gautam Bambolkar — Evolution

“We have been evolving right from the day life on Earth began. It’s the human urge to think, ideate, innovate, change, and think again. Initially, we travelled in person to communicate, to share. Then came the revolutionary Web, wherein we achieved virtual communication. Desktops, PCs came into action. Communication changed, people moved, the Earth reshaped. Now we are inside the world of mobiles and tablets; a wireless world indeed! The world is constantly shaping into a new form. Hence, we, the Web transformers, ought to change the way we say things. The need is to redesign the Web, and the world!”

Mark Dewdney — Redesign The Web

Melda Wibawa — Redesign The Web, Redesign The World

“The Web is like a virtual city, with its streetscapes and furniture. HTML 5, CSS 3, Social Media, etc. form the ‘WEB’ city. This city has to be well organized and designed in order to function well. By redesigning the city we can achieve a better organized world.

REDESIGN THE WEB, REDESIGN THE WORLD.”

Vidhi Mehta — Redesign The Web, Redesign The World

“My concept behind this design is a ‘tree’ to redesign the Web, redesign the world. Redesigning of the Web involves using greener technologies by working collectively to use elements that will be less hazardous to the environment. If accomplishing this, then I truly believe we have redesigned the ‘world’ by redesigning the Web.

The tree denotes collective working, growth in terms of better design, and that we are all connected to the same root, indicating that we redesign the Web (and hence the world, together). I have modified the red dot in your typography with a green leaf saying “lets begin” to mark the enthusiasm of redesigning the Web.”

Maren Katelaan — Redesign The Web

Teo Yu Siang — Join the Revolution

“This poster design—titled Join the Revolution—is inspired by Maoist ‘Red Revolution’ propaganda posters, hence the very texture-rich and grungy, old-world feel. It’s designed to feel distinctly oriental and reek of imperialism—meant to instill a sense of higher purpose and exhilaration in the Web revolution. At the center of the poster, there’s this giant symbol that represents the revolution to redesign the Web and the world—kind of like how the star represents communism. The triangle stands for delta, the mathematical symbol of change, while the globe represents the Web (and the world). Together they form a symbol of change and hope for a better Web—and thus, a better world.”

Alexander Katin — Keep Calm Redesign the Web

“I’ve come up with a no-brainer idea—it’s not original, beautiful or unique; the whole thing is just a tribute to the famous British wartime poster.”

Johannes Ippen — Redesign the World

“Instead of designing it in a classic DTP tool, I tried to utilize HTML and CSS. I wanted to create a beautiful layout, and export it with a print style sheet into a print-ready PDF file (including generated bleed & trim marks).

It’s more of an experiment to see if HTML and CSS are already usable for the production of complex editorial/poster designs.”

Marko Srdoc — HTML Globe

“Here is my modest design contribution to your Web poster contest.”

Courtney Starr — Web Wide World

Kevin Riedy — Redesign the Web World

“Yep—that’s Arial, Baby!!

Curious, after it’s all over, how many went with this paradigm.”

Chris Zappala—Redesign The Web

Mecury Brand Mission — W

Ian Caie — Flash

Posters available in: download in A3 size (PDF), download in A4 size (PDF)

Anita Mercy—The Masked Coders

Jin Wook — Click Click Done

Grzegorz Norberciak—Webld

Ian Caie — Mouse

Jose Luis Elizalde — Redesign The Web

Lourdes Irizarry — Redesign The World

“To help redesign the world I created a “Webtopia” App, where form and function unite. Using vibrant shapes as basic building blocks, I organized the town into an infographic-style pie chart, with equal parts technical and creative. The result is a clean, engaging, productive and functioning town. Influenced by travel and my favorite surroundings, I used both modern and traditional elements to create a well-balanced, multi-dimensional world.”

Steven Quinn — Redesign the World

Marcus Marritt — Designing for a Narrative

Paul Johns — A Fresh Coat of Paint

“My concept for this design is a floating city that represents both the world and the Web. This golden city has been created atop the ashes of a crumbling old city. The gold city is a representation of good design, best practices, cross-browser and platform compatibility, and the implementation of Web standards. Gold is used to represent the highest caliber quality and value, and the orange hue is a nod to Smashing Magazine.

The crumbling city beneath represents sub-par design (outdated coding practices and incompatibility across browsers and platforms). The clouds in the background reflect the status of this Web/world, fading up from dark and polluted to airy and clean. The ‘good’ city is slowly melting downward, so eventually there will be nothing left of the original city. This represents the hopeful concept that thoughtful, well-planned design will overtake careless, poorly executed design. Once standards and good designs take over everything, the floating city (the world) will have been redesigned as well.

I think itâ€™s important that the city represents both the world and the Web simultaneously, to show that they are intrinsically connected. The Web is the worldâ€™s way of communicating and interacting, so the more efficient the Web, the more efficient the world. The more beautiful the Web is, the more beautiful the world will be.”

Sergio Nakamura — Huella

Vinícius de Thomaz Domingues — Redesign The Web

Yankale Hochman — The Web as a Butterfly

“The Web has been developing very fast. In a short time, we believe that development can be compared to a caterpillar (or silkworm) that has been transforming itself into a cocoon. But there is still one step more in the evolution: the step, where a complete Web becomes light, fast, functional and as attractive as a butterfly. This last step is in our hands. LetÂ´s make it together.”

Zachary VanDeHey — Leave Your Mark

“My idea is pretty simple, redesign the web redesign the world is all about leaving your mark. I’m a firm believer that great web design can create feelings and emotions. In the same way that music and literature can move people to change and take action so too can web designs. Take hold, reload, and leave your mark.”

Inspirational Interpretations By Five Well-Respected Designers

By the start of the contest, we presented you striking and inspiring interpretations from five well-respected designers. For your convenience, these are now also available for download.

Nick La

Nick La interprets the Web as an earth-like eco-system. The Web is situated in an abstract, futuristic environment, with colors and elements that convey an almost mystical atmosphere. The interpretation has a visionary quality to it and shows a touch of Jules Verne. Have you noticed how Nick managed to have both dinosaurs and tweets in one artwork?

Larissa Meek

Larissa Meekâ€™s first poster concept is strongly geometric and bursts with color. â€œI wanted to capture the essence of what a more beautiful world would feel like based on the statement â€˜Redesign the Web, Redesign the World,’” says Larissa. The result sure catches the eye.

Larissa Meekâ€™s second concept shows another interesting approach: visualizing the various elements that the Web currently consists of. The poster captures techniques such as CSS and HTML, workflow elements such as storytelling and also the daily realities of the professional designer (such as deadlines, coffee breaks and ideation). All elements are interconnected in a clever composition using just two main colors: red and orange.

Simon C. Page

Simon C. Page is known for his abstract geometric styles. His poster design is made up of a variety of shapes and structures that are fundamental to the Web—the world being one of them.

Ricardo Gimenes

Brazilian designer Ricardo Gimenesâ€™ concept relies on Smashing Magazineâ€™s familiar cartoon style and introduces what might be considered a <redesign> tag.

Veerle Pieters

Veerle Pietersâ€™ cover design for our Smashing Book 3 reflects the various elements that a redesign has to balance with the various building blocks of the Web. Read more about Veerleâ€™s ideas behind the design and the process and read more about the printed Smashing Books 3 and 3â…“.

Be Sure To Join In Next Time!

Thanks to all who have participated in this contest. There will be more contests and goodies coming up soon, so be sure to stay tuned! And you might want to check out our previous contests as well.

Sincerely Yours,

— The Smashing Team

(jvb)

Â© Smashing Editorial for Smashing Magazine, 2012.

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31

Jul/12

Beyond Usability Testing

by Devan Goldstein under Feeds, Web Design

Usability testing and its discontents

As web professionals, weâ€™re accustomed to putting out fine websites based on best practices, analytics data, competitor review, secondary research, and our own expertise. Talented as we may be, though, it can be hard to stay aggressively committed to optimizing the user experience when more powerful and immediate success indicators like client satisfaction, aesthetic appeal, and ease of development and maintenance all compete for our attention. To overcome these boundaries on the empathy that we can extend to our sitesâ€™ imagined visitors, thereâ€™s no substitute for research conducted with actual users.

Dana Chisnell rightly noted in 2009 that usability testing allows us to â€œmake good, solid, confident decisions about design.â€� By putting our best guesses about what works in front of our target audience, we get to see where we were right and where we were wrong. I donâ€™t know anybody whoâ€™s seen their work tested without being surprised about how wrong some of their best guesses were.

Like any research method, though, usability testing has its drawbacks. Most importantly, it isnâ€™t cheap. In a classic study, youâ€™ve got the expenses of developing the testing plan, recruiting and compensating the participants, sometimes even travel. Even remote testingâ€”which has its limitationsâ€”can be expensive, because analysis of the testing data is still no easy feat. In fact, analysis is often the biggest component of the project. Going through all those testing videos and cataloging the qualitative data just canâ€™t be sped up without undermining the integrity of the study.

Moreover, the effectiveness of those typically costly methods depends on an organization putting its best foot forward. Conducting usability testing on a website with â€œlow-hanging fruitâ€� issuesâ€”those that could have been identified some cheaper wayâ€”means wasting the extra dollars on a project that, all else being equal, wonâ€™t yield the best possible website.

Fortunately, we have other usability research methods at our disposal. The standouts, expert review and heuristic evaluation, are both easy to add to a design and development process almost regardless of budget or resource concerns. Both involve minimal costs, as compared to full-scale usability testing, with expert review in particular being scalable to almost any project. For projects with fuller budgets, both techniques can maximize the cost-benefit ratios of subsequent usability testing. In the rest of this article, Iâ€™ll take a close look at each of these two techniques, their advantages and disadvantages, and the details of how to include them in your projects.

Expert review: The ultimate in discount usability engineering

In the world of usability research, expert review is known as a â€œdiscount usability engineeringâ€� method [1] because of its sometimes dramatic cost-benefit ratios. Think about it this way: On a website with enough traffic, even a 1 percent increase in conversion rate is bound to outweigh the cost of one expert spending a week or two on a review. Thatâ€™s not to speak of the decreased user frustration and increased satisfaction and loyalty that also tend to accompany well-implemented findings from all kinds of usability studies.

Expert review relies on the expertise and judgment of the evaluator rather than the feedback of an army of usability testing participantsâ€”as mediated, in larger firms anyway, by a brigade of analysts and account executives. Since different evaluators bring different backgrounds and subjectivities to the table, this literally single-minded approach limits the value of expert review to some extent. For this reason, projects with medium or large budgets sometimes include multiple reviewers.

Even with a single expert, though, this methodâ€™s advantages make it worthwhile on nearly any project. Itâ€™s blazing fast and perhaps the most cost-effective piece of usability engineering out there. It allows you to catch low-hanging fruit in preparation for a larger study (like usability testing) or to go after major issues on a site, whether it's in the design stage or has been live for years. It works on projects of any size, since even a few hours of an efficient expertâ€™s time will likely buy you substantial improvements in the areas most often affected by usability issues: conversion, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Heuristic evaluation: Where rigor meets ROI

In heuristic evaluation, an evaluator assesses the conformance of a website to a predefined set of usability heuristics, or guidelines for ensuring optimal usability. Like expert review, heuristic evaluation is considered a discount usability engineering method because of its typically favorable cost-benefit ratios [2].

Also like expert review, a heuristic evaluation can be undertaken with just a single evaluator, with all the advantages and risks discussed above. The difference is that the structure of a set of heuristics allows you to bring in multiple evaluators without dramatic cost increases. While itâ€™s good to have at least one usability expert to coordinate the study, you neednâ€™t pay for the expertise of a team, since itâ€™s typically baked into the heuristics themselves. Luckily, the good people at Userfocus have put together a list of 247 novice-friendly guidelines, and have even put them into a nifty spreadsheet with spider charts and easy-to-follow instructions.

Youâ€™ll note that some of the heuristics in the Userfocus example cover topics like the overall appeal of the design and quality of the content. Itâ€™s worth noting that these areas fall outside the traditional purview of usability methods. Heuristic evaluationâ€™s historical association with the goal of improving interface usability may have arisen because of the youth of web copywriting, for example, as compared to interface design. After all, research on software interface usability predates the advent of the webâ€”let alone the study of itâ€”by decades. Itâ€™s also a more direct precursor to the field of web usability than print design and copywriting are to their, um, digital analogs. So it makes sense that, in the early history of the web, methods like heuristic evaluation would be applied only within the usability field.

However, no principle demands such an exclusive relationship between heuristic evaluation and interface usability. In fact, heuristic evaluations that also cover things like design and content can benefit your work in those areas tremendously. Not surprisingly, many have recently attempted to generate useful heuristics for other domains (again, like copywriting). My own set of heuristics covers the following areas:

Appearance: The appeal and effectiveness of the siteâ€™s look and feel, from major layout features to small typographical details.
Content: The quality and strategic significance of the siteâ€™s contentâ€”including not only page copy but page metadata, PDFs and other files, and element-specific content (e.g., image descriptions).
Interface Usability: Ease of use of the siteâ€™s interactive components, from the simplest navigation structures to the most complex forms.
Accessibility and Technology: On a basic level, the siteâ€™s ability to adapt to diverse user needs, encompassing not only accessibility guidelines compliance but also browser compatibility and mobile- and tablet-friendliness.

Naturally, the heuristics you use should reflect your situation. If nobody in your study knows how to write, you may shy away from assessing content quality. If you havenâ€™t got access to a tablet, you shouldnâ€™t be considering tablet-friendliness.

Itâ€™s not enough to have a set of heuristics and a group of evaluators: The evaluators need to understand what to do with the heuristics. For that, you need some kind of rubric. Studies involving novice evaluators are best kept simple. The Userfocus format, for example, includes just a three-point rating system for severity, along with room for some notes.

Having experts as your evaluators allows you to include elements in your rubric besides severity rating and notes: the importance of each issue as perceived by the evaluator, for example, and a list of audiences affected by each one. However, there may be no reason to overcomplicate an admirably lean method. If needed, you can make sure the evaluation report covers these more nuanced topics.

Regardless of whoâ€™s working on the project, your severity rating systemâ€”which tells you something like, â€œHow bad is it, Doc?â€�â€”should never have more than three or four points. Heuristic evaluation helps you distill a rich and thorough data set into an accurate high-level view of a siteâ€™s strengths and weaknesses. The not-quite-black-and-white scoring is integral to that process. A seven-point scale, letâ€™s say, would make it much harder to distinguish between severe, moderate, and minimal issues. (Imagine your doctor saying, â€œItâ€™s not a very serious problem, but itâ€™s also not totally fine. Iâ€™d call it Moderately Serious Plus.â€�)

Finding help

Once you have a sense of the kind of work your project needs, itâ€™s time to look for help. You can start within your own organization, but internal reviewers can be burdened by internal politics and too familiar not only with the design up for review but even with your house style and design patterns. Still, usability professionals within your company who arenâ€™t assigned to the project can sometimes provide productive expert reviews.

If you choose to look externally, just ask around. Your professional and social networks are likely to come through for you. Usability professionals donâ€™t often get the kind of reputations hotshot designers do, but if you work in any corner of this business, chances are you know somebody who knows one of us. Failing that, the surprisingly helpful usability.gov lists a few directories you can use to find services like these.

No matter where you find your consultant, you might consider these few questions:

How much experience does the consultant have doing usability reviews? Some usability consultants focus more on the planning stage, delivering things like wireframes, personas, and information architectures. They may be rusty when it comes to reviewing existing work.
On the other hand, does the consultant do anything other than reviews? Iâ€™ve found that my reviewing skills are kept sharp by my other tasks, which give me different perspectives on what works and what doesnâ€™t. You may also have other needs (like content strategy or technical writing) that some consultants would be able to fill; many of us wear a few different hats.
Do the consultantâ€™s particular strengths appeal to you? For example, some consultants have brilliant minds for usability but write sloppy reports. If youâ€™re going to have to use the report to get buy-in for a new design project, that might not work for you. If the report is for your eyes only, you might be able to make do.
How much experience does the expert have in the industry or sector relevant to your project? Itâ€™s far from critical, but for very complex interfaces, a little prior knowledge of your users and their basic needs and dispositions can go a long way.

Baby steps toward a perfect world

In a perfect world, our understanding of our users and how they work with our websites would mean conducting not only a lot more usability testing, but also more interviews, more ethnographic observation, more... everything. In our actual world, though, tight budgets and schedules still too often mean cutting users out of the process, abandoning our empathy for them, and relying on â€œbest-guess design.â€� But it doesnâ€™t have to be that way. The typical ROI for discount usability engineering methods is stratospheric [3]. Again, without talking to users directly, we can only come so close to perfect. But if we canâ€™t afford usability testing, letâ€™s at least set aside a small percentage of our budgets for methods like expert review and heuristic evaluation, fast and effective processes designed to make our best guesses that much better.

References

[1] Jakob Nielsen, known as the godfather of web usability, coined this term in a seminal 1994 paper.

[2] Nielsen cites one of his own heuristic evaluation studies as costing approximately $10,500 and generating anticipated benefits of around $500,000.

[3]In an article also cited earlier, Nielsen writes of one heuristic evaluation project yielding a massive benefit-cost ratio of 48.

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31

Jul/12

Product Management for the Web

by Kristofer Layon under Feeds, Web Design

Whether we prototype, write, design, develop, or test as part of building the web, we’re creating something hundreds, thousands, or maybe even millions of people will use. But how do we know that we’re creating the right enhancements for the web, at the right time, and for the right customers? Because our client or boss asked us to? And how do they know?

Enter product management for the web.

For the web, product management bridges the gap between leadership and customers on one side, and the user experience, content strategy, design, and development team on the other. Product managers develop and maintain close relationships with customers and colleagues that help them identify and plan for new product or product enhancement opportunities. Product managers express these opportunities as user stories and present them to the UX, writing, design, and development members of the team, who then identify and produce solutions to address the user stories.

So how does a team or organization get started with product management for the web? It needs to start with people.

People and relationships: the sources of knowledge for product management

Writers, designers, and developers often prefer to work alone or in small groups. Creative and detailed work requires focus and isolation to be done well. We prefer to get our work done quietly at our desks, but when we’re evaluating UX and usability we must step away from our desks and spend time with customers.

The importance of anyone and everyone—regardless of their role on a team—doing UX and usability evaluation will never go away. But practically, we know there are limits to how much evaluation writers, designers, and developers can do. That’s why there’s a growing community of user experience practitioners who focus exclusively on user‑centered analysis and prototyping. On many teams, they fill that role exclusively.

But there’s more work to do before user experience analysis and even writing, design, and development should begin. It’s product management work.

The product manager forms and maintains the extensive network of relationships required to make sure the team understands problems so that it can propose, prioritize, design, build, and test the right solutions. For this, you need diplomacy, time, and communication skills. And that’s on top of being able to relate to leadership, customers, writers, and developers to earn everyone’s trust.

For example, the range of people included in the product management process is wide. As the product manager, you meet regularly one-to-one with the president, chief information officer (CIO), chief marketing officer (CMO), and, perhaps most importantly, the director of technical support or customer service of your own or your client’s organization. Documenting these meetings thoroughly is critical—the product suggestions and pain points you discover become your data for making product decisions.

The other value of these relationships is that these are the people to whom you need to communicate and evangelize your product throughout its lifecycle. These people serve a dual role: they’re not just sources of key ideas and information; they’re also the audience for your communications about priorities and, later, product performance. So how does all of that get done?

More communication!

Data and communication: the credibility of product management

What and how you communicate is a critical aspect of being a product manager:

Research: If writers, designers, and developers spend most of their time at their desks and supplement that with time spent with customers, product managers do the exact opposite. Product managers spend most of their time meeting with others to discover new needs, and research the needs that others have voiced.
Analysis: Product management also involves using surveys and web analytics tools to reveal more product data. Analyzing results reveals trends that will help you prioritize everyone’s work.
Reports: Product managers should write short reports regularly, and long reports quarterly. Fill them with graphs, charts, and summaries of your findings and opinions. Filter all of the data you collect and share it with the people who’ve informed you. This makes your analysis and growing expertise visible, which builds trust in your product decisions.
Presentations: Finally, don’t underestimate the value of face time in front of your organization’s leadership, customers, and creative and development teams. To complement your research, analysis, and reporting, be sure to schedule plenty of time to present your findings, ideas, and product priorities in person.

Giving equal weight to these tasks ensures that your product management process is a valuable and visible layer for the organizations and teams involved in satisfying user needs. The better you do this work, the more trust everyone will have in your product decisions.

So besides relationship building, data collection, analysis, and communications, is there a secret sauce of product management?

Yes, there are actually two secret sauces: user stories and road maps.

User stories: the currency of product management

Writers, designers, and developers are always concerned about deliverables, and web product managers are no different. The product manager's main deliverable is the user story.

User stories are not requirements, specifications, or designs. In fact, they’re explicitly not any of these. They can’t be—because then they wouldn’t be user stories. They’re a lot simpler than that, yet the work required to create good user stories should be substantial if you’re being thorough. Here is an example of a good user story:

As a Type G customer, I need to be able to register for Program Q in both office and mobile contexts.

For comparison, here’s a poor user story:

Customers need to use a jQuery-enhanced web form for online registration, and a link to the form should be on every page in the top nav as well as in a big red box on the homepage.

Here are some of the elements that make the first example a good user story:

The customer is identified as a specific type. Sometimes a product enhancement is not for everyone. So if it isn’t, it’s important to identify the customer or audience.
Similarly, we’ve described the task with comparable detail. This category of customer needs to register for something online, and a particular type of something—Program Q.
There is some additional clarification about the context in which this work needs to be done—in this case, regardless of whether they’re at a desktop computer in the office or using a mobile device.

Just as important to note are the things that are absent. It bears repeating: there are no detailed requirements, specifications, or design details in user stories. That’s because as a product manager, you craft stories based on people’s needs. It’s everyone else’s job to create solutions that address the needs articulated in the user story.

Be sure to avoid expressing design solutions as in the second example. The second example is also poor because it addresses customers in general, and registering for any program. General customer and task types can be okay, but the more specific a need definition can be, the better. Once you’ve created a few user stories, you can assemble them into a road map.

Road maps: the itinerary of product management

Uncovering the need for new or enhanced products, and capturing those needs in user stories, is one thing. How about when there are a lot of new products or enhancements, and it’s too much for a team to get done at once?

This is a problem, but it’s a good problem. And it means that as product manager, you have more work to do. You must set priorities. But this isn’t like dealing with a bushel of Halloween candy after trick or treating: the designers and developers don’t just get to reach into the user story container and choose the ones that look good to them. That is not very objective, and personal preferences shouldn’t be the source of priorities for team members.

As the web product manager, it’s your job to set user story priorities, and to organize these priorities in road maps and release schedules. A road map is a visual representation of the top user stories in the user story backlog, and it depicts priorities and groups of related priorities, called “epics.” A release schedule is a version of a road map, sometimes not as visual but always in some kind of timeline format. As the name implies, a release schedule is where you would communicate your intent to have Improvement A available to customers in the first quarter of year 20XX, Improvements B and C in the second quarter, and new Product D available in the third quarter.

Also, it’s important to understand that you can objectively set priorities, even if they are actually subjective priorities to your customers and stakeholders. In fact, this is where the art and science of product management intersect: you must be passionately committed to your customers and colleagues, yet objective about setting priorities that help them. Choosing the right tools and mechanisms for making decisions can help with this process. The Kano Model is one such tool.

The Kano Model: a tool of product management

The Kano Model is a theory that was developed in the 1980s within the Japanese automotive industry. It’s a great tool that product managers can use to analyze and compare product attributes in three categories:

Basic: A basic product attribute is one that is essential for a product. Using the automotive industry, a basic product attribute for a car would be a steering wheel or an engine. A car needs both to function.
Performance: These attributes are ones that can be compared between examples of a product because they differ substantially. A performance attribute for a car is fuel efficiency, or how well it performs using a gallon of fuel. People tend to prefer cars with a better fuel efficiency attribute.
Delightful: Delightful attributes are ones that go beyond basic or performance attributes, and sometimes they aren’t necessary at all but can excite customers. For a car, a delightful attribute could be a convertible roof. On the right sporty car and for the right customers, a convertible roof can be really fun. But it’s not essential for the car to work, and also doesn’t enhance the car’s performance.

Using these three attributes, a product manager can analyze a variety of potential enhancements using a metric such as a five-point scale. And the more customer and analytics input you have, the better.

For example, if you want to make a website mobile optimized, you might have the following list of user stories you’d like to implement:

Users on iPhones should be able to use the website without pinching and zooming.
Users on Android handsets should be able to use the website without pinching and zooming.
Users should be able to complete web forms on mobile devices with minimal effort.
Users of seven-inch tablets should be able to use the website comfortably, with navigation scaled to the screen and their fingers.

I’m not going to tell you which user stories should have priority over others because those priorities should be specific to the needs and preferences of both your organizationâ€™s leadership and your product's customers. But if you’re getting input from your organization, asking your customers how they use your web product, and verifying activity via analytics, a product manager should be able to discern which enhancements will deliver the most value and whether that value is basic, performance-enhancing, or perhaps even a delightful improvement that will surprise your customers and generate some enthusiasm for your product.

This example shows how you can take a longer list of user stories and break it down into smaller amounts of work that can be spread across a team. Those smaller amounts of work can be communicated in release schedules, and you can report on those schedules in a product road map. All of this helps organizations, design teams, and development teams navigate product markets with more intention and certainty.

Minimal viable product: a goal of product management

The goal of product management is to deliver smaller improvements more continuously to those who use your website, mobile app, or other software. When design and development teams bite off more than they can chew quickly, a website or app can stagnate.

In a world of constantly changing web technologies, product management can provide the clarity you need for design and development to take place more efficiently. It aims for a minimal viable product: one that meets people’s needs as best as possible, and meets them today. But then on the very next day, you don’t just sit back and call the product complete: you user-validate what you’ve done, and see what needs to be improved next. Then the product manager prioritizes new user stories and sets new release dates to continue improving the site or the app.

The web is a big place, and it’s only going to get bigger. But people do not need a bigger web, they just need a better web. Product managers help the web get better, and keep organizations and teams focused on what people need the most. By investing in relationships with people inside and outside an organization, web product managers learn what’s needed to set smart product priorities that gradually but steadily make the web better.

Because the web is never done.

Translations:
Italian

Illustration by Kevin Cornell

RSS readers: Don't forget to join the discussion!

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31

Jul/12

Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: August 2012

by Smashing Editorial under Feeds, Web Design

We always try our best to challenge your artistic abilities and produce some interesting, beautiful and creative artwork. And as designers we usually turn to different sources of inspiration. As a matter of fact, weâ€™ve discovered the best oneâ€”desktop wallpapers that are a little more distinctive than the usual crowd. This creativity mission has been going on for over four years now, and we are very thankful to all designers who have contributed and are still diligently contributing each month.

We continue to nourish you with a monthly spoon of inspiration. This post features free desktop wallpapers created by artists across the globe for August 2012. Both versions with a calendar and without a calendar can be downloaded for free. Itâ€™s time to freshen up your wallpaper!

Please note that:

All images can be clicked on and lead to the preview of the wallpaper,
You can feature your work in our magazine by taking part in our Desktop Wallpaper Calendar series. We are regularly looking for creative designers and artists to be featured on Smashing Magazine. Are you one of them?

The Lady With Red Coat

Designed by Viktor Mazhlekov from Bulgaria.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

August Cat

Designed by Soodabeh Amirakbari from Iran.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 640×960, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Fly

"Colors!!" Designed by Lotum from Germany.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Searching for Higgs Boson

Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Russia.

preview
with calendar: 800×600, 960×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1229×768, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1440×900, 1440×960, 1600×1200, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1728×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2304×1440, 2560×1600
without calendar: 800×600, 960×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1229×768, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1440×900, 1440×960, 1600×1200, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1728×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2304×1440, 2560×1600

Ahoy

Designed by Webshift 2.0 from South Africa.

preview
with calendar: 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Through Happy Shades

Designed by Mihai Fischer from Romania.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Colorstrike

Designed by AndrÐ â„– Presser from Germany.

preview
with calendar: 1280×720, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×720, 1440×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Let’s Go Great Britain

"”Let’s go Great Britain!” typographic wallpaper to cheer at the 2012 London Olympic games." Designed by Paula RÐ“Ñ”polo For Garment Printing from United Kingdom.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Childhood Memories

Designed by Francesco Paratici from Australia.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Olympic Games

Designed by Cortando Pixeles from Argentina.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1600×1200, 1920×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×960, 1400×1050, 1600×1200, 1920×1440

London Olympics

Designed by Meenal Jain from India.

preview
with calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Deer Summer

Designed by Resko Elena from Russia.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080

Late Summer

"Butter yellow daisies for the last of summer days!" Designed by Karen Keung from Canada.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Frederique’s Summer

"Frederique is a satiric comic strip about hanging around at beaches, getting rejected by hot chicks and enjoying life with full blown optimism." Designed by Richard Dancsi from Hungary/Germany.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Forest

"A trip into the woods. August 2012." Designed by Timothy J. Reynolds from USA.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Team Gb

"August 2012 is here which means it is time for the Olympic Games! This calendar incorporates various aspects of London, the UK and the Olympics." Designed by Donna Hall And Loren Grosvenor from United Kingdom.

preview
with calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050
without calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050

Infinite Imagination

"The Power of Imagination makes us Infinite." Designed by Roland Szabo from Hungary.

preview
with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 2560×1600
without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1600×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440, 2560×1600

World Traffic Lights Day

Designed by Cheloveche.ru from Russia.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200
without calendar: 395×512, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1200

Cycling Holidays

"Ð²Ð‚ÑšNothing compares with the simple pleasure of a bike ride.Ð²Ð‚Ñœ Ð²Ð‚â€œ President John F. Kennedy." Designed by Simona Gosu from Romania.

preview
with calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×720, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×900, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Lucky August

"Life is a game. Are you feeling lucky in August?" Designed by Marina-art from Russia.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200

Augmented August

"In summer things may seem different then they really are. Which is not necessarily a bad thing." Designed by Sanja Vukasinovic from Serbia.

preview
with calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 2560×1440

Summertime

"It’s summertime so enjoy the weather!" Designed by Christina Mokry (allaci Gmbh) from Germany.

preview
with calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Your Title Holed

Designed by Agata MaciÑ™gowska from Poland.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440
without calendar: 320×480, 640×480, 800×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1152×864, 1280×720, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1280×1024, 1400×1050, 1440×900, 1600×1200, 1680×1050, 1680×1200, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 1920×1440, 2560×1440

Summer Rain

Designed by Virginia Saint from USA.

preview
with calendar: 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440
without calendar: 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 1920×1200, 2560×1440

Responsive Wallpaper

"I was thinking to make the wallpaper as a responsive design, i’d add more interaction next month." Designed by Mondedesign.net from France.

preview
with calendar: 768×1024, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1366×768, 1440×900, 1680×1050, 1920×1080, 2560×1440

Monster Attack

Designed by MicroCreatives.

preview
with calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1336×768, 1920×1200
without calendar: 320×480, 1024×768, 1024×1024, 1336×768, 1920×1200

Join In Next Month!

Please note that we respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artistâ€™s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience throughout their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers werenâ€™t anyhow influenced by us, but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.

A big thank you to all designers for their participation. Join in next month!

Whatâ€™s Your Favorite?

Whatâ€™s your favorite theme or wallpaper for this month? Please let us know in the comment section below.

Stay creative and keep on smashing!

(vf)

kranthi Leave a Comment more...

27

Jul/12

Journey Through The JavaScript MVC Jungle

by Addy Osmani under Feeds, Web Design

kranthi Leave a Comment more...

Tag: kranthi

Winners

Rafal Tomal — Redesign The Web

Hugo Tobío — Boiled Web

Danae Botha — Limit is the Sky

Bonzzu — Webworld

Radomir “Wingerie” Kupfer — Redesign the Web

Selected Entries

Kimberly Passmore — Rhythmatical

Jacob Greif — Redesign The Web

Maren Katelaan — Redesign The Web II

Gautam Bambolkar — Evolution

Mark Dewdney — Redesign The Web

Melda Wibawa — Redesign The Web, Redesign The World

Vidhi Mehta — Redesign The Web, Redesign The World

Maren Katelaan — Redesign The Web

Teo Yu Siang — Join the Revolution

Alexander Katin — Keep Calm Redesign the Web

Johannes Ippen — Redesign the World

Marko Srdoc — HTML Globe

Courtney Starr — Web Wide World

Kevin Riedy — Redesign the Web World

Chris Zappala—Redesign The Web

Mecury Brand Mission — W

Ian Caie — Flash

Anita Mercy—The Masked Coders

Jin Wook — Click Click Done

Grzegorz Norberciak—Webld

Ian Caie — Mouse

Jose Luis Elizalde — Redesign The Web

Lourdes Irizarry — Redesign The World

Steven Quinn — Redesign the World

Marcus Marritt — Designing for a Narrative

Paul Johns — A Fresh Coat of Paint

Sergio Nakamura — Huella

Vinícius de Thomaz Domingues — Redesign The Web

Yankale Hochman — The Web as a Butterfly

Zachary VanDeHey — Leave Your Mark

Inspirational Interpretations By Five Well-Respected Designers

Be Sure To Join In Next Time!

Usability testing and its discontents

Expert review: The ultimate in discount usability engineering

Heuristic evaluation: Where rigor meets ROI

Finding help

Baby steps toward a perfect world

References

People and relationships: the sources of knowledge for product management

Data and communication: the credibility of product management

User stories: the currency of product management

Road maps: the itinerary of product management

The Kano Model: a tool of product management

Minimal viable product: a goal of product management

The Lady With Red Coat

August Cat

Fly

Searching for Higgs Boson

Ahoy

Through Happy Shades

Colorstrike

Let’s Go Great Britain

Childhood Memories

Olympic Games

London Olympics

Deer Summer

Late Summer

Frederique’s Summer

Forest

Team Gb

Infinite Imagination

World Traffic Lights Day

Cycling Holidays

Lucky August

Augmented August

Summertime

Your Title Holed

Summer Rain

Responsive Wallpaper

Monster Attack

Join In Next Month!

Whatâ€™s Your Favorite?