BUX – Bentley Human Factors & Information Design Organization

“As UX professionals, we generally have an abundant breadth of experience across different industries and businesses. Our clients, on the other hand, have great depth of knowledge in their own domain. However, only users themselves can intimately appreciate their own needs, and user experience is the only field that considers the user’s perspective at every stage of a project.” View the entire story at UXmatters.

“We all know basic tenets of user-centered design. We recognize different research methods, the prototyping stage, as well as the process of documenting techniques in our rich methodological environment. The question you probably often ask yourself, though, is how it all works in practice?” Read the entire article on Smashing Magazine.

“Mobile versions of sites aren’t wrong, per se. But they often force us to make decisions about content based on assumption, rather than knowledge. Assumptions like “mobile users are on the go,” something countless couch-lounging couples ending a debate via Wikipedia would heartily disagree with.” See more from Sara Wachter-Boettcher.

“When users land on your website, they typically read the content available. Then, the next thing that they will do is to try and familiarize themselves with your website. Most of the time this involves looking for navigation.” Read the full story on Smashing Magazine.

“Guidelines are considered to be the best resource that designers and developer can use to ensure that the applications and websites they produce are usable. Operating systems, devices, and development environments are very specific in nature. Because of this, their manufacturers have devised their own set of usability, UX, and UI guidelines.” View the full article on Usability Geek.

“When you do a lot of writing, you’ll end up with lots of ideas and articles at various stages, including your idea lists, articles you’ve just started writing, halfway-finished articles, completed drafts that you need to review, final versions you’re waiting to publish, and articles that have already been published. It’s hard to keep track of all these pieces without good organization.” Learn more at UXmatters.

“Good news, everyone! There are plenty of free and easy-to-use tools out there that can make you look like a master designer! This post will break down 13 of our favorites so you too can create visuals and images that make your marketing pop. Get ready to create visualizations, banners, infographics, the whole nine yards like a total pro.” Read more on HubSpot.

“Among iOS developers, the day that you finally submit your app for Apple’s approval can be a tense one. Even when you’ve seemingly followed the guidelines, polished the code and passed every field test, Apple can still reject your app for almost any reason.” Learn more at Mashable.

“The key statement of Fitts’s Law is that the time required to move a pointing device to a target is a function of the distance to the target and its size. In layman’s terms: the closer and larger a target, the faster it is to click on that target. This is easy to understand, not too difficult to implement and it doesn’t seem to make much sense to contradict such a simple and obvious statement. However…” Learn more on Smashing Magazine.

“As designers and developers, we spend a great deal of time and effort getting a project just right for a client, yet often we don’t do it justice when we display the extent of our involvement and the various component parts that go into the whole thing. So many personal and agency portfolios simply display a couple of screen grabs of a project along with a few hazy bullet points saying things like “HTML & CSS”; or “WordPress CMS development.” These tell us very little about the effort that’s gone into a project and aren’t really very helpful to visitors who might be looking to your portfolio with a view to working with you on a project.” Read the full story at Smashing Magazine.

“Today’s web design professionals practice any mix of graphic design, information architecture, user interface design, usability testing, user research, and front-end or back-end development skills. The value of the modern web design professional is not those disciplines, however, but the ability to combine them to solve real problems, especially as a group. Effective group work requires structured, strategic meetings, and good facilitation provides that structure.” See the full piece at A List Apart.

“The Semantic Web is a movement that aims to add value and utility to online information by structuring data in a way that both computers and humans can understand. The goal: computer systems that can understand and infer meaning – for instance, a computer system that knows the difference between an “organ” that is a musical instrument, and an “organ” that lives inside your body. Services like Siri, Wolfram Alpha, and Knowledge Graph have shown us what it’s like to consume content on the Semantic Web. But what if your business wants to create Semantic Web content?” View the full article on The Globe and Mail.

“In-person user research has been around the longest, and is still widely used as a great way to gather feedback on websites, advertisements, or software. In-person research usually involves letting users perform tasks on a computer while asking them questions, observing their behaviors and body language, or having them think out loud. Additional hardware can be used, such as eye tracking devices.” See the full story at UX Magazine.

“Are you worried about how customers in other countries will react to your product or service? Not really sure who your international customers even are, or what they want and need? To find out, it might be time to pop outside the domestic market and conduct an international user research study.” Read the full article at UX Magazine.

“The concept of responsive design—the practice of creating digital experiences that adapt to seamlessly deliver content suited to the device context of the user’s operating system, screen size, or orientation—has been around for quite some time. For a variety of reasons, more companies are now giving responsive design serious consideration. The implications of moving to a responsive approach of creating adaptable designs can seem overwhelming, but the benefits can be significant.” Read the complete article at UX Magazine.

“How many times have you thought of a neat idea only to forget it hours or days later? Our most innovative ideas are more likely to come to us when we are away from the office, thus, we are not necessarily in a position to act on them right away. Think of a way you can capture these ideas on-the-go, perhaps in a notepad application on your phone.” View the full article on The Fast Track.

“In my opinion, social media is very much our concern. That is because social media is firmly a part of the user’s experience, and we are user experience designers. The user experience does not occur within a single channel (such as a website or Facebook page). Users move between multiple channels and so all of these channels need to be designed as one consistent user experience.” Read the complete article at Smashing Magazine.

“In content strategy, content governance is a broad term that can apply to everything from workflows to style guides. The problem that arises with such a varied theoretical understanding of the term is that it is often talked about at the tactical level instead of at the strategic one. Meaning, content owners may be provided with governance documents to delineate how a content asset moves through the pipeline from ideation to publication, but it rarely leverages the organizational chart in a way that involves decision-makers at the higher levels. Content simply can’t be an organization’s biggest asset if the buy-in isn’t there to appreciate its value.” Learn more at Follow the UX Leader.

“In the workplace, both how you work and how long you work on a project matter. Regardless of your seniority, the total number of hours you put in at work gets tracked—especially if you work for a consultancy. The ratio between the number of hours you actually put into a project versus the number of hours allotted for the project—in other words, the cost of your working on a project in comparison to how much a client is paying your company for the work—are numbers that drive the success or failure of your company. If you spend a lot more time on a project than you were supposed to, your company is losing money.” Read more at UXmatters.

The approach, roles and theory of content strategy is one thing; actually doing the work is another. Here are a list of tools that you can use to approach content strategically, as well as some ideas for new ones. – Read more about it at UX Booth