Last month I visited MobX, a conference in Berlin about user experience for mobile devices. There, I got The Mobile Frontier, book written by Rachel Hinman. In this wonderful piece, Rachel tells about the place we are coming from and where we are going, in terms of user experience and interaction design.

But what Rachel does best in the book is to clearly put together 8 principles of Natural User Interfaces:

1. Performance Aesthetics: the joy of doing
2. Direct Manipulation: directly interaction with information objects
3. Scaffolding: indications of how the interaction will unfold
4. Contextual environments: interfaces locate themselves in space and time
5. Super Real: we perceive this interfaces as super real
6. Social Interaction: interfaces enable users to engage with other users
7. Spatial Representation: objects are intelligent and have auras
8. Seamlessness: fewer barriers between the user and information

I found that having these principles in mind at the moment of creating a new design comes very handy.

I don’t want to duplicate even more content, you can find the full explanation to each point on Quora.

One of the most interesting points I have found on Jon Radoff’s book “Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games” was his proposal to apply character archetypes to customers and users.

Which character best personifies your users?

I was thinking that this recommendation is a great one and this technique could really help people in the product and design team to brainstorm new interfaces, features and services for users.

Imagine you were designing for a female audience, once you have done your research about your users’ personality and motivations, wouldn’t be helpful to picture their behavior with character archetypes?

Do your customers behave like wonder women or princesses?

I think looking for character archetypes and representing them with images is a technique worth trying.

I totally recommend Jon’s book, it is full of interesting tips: Game On: Energize Your Business with Social Media Games.

Picture sources: Yourlamode, Eden Glenn Blog

Should design speak the language of business or should business speak the language of design? It doesn’t matter, The Lean Startup, written by Eric Ries, translates design into business language and help designers evangelize UX across companies.

The Lean Startup is putting together (not inventing) well-known UX design practices like:

• User observation,
• More ethnography,
• User tests,
• User Interviews,
• Rapid iteration and
• Prototyping

Eric Ries put all those concepts into a book full of business buzz words to bring the UX practice to managers. You will find “eliminate uncertainty”, “work smarter”, “validate” and “minimum viable product.” This is what managers need to read, not mystic words like “ethnography.”

Some designers have been complaining on Twitter, saying that Mr. Ries is “stealing” our concepts to sell them as a new movement. Well, let me tell you, he is actually doing us a favor.

The wording doesn’t matter, just go buy the book and give it to top managers. Eric explains in a very appealing way why every company, an specially startups, should use all those techniques user experience designers have being taking into practice for years.

The Lean Startup will help you spread the UX message.