Userfocus Usability Newsletter, June 2013

Welcome to the June edition of the Userfocus usability newsletter.

• Message from the Editor
• Feature article: What Gordon Ramsay can teach us about giving feedback to design teams
• Announcing a new training course on design research
• What we're reading
• Upcoming training courses
• User experience quotation of the month

Message from the Editor

This month’s article is about Gordon Ramsay. As an award-winning, TV celebrity chef, you may not think that Mr Ramsay has a lot to say about user experience.

Well — get ready to be surprised.

By studying his shows, we can learn some techniques for providing user interface critiques and when they may or may not work.

Alongside the article, we have a very special offer for newsletter subscribers.

Seasoned readers will be aware that I want to get 1,105 people on my online user experience course before World Usability Day on 14 November. To boost numbers, I’ve arranged with Udemy to provide a massive 75% discount for readers of this newsletter.

The course is normally priced at $199 but you can get it for $49 with a special coupon code.

This is an exclusive discount for newsletter readers, and is only valid until June 14th. After that, the code won’t work anymore and you’ll need to pay full price. You won’t find a better deal anywhere else. To secure your spot for only $49 (instead of the usual $199), sign up for our newsletter using the form on the right.

If you're too busy to take the course right now, remember you can still claim the offer but take the training whenever you like because you get lifetime access to the course.

We only have a limited number of places at this price to give away so get in quick.

— David Travis

Feature article: What Gordon Ramsay can teach us about giving feedback to design teams

The Michelin-starred chef and restaurant troubleshooter can teach us a thing or two about providing design criticism, although some of it you may wish to avoid. Read the article in full: What Gordon Ramsay can teach us about giving feedback to design teams.

Announcing a new training course on design research

For some time now, we've been developing a new course on design research and we're proud to say we're launching it today. Titled "An Introduction to Design Ethnography", it's for people in UX teams who need to understand users better in order to develop design concepts. The course covers observation and interviewing techniques, managing field data collection and analysis, and shows how to build 'everyday field working' practices into your daily routine. The course is led by Cat Macaulay, a Senior Lecturer on the world's first full Masters in Design Ethnography. We're currently offering this as an in-house course and you can take a look at the details of the course here.

What we’re reading

Some interesting usability-related articles that got our attention over the last month:

• 5 user research mistakes to avoid.
• Restaurant menu psychology: tricks to make us order more.
• Do you design for kids? The position of navigation buttons affects usability of apps for children.
• User Experience Benchmarks for Tablets and Smartphones.
• Card Sort Analysis Best Practices.
• SIX UX: A kind of transition/animation style guide.

Like these? Want more? Follow us on Twitter.

Usability Training: Now Booking

Web Usability: An Introduction to User Experience, June 10-11, London.

This web usability training course will give you hands-on practice in all the key areas of usability, from identifying your customers through to usability testing your web site with them. 2 places remaining. More information about this training course: Web Usability: An Introduction to User Experience.

User Experience quotation of the month

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” — Bill Cosby.

Hungry for more?

Read previous newsletters.