UXpod - User Experience Podcast

TramTracker is an application that runs on iPhone (and other platforms) and gives Melbourne commuters real-time information on tram movements. Robert Amos talks about developing the application.Visit www.uxpod.com for a transcript of this and other episodes.

Gerry Gaffney interviews GerryMcGovern, author of "Killer Web Content".(This site is maintained for historical purposes only. Visit www.uxpod.com for a transcript of this and other episodes, and a searchable archive.)

Gerry Gaffney interviews Tom Vanderbilt, author of "Why we drive the way we do (and what it says about us)".(This site is maintained for historical purposes only. Visit www.uxpod.com for a transcript of this and other episodes, and a searchable archive.)

Gerry Gaffney interviews John Rhodes about how to sell usability, and about John's book "Selling Usability: User Experience Infiltration Tactics".Please visit www.uxpod.com for a transcript of this and other episodes.

Gerry Gaffney interviews Marc Rettig of Fit Associates on immersion, responsible design, and working with conscious organisations.You can read a transcript at www.uxpod.com.

Gerry Gaffney interviews Shawn Henry about the release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines V2.0 (www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/).A transcript of this episode is available at www.uxpod.com.Note that the User Experience Podcast is now hosted within the Information & Design website (www.infodesign.com.au) - and it's searchable.

Gerry Gaffney interviews Ginny Redish about the communication needs of web users, about whether those needs are changing, and about how to meet them. "It's not about the words," says Ginny, "it's about helping people accomplish their goals." She says that this has led to a change from command-based to task-based communication.Ginny's book is "Letting go of the words: Writing Web Content that Works" (tinyurl.com/3m5fee).Ginny mentions the forthcoming book by Caroline Jarrett and me - that's "Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms for Usability" (tinyurl.com/44muxd). In the interests of full disclosure, I must point out that both books are in the same series.Ginny also refers to "Christensen"; that book is "The Innovator's Dilemma" (tinyurl.com/4otvnq)."Older Wiser Wired" (aarp.org/olderwiserwired) is at the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). An article by Tom Tullis of Fidelity Investments about designing for older users (tinyurl.com/537ooa) is also online there.Gerry mentions a previous episode with Dave Grey of Xplane (www.uxpod.com/index.php?post_id=238707).(References to individual books on this website are links to Amazon.com - we earn a small commission on any purchases you make on following such links).Duration: 19:55File size: 3.41MB

Gerry Gaffney interviews David Jaffe about customer service.David talks about the "bizarre myth that the head of customer service is responsible for customer service", and the problems that arise from treating customer service as a cost centre.He tells us that resolution, not handling time, is what matters.David asks: Why do companies spend millions of dollars on customer research but not learn anything from the day-to-day interactions they already have?He talks about how inappropriate measures result in the the wrong behaviour from front-line staff, and what happens when IT or Marketing departments have to take responsibility for the problems they cause?David also tells us about how Amazon melts the "snowball" of repeat contacts.David's very interesting book (co-authored with Bill Price) is "The Best Service is No Service" (tinyurl.com/68mtbu).His company is Limebridge (www.limebridge.com.au)The UK company whose customer service David praises is egg (new.egg.com)Duration: 27:19File size: 4.69MB

Gerry Gaffney spoke to Sam Ng from Optimal Usability in New Zealand (www.optimalusability.com). Sam is responsible for OptimalSort, an online card sorting tool (www.optimalsort.com).Sam speaks about the challenges of balancing user-centred design practices with the need to meet deadlines. Do small development teams really need to use personas?Sam says software can be "too convenient" if we rely too much on stats to "spit out" answers.Sam mentions some other products:Morae (www.techsmith.com/morae.asp)Axure (www.axure.com)LiveMeeting (office.microsoft.com/livemeeting)GoTo Meeting (www.gotomeeting.com)Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics)Crazy Egg (crazyegg.com)UserTesting.com (www.usertesting.com)BaseCamp (www.basecamphq.com) from 37 signals (www.37signals.com).Thanks to Jo Eaton for the photo of Sam.And apparently if Optimal Usability were a person it would be Jackie Chan (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan) Duration: 17:04File size: 2.92MB

Gerry Gaffney conducts a wide-ranging interview with Jakob Nielsen.Is web usability where it's at? Does usability have a say on climate change? Why is the keyboard so popular?Jakob talks about having data propagate to multiple devices, about why government agencies continue to apply an outdated "waterfall' model, and about how usability can make developing countries rich quickly and thus improve the environment.He talks about the need to make things easier if you want people to do those things, about future directions in user interaction, and about the need to start small if you're budget-constrained.Jakob Nielsen's website is useit.com (www.useit.com)His company is the Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com).Jakob refers to Microsoft's Ray Ozzie (www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/ozzie/default.mspx) and Groove (www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2000/10/24/ozzie_interview.html).He also refers to the anti-mac interface (www.useit.com/papers/anti-mac.html).Jakob's forthcoming event is usability week (www.nngroup.com/events/).Jakob's excellent books include "Usability Engineering" (tinyurl.com/4lsfdv) and "Designing Web Usability" (tinyurl.com/5ymz5t).