Adaptive Path Podcast

Peter has a conversation with UX Week 2009 presenter Scott McCloud, best known for his book Understanding Comics, and more recently for the comic explaining Google Chrome. They discuss comics, visual expression, Edward Tufte, and the importance of believing in the message.

Co-founder and President of Adaptive Path Jesse James Garrett provides an inside look at the process of creating Aurora, a concept video depicting one possible future user experience for the Web. Jesse talks about the technology trends that will shape the future Web, outlines the challenges of designing a future product, and takes the audience for a behind the scenes look at the creation of the Aurora concept video.

Architects make buildings for people. Information architects make information spaces for people. So how do you build doors, windows, and porches into information spaces? And how do you make it easy for people to find what they want in over 10,000 episodes of a daily TV show? To find out, I had tea with Audrey Chen, Senior Information Architect at Comedy Central who recently created a searchable online archive of 10 years of "The Daily Show". From 24 hour crews who watched and tagged every single episode, to the challenge of "future-proofing" information architecture systems so that they can grow and change over time, Audrey shared a glimpse into what it takes to organize and manage the massive influx of data in our world.

UX Week 2008 kicked off with an on-stage conversation between the President and founder of Adaptive Path, Peter Merholz, and industry legend Don Norman. Don wrote the founding text on user-centered design, entitied, “The Design of Everyday Things”, and also coined the term “user-experience” while at Apple in the early 1990s. They talk about the importance of the semantic differences around common issues in business like ROI from a design perspective, the necessity to look beyond the “all mighty dollar,” the importance of being passionate about your ideas, and knowing ultimately all team members want to create great products and services for other people. Don shares his insights about the UX Week presentation given by Microsoft’s Jensen Harris around the usability of the Ribbon in the latest version of MS Office as well as the exciting future that lies ahead for all in the UX field.

In this conversation, Experience Designer Leah Buley from Adaptive Path shares some of the lightweight techniques that she and her team use to explore a variety of solutions quickly and how to enlist the support of non-team members in the UX process. We talk about the video biographies of other team members at Adaptive Path and how all started out from humble beginnings – some in fields that had little to do with what we think about today as traditional UX projects – and how those experiences have helped in building great products and services. Leah outlines the advice she gives in her conference talk Being a UX Team of One. Videos from On-Stage Presentation Leah was kind enough to share the videos she used in her presentation. Thanks again, Leah! # Watch members of Adaptive Path describe their first job in User Experience # Watch as Pam Daughlin answers the question When did you first discover UX? # Watch various members at Adaptive Path share their thoughts on what’s hot in User Experience at the moment.