small screens, big lessons

Vancouver usability professional Paul Hibbitts graced the Vancouver User Experience Group with his presence tonight, delivering a talk entitled "Small Screens, Big Lessons" where he focused on some of his lessons learned working on designing interfaces for a variety of small devices. An excellent communicator and lecturer, Paul did a great job sharing his insights with the VanUE. Interesting tidbits included Paul's matrix of task likelihood vs. task frequency (always useful for prioritizing features) and his thoughts on behavioural psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow and how it applies to UI design. Might have to grab a copy of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. The graph from the presentation (another graph, we love the graphs!) certainly hinted at it being a fun read.

Great presentation, available for download on Paul's website, along with a bundle of other very useful links and material.

Next VanUE: November. Topic/Format: some kind of discussion on innovation. Watch for that one.