Titanic & Monkey Business. Part 1 of Empathy Series.

Empathy is said to be a core tool in user experience. You might even refer to it as “Innovation’s pixie dust.” That makes it seem pretty important, and it is. Because it’s so important, we need to understand what empathy is and how it works. This will provide a context for, and enrichment of, our professional work.

What is empathy according…

At the 5th annual UXify conference, sponsored by Infragistics, I had the privilege of giving the keynote address. In my presentation, entitled, Making Technology Personal...Again, I attempted to explain how the process of design has evolved (or devolved, if you prefer) over time, it's implications for people and technology and how we designers bear the responsibility to remove the phrase, "I'm not good at computers" from…

Infragistics is working to make it easier for you to find great information you can use to get your work done faster and easier. You may have already noticed some big changes in our main site, with easier access to detailed information, a standardized navigation experience, and great how-to material throughout the site.

Over the next few months, you’ll also find changes to the Infragistics blogs, beginning now. Instead…

What is UXify?

Infragistics held its 5^th annual, US-based UXify event on Friday, 7 April 2017 at our global headquarters in Cranbury, NJ. UXify is our half-day user experience conference filled with presentations from thought leaders with unique perspectives on the future of UX, design, and the process that underlies the creation of useful, beautiful experiences.

Why UXify?

We created UXify because user experience is…

Earlier this year, the infamous mix-up announcement for the Oscar’s award for Best Picture set the internet ablaze. Everyone took to criticizing the mishap, in which a presenter read from a Best Actress card instead of the Best Picture card, mistakenly announcing “La La Land” as Best Picture (instead of the true winner, “Moonlight.”) Designers were quick to criticize the card design, examining how the poorly thought out…

This past weekend I had a little post-St. Patrick’s Day fun hanging out with my husband at a local biergarten. We drank some delicious Belgian beer, shared a giant pretzel, and spent the afternoon people watching. Good times!

While sitting at the bar, my husband pointed out the non-traditionally shaped coasters they used there; they consisted of the usual circle to put your mug on with an extra bubble attached to…

Celebrate UXify 2017 - Making Technology Personal with the Infragistics team and special guestson Friday, April 7, 2017 from noon till 5.

Our fifth annual FREE user experience event brings together the community of academics, practitioners, technologists, and business leaders for a conversation about applied design, UX, content strategy and development at Infragistics' ultra-sleek, central NJ-based headquarters. Lunch…

I once was in a project-scoping meeting for a client who wanted to create next generation banking products and services. Since these were new ideas, they assumed that the customers didn’t exist yet. We were considering conducting contextual inquiries, and a colleague said, “You can’t research someone who doesn’t exist yet.” His point was that you can’t go out and observe a future set of tasks that no one performs yet…

As I wrote in an earlier blog, the Infragistics’ UX team was named a 2017 Interaction Design Association’s (IxDA) international awards competition finalist. It was a great honor to have been selected by the judges for our redesign of the complex, scientific software that controls Keysight Technology’s line of Atomic Force Microscopes.

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UXify US 2017 is currently accepting proposals for the conference scheduled to take place at Infragistics in Cranbury, NJ on Friday, April 7. If you have a unique perspective on UX Research, Design, Development, Content and the process that underlies the creation of awesome experiences, we would love to hear from you!

In previous years, we’ve had speakers from AT&T, Deutsche Bank, HFI, Electronic Ink, EPAM, Google, Siemens…

What is Infragistics Consulting?

Since its inception in 2008, the Infragistics Consulting Team has worked with customers across a wide variety of verticals and business challenges to design and build useful, usable, beautiful and maintainable software products using Infragistics’ suite of products. We pride ourselves in understanding what our clients need and want. Take, for example, our recent work with Keysight…

As Infragistics’ user experience consulting group here in Cranbury, the UX work that we do for our clients doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves. While our efforts positively affect the working lives of thousands of individuals across all industry verticals, our proudest achievements are often celebrated only by client project teams and the other UX folks here in the office.

That changed for us this…

Imagine conducting extensive user research. You reveal extremely interesting information and present it to your client and the project team. They seem intrigued and appreciate learning about the users and their needs. You feel that you’ve done a good job and that this knowledge is going to make a big difference in their project. However, you find months later that your report sits on a shelf, your presentation sits in…

As Infragistics’ user experience consulting group, the UX work that we do for our external clients doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves. While our efforts positively effect the working lives of thousands of individuals across all industry verticals, our proudest achievements are often celebrated only by the project teams and the other UX folks here in the office.

From a more personal perspective…

On 16-17 November, the annual ISTA conference was held in Sofia, Bulgaria. In addition to being south of Romania and north of Greece, famous in Eastern Europe for its Rakia, Bulgaria is also home to one of the largest Infragistics offices (interesting party facts).

ISTA, Innovations in Software Technologies and Automation, is an annual, international conference devoted to the latest trends in software development, test…

As a user experience guy visiting Disney World this summer, I couldn’t help but appreciate Disney’s mastery at creating excellent user experiences. Of course there were the amazing rides, fun restaurants, and immersive environments, but surprisingly one of the things I enjoyed most was something far subtler – Disney’s Magic Bands.

Magic Bands are colorful wrist bands with embedded RFID tags that…

Director of User Experience Kevin Richardson and Senior UX Architect, Stefan Ivanov, will be presenting at ISTA 2016, held in Sofia, Bulgaria on November 16, 2016. ISTA, Innovations in Software Technologies and Automation, is an annual, international conference, devoted to the latest trends in software development and test automation.

Kevin will be giving a keynote address about evolution, technology and innovation and…

I had the pleasure of attending the 2016 AIGA Conference in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. The theme of the conference this year was “The Shape of Design” and attendees were given the opportunity to hear industry leaders such as Paula Scher, John Maeda, and Diogenes Brito talk about their personal experiences in today’s fluid, professional landscape.

The conference was kicked off by a design fair featuring…

The weather is turning decidedly more Fall-like here at Infragistics corporate headquarters, and that means it’s time to reflect on the 2016 Infragistics Racing season.

Starting back in March (!), the team visited 4 different tracks on the East Coast (New Jersey, West Virginia and Virginia). In weather that ranged from cold (yes, even West Virginia is cold in March and NJ in October can be downright frosty) to…

There is a blog that I love called McMansion Hell  –  you know those crazy monster houses built in bulk starting in the 1980’s? They are usually found in great clusters and sometimes on very small pieces of property relative to their immense size; 5000 sq ft and up is pretty standard with many exceeding 10,000 sq ft. Most notably though, these over-the-top dwellings attempt to check every box in the features option…

My journey is not a common one, but maybe it should be.

Despite being trained as a product designer I am now working in the field of User Experience (UX) Design. While I am not the first designer to find my skillset applicable in another discipline, the concept of UX seems to deter many people like me from entering the profession. From my experience, this may be due to how frequently it is discussed in the media, its…

UX Architect Jason Caws, Senior UX Architect Stefan Ivanov, UX Art Director Spasimir Dinev, UX Art Director Andrea Silveira, and VP of Product Management, Community, and Developer Evangelism Jason Beres, will be attending the UXify Bulgaria 2016 conference on October 14 and 15 in Sofia. Infragistics’ presentations range from the practical use of interactive prototypes, including workshops on learning how to use Infragistics…

Before beginning a user research study or usability test, one of the most important things you can do is to run a pilot test. What’s a pilot test? It’s a rehearsal of the study with someone standing in as the participant. You run the session as if it was with a real participant, but you throw away the data. The purpose is to see if there are any problems with your technique and also to get some practice with the procedures…

With the upcoming US presidential election, plagiarism has been in the news of late. Yet, when we discuss plagiarism, we typically focus on the individual(s) who committed the act. How horrible they are! How lazy! How unprofessional! All these things are true but I want to focus for a moment on the individual(s) against whom the act was committed.

In the creative field that is User Experience Design, our work defines…

UX Architect Jason Caws will be attending the 2016 MOBX conference on September 8 and 9 in Berlin. MOBX is the premier annual conference for Mobile User Experience, small screen Interaction Design and usable interfaces on smart devices. Jason also assures us that the “wild pre-conference party” is nothing we should be concerned about.

Learn more about where we’ll be on the Infragistics event page!