I have read a lot of books about user experience. I think the first UE book I read was “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. Since then I have read many books about information architecture, interaction design, user research, design deliverables, etc. These readings have helped to shape my knowledge and opinions about what UE is, and how it should be practiced.

I have a list of books that I have been recommending to people who are interested in becoming a user experience practitioner. The list below is a good starting place for a UE newbie who needs a place to begin exploring the vast amount of information that exists about user experience design.

This book was first published in 1988, and its contents are still very relevant today. After reading this book, I knew that user experience design was what I wanted to do. Don’s books are easy reads, insightful, forward thinking, and entertaining. Read all of his books, but read this one first.

Great overview of what interaction design is, and how it is practiced.

You’ll like Mike Kuniavsky’s broad selection of practical user research methods–presented clearly and usably. It demonstrates how to discover what is in users’ heads, and suggests how we might balance those considerations with business objectives.

Why software design is broken. Alan Cooper (former software engineer) explains why and what to do about it.

While “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” book tells you what is wrong with software development, this book tells you what to do about it in detail.

This is the only book I know of that focuses completely on UE deliverables.

A complete overview of what information architecture is and how it should be practiced.

Currently I am reading “Sketching User Experiences” by Bill Buxton. I am half way through it, and I am thinking I should add this one to my UE newbie list.

For the first time in my life, a prospective employer is paying for me to fly in for an interview. In fact, in the next couple of weeks two different companies are flying me to Chicago for interviews.

This feels pretty good.

Here at UMUC, our LMS uses a couple of different methods that facilitate communication between instructor and student. The two primary vehicles for communication are the announcement area and the discussion board. The announcement area is used as a ‘one way’ communication from the faculty to the student, while the conference area is used as a discussion area for both student and faculty. The former is a ‘push’ medium where the latter facilitates participation in a conversation.

I suggest making the announcement area more like a blog. Breaking the paradigm of one way communication in the announcement area will help facilitate interaction between faculty and student. What if a student has a question about something in an announcement? Currently, we force the student to post this question inside a ‘questions’ conference, away from where the inquiry originated. Adding a comments area, a common blogging feature, to each post in the announcement area allows students to question and comment at the original point of communication. Keeping both the announcement and response interface on the same page works to reduce the student’s cognitive load—they don’t have to remember the text in question because it is adjacent to where the comment is being posted. It also encourages questions and comments by students which enriches the communication for all.

Adding the ability to categorize announcements, as do most blogs, would allow instructors a wider variety of information on the front page of the class without having to resort to the conference area. I see instructors do this all the time. They have materials they want to post, but want to categorize it. Sometimes responses are required by students, sometimes they are not. By providing blogging elements such as categorization of posts and comments, instructors can post such materials in way that better fits the genre of the information.

I am convinced that adding blogging features to the announcement area would create a rich environment of communication that is currently lacking in our classrooms at UMUC. Blogging is popular because it serves a certain genre of information and interaction. I believe that WebTycho’s announcement area is a similar genre of information as blogging, thus incorporating blogging feature seems an ideal solution.

Thought this was some interesting information.

Apparently, the company that owns BlackBoard now has a patent on the Learning Management System. From the plain language version of the patent, http://tinyurl.com/g29ao , it appears BlackBoard can now claim intellectual property rights to the functionality of nearly every LMS that has been created since the early 1980s. Note that almost every aspect of the patent applies to the current iteration of WebTycho (announcements, discussion board, chat, assignment drop box, etc.). It is also interesting that one day after securing this patent, BlackBoard filed suit against http://www.desire2learn.com/ , for copyright infringement. It seems unlikely that this patent will stand, as there is a lot of prior art that can invalidate BlackBoards’ claims to these LMS features. But, with the US Patent and Trademark Office recent track record of allowing patents for such obvious things as Amazon’s 1-click purchase, who knows what will become of this.

I have collected a series of links on the subject, if you are interested in reading more. There is also a Boycott BlackBoard website where you can add your name to a petition.