I wrote about The Future of Folksonomies before so of course I was interested when I read an article on Using tags to improve the Flickr experience. The article discusses a talk given by Kakul Srivastava, Flickr’s service director of product management, about the next generation of tagging and how tags can provide a better user experience when searching and discovering.

I think the article just reaffirms my point that information architects are and should be looking for new, creative, and intuitive ways to use tagging not only on sites like Flickr, but on all kinds of sites. I’m interested in seeing the various uses of tagging in the next few years.

Org Chart 2.0: Built for User Experience Systems describes new business organizational structures where the user experience is thought about throughout the groups instead of the many time-honored and well-established organization charts we see today. I think large, established companies would find it hard to adjust and change their structure but I could definitely see smaller companies or startups adopting a user experience driven organization.

According to Tom Sterwatm the Chair of the sub-committee of the International Standards Organisation (ISO), the new version of ISO 13407, the International Standard for Human Centered Design (which will be called ISO 9241-210 to bring it into line with other usability standards), will use the term “user experience.”

The term user experience is now widely used, especially by major players in the industry including Apple, IBM and Microsoft. However, in many cases, the term is contrasted to usability which is often depicted as a much narrower concept focusing on systems being easy to use.

Other exponents explain that user experience goes beyond usability by including such issues as usefulness, desirability, credibility and accessibility.

Here is a nice article on Engineering the Firefox 3 User Experience. Some of the main points in the article:

• Usability is improved in the new version through visual consistency, with separate icons and themes depending on your operating system
• User feedback is a major factor during the beta tests
• Subtle usability enhancements, such as a new single-click bookmark system, improve the overall user experience

The Firefox 3 Beta can be downloaded here. I can’t wait to try it out.

As a fan of Apple products and software, we often don’t hear about who is behind the great designs and user centered features. An article in BusinessWeek gives a small glimpse of Apple’s Design Process from Michael Lopp, senior engineering manager at Apple.

Pixel Perfect Mockups
Taking the time in the beginning to get it right will cause less problems (and expenses) down the line and “removes all ambiguity” upfront.

10 to 3 to 1
Apple designers come up with 10 entirely different mock ups, designed without any restrictions of any new feature. They eventually decide on three and spend more months on them before finally ending up with one strong decision.

Paired Design Meetings
Two meetings each week. One to brainstorm and think freely of any restrictions. The sky’s the limit. And another production meeting which is the opposite and the engineers and designers try and work out all the details.

Pony Meeting
Everyone thinks they want a pony, but is that what the Users want (or need)? The best ideas from the paired design meetings are presented to leadership to transform the pony into requirements and deliverables everyone can agree upon.

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Having done high fidelity mockups before, it really does take an enormous amount of time. However, it does give you results and removes a lot of questions and ambiguity. The 10 to 3 to 1 design process is great. I love the unfiltered creativity and Loop’s quote of the designs not being “seven in order to make three look good.” I’ve experienced it before. The paired design meetings are also a great idea. I remember having a creative no restrictions type of meeting before and the ideas that came out of it were spectacular (and even patentable). It is difficult for people to be creative when still thinking about the constraints. I read a good analogy for “The Pony.” A person may like ice cream and he may like pickles but that doesn’t mean he’ll like pickle-flavored ice cream.

All in all, it is nice to see that Apple takes the time to really think outside the box. Now if only other companies can be convinced to invest their time and money on the User Experience.