Review: Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences

Smashing UX Design: Foundations for Designing Online User Experiences by Andrew Maier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is a well-structured book which goes step-by-step through all the major techniques for designing a good user experience for the Web sites. I picked up several interesting methods on working with clients and on designing different parts of the Web experience (navigation, forms, search etc). I very much agree with the general philosophy the book is conveying as well.

On the other hand, it could have been shorter - many things seem rather trivial and, at times, repetitive. The chapters have too many sub-chapters with the same structure. In addition, the book focuses pretty much on solely designing Web shops - there could have been more variety in the examples and (a lot to wish from UX book perhaps) anything on designing Web experience for professional users (corporate interfaces).

Participating in "Teeme ära 2013"

I am...

...a proud participant of the country-wide day "Teeme ära 2013" ("Let's Do It" 2013) which took place yesterday. I was one of around 32.000 people all around Estonia who contributed on a voluntary basis to cleaning their communities from garbage and litter.

My wife and me have helped to clean up  the small beach (Kalarand) next to the community we live in Tallinn. The sunny day and the emotional support of dozens of other volunteers (including many kids) - that helped to make us feel really good about what we did :)

Cleaning Kalarand 04/05/2013 | Courtesy of http://telliskiviselts.info