Today, we’d like to shine a light on two videos from our archives as we explore two very different approaches to User Experience (UX). The first explores how we relate our websites to the needs and situations of our visitors, trying to meet them where they are emotionally. The second is a detailed technical exploration into how we measure and track the data around performance as it relates to user experience.

The second video may seem unrelated to the first video; however, while the collecting and analyzing of data might seem very impersonal, the improvements we can make based on the information makes a real difference to the experience of the people we build our sites to serve.

Designing Powerful User Experiences With Psychology

Recorded at the SmashingConf in San Francisco earlier this year, Joe Leech explains how psychology impacts user experience. Joe explains the frustrations people using our products face, and the things happening in their everyday lives and environment that can make interacting with our websites and applications difficult. He goes on to help us understand how we can design in a way to help these visitors rather than frustrate them.

How’s The UX On The Web, Really?

Once you have created a great user experience, how do you know that it is really working well? Especially in terms of site performance, we can track how people are using our sites and examine that data to see what is really happening.

At the SmashingConf in London, Ilya Grigorik was the Mystery Speaker and spoke about the ways to assess performance in real terms, and benchmark your application against other destinations on the web.

Enjoyed listening to these talks? There are many more SmashingConf videos on Vimeo. We’re also getting ready for the upcoming SmashingConf in New York — see you there? 😉

(ra, il)