What is Positive (User) Experience? Positive UX sounds good! Everyone wants to achieve a positive experience in the context of using products, right? But what exactly does the term mean and how did it come about? Isn’t it already included in User Experience and why is “Positive X” so important?

The general discourse on sustainability is often about resources, energy and waste avoidance. What does sustainability mean for digital products? Digitally, there is no waste, and resources are rather indirect. But the IT sector is responsible for 4% of global CO2 emissions, the same amount as global air travel causes. Where do these emissions come […]

Look at these sentences and words. Do you feel well met and taken seriously in your situation? Do you understand what the problem is? Do you know what to do next? Do you know exactly what will happen when you click the button? If you answered mostly no, I have good news: with good UX […]

How can UX and agile product development come together more effectively through user stories and thus create better products? Thomas Immich addressed this question in a keynote at MaibornWolff on July 8 entitled “Getting User Stories Right”. The Armadillo Desk, our specially developed outdoor office desk, was used as an example in the presentation.

Anne Hess is a researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering. As part of the interview series UX Neu Überdacht, she and Thomas Immich talk in the Outdoor Office about modern requirements engineering and creative approaches, how to get richer information from users, and which methods from disciplines outside the field can inspire […]

  In December, Thomas Immich and Britta Karn discussed the positioning of UX at the IREB Roundtable of the International Requirements Engineering Board. They focused on user research – in digital design and requirements engineering.

How can you live a healthier life through games? What are gametypical UX elements? What types of players are there? And how do you take the healthcare sector to the next level with gamification? Thomas Immich asked these and other questions at the closing event of the Decisions2 lecture series organized by Game Dev Saar […]

How can UX and user research be combined with digital design in a useful way? This is the question that Britta Karn, Thomas Immich and Kim Lauenroth will be discussing next Tuesday at 3 p.m. at the online event IREB-ROUNDTABLE (International Requirements Engineering Board).

More than 20 innovative presentations, several three-hour intensive workshops, inspiring exchange with UX professionals and new contacts. From 14 to 15.10. the UX Day Online Conference will take place again. Thomas Immich will give a talk on 14.10. at from 09:45 to 10:15 entitled “Getting User Stories right” and show how UX and agile product […]

From Oct. 12 to Oct. 14, UX experts will gather for the eighth time at the World Usability Congress in Graz. At the three-day international conference, speakers from various industries discussed practical challenges in the field of UX and collaborated with participants in a wide variety of workshops. Thomas Immich will give a talk on […]

Which design school of thought is more meaningful? Customer Centered Design, i.e. CX or User Centered Design, i.e. UX? Or do we simply need a new school of thought, since the climate crisis means that we are living in a time when it no longer makes sense to focus solely on people? So is there […]

Since the beginning of the year, we have been a proud partner of edu-sharing NETWORK. The non-profit association has been networking educational organizations since 2010 and makes digital, free learning content accessible to teachers, students and other inquisitive people. At the beginning of the Corona crisis, the network built the national platform “WirLernenOnline – Freie […]

The start of a new UX designer role model. A lot has happened … and then it hasn’t. I’ve really been around the so-called UX scene for quite a while now. As the owner and CEO of Centigrade, I’ve been running one of the most successful UX companies in Germany for over 15 years. But […]

The transformation of a traditional industrial plant into a “smart factory” confronts companies with major challenges in many ways. One of the most important aspects, in addition to the development and implementation of new processes and IoT-enabled production equipment, is the human factor. There is a wide range of training and education to make employees […]

Establishing communication, responsibilities and processes at concept, design and software engineering is sometimes a lion’s task. The gap is still extremely large. “They don’t talk to each other” – according to Thomas. But how do you bridge these disciplines? In the Moodboard Podcast, Thomas Immich and Samuel Lottner address this.

Hello, my name is Joshua and I was wondering how do you become a UX designer in two weeks to get so well versed in the subject to solve a real-world problem? This blog post is like a little log on my journey through the world of UX design.

Customer loyalty is more important than ever. But how can UX and gamification be used to really bind customers to a product or a company? Thomas Immich will answer this exciting question in his presentation “The user in flow with his energy – Why UX & Gamification know neither tariff nor service boundaries” on Tuesday, […]

Everyone is talking about digital transformation and the added value of new digital business models. Unfortunately, despite the much-cited added business value, little “added value” is received by end customers or operators. As a result, user acceptance is declining and with it the opportunity to establish the business model in the long term. Business goals […]

Part 1 of this article highlighted a few points that can be used to prevent a good UX strategy in a company. Part 2 is now dedicated to topics that support a good UX strategy.  The top 5 things that should be done to enable a sustainable UX strategy are not dependent on the size […]

The Health Reality Lab is part of a forward-looking project to promote and research AR/VR applications in the healthcare sector. It aims to open up the existing knowledge of these industries for the health care sector, to disseminate it through a reality lab and to implement it in the context of e-health and mobile health […]

We would like to toast – to 15 successful years with large and small customers and the most diverse UX projects from industry, research and many other sectors. Although the current pandemic situation makes it difficult to be together as a team, we didn’t miss out on the festive mood for this anniversary.

  Nowadays it’s obvious for a company to approach the topic of user experience and try to take advantage of the human-centred design into their own organization as part of a UX strategy. However, the nature of the topic “UX”, which combines technical as well as design and analytical domains through a new approach, quite […]

The use of user stories in software development should lead to the development of user-friendly products and thus enable customers to experience significant added value. However, this goal often remains unachieved due to methodical errors. How can product owners, product managers, software engineers and also UX designers and UX researchers use user stories together to […]

How will the UX field develop in the future? Leading UX experts will address this question on 13 February in an international online panel discussion of the German UPA. Thomas Immich, CEO and owner of Centigrade, will discuss with UX experts from companies, consultancies and startups and share impressions and experiences from his more than […]

Big Data is considered the trend topic of digitization. Some even claim that data is the new gold. But usage data is a treasure trove that has seldom been used to analyse usability with quantitative methods. What possibilities are there for measurably improving UX with usage data and supporting product owners in their decisions?  Get […]

Introduction One, in my opinion positive trend is that companies increasingly want to involve their potential users in the development. This can happen in many different ways: The spectrum ranges from market research interviews to data analysis of websites and various usability test methods. Testing is particularly important in order to obtain more intensive and […]

On December, 12th 2018, I listened to an interview with Dr. Carsten Breitfeld, a world-renowned expert in electric mobility, and the co-founder & CEO of the company BYTON which aims at turning the car into a next-generation smart device. He was a guest at the ‘Der Flaneur’ Podcast (German only), live from the Websummit conference […]

User Experience means that users experience a product. The most innovative controls and the most fluid animations are useless if the product is not sold and used. As a UX service provider, we have seen many times how good UX not only makes the product a success for users, but also how UX helps a […]

First of all: Industry 4.0 has a lot to do with technology, computers, software, machines, the Internet and intelligent data analysis. These relationships are not unknown, but have been decisive in the industry over the last 30-40 years. We remember how the computer (often a 286 AT) pushed the mechanical typewriter out of the office […]

If we are honest, we all are desperately awaiting the future. We are waiting for the next boom, which seems so close but actually didn’t come much closer for the last 5 years. Microsoft’s Fluent Design is one of these developments that promise a brighter future. Will it be able to live up to the […]

Do you remember the moment you first realized that there is something like user experience? Probably not. Only looking back I realized that I already suffered from bad product UX as a young kid. And I bet you did too. I remember big fights with my family members: before every household had an obligatory flat-rate, […]

In the first part of this two part series my colleague Simon Kieke drew a bold conclusion regarding the importance of IoT for medium-sized enterprises. Instead of adapting an “all or nothing” mentality, he suggested to integrate small and user-centered digital services into already existing products. This way, IoT products are created with reduced risk […]

We are confronted with very different kinds of to-dos every day. It is only natural that some of those tasks are more fun than others. Especially less motivating tasks, for example housekeeping, are last on the list: cleaning the coffee machine, tidying up the refrigerator, sorting empty bottles. The preferences and aversions may be individually […]

In October 2017 Adobe released the first beta of XD, its “all-in-one UX/UI solution”. As a graphic designer, I’ve used Photoshop and Illustrator in my workflow for years and wonder how XD measures up as an UX tool so far. Quick historical excursion about the possible impact of the new tool’s release: in print, Adobe […]

2014 is ending, and  the term IoT (Internet of Things) is entering the public awareness of the German-speaking regions for the first time. The concept is promising: individuals can rely on a connected intelligent environment to solve everyday problems. Businesses can develop previously inconceivable products and services, and sell them at scale. McKinsey is predicting […]

Lately, I have been asked more frequently, when Gamification will emancipate from its role as a niche topic and reach mainstream. Since mid-2016, I am sure, that we find ourselves just in the phase of emancipation of this topic and I would like to reveal, why this is my opinion. During the last year, the […]

The first part of this article was about the treacherous intuitiveness of establishing an HMI styleguide based on a Corporate Design (CD) styleguide, and why this decision is risky: unlike a CD styleguide an HMI styleguide has to work for software engineers as well as visual designers. Also, this form of documentation is too rigid […]

Intuition seems to be one of those things we all profit from a lot. But at times it will deceive us. Designing an intuitive HMI seems to be one of the highest priorities of modern software development, minimizing both the need for training and the risk of operational errors. Still, a lot of software engineers […]

Not everyone likes Google products, but everyone who has a computer / laptop / smartphone uses them. It’s really fascinating how a company founded by two students conquered a huge part of the market, became the most desired employer, and every year continue to surprise us with highly innovating ideas. And it’s even more fascinating […]

In interface design, the term consistency is part of the professional jargon. It is used for everyday feedback and in long term concepts. It is also common ground with developers and clients. Consistency is an important evaluation criterium. Enough reasons to get a good handle on the term.

The term UX design is used very often nowadays. In most cases it’s either used as synonym for interaction design, usability professional or a similar denotation or as conglomerate of all of these disciplines. It is recalled that UX design is not only a phase, but that it should be applied throughout all phases of a project. For […]

This article is currently only available in German language.

What is aesthetics and how can we determine it? Can usability tests be performed remotely to save time and money? And what happens to a Facebook profile when its user dies? These and many more interesting topics about human-computer interaction, user experience and usability where subject of this year’s conference Mensch und Computer 2014 (Human and […]

This article is currently only available in German language

Introduction “Form Follows Function (FFF)” – You can think for hours about these three words and for their explanation quite some words are necessary, for it is a frequently misunderstood design principle.

Texts are important parts of most user interfaces, be it, e.g., as form field labels or longer help texts. This article is aimed at providing a common introduction to the topic „choosing the right font”. It contains some hints an pointers that simplify the search for the right typeface.

To our great delight and surprise, our animated Facility Manager Prototype and respective Blog article was used as demonstration and reference material at UXCamp Europe 2011. In regard of the apparent interest in the topic this article picks up the issue yet again, focusing on scientific considerations of the past years. Indeed, animations have become […]