Kristi Colvin is a user experience and usability expert and founder of FreshID. Her career includes many aspects of marketing communications including working with Whole Foods, software and new media companies; she’s now consulting VisualCV. I recently interviewed her about user experience. Her passion for the subject is apparent in her mission, “to bring user experience evangelism into an organization.”

1. What do you mean by “designing for the universal experience?”

People often think of brand identities, marketing collateral, user interface design for software applications, and web site or blog design as separate items. But all an existing or potential customer sees and feels is one experience: the experience of an individual or company.

2. What, if any, special factors do you consider when designing a site you know will be used by Twitter users: Do they behave differently than other users?

The average blog or web site with information they want others to share on Twitter could greatly benefit from:
– pre-shortened url’s for blog articles and web pages
– “twit this” programs added to the end of a blog article helps users share the information while it is top-of-mind
– sites that are not “blogs” would benefit from easy-to-tweet buttons for things like news articles, special promotions, recipes, landing pages, product datasheets, products for sale, ebay items, books, etc.
Also, I am creating a mini-site focused on people tweeting about cheese, and an actual alternate Twitter interface called Twitterface that will be released soon.

3. What are your favorite usability / user experience tools?

My basic tools are a computer and a user.  Aside from that, I utilize tools like Skitch and the Jing Project to communicate UE issues to developers & gather small bugs or anomalies from users.

4. What is the first thing you consider when evaluating the usability of a website?

Following a quick examination of the look and feel, I start looking deeper:  at forms, workflow, the existence (or usually, not) of guiding text, available help, the information architecture and the screen layouts.
The very first thing I assess is whether it is immediately obvious what I should do first after arriving at a home page, or next after arriving at a landing page.
There is an art to guiding users through a system.
When done well, it produces a magical effect we call “being in the zone.”

5. Can you recommend another great usability / user experience blog?

I cannot get enough of Logic + Emotion, because those two aspects are so critical to a great, lasting user experience. The author works for Critical Mass, a premiere interactive agency whose work I admire. Bokardo has a lot to offer people who are interested in designing blogs & sites for social media.
And Luke W. is someone who personally inspires me and my design, with his iconic, clean interfaces

If you enjoyed this interview, visit Kristi’s blog here.