User eXperience or UX has to be one of the buzz words of the year, and it seems when it comes to creating the ultimate surfing experience everyone from marketing agencies and pr people to designers and developers wants to get in on the act.

Such a hot topic, had to the the subject of a Supermondays session soon or later, and Joanne Richardson of Orange Bus certainly did it justice this month. Not only did Joanne curate the session, arranging talks from Graham Morely of graphic.ly and Th_nk’s Director of Ux, Lee Alan, but she also presented herself, apparently presenting for the first time, although you wouldn’t have guessed it from her delivery to another full house, this time at Gateshead Colleges Baltic Campus.

The general messages that came from all three speakers was that User eXperience didn’t have to be expensive, but that it should be considered, and that it should be an  iterative process, that is to say that it should be reconsidered and revised after each phase of design and development.

For me it was really refreshing to hear the speakers talking about adapting and simplifying, and avoiding feature creep.  These days its all to common to see companies adding more and more bells and whistles to sites, without considering whether they actually add value to the user.

I’m going to leave you with Joanne’s closing comments UX is about user stories and about creating “Happy Experiences”, and a reminder from the team that if you missed out on Supermonday this month, then you have a second chance to get out and do a bit of social networking with SuperSummer this Thursday.

Presentations: Start up UX – Graham Morley , A day in the life of a UX designer – Joanne Richardson

Book Recommendations: The Design of Everyday Things - Donald Norman , Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks - Luke Wroblewski , Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – Steve Krug ,

Online Resources: pivottracker , patterntap , iconfinder , konigi