Design research

User Research Friday

"One thing I was really listening for was how people actually use research to do design. In my practice as an interaction designer, I find user research to be extremely important. I'm a strong advocate of ethnographically-inspired fieldwork (...) because it helps me understand how people really work and think." (Lane Halley - Cooper Journal)

Posted on November 17, 2008 | Permalink

When to Use Which User Experience Research Methods

"Modern day user experience research methods can now answer a wide range of questions. Knowing when to use each method can be understood by mapping them in 3 key dimensions and across typical product development phases." (Christian Rohrer - Alertbox)

Posted on October 06, 2008 | Permalink

Users Participation in Online Conversation

"In the past, user participation in editorial publications was limited to writing "letters to the editor." On the web, users take an active role in shaping the message through their comments and debates. Bond Art + Science looked at how traditional media and online publications invite, manage and benefit from user participation, and we identified some best practices and common pitfalls." (Bond Art + Science)

Posted on August 27, 2008 | Permalink

What Adaptive Path Thinks When It Thinks About Eyetracking

"(...) you rarely hear about eyetracking leading to crucial insights. Eyetracking is helpful when you need to know something extremely tactical at a very precise level of detail. But we should think very hard about the payoff. There's a great deal of overhead and it's difficult to make this a flexible, nimble process." (Adaptive Path)

Posted on March 27, 2008 | Permalink

Extreme User Research

"What is the biggest problem I face almost every time a client hires me to do something about a web project going awry? They don’t know a thing about their users. They don’t have a clue, whatsoever. Unbelievable but true!" (Daniel Lafreniere - Boxes and Arrows)

Posted on March 27, 2008 | Permalink

Filling Much Needed Holes

"Ethnographic research is fun. You get to go out into the world and watch, take pictures, satisfy your curiosity and inherent nosiness. Back at the office it is great fun to scribble notes, to post them on walls and rearrange them to form patterns. Then we can create personas, colorful little artificial people with cute, interesting lives, or maybe overstressed, over-busy lives. We delight at personas, at prototyping, at watching people go through their paces. New products galore. Innovation is the new hot topic. But does all of this activity lead to actual success in the marketplace? I fear not." (Donald A. Norman)

Posted on December 05, 2007 | Permalink

Design Research in 2006 

"In the US, it is the practitioners who have been leading with regard to design research in practice. So in the U.S., there is exploration and innovation in design research going on, but it is not as well disseminated. It is discussed in general terms so as not to give too much away to 'the competition'. It is not often published, though the interaction design community is doing a good job of sharing. Europe is way ahead of the US in design research of a participatory nature. Why? Because they (particularly northern Europe) have embraced a participatory attitude for a long time. The participatory way of thinking is antithetical to the US-centric mode of manufacturers pushing products at 'consumers' through marketing and advertising." (Liz Sanders - MakeTools)

Posted on September 19, 2007 | Permalink

Pick and Mix 

Consumers moving between online and offline channels in the context of leisure travel preparations (PhD Thesis 2007) - "Consumers are increasingly using web-based systems for the search and purchase of products and services. They are, however, also still using traditional, offline channels such as telephone, high street and mail order, on a regular basis. The research presented in this thesis investigated consumer use of e-services in the context of a multi-channel environment, with a special focus on voluntary channel choice and voluntary movement between channels. Both multi-channel usage and voluntary movement between channels are currently under-researched topics." (Geke van Dijk - STBY)

Posted on July 10, 2007 | Permalink

Design Documentaries: Inspiring Design Research Through Documentary Film 

"This paper shows how we can take inspiration and use techniques from documentary film in pursuing user research." (Bas Raijmakers et al. - STBY Design Documentaties)

Posted on July 10, 2007 | Permalink