http://www.informationdesign.org/ Dedicated to the growth and improvement of the information experience industries. en-us plato@xs4all.nl 2013-05-03T10:37:49+01:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Although I like the label 'prototypathon', I still wonder why you should have them. "In our work with design teams, we see a lot of teams using prototypes today. We're also seeing many of those same teams fall into traps that reduce the effectiveness of their prototyping efforts. Here's five of the most common ones we see." (Jared Spool ~ User Interface Engineering) UCD 2013-05-03T10:37:49+01:00 A great initiative. Now, keep it up-and-running. And fresh! "We believe that creating objects that people love requires the right tools and methods. In fact, using the wrong method can lead to bad design decisions. But with over 200 methods and tools available, which ones could you use in your situation? That's why we give you access to a large chunk of the worlds' created methods, tools, techniques and resources for User Centered Design. We are making all of them searchable and executable. You can even publish your own method." (About UCD Toolbox) UCD 2013-02-22T09:43:02+01:00 Reading the high-level phases, thought it was rather circular, iterative and incremental than linear." "What really differentiates user-centered design from a more traditional waterfall model of software design is the user feedback loop, which informs each phase of the project. This feedback loop is established through the use of a range of techniques that have become the staple for UX Designers. There are a ton of them, and knowing when to use which techniques during which phase of a project comes with experience. Personally, I find experimenting with new techniques and tweaking old favorites is part of the fun of being a UX Designer." (Matthew Magain a.k.a. @mattymcg ~ UX mastery) Information design 2013-02-13T12:30:02+01:00 Great proof that software design is the cinematography of the 21st century "Using storyboards in software design can be difficult because of some common challenges and drawbacks to the tools we have. The good news is that there's a new, free tool that tries to address many of these issues. But before I get into that, let's revisit the value of using storyboards (and stories in general) in software design." (Ambrose Little a.k.a. @ambroselittle ~ UX Magazine) UCD 2013-02-08T21:57:13+01:00 OK, time to move on. "User-centered design has served the digital community well. So well, in fact, that I'm worried its dominance may actually be limiting our field." (Cennydd Bowles a.k.a. @Cennydd ~ A List Apart) UCD 2013-02-01T16:18:55+01:00 Always loves categorizations of our history. Surfing the waves of Information Design. "As practitioners, we must broaden our understanding of innovation from both business and user-experience perspectives. From a business perspective, we need to empathize with the impluse to reject the investment of resources innovation requires. Innovation is embraced only when the value gained is substantially greater than the investment costs: a marginal gain is rarely adequate. Our past practices have been confined almost exclusively to our existing, primary user market. It's time to direct some of our attention to the fringe markets where disruptive technologies take hold." (William Gribbons ~ UX Magazine) Information design 2013-01-30T10:24:17+01:00 They will always be a great starting point for the unknowns of empathy and UCD. "There have been some who have proclaimed the impending demise of personas as a UX design approach since shortly after their introduction. While the optimal approach to creating and employing personas is still evolving—thanks to more useful data becoming available to design teams and new project-management methods—their usefulness has not yet diminished. If anything, personas have become even more useful because they put a human face on aggregated data and foster a user-centered design approach even within the context of efficiency-driven development processes." (Paul Bryan a.k.a. @paulbryan ~ UXmatters) User experience 2013-01-21T10:02:35+01:00 A provocative idea, but on the mark. "Most products support activities underpinned by collaboration and sharing. Designing for individuals may actually be harmful because these activities reflect ongoing transformations of artifacts, individuals, and social interactions. Focusing on individuals might improve things for one person at the cost of others." (Mike Long a.k.a. @mblongii ~ ThoughtWorks Studios) UCD 2013-01-11T10:47:04+01:00 Multi-disciplinary teams rulez. "Products are developed by large multi-disciplinary teams. The teams deal with many topics requiring the expertise of several specialists simultaneously. They have to decide together if something is a problem; propose multi-disciplinary solutions; and align their activities into a seamless whole. Stated differently: team members have to think collectively, which is named team cognition. In September 2012, Guido Stompff received his PhD at Technical University of Delft, faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. The topic was team cognition in high tech development teams, and how designers contribute to it. This website are bits and pieces of his observations and findings, combined with reflections on trending topics." (Guido Stompff a.k.a. @guidostompff ~ Team Cognition) UCD 2012-10-11T22:49:30+01:00 Is there any other design approach than UCD? "Who benefits from user-centered design according to standard wisdom? Designers and their employers benefit, because they end up with better products. End users (that amorphous generalised group) benefit, because their software-using lives are more satisfactory. Researchers benefit, because they get papers published about their thoughtful and inclusive design methodologies. What I want to know is whether particular users who contribute to the design process actually get anything out of it? And do they stand to lose anything?" (Judy Robertson ~ Communication of the ACM) HCI 2012-10-08T13:35:03+01:00 Not enough maybe, but still a lot better than profit-centered design. "Many designers will, no doubt, object to this analysis. They will point out that UCD simply acknowledges the unique physical capabilities and needs of individual users, or types of user." (John Wood ~ Core77) UCD 2012-09-24T15:22:22+01:00 The leaner, the meaner. "Many organizations are moving from waterfall to agile software development methods. They often combine this shift with a move to user-centered design (UCD). This makes sense because, in addition to bringing great intrinsic benefits, UCD has a lot in common with agile. Both encourage a multidisciplinary approach, are iterative, encourage feedback, discourage bloated and overly rigid documentation, and value people over processes. However, the combination of agile and UCD all too often leads to UX design becoming the main blocker in the development process. Why is this?" (Ritch Macefield ~ UXmatters) UCD 2012-09-04T09:27:45+01:00 Follow the Money, but money isn't following the Experience. "An overriding theme mentioned by many concerned the lack of understanding regarding the need for, execution of, and requisite resources required for User Experience Design. This resulted in insufficient importance given to design and inadequate resources being applied to it." (Karel Vredenburg) UCD 2012-08-20T15:52:22+01:00 Nothing is perfect. "Although achieving Agile UX was a gradual process, we eventually made the shift. In this article, we'll share some insights we gained and barriers we had to overcome to develop successful approach to UX agility." (Carissa Demetris, Chris Farnum, Joanna Markel, and Serena Rosenhan ~ UXmatters) UCD 2012-06-05T10:47:00+01:00 Disclosure: I work at Informaat (The Netherlands). Industrialize Processes In Support Of A Digital Customer Experience Strategy - "To consistently meet or exceed customers' expectations, firms must take a systematic approach to digital customer experience management. In conducting in-depth interviews with 16 business professionals, Forrester found that several of these companies had adopted some best practices for digital design that delivered improvements in customer experience - leading to improved business results through increased revenues, improved loyalty, greater customer engagement, and reduced costs. However, no organization had a mature, systematic approach to consistently differentiate through superior digital customer experience. For firms to turn their digital customer experience into a sustainable source of competitive advantage, they must define a digital customer experience strategy and introduce robust tools and repeatable methodologies to support it." (About Informaat, experience design) Customer experience 2012-03-20T16:16:36+01:00