UX research. Making every minute count
Facilitating ‘face to face’ interviews with your clients’ customers is central to UX research. It’s also one of the most difficult of all UX skills to develop.
Valuable insights can be generated and captured during each session but you’re often having to cover a lot of ground in the time allocated.
After hundreds of these sessions I [...]
Skype takes the hassle out of remote usability
Remote research brings cultural relevance to usability findings, providing the kinds of insights which can only be gained by being there…virtually at least.
I recently ran some remote website usability sessions for a Kiwi startup whose main customer is in the U.S.A. … sure, ‘isolation breeds innovation’ and all that, but when your customers are on [...]
Keeping it ‘old school’ with Diary Studies
I’m always looking for better ways to understand customer behaviour and the experiences customers have in their own context, out in the wild.
There are some interesting ‘digital ethnography’ tools on the market, using web and mobile channels to capture, collate and filter all this stuff as it occurs in the field.
http://www.myservicefellow.com
http://www.thethinkingshed.co.uk
http://www.7daysinmylife.com
Impressive technology, but ‘whizz-bang’ isn’t [...]
User Centred Design, for the long haul.
During a 9 month project with IDEO, Air New Zealand took a user centred approach to improve seating design for their long haul services. They built full scale prototypes of cabin interiors to carry out design research, evaluating seating and service concepts with real passengers.
The project began in 2007 with a goal of understanding passenger [...]
Picture, or thousand words?
Outcomes of UX research projects can be difficult to put in a nutshell, and a bullet pointed list sometimes just does not cut it.
As well as the usual deliverables emerging from a brief, I sometimes add a rich picture as a visual summary. These often originate from doodles generated while I’m trying to figure out [...]
Prototype, Test, Rinse & repeat
The value of iteration.
Switched-on digital agencies understand the value of user testing with early stage website mockups; ironing out sticking points and identifying opportunities to improve interaction design early, before committing to code.
During a day of back-to-back user interviews, ‘quick wins’, like changing a navigation item can be made in seconds and validated (or not) [...]
UX in the physical world
My latest project allows me to work on some interactions with a different kind of digital – gripping fingers and thumbs, … it’s taking me back to my surfboard building days.
It’s with a kiwi company developing a new type of mouse. I’m using UX methods to help refine the design, starting off with some user [...]
Running. A user centred business.
Where can I go for a run around here?
Concierge at my hotel in Singapore only needed to be asked this a few times before they found themselves offering directions.
…But all too often they’d spot their guests returning by taxi after getting lost in the suburbs.
This jogger’s map started out when a staff member sketched a [...]
Making the most of Optimal Treejack
If you want to find out how well your website navigation structure works for your customers, Treejack is a great tool for the job.
If you want to know why certain parts performed poorly, and what to do about it, you’ll need to get inside the head of your customer. The tools for this are your [...]
Equal opportunities in User Centred Design?
IDEO, The worlds greatest proponent of User Centered Design have released a ‘toolkit’ to promote a human centred approach to social development projects.
It’s full of top tips… one of which seems worryingly chauvinistic…
If you can’t read the image, it kindly reminds us; “To ensure there is a balanced gender perspective involve female staff in all [...]
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