Talking down a hostage-taker requires extraordinary empathy and close attention to communication patterns. Bryan McClain and Demetrius Madrigal of ActiveComm Labs show us how we can apply these skills when conducting user research.
Process and Methods
A screenwriter has a compass that can guide him through the writing process. Cindy Chastain chronicles how we can translate this approach to help us remember the quality and value of the experience.
Experience Themes
How a storytelling method can help unify teams and create better products
Patrick Stapleton takes a look at some of the world’s most popular pattern libraries and presents the case for a standard approach to documentation and categorization.
UI Pattern Documentation Review
Web application design teams that have a shared understanding of a project’s context and objectives produce better results. Joseph Selbie explains, and gives us tips on how to promote shared, holistic understanding in our own teams.
Bringing Holistic Awareness to Your Design
Holger Maassen posits his ideas about the process of planning and designing for User Experience Design-Planning (UXD-P) as Expectation Design.
UX Design-Planning Not One-man Show
Do we need more UX planning teams?
Andrew Hinton digs into the origins of the persona and reflects on how business uses (or misuses) design documentation.
Personas and the Role of Design Documentation
How it’s less about deliverables, and more about design.
Indi Young talks about the power of the mental model and how it can grow over time and help your organization avoid strategic blindspots. The story includes an excerpt of her new book, and B&A readers are elegible for a discount.
What Is Your Mental Model?
An Interview With Indi Young
While the imaginary persona is helpful in the design process, a data-backed persona lends even more depth and focus to the development process. Andrea Wiggins reveals some effective ways to back up your personas with data easily available today.
Building a Data-Backed Persona
A map-based approach to building a content inventory allows it to be a tool from the concept stages and throughout the life of the website. Patrick Walsh tells us why to use them, shows us how to create the maps, and how to leverage them over the long haul.
A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory
Adam Polansky tells us about how “Faceted Feature Analysis” takes the subjective needs of stakeholders and blends them with objective constraints in a way that ensures all points of view are fairly considered.
Faceted Feature Analysis
How To Use Bias To Get Unbiased Project Scope