Building architects don’t have to think much about what the actual deliverables are to contractors and their clients, because their industry has traditions and standards for blueprints, balsa wood models, and computer-generated renderings. As user interface consultants, we have to think about this anew for every project.
Continue readingAs a precursor to cardsorting or as an independent method, free-listing is a technique that can help you determine the scope of a content domain while providing some insight into how the domain is structured.
Continue readingA few months ago, on the cusp of another reorganization, my boss challenged me to present ideas about how my group should be organized. The challenge: “If you could organize the group in whatever way you wanted, what would you recommend doing?” Everyone who has ever been a manager longs to hear those words.
Continue readingWe need a way to document and express mental models that is as simple and robust as personas for user profiles and scenarios for tasks. By laying out users’ current mental models and a target mental model, we can clarify our thinking and communication about the user interface’s objects, metaphors, and interaction.
Continue readingSomewhere in the process of evangelizing user-centered design, user experience professionals seem to have forgotten the value of vision-driven design, which can be equally important in making sites and software relevant and desirable. We need to integrate both approaches.
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