Applied Empathy: A Design Framework for Meeting Human Needs and Desires

The design community keeps making a lot of noise about designing for people/users/customers. However, while this notion is well-intentioned and even conceptually correct, I find much of it boils down to empty rhetoric. What exactly are we doing? More user research? More usability testing? Certainly these are valid approaches to finding out about people's needs, but they're only a small part of an optimal solution. Are we using hollow tasks and tools like personas and scenarios? Those approaches typically take design farther away from the people for whom we are designing products rather than closer. How about focusing on usability and the user experience? That gets at only part of the issue and tends to come from the perspective of the product--as opposed to the more universal needs and desires of actual people.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Data: The Essence of a Digital Lifestyle

I've been thinking a lot about metadata recently, but not from the standpoint of XML or programming or helping to organize and index data. My interest is in the future of content ownership, delivery, and value. I see a future for media that looks very different from the media of today. The germ of this idea actually came from my experiences with online movie rentals.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2005). Articles>User Experience>XML>Metadata

Deconstructing the Mobile Web

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the mobile Web is largely overplayed hype--the clumsy extrapolation of the behavior and use of a basic set of interfaces from one environment to another incompatible one. As a result of this broken mental model of mobile computing, we are not taking advantage of the real potential this technology offers.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Articles>Web Design>Wireless Web

Information Design and Becoming a Business Partner  

The information age provides great opportunity--and threat--to technical communicators. By understanding more about the general domain--specifically the relationship between communication and information design--we have the opportunity to become valued business partners to our employers and clients.

Knemeyer, Dirk. STC Proceedings (2004). Careers>Information Design>TC

Information Design: The Understanding Discipline

There is not consensus on exactly what information design is. Definitions of the discipline from stakeholders who associate themselves with the field are consistent only in that they are typically high level, not very concrete and do not offer much in the way of direct practical application.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design

Living La Vida Virtual: Interfaces of the Near Future

Personal computing is in an awkward adolescence right now. On one hand, we are rapidly moving into ubiquitous computing environments that let people constantly interact with the omnipresent network; on the other, the devices and interfaces we are using to enter these new frontiers provide woefully inadequate user experiences. Let's take a look at one of the key technologies that will take mobile user experiences to the next level: holography.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2005). Design>User Interface>Ubiquitous Computing>User Experience

The Role and Evolution of Design in Software Products

Design professionals often decry the lack of importance and investment their companies place on design. After all, most software projects revolve around a product's engineering, to the ongoing detriment of its design--not to mention the chagrin of so many designers, who wriggle uncomfortably toward the bottom of the food chain. But there is a good reason for this: products can be very profitable without investing a single penny in interface design--at least, beyond the user interfaces the engineers build. Indeed, at least in the early stages of a market or company, resources dedicated to intentional interface design are often a bonus rather than being viewed as a necessity.

Knemeyer, Dirk. UXmatters (2006). Design>User Interface>Programming

User Experience - UX

'User Experience', often abbreviated 'UX', is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design.

Knemeyer, Dirk and Eric Svoboda. Interaction-Design.org (2006). Articles>User Experience>Usability

What Does Your Audience Want?

Successful visual designers well know the audiences they are designing for, and realize that their audiences exist at multiple levels.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Design>Graphic Design>Audience Analysis>Rhetoric

Writing Skills and Better Visual Design

Strong visual design is about balance. It requires an appropriate relationship between written content, information hierarchy and the use of visual elements such as graphics and photography. While most visual designers will tacitly acknowledge this, the preponderance of visual design artifacts shows a bias toward either the words or the visual elements, and too often does not reflect strong information hierarchy. These all-too-frequent examples of spotty visual design belie personal comfort levels and experience.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Articles>Writing>Visual Rhetoric

Communication: Critical to Good Design

The most complicated challenge we face during the design process has nothing to do with design techniques, understanding media or incorporating industry-best practices. It is a question of communication. Indeed, a successful solution is often undermined by the poor communication of good ideas that allow individual opinions and subjective biases to misdirect strong work. While we need to be open to other people making strong contributions that improve our work, we must also proactively account for subjective or misguided suggestions. Here are a few simple guidelines to help your communication validate your work.

Knemeyer, Dirk. Thread Information Design (2003). Articles>Communication>Design