Personas, Participatory Design and Product Development: An Infrastructure for Engagement  

The design of commercial products that are intended to serve millions of people has been a challenge for collaborative approaches. The creation and use of fictional users, concrete representations commonly referred to as 'personas', is a relatively new interaction design technique. It is not without problems and can be used inappropriately, but based on experience and analysis it has extraordinary potential. Not only can it be a powerful tool for true participation in design, it also forces designers to consider social and political aspects of design that otherwise often go unexamined.

Grudin, Jonathan and John Pruitt. Microsoft (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Usability>Personas

Personas: Focusing on Getting the Design Right

The individual components of a persona are described and an example persona relating to the SecureCam case study is provided.

Meighan, Fiona. Apogee (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Personas: Practice and Theory  

' Personas' is an interaction design technique with considerable potential for software product development. In three years of use, our colleagues and we have extended Alan Cooperís technique to make Personas a powerful complement to other usability methods. After describing and illustrating our approach, we outline the psychological theory that explains why Personas are more engaging than design based primarily on scenarios. As Cooper and others have observed, Personas can engage team members very effectively. They also provide a conduit for conveying a broad range of qualitative and quantitative data, and focus attention on aspects of design and use that other methods do not.

Pruitt, John and Jonathan Grudin. Microsoft (2003). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Podcasting for User-Centered Design

This summer marks the anniversary of initial recordings of Design Critique: Products for People with Tim & Tom, a podcast devoted to informing listeners about the advantages of User-Centered Design (UCD). I hope this article may encourage the creation of other podcasts related to UCD theory and practice. Our vision of doing a UCD-related podcast was that an informal, occasionally humorous show combining consumer product critiques, interviews with user experience professionals, and occasional method discussions might fill a void I perceived in the podcasting world. Sometimes the absence of a thing may imply more than its presence would, and I was concerned that this new medium didn't seem to have many regular shows devoted to what user experience professionals can offer the world. A maturing, innovative field ought to be represented in a maturing, innovative medium.

Keirnan, Timothy. Usability Professionals Association (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Streaming>Podcasting

Practicing Persona Development: an In-House Case Study  

As Technical Communicators, many of us were initiated into this industry with the oft-cited cliche, 'know thy audience.' But what does this really mean? To what extent must we 'know' our audience in order to deliver effective information products? The critical questions are, 'what tools and means can I use to sufficiently understand the needs of my audience? Rather than relying on the directives of Engineering and Marketing, how can I discover the true needs of my audience and develop a user-centered design? And how do I hone my skills at gathering and applying this crucial data?' One of the emerging trends in Technical Communications is to develop user 'personas' as a design tool. This paper presents 'real-world' advice and 'best practices' on using the persona methodology to design information products.

Leritz-Higgins, Sarah E. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Personas

Preference Does Not Equal Performance

People will swear up and down that they love a particular product. They will tell you that the colors are right, the size is perfect, and the information is exactly what they needed. However, until you watch and test users you will not see how well the product works. You will not find out if they really would continue using the product, in the right amount, at the right time, under the conditions you expected. People have a funny way of deciding when, where and how they will using something.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2000). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

A Preliminary Report on Two Pilot Readability/Usability Studies  

Companies are beginning to conduct readability studies to determine how to provide customers with usable sites. Results have been inconclusive, conflicting, and often contradicting results of printed text studies. To discover how users use web sites, two pilot studies were designed to examine users, their purposes, and their reading processes. Many results parallel those of previous studies. In addition, new results indicate we need to examine several new variables, including amount of usage, site-specific knowledge, conventionalization, print bias, gender and age.

Boiarsky, Carolyn. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Preparing for User Research Interviews: Seven Things to Remember

Interviewing is an artful skill that is at the core of a wide variety of research methods in user-centered design, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and focus groups. Consequently, a researcher’s skill in conducting interviews has a direct impact on the quality and accuracy of research findings and subsequent decisions about design. Skilled interviewers can conduct interviews that uncover the most important elements of a participant’s perspective on a task or a product in a manner that does not introduce interviewer bias. Companies hire user researchers and user-centered designers because they possess this very ability.

Hawley, Michael. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Interviewing>Usability>User Centered Design

Printing the Web

Despite predictions to the contrary, it doesn't seem that the advent of networked information sharing has reduced human consumption of paper. In fact, given the amount of printouts modern offices and homes produce, one is inclined to say that even more paper is generated today than ever before.

Kalbach, James. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Progressive Disclosure

Progressive disclosure defers advanced or rarely used features to a secondary screen, making applications easier to learn and less error-prone.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design

The Promised Land of Prototyping

While some may claim that prototyping isn't one of the wonders of the world, it's definitely a wonder of web and software development. It can help us design better products and overcome many of the hurdles that tend to surface during a development process.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Prototyping

Quality and the Consumer Experience: Methods of Collecting Data  

Smart reviews several user-centered methods technical communicators can use to gather information for designing and improving customers' experience with documentation.

Smart, Karl L. Intercom (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Quality for Customers' Sake

Executives as well as customers demand quality from technical communicators. However, the requirements of both groups seem hard to combine: Executives want quality to be achieved inside the company by applying quality standards without causing any delay or additional costs. Establishing customer-based quality, on the other hand, usually demands extra money and extra time. Nevertheless both demands can and should be utilized for developing a user-oriented quality system.

Bock, Gabriele. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>User Centered Design>Quality

Reader-Centered Documentation Provides the Necessary Context    

A features-based approach to documentation is appropriate for reference manuals, where the goal is to provide information on something the reader already knows. This article explores how to meet the needs of the reader when providing documentation for user manuals.

Hart, Geoffrey J.S. Intercom (2007). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design

Representations and Perceived Information Architecture (PIA)

This article discusses two key ideas. First, it briefly outlines four ways to represent the same information. Second, it provides a high-level overview of Perceived Information Architecture.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Articles>Intellectual Property>User Centered Design

Rethinking User-Centered Information Development  

Often in the computer industry there is a tendency to provide information about the features of a system. However, customers usually purchase the system based on knowledge of its features, when they receive the product they need information on how to accomplish tasks. Developing task-oriented information requires a shift in perspective from what the computer technology can do, to what your customers want to do with the technology. The resulting information must be usercentered rather than feature-driven. These types of customer requirements demand afresh development approach.

Stertzbach, Lori A. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Documentation>User Centered Design>Usability

Revising Letters to Veterans    

A discussion of the process of making letters for veterans easier to understand.

Daniel, Reva. Technical Communication Online (1995). Articles>Writing>User Centered Design>Usability

Roles and Skills for Technical Communicators in User-Centered Design  

This paper discusses how technical communicators fit into the over all user-centered design (UCD) process, and how technical communicators can start applying user-centered design principles to their work. UCD principles can help technical communicators add value to the design of information, as well as to the overall design of a product. The paper addresses both the traditional and new skills that technical communicators need to acquire to become effective members of a UCD team.

Fisher, Lori H. STC Proceedings (1996). Articles>User Centered Design>TC

RSS Will Replace E-mail for Marketing Purposes: What You Need to Build Right Now to be Ready

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (depending on who you believe). If you don't know what it is, you had best grow a brain about it tout de suite.

Improving Customer Experience (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>RSS

Scenari d'Uso  

Marco Zappa lavora come visual designer in una web agency. Quando ha iniziato, tre anni fa, la societa' era composta da una trentina di persone, mentre oggi le persone sono quasi settanta. I progetti a cui lavora sono cambiati, e anche i ruoli all'interno della sua azienda si sono modificati e specializzati. Ora le attivita' sui progetti sono divise in maniera piu' rigida e precisa. Per questo motivo, insieme al fatto che i progetti sono piu' complessi e ci sono piu figure professionali coinvolte, non e' raro che si lavori in dieci o quindici persone sullo stesso progetto. Fino a un anno prima tutti i materiali venivano lasciati su un server con accesso pubblico: ogni progetto aveva una sua cartella, strutturata al suo interno in piu' sottocartelle per i documenti di progetto, le proposte grafiche, i materiali forniti dai clienti e tutti gli elementi grafici e contenutistici prodotti. Il sito vero e proprio risiedeva invece su un server di preview, con accesso riservato ad alcuni membri del team.

Caprio, Laura and Beatrice Ghiglione. InformationArchitecture.it (2003). (Italian) Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

"Sell" Your Survey With Direct Marketing Design  

We think about them every day. We try to anticipate their every need, predict their every question. They are our readers, our audience, the users and consumers of our documentation.

Stelmack, Rebecca L. Intercom (1999). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Surveys

Semantic Web Based Services for Intelligent Mobile Construction Collaboration

To provide real time, on-demand intelligent mobile collaboration support for their workers, construction enterprises increasingly need to use powerful wireless devices coupled with the availability of improved bandwidth, to tap into different inter and intra-enterprise data resources.

Zeeshan, Aziz, Anumba Chimay, Ruikar Darshan, Carrillo Patricia and Dino Bouchlaghem. ITcon (2004). Articles>Information Design>User Centered Design

Server-Side Usability

Most usability professionals don't have a driver's licence to servers and are not aware of the steps that can be taken to make them behave in a user-friendly way. In this article, we'll take a look at how to avoid that server technology becomes an obstacle to usability.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews Part 2

In part one, Michael shared how to navigate company politics to set up great stakeholder interviews. Here he covers his five tips for navigating company politics, avoiding client bias, and eliciting the information you need to inform your design.

Beavers, Michael. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Interviewing>Project Management>User Centered Design

Setting Up Business Stakeholder Interviews, Part 1

Gathering business requirements from stakeholders is critical to good design, but setting up quality interviews can be tough. Tossing out the org chart may be the best way to figure out who really wields influence over a company's website.

Beavers, Michael. Boxes and Arrows (2007). Articles>Interviewing>User Centered Design