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

Stalking the User: Practical Field Research  

Describes how technical communicators can use field research--observing people in their workplaces, homes, and schools--to gain a better understanding of user behavior.

Rosenbaum, Stephanie L. Intercom (2003). Articles>Usability>Methods>User Centered Design

Toward Integrating Our Research Scope: A Sociocultural Field Methodology    

Technical communicators have recently become interested in user-centered design (UCD) for designing and evaluating technical genres. Yet, a critical examination of the field methods of UCD suggests that they suffer from unintegrated scope: an undesirably limiting focus on a particular level of scope (either the macroscopic level of human activity or the mesoscopic level of goal-directed action) in their theoretical underpinnings and data collection and analysis. This focus is often paired with the assumption that this particular level of scope causally affects what happens at the other levels. Both the focus and the assumption are at odds with sociocultural theories of human activity. This article lays out the problem of unintegrated scope and examines it through critical analyses of two field methods used in UCD research. It concludes by proposing an integrated-scope research methodology for UCD research, with roots in both sociocultural theory and the central issues of technical communication.

Spinuzzi, Clay. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2001). Articles>Usability>Methods>User Centered Design

Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization

Buying new clothes and looking at current fashions is usually much more interesting and exciting than digging through one's closet or laundry hamper. However, there is a lot one can learn by stopping and taking a minute to examine one's own clothes.

Rampoldi-Hnilo, Lynn. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Uncovering Users In Your Own Organization

Buying new clothes and looking at current fashions is usually much more interesting and exciting than digging through one’s closet or laundry hamper. However, there is a lot one can learn by stopping and taking a minute to examine one's own clothes.

Rampoldi-Hnilo, Lynn. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Understanding Organizational Stakeholders for Design Success

User-centered design professionals pay special emphasis to one type of stakeholder—the users of the system—arguing that user experience needs to be carefully crafted to satisfy user needs. While understanding user needs and goals is certainly necessary, it is often not sufficient for producing a successful design.

Boutelle, Jonathan. Boxes and Arrows (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Understanding Users' Work: Doing Task Analysis Before Design  

Are you interested in a gaining a better understanding of tasks and task analysis? Are you looking for practical hints on doing workflow analysis, job analysis, or procedural analysis? Are you used to writing about tasks based on product features, when you know the product would be better if the team had done task analysis first? If so, come participate in this demonstration/workshop in which we'll explore how to understand users' work by doing task analysis before designing the product.

Redish, Janice C. 'Ginny'. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

"Use Cases" and "User Scenarios" Explained

This file contains the responses I received to a message I sent on January 21, 2000 to the TECHWR-L and WINHLP-L discussion lists. It was posted on the Techwhirl website for awhile but was removed during a reorganisation of the site. Other people's comments are included with their permission.

Hollis Weber, Jean. Technical Editors Eyrie (2000). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

User Persona: Its Application and the Art of Stereotyping

I feel that creation of user persona is nothing but realistic stereotyping or a simplified outline of the user. The word 'realistic' is more important as realism can be achieved only through user study. (I am not referring to the fictional personas applicable in futuristic technologies). Humorists, cartoonists and filmmakers are gifted with the art of stereotyping. But they tend to exaggerate a lot. Therefore the personalities they render appear like caricatures. We must avoid caricatured user personas. While stereotyping, you generalize and oversimplify. And when you do that you pick or eliminate some details. That makes all the difference.

Katre, Dinesh S. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Users, Roles, and Personas  

User role models are compared in detail with the popular user modeling technique of personas. User roles offer a more compact, more focused means of capturing and exploring those aspects of users most relevant to interaction design. The advantages and limitations of the approaches are considered and a combined strategy is described.

Constantine, Larry L. Constantine and Lockwood (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Switching Between Tools in Complex Applications  

Usability practice needs a procedure to identify, record, count, and highlight tool switch events for study. This paper describes one that supports the trained observers on which User-Centered Design relies to detect problems and causes, and evaluate design changes.

Schroeder, Will. Journal of Usability Studies (2008). Articles>Usability>User Centered Design>Methods

Using Persona Advocates to Develop User-Centric Intranets and Portals

One powerful design tool, personas, can help provide a framework for building Intranets that will satisfy a variety of needs. Effectively developed and used, personas enable Intranet teams to hone in on user needs and build interfaces and user experiences that end-user audiences can and will use.

McQueen, Howard. McQueen Consulting (2008). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Thirteen Common Objections Against User Requirements Analysis

Outlines some common objections to doing user research and provides some defense against them.

D'Hertefelt, Sim. InformationArchitect.com (2000). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Audience Analysis

Real or Imaginary: The Effectiveness of Using Personas in Product Design  

The use of personas as a method for communicating user requirements in collaborative design environments is well established. However, very little research has been conducted to quantify the benefits of using this technique. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using personas. An experiment was conducted over a period of 5 weeks using students from NCAD. The results showed that, through using personas, designs with superior usability characteristics were produced. They also indicate that using personas provides a significant advantage during the research and conceptualisation stages of the design process (supporting previously unfounded claims). The study also investigated the effects of using different presentation methods to present personas and concluded that photographs worked better than illustrations, and that visual storyboards were more effective in presenting task scenarios than text only versions.

Long, Frank. Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Introduction to User Centred Design Process

The key principal of UCD is integrating users that represent the profiles of the target user group/s into the development process. Typically, friends, family and (most definitely) colleagues are not representative of the target user base! However, they’re nearly always free with advice. But the validity of this advice is often questionable. In order to integrate unbiased user feedback into the process the following are key steps in a UCD process.

Frontend Infocentre (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods

Caution: Stereotypes Under Construction

Now that I have your attention, I’ll tell you up front that what Janea follows is not a rant. It’s not even a statement for or against Triplett political correctness. It’s a caution–words of warning about the creation of personas and the practice of user profiling. Even if one calls it the development of an archetype or ideal type, it is still a stereotype.

Triplett, Janea. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Ten Steps to Personas

Having worked with personas before the method ever came to be known as personas there are, from my research and practical experience, three important areas that have to be considered: the data material, engagement in the personas descriptions, and buy-in from the organization which is part of the development process whether it is redesign or a development from scratch. This is the rationale behind my development of 10 steps to personas, an attempt to cover the entire process from initial data gathering to ongoing development.

Nielsen, Lene. Journal of HCI Vistas (2007). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

What’s My Persona? Developing a Deep and Dimensioned Character

I believe designers gather data to understand the personas that represent the users for whom they are designing a user interface. This is quite similar to the way actors must develop an understanding of their characters. So, developing their character-building and storytelling skills can help designers—just as it does actors.

Lepore, Traci. UXmatters (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Card Sorting: Pushing Users Beyond Terminology Matches

It's easy to bias study participants, whether in user testing or in card sorting, if they focus on matching stimulus words instead of working on the underlying problem.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Card Sorting

Manipulating Data: Analysis Techniques, Part 3

One of the key characteristics of a manipulation technique versus related techniques like transformation is that the underlying data remains unchanged. The main thing we’re doing is changing the relationship - logical or physical - that one piece of data has with another. Reorganizing the data helps us to identify patterns that may otherwise not be apparent. In fact, it is almost certain that most patterns won’t be visible at first glance. Let’s start by taking a more detailed look at some of the processes that contribute to the manipulation of data.

Baty, Steve. Johnny Holland (2009). Articles>Research>Methods>User Centered Design

How to Understand Your Users with Personas

Personas are a powerful tool for helping you to better understand the needs of your users. In this comic, drawn exclusively for Think Vitamin, you’ll learn more about Personas and how they’ll revolutionize the way you design and build web sites.

Colbow, Brad. Carsonified (2009). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

Getting from Research to Personas: Harnessing the Power of Data

The usefulness of personas in defining and designing interactive products has become more widely accepted in the last few years, but a lack of published information has, unfortunately, left room for a lot of misconceptions about how personas are created, and about what information actually comprises a persona. Although space does not permit a full treatment of persona creation in this article, I hope to highlight a few essential points.

Goodwin, Kim. Cooper Journal (2002). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas

What's Your Customer's Persona?

Using "personas" forces us to think carefully about who our customer is for each product — what they need and want and how they'll use it. We've come up with a few personas, and each one has a name and personality. Even for a book on business planning, for instance, "Sally Startup" has different needs than does "Vic Venture."

Abrams, Rhonda. USA Today (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Methods>Personas