Everything in Moderation: Using Content Units to Manage UX

I’ve found that separating client requests into content units removes uncertainty and offers clearer direction, while helping your client recognize each individual request as a deliverable, requiring assignments and responsibilities. To do this, I follow a four-step process that helps delineate what content units each section of a Web site must cover—as opposed to content that acts as filler, or filler units.

LaFerriere, Keith. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Project Management>Planning>User Experience

How to Succeed As a First-Time UX Manager

In my last column, I suggested that being a manager of UX is no better—and no worse—than being a great designer or user researcher, but the roles are very different. In fact, as the book The First 90 Days [1] points out, the skills that make you successful as an individual contributor are not the same skills you need as a leader.

Nieters, Jim. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Management>Collaboration

Moving UX into a Position of Corporate Influence: Whose Advice Really Works?

Was documenting and evangelizing (i.e., explaining and advocating for) UX work considered to be a critical component of what it took to move UX into a position of corporate influence? It was in some companies, but not in others.

Anderson, Richard I. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Management>User Experience>Workplace

ROI Is Not a Silver Bullet: Five Actionable Steps for Valuing User Experience Design

How can design managers use valuation methodology to better increase their visibility and position themselves as a strategic corporate resource? Here are five steps that will help.

Hirsch, Scott. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Management>User Experience

In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams

What does it mean to be strategically relevant? It means executives consider you a trusted advisor. It also means other disciplines—such as Engineering, Product Management, Business Development, and so on—consider you a partner and want you to participate in strategic decision making, even if they are not required to do so.

Nieters, Jim and Laurie Pattison. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Management>User Experience

In Search of Strategic Relevance for UX Teams

Although our UX management peers have shared many tactics with us that have made their groups more strategically relevant, we’re presenting just a few here. We’ll highlight what we feel are the most salient factors in getting you to the strategy table.

Nieters, Jim and Laurie Pattison. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Management>User Experience>Collaboration

Seven Things to Know about Building a User Experience Team

Make sure each team member clearly understands the underlying business case for the user experience, and the measures of success.

Donoghue, Karen. Built for Use (2002). Articles>Management>User Experience

The UX Designer’s Place in the Ensemble: Directing the Vision

What does directing have to do with creating a user interface design? Well, we know a director is responsible for the strategic vision of creative work. That’s a given. But, did you know he is also responsible for ensuring a successful outcome that both meets his vision and is in line with the producer’s desires and budget? To make that happen, a director works with the cast, crew, costume and set designers, and everyone else who contributes to a successful theatrical production to pull together a cohesive product, without losing site of his vision. It’s a complicated job.

Lepore, Traci. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>Collaboration>Project Management

The User Experience of Enterprise Software Matters: Part 1

There’s one area that I believe user experience has lagged behind: the enterprise software space. I can’t tell you how many frustratingly unusable enterprise Web applications I’ve encountered during my 12 plus years in corporate America. As important as the user experience of enterprise software is to a business’s success, why isn’t its assessment usually a factor in technology selection?

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2008). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>User Experience

The User Experience of Enterprise Software Matters, Part 2: Strategic User Experience

In this column, I’ll provide a technology selection framework that can help enterprises better assess the usability and appropriateness of enterprise applications they’re considering purchasing, with the goal of ensuring their IT (Information Technology) investments deliver fully on their value propositions.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Web Design>Content Management>User Experience

Who Watches the Watchman?

The watchclock is another kind of interaction design, one whose function corrals the user into a single, linear, constrained sort of behavior. The night watchman has a fundamental social constraint — the desire to not get fired from their job. This constraint allows the watchclock patrol system to work so effectively (some would say insidiously) as an interaction design instrument of control.

Fahey, Christopher. Graphpaper (2009). Articles>User Experience>Management>Interaction Design

Design Partners: Passing on the Knowledge of UX

The two main drivers for a successful relationship were to respect each other’s opinion and to use active listening to understand what the other was saying.

Richkus, Rebecca. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Knowledge Management>User Experience>Collaboration

Agile User Experience Projects 

Agile projects aren't yet fully user-driven, but new research shows that developers are actually more bullish on key user experience issues than UX people themselves.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2009). Articles>Project Management>User Experience>Agile