成功的用户中心设计管理

随着数字产品产量的激增，包括了电脑、桌面应用程序、基于网络的应用程序，另外还有移动及嵌入式装置等等，用户对这些产品的用户体验(UX – User Experience)的质量决定了它们的成功与否。想要对非技术性的用户打造一个具有生命力，娱乐性及商业性的应用程序，一个简单易用的界面更是必不可少的。

Ashley, Jeremy and Kristin Desmond. uiGarden (2005). (Chinese) Design>User Centered Design>Project Management>User Experience

Audio and the User Experience

Audio signals also help us interact with our environment. Some of these signals are designed: We wake to the buzz of the alarm clock, answer the ringing telephone, and race to the kitchen when the shrill beep of the smoke alarm warns us that dinner is burning on the stove. Other audio signals are not deliberately designed, but help us nonetheless. For instance, we may know the proper sound of the central air conditioning starting, the gentle hum of the PC fan, or the noise of the refrigerator. So, when these systems go awry, we notice it immediately--something doesn't sound right. Likewise, an excellent mechanic might be able to tell what is wrong with a car engine just by listening to it run.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience>Audio

Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience: Designing for User Performance  

The shortcomings and limitations of user-centered and user experience design are considered and contrasted with usage-centered design. The iterative, trial-and-error approach of traditional user-centered approaches is argued to lead to excessive dependence on user testing and user approval, leading to overly conservative designs. By contrast, model-driven approaches based on fine-grained task models have a proven record of leading to dramatic improvements in user performance through innovative designs.

Constantine, Larry L. Constantine and Lockwood (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>EPSS

Crafting a User Experience Curriculum

It isn’t often that one has the opportunity to create a course about user experience, let alone an entire sequence of user experience courses. Jason Withrow's opportunity forced him to examine his perceptions of the user experience industry.

Withrow, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Education>User Experience>User Centered Design

Cross-Cultural User-Experience Design: What? So What? Now What...  

Applying culture to user-experience design theory and practice.

Marcus, Aaron. University of California Berkeley (2005). Presentations>User Centered Design>User Experience>International

Design for Emotion: Ready for the Next Decade?

The experience profile of a product can be described in terms of these experiential components. Once such an experience profile has been properly defined, it must be translated in all product properties the designer can affect. It has an effect on the sensorial aspects of the product, but also on the way it functions, it affects the way people operate the product and even the way the product is marketed. In sum, the profile has an impact on all aspects that together shape the human-product interaction.

Hekkert, Paul and Pieter Desmet. uiGarden (2007). Design>User Interface>User Centered Design>User Experience

Design for the Dream Economy

After the eras of the Commodity Economy, the Manufacturing Economy, the Service Economy and the Information Economy, we have now entered the era of the Dream Economy. The key to success in the Dream Economy is an in-depth and holistic understanding of people. It's not only about meeting people's practical needs, but also about meeting their aspirations and providing a positive emotional experience.

Jordan, Pat. uiGarden (2007). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Designers' Roles in Communicating with Users

Defining 'the user experience' is difficult since it can extend to nearly everything in someone's interaction with a product, from the text on a search button, to the color scheme, to the associations it evokes, to the tone of the language used to describe it, to the customer support. Understanding the relationship between these elements requires a different kind of research than merely timing how quickly a task is accomplished or testing to see how memorable the logo is.

Light, Ann. Usability News (2003). Design>User Centered Design>Communication>User Experience

Designing the Out-of-the-Box Experience: A Case Study  

To improve your product’s out-of-the-box experience, you must first define the experience that you want your users to have. The next challenge is to design the specific elements that will achieve that experience. These elements must be designed harmoniously with each other and with the functional improvements planned for the product. By enhancing those improvements, the overall experience will draw the customer into the product. If designed appropriately, these elements can improve not only the out-of-the-box experience but also the marketability of the product.

Kowalski, Lee Anne. STC Proceedings (2001). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Engagement: Should We Care?

These days, the idea of customer engagement is almost as hot as Web 2.0--and almost as controversial. As busy UX professionals, should we invest our time and energy in caring about engagement, or is it just another buzzword? I think we do need to understand customer engagement, so that, at a minimum, we can respond intelligently to questions about it from marketers or executives. We might even glean some useful insights from thinking about engagement. This column aims to cut through the hype and reveal the potential value of engagement.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design>Audience Analysis

Engaging User Creativity: The Playful Experience

With so many choices as to how we can spend our time in the digital age, attention is becoming the most important currency. In today's splintered media environment, new digital products and services must compete with everything under the sun, making differentiation key to developing an audience that cares, invests, and ultimately drives value.

Follett, Jonathan. UXmatters (2007). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design

Expanding the Approaches to User Experience

Jesse James Garrett’s 'The Elements of User Experience' diagram has become rightly famous as a clear and simple model for the sorts of things that user experience professionals do. But as a model of user experience it presents an incomplete picture with some serious omissions—omissions I’ll try address with a more holistic model.

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>User Experience>User Centered Design

From Satisfaction to Delight

At this point in experience design's evolution, satisfaction ought to be the norm, and delight ought to be the goal. As design professionals, how do we create opportunities for customer delight?

Hanna, Parrish. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Global Market, Global Emotion, Global Design?

In the current discussion of where design is going and what matters, there is an emphasis on the user and his or her (emotional) experience. It is a hot topic in books, blogs and the minds of industrial designers and interaction designers, worldwide. The importance of a focus on (emotional) experiences in addition to a merely technological or functional focus is being stressed by professionals with many different cultural backgrounds.

van Hout, Marco. uiGarden. Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions

Good Products Don’t Make Up for Bad Service … But They Help

Jeffrey Kalmikoff is partner at skinnyCorp and chief creative officer at Threadless. In this article he relates what a trip to a sandwich shop can teach you about customer service.

Kalmikoff, Jeffrey. Vitamin (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design

The High Price of Not Listening

Ever visited the website of a company with a glaring error either on the site or in their product, only to discover that they have successfully sealed themselves off from the world, so you can't report it? Sure you have, and it's not only causing you frustration, it's costing that company real money.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2004). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

How Do Users Really Feel About Your Design?

The user experience field has been trying to move beyond mere usability and utility for years. So far, no one seems to have developed easy-to-implement, non-retrospective, valid, and reliable measures for gauging users' emotional reactions to a system, application, or Web site. In this column, I'll introduce you to a promising method that just might solve this problem.

Sherman, Paul J. UXmatters (2007). Design>User Experience>User Centered Design>Emotions

Immersion in Videogames

User experience is a term that is widely used these days to refer to all sorts of interactions between people and technologies. But when it comes to videogames, experience is the only sensible word to use. Games are pure experience. And the range of experiences they offer is huge from what it is like to land a 747 at Heathrow Airport to slaying space dragons with a team of like-minded warriors. Thus, when it comes to really understanding user experience in games, it can be hard to say anything that would apply in general. However, one expression that does seem to crop up regularly, and that gamers relate to, is that games are immersive: when people are having a good experience, they get lost or immersed in the game and the world outside the game fades into the background. So what is this notion of immersion? What causes it? And is it the heart of what makes a good game? These are the questions that I have been trying to answer, together with my colleagues and students, over the last few years.

Cairns, Paul. uiGarden (2008). Articles>User Experience>User Centered Design>Games

An Introduction to User Journeys

User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website's content and functionality. These journeys allow us to shift away from thinking about structure in terms of hierarchies or a technical build; instead you create a narrative around your user's needs.

Hobbs, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Making Emotional Connections Through Participatory Design

Most of the people we talk to believe that the desired end result of experience design is an emotional connection between a person and her experience with a product or service. When a company is able to make them, such connections can have a positive impact on the company’s brand.

Gage, Marty and Preetham Kolari. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience>Emotions

Metrics for Heuristics: Quantifying User Experience (Part 2 of 2)

In part one of 'Metrics for Heuristics,' Andrea Wiggins discussed how designers can use Rubinoff’s user experience audit to determine metrics for measuring brand. In part two, Wiggins examines how web analytics can quantify usability, content, and navigation.

Wiggins, Andrea. Boxes and Arrows (2006). Articles>User Centered Design>User Experience>Heuristic Evaluation

Slashing Subjective Time

Slashing subjective time on your site by 50% is a perfectly reasonable goal. Indolent worker George Costanza once reflected on the time in the shower you wait for the hair conditioner to work as, 'a really tough minute.' A minute waiting for hair conditioner to work while getting ready for a date can feel longer than the three subsequent hours you spend with that very special person. Reducing/eliminating boredom points can make the time spent on your website appear to really fly by.

Tognazzini, Bruce. Nielsen Norman Group (2007). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Starting a Career in User Experience

This article is based upon my own experience transitioning from a career in corporate-world project management into the field of user experience design. With dedication, some talent, a few classes, and a healthy dose of self-promotion, the transition was fairly easy, very enjoyable, and took about two years. I have outlined a few key points to consider if you are planning to start a career in user experience design.

Haid, Marcus. Adaptive Path (2003). Careers>Usability>User Centered Design>User Experience

Success with User-Centered Design Management

With the proliferation of digital products, including computers, desktop and Web-based applications, and mobile and embedded devices, the quality of the user experience (UX) has become one of the key determinants in the success of competing products. Productivity, entertainment, and business-application programs for non-technical users in particular must have 'intuitive' interfaces.

Ashley, Jeremy and Kristin Desmond. uiGarden (2005). Design>User Centered Design>Project Management>User Experience

The Use of Stories in Design: The Get2Grip Design Project for Work Experience  

The complexity of new technology demands more than one participant in the design process to imagine future products and systems, and this is practitioners in design might learn from other professions in the development phase. But that indicate that design industries might have to challenge themselves in changing work practice in the development phase of a design.

People and Product (2005). Design>User Centered Design>User Experience>Case Studies