User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user's perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting 'all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used.'
#21724
The Big Dig: Mining Nuggets of Value 
It is difficult to apply the lessons learned from e-commerce search interfaces to more complex ones, such as those for libraries or technical material. This article provides a guide to tailoring search interfaces to users with a persona-based approach.
McDaniel, Scott M. User Experience (2002). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Search
#26651
Strategies for Sizing UCD Projects 
Sizing UCD projects presents special challenges to usability practitioners and consultants. Each project and UCD methodology comes with its own set of variables that makes it difficult to accurately estimate resource requirements and completion times. The goal of this effort is to discover best practices for effectively âï¿ï¿sizingâï¿ï¿ UCD projects.
James, Janice and Carol Righi. User Experience Magazine (2005). Articles>User Centered Design>Project Management
#30461
User Experience Design and Usability
Blog on interface design, interaction design and usability.
Lipiec, Maciej. User Experience Design and Usability (2007). (Polish) Design>User Experience>Interaction Design>User Centered Design
#32614
In the column, A View from Here, Bailie discusses the commitment to usability of cookbook author Margaret Dickenson, who entertained around the world as the wife of a Canadian ambassador. Dickenson, a home economist and culinary professional, did not let that get in the way of connecting with her audience, and made her cookbook more usable—without using industry jargon.
Bailie, Rahel Anne. UPA User Experience Magazine (2006). Articles>Usability
#32747
A blog about user experience, usability, design, navigation and interfaces.
Designing User Experience. Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Blogs
#32748
UX Designers Focus on Your Users
UX designers often have a library of different interface patterns - navigation types, methods to help people find their way in software - and a deep understanding of how people actually DO find their way or navigate. They’re good communicators, and good at quickly plugging symptoms to design pattern. General doctors can prescribe medications, whereas UX designers can often actually bring the design patterns to life using CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax, and Dojo, or .Net, Java, JSP, and so forth. They may not be coding geniuses, but they have to be aware of what’s out there and what it can do, just like your general doctor needs to know about surgical options and prescriptions, even if they don’t actually spend their day in surgery or the lab.
Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience
#32749
People often don’t know exactly how they want software to allow them to complete a task. They recognize how the existing software makes them work around what they want, and they understand vague ideas like “make it easy to use”, but they may not be able to translate that into interface design. And why should they?
Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Experience
#32750
Web Content Writing Is Not Technical Writing
We’re all taught that online writing has to be hard hitting and quick because readers scan, and will not invest time in reading a meandering piece. My brain so efficiently crunches data and spits it out in list format, complete with headings and summarized with concise sentence structure, that I have a hard time writing anything else.
Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Technical Writing
#32758
How To Be Successful in User Experience
Success in UX design is driven by a particular personality. UX requires straddling so many elements, and includes a wide range of experience and expertise, rather than allowing one to become comfortable doing the same ol’ same ol’. Not only are user needs met first and foremost, there is an ongoing feeling of growth and development required to keep all these needs managed. In these days where it seems crucial to balance Ajax, JavaScript, CSS, Flex, and more, we are reminded that all these technologies must most importantly be leveraged by a particular personality.
Designing User Experience (2008). Careers>Usability>User Experience
#32759
I have recently noticed a new breed of web design books that focus on strategy and users rather than specific programming languages or applications.
Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>Reviews>Web Design>User Experience
#32762
Overview of User Experience Design Concepts
User experience design has become an essential consideration in the development of websites and technical communications. No longer can we throw together a few headings and numbered lists in CSS and XHTML and hope the result will be worthwhile and meaningful to users. As the web expands and content becomes more accessible, it is necessary to take content and websites to the next level - to provide information that is not just useful or even usable, but enjoyable. If a person has to spend more than a few seconds trying to find what they need they are that much more likely to “Google it” and find a site or help system that provides the answer quicker.
Designing User Experience (2008). Articles>User Experience>Search Engine Optimization
#35591
Designing the User Experience at Autodesk: A Case Study in Large-Application Usability Benchmarking
As a user researcher with a primarily qualitative background, I have to confess that when I was asked to conduct a usability benchmark study on AutoCAD, I was not exactly jumping out of my chair. Frankly, I was wary of the quantitative emphasis of the method and the proposal to reduce the whole user experience down to a single number. I was also more than slightly nervous about designing a benchmark study for a product as complex as AutoCAD.
Dawe, Melissa. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Case Studies
#35592
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
#35593
Usability Testing with User Proxies: When is "Close" Close Enough?
How can we designers get valid feedback from more design iterations in less time? One bottleneck in the design flow is finding a steady stream of usability testers. Between the extremes of the perfect (an actual user, on site) and the unacceptable (the developer who's coding the feature), lies the grey zone of user proxies. Can you use internal employees with relevant domain knowledge to usability test your products, and still get valid data?
Sy, Desirée. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Graphic Design>Usability>Testing
#35594
In his book, Sketching User Experience, Bill Buxton advocates for sketching as a technique and process that can put experience front and center in design. I am a big fan of sketching and use the techniques I first learned in architecture school for interaction design. In this post, I’m going to give you a quick peek at the types of sketches I typically create in my design process with the hope that it will inspire you to try sketching for you next project.
Schober, Yan. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Design>Graphic Design>Prototyping
#35595
User Experience and usability practitioners are on a continuous hunt for problems that plague our users. This seems straightforward – find problems from testing, user forums, observation, and other methods, prioritize the problems, and generate solutions that eliminate the complaint. However, some events that we call problems in one context may not be problems in another.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Experience>Usability
#35596
Values in Software Design Practice
Every user experience (UX) designer who practices in a corporate setting knows the breathless whirlwind that is modern business. We designers manage relationships with developers, business managers, and customers, and still have a full-time production role researching, designing and validating features and interactions. We rarely have enough time to do everything we should, and therefore have to carefully choose where to spend our time and resources.
Schrag, John. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Experience>Programming
#35597
A common mandate at many software companies is “Make our products consistent!” I’ve heard this clarion call for consistency at every company I’ve worked for that has more than a single product or service. The rationale behind the consistency mandate is that it will reduce design and development costs, improve the overall quality of the software, strengthen the brand (“the products should all look like they come from the same company”), make learning easier for users, and reduce errors when multiple products are used together. These are all great goals, but there is a problem with the consistency mandate – consistency is complex, multi-dimensional, and sometimes at odds with other important goals like usability.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Interface>Usability
#35598
The Foundation of a Great User Experience
I’m part of the AEC User Experience Team at Autodesk. Our goal is to design a great user experience for our customers, but just what does that mean? Our definition of user experience focuses on all the touchpoints that current or new users have with our product. For example, the downloading of software trials is often the beginning of one’s user experience with a product. If you have to fill out forms that ask for too much information, (should “cell phone number” be a required field on a trial download form?) or present you with too many obstacles, the likelihood of a positive user experience will be low. Your interactions with technical support, documentation, the product, and even other products that you use, are all aspects of the user experience.
Wilson, Chauncey E. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Experience>Usability>User Centered Design
#35599
Usability Over Time: Longitudinal Research Studies
User research focused on single experiences with a feature or workflow uncovers different problems and issues than longitudinal research.
Sy, Desirée. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#35600
Design Essentials for Non-Designers
This tutorial is intended for practitioners who have come to interaction design from a research, psychology, information architecture, or other non-design background. It focuses on what happens after the requirements are done and before you build your first prototype. Design fields such as graphic arts, architecture, and industrial design have long-standing practices for innovative design, and these apply well to interaction design.
Schrag, John and Ian Hooper. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Design>User Experience>Interaction Design
#35601
An SME is someone who has been trained and has worked in the area that is being targeted for the new application. At Autodesk, we have found that pairing SMEs with Interaction Designers is the most efficient and successful way of meeting user centered design goals.
Hooper, Ian. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Collaboration>Interaction Design>SMEs
#35602
Design Values: Validated Data over Expert Opinion
A few years ago, some of my colleagues decided to run a first-experience study on one of our software packages. The purpose of such a study is to gain an understanding of what our users go through in their first hour of use. What do they experience? Where do they get stuck? How far can they get in the software? What are their learning strategies? As a side experiment, my colleagues asked several experts in the company for their expert opinion as to what problems users would run into, and compiled them into a list. (These experts included the software designers, domain experts, and the people who trained users on the software.) Then my colleagues ran their study, observing sixteen people using this software for the first time, and made a list of the problems that users actually ran into. The result? There was not one common item on the two lists.
Schrag, John. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>Usability>Testing
#35603
Taking Aim: The Power of UX Goals
A user experience goal is a choice made by your product team about what kind of experience you want your users to have with your product or service. You use these choices to measure and direct the design of your product. Goals let us know when our tasks are complete, so that we can move on to something else. They stop us from obsessing over the wrong details and help us direct our energies to what is important. Goals tell us what to measure, and what can be ignored.
Schrag, John. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2008). Articles>User Experience
#35604
As interaction designers at Autodesk, we sometimes engage in design and thought investigations that are not directly related to the task at hand. These investigations are ways to frame problems by venturing into related design disciplines. For example, in order to understand what might be an appropriate transition when changing views in a 3d model, we try to understand how a video artist would create a transition between two scenes in a video. To understand how to improve the graphic quality of elements drawn in a building information model, we look at lots of pencil sketches drawn by architects. We think, what would happen if an on-screen element was made from physical material?
Nikolovska, Lira. Designing the User Experience at Autodesk (2009). Articles>User Experience>Graphic Design
