Noise Between Stations

Process

  • User Research

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    0 min read

  • One-Question Survey

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    2 min read

    The One Number You Need to Grow by Frederick F. Reichheld is a great, short article on using one-question surveys that measure loyalty correlated with customer behavior. Highlights: ‘Every month, Enterprise polled its customers using just two simple questions, one about the quality of their rental experience and the other about the likelihood that they…

  • How Designers Follow Constraints

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    4 min read

    Notes on Web Site Designs: Influences of Designers Experience and Design Constraints (PDF) by Aline Chevalier and Melody Y. Ivory, which ‘demonstrates that the designers’ levels of expertise (novice and professional) as well as the design constraints that clients prescribe influences both the number and the nature of constraints designers articulate and respect in their…

  • Tests Well With Others

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    1 min read

    In this brave new world where user-centered designers meet old-school info technologists, we can all live, love, and test together. Here’s how my usability testing jives with their testing, as I understand it: What types of testing do we do? QA: technical check to make sure it works UAT (user acceptance testing): ensure the system…

  • IDEO’s Method Cards

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    1 min read

    I received my IDEO Method Cards, and they’re big, twice as big as your usual playing cards. The writing is good; short and sweet with funky photos on the reverse. The content isn’t earth shattering – each features a user research technique – but the format is quite handy and sure to stir up some…

  • Web Practices and Decentralized Companies

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    1 min read

    Developing Best Practices for Distributed Networks of Sites: Heuristics, Design, and Politics (PDF) by Jeffrey Veen of Adaptive Path and Carolyn Gibson Smith of PBS sets a great example of improving web design and encouraging certain practices across a large, decentralized organization. One particular aspect I like is that by distributing templates and building examples…

  • The Goal of Usability Testing

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    1 min read

    What is the goal of usability testing? Let’s say it’s to improve the user’s experience. The user’s experience will improve when designers have the skills and resources to design well. The designers will improve when they have a better understanding of the users. Usability testing offers us some understanding of users. The direct goal of…

  • Usability Testing

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  • We’re All Out In The World

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    3 min read

    In Tekka, Cathy Marshall addresses a topic that’s been stirring in my mind lately… ‘…do scenarios and personas actually help, or do they just create a warm illusion of user-centered design?‘ She spends some time illustrating how products can drive personas… ‘Want to make personal security and encryption a necessary feature for [our persona’s] email…

  • Personas & Scenarios

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  • RUP and UCD

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    2 min read

    Dave Cronin’s new Cooper article, RUP & Goal-Directed Design: Toward a New Development Process is a great look at the intersection of conventional user-centered design practice and systems-focused processes. Although he focuses on the Rational Unified Process, the ideas can be applied to any big software development project, and is helpful in understanding and communicating…

  • Business, Design, and Time

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    1 min read

    Revisiting one of Jesse’s elements diagrams I’m thinking about how the addition of a ‘length’ column (how long the layer requires) would generate some interesting outcomes. For example, significant business decisions can be made and ripple through an organization faster than upper layers, particularly Scope (Requirements, Specs) and Structure (IA, ID). A problem arises where…

  • Mindset List

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    1 min read

    You’ve probably seen the Mindset List, published each year by Beloit College. It goes like this… Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984. A Southerner has always been President of the United States Cars have always had eye-level rear stop lights, CD players, and air bags. George Foreman has always been a…

  • Tire Swing Cartoon

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    1 min read

    If a digital design team designed a tire swing. Excellent. Link courtesy of xblog.

  • Design Early, Design Often

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    1 min read

    In the latest issue of New Architect Alan Cooper espouses his usual philosophy: ‘Simply put, there is no downside to designing before coding.’ In the same issue, a member of the Mozilla QA team advises, ‘Release early, release often, and let your customers bang on it.’ Certainly two different approaches, but both valid I think.…