jpreardon.com » IA/UX

Managing Complex UX Deliverables

jpreardon — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:30:24 +0000

Sometimes, people forget that the various UX deliverables on a given project are strongly interrelated. By this, I mean that a deliverable influences and informs downstream deliverables, while the downstream deliverables should support and expand on those that were created upstream. This also means that when something new is discovered, all of these fabulous deliverables should be updated as needed. The larger the project, the more important this becomes. Makes sense, right? Right!

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, sometimes due to time or budgetary constraints, sometime due to poor process or laziness. “Checklist Thinking” for UX Professionals: Retaining your sanity in a complex project further explains the importance of process when it comes to deliverables and offers some strategies for making is happen. It’s worth the quick read, if only as a reminder of how all these documents are (supposed to be) tied together.

// No related posts

Advice for Small UX Teams

jpreardon — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:53:13 +0000

Out of necessity, people on small user experience teams need to be generalists, especially when they are a team of one or two. UX Matters has some great pointers for small UX teams, from selling yourself to getting things done with little budget to finding a support network. All good advice that can help make you and your tiny team more productive.

Metaphors for Explaining Pair Design

jpreardon — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:42:58 +0000

It can be difficult to explain the ways by which things get created. The people at Cooper generally have two roles on their pair design teams: Generators and Synthesizers. But,this nomenclature may not go over so well “with parents or at a cocktail party”, to use their words. So, they’ve gone on to explain their pair design roles, metaphorically. I especially like the the use of Han Solo and Chewie in the pilot/navigator roles.

Web Design Survey Results

Wireframe Primer

jpreardon — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 15:17:05 +0000

Wireframes are old hat to anyone who has been working on web sites and applications for more than, say, 5 minutes. However, for those that aren’t involved in web design, wireframes can be a bit of a mystery. If you’re growing tired of explaining the role of the wireframe and why nobody should worry about how boxy and devoid of color they are, perhaps you can point people to UX 101: The Wireframe. There, one will fine a succinct explanation of the wireframe, why they are valuable, and what to look for when reviewing them.

How to Win a User Experience Debate

jpreardon — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:30:37 +0000

Stakeholders generally provide plenty of design feedback. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes the feedback is so counter to a good user experience that you, as the UX designer, are compelled to take a stand. If you’ve been around for more than one project, you’ve probably done this already. Before your next encounter, you may want to read Winning a User Experience Debate, which is an excerpt from the book Undercover User Experience Design. They present a three-tiered approach for validating a design, which they call the Validation Stack. It walks one through the evidence that one can be used to defend a design decision. They also mention an additional technique to use when your use of the Validation Stack fails.

via UIEtips

Three Tactics for Better Wireframe Presentations

jpreardon — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:36:49 +0000

Wireframes can be misconstrued by stakeholders if they are not presented in the right way. Everyone has their own way of presenting wireframes, and most are always on the lookout for ways to improve. These three tactics for making more understandable wireframe presentations are worth checking out. I especially like the use of storytelling to frame individual wireframes in the context of user stories and/or personas. I also like the idea of working early sketches into the presentation.

Orienteering vs. Teleportation: Designing for Both Novices and Experts

jpreardon — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:27:11 +0000

One of the challenges faced by user interface designers is how to make the interface work for novices, experts and everyone in between. These groups come to a site or application bringing different types of knowledge, therefore they require different interactions. Tyler Tate has an interesting take on this in Novices Orienteer, Experts Teleport. In this article he gives some solid examples of various interface elements for both novices and experts.

FCC: VoIP Not Subject to State Regulation

Experience Modeling

jpreardon — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:34:01 +0000

How can one go about effectively communicating user experience design to their team? Marc Sasinski puts forth one method in his article, Experience Design Models. He walks through the example of an online service that pays household bills to demonstrate how to create an experience model.

This is an excellent example of how to turn user research into something actionable and easily understood by everyone on the team. I also like the clean and simple graphics used to get the point across in this example. These graphics take information that could very well be presented in a somewhat dry spreadsheet format, and make it visually engaging. This increases the chances of people actually reading the documents–as we all know, the first step to comprehension is reading the document.

Graphic by Marc Sasinski from Experience Design Models: Minding the Gap Between Ideas and Interfaces

Prototypes Application Creates Quick iPhone Prototypes

jpreardon — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:30:05 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to understand how a particular design is going to work from a user experience standpoint, especially on a mobile device. With the Prototypes application you can quickly turn design comps (or even wireframes and sketches) into a tappable/clickable prototype on the iPhone, iPod touch or Mac. Basically, you’ll be turning the images into image maps that will load the appropriate image with touched or clicked. Hosting is included, so once you’ve created your prototype, you can easily share it with anyone. That last bit is a really excellent feature, which makes testing prototypes that much easier. Prototypes is available for $39.99 in the app store.

Harvest on iPhone Sync Problem

Requirements and User Experience

jpreardon — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 18:18:33 +0000

Greg Laugero has an excellent writeup on Matching Requirements with User Experience at Johnny Holland Magazine. His examples of enhancing requirements, which are often incomplete, with interaction design tools, such as user stories, during the design phase are great. This is a good read not only for those who are charged with meeting requirements, but also the people writing the requirements.

jpreardon.com » IA/UX

Managing Complex UX Deliverables

Advice for Small UX Teams

Related Posts

Metaphors for Explaining Pair Design

Related Posts

Wireframe Primer

Related Posts

How to Win a User Experience Debate

Related Posts

Three Tactics for Better Wireframe Presentations

Related Posts

Orienteering vs. Teleportation: Designing for Both Novices and Experts

Related Posts

Experience Modeling

Related Posts

Prototypes Application Creates Quick iPhone Prototypes

Related Posts

Requirements and User Experience

Related Posts