Creativity-based Research: The Process of Co-Designing with Users The practice of co-design allows users to become an active part of the creative development of a product by interacting directly with design and research teams. It is grounded in the belief that all people are creative and that users, as experts of their own experiences, bring different points of view that inform design and innovation direction. Co-design is a method that can be used in all stages of the design process, but especially in the ideation or concepting phases. Partnering with users ensures their inclusion in knowledge development, idea generation, and concept development on products whose ultimate goal is to best serve these same users. In this article I will examine the different stages of a co-design research process, as well as the methods and practices that are commonly used in each phase. Furthermore, I’ll look at the new forms of co-designing that have emerged as a result of social technologies. Stage 1: Self-Reflection Research Methods The Methods The pilot test
Past issue - UI Design Newsletter Taking this need to create personas that represent real people, with all their quirks and eccentricities and also their varied professions, to an extreme, is the technique of Design for Extreme Characters. Djajadiningrat, Gaver and Frens, in their paper Interaction Relabelling and Extreme Characters: Methods for Exploring Aesthetic Interaction present the case of creating a persona and resulting scenarios when designing a PDA. The scenario may be very detailed in terms of lifestyle. Jack likes wearing Hugo Boss suits and driving his BMW. However, from an emotional point of view Jack seems shallow and completely out of touch with the real world — apart from work, Jack is always keen to go to his next appointment, he is never tired, never bored. And so they move away from 'nice and normal Jack' and instead create characters that have unusual occupations and also unusual emotional attitudes. The Drug Dealer The Drug Dealer is a powerful person who manages rather than commits crimes.
Top 10 UX Myths Al Gore invented the Internet. Drinking alcohol keeps your body warm. You won’t get pregnant if you stand on your head after … well, you get the idea. Myths are those hard-and-fast rules that often start as a plausible idea or once-off observation that grow and distill into ‘common knowledge’ as they virtually spread. I know I’ve believed a few of these. So, let me entertain you with a list I compiled of my favorite ‘User Experience myths’. Note from the Editor: Doug Bowman, Dan Cederholm, Jason Santa Maria and more, will be talking about UX at The Future of Web Design NYC. Myth #10: If the Design is a Good One, You Don’t Need to Test It This myth states basically that if you are experienced, and you know what you’re doing, then you won’t need to do any user experience testing. IDEO are known to create dozens of prototypes for testing during a product’s development. Myth #9: People Don’t Change OS X Preference window includes a how-to video on using the trackpad. View larger On simplicity:
15 Valuable Usability PDFs You Never Heard Of Here’s a list of 15 valuable Usability Papers in PDF form that you might not have heard of, but should know and can use: I thought I’d list a few helpful papers I use from time to time when going about my usability work. Some of these you may have heard of, some not. I think you’ll find these very helpful from time to time. If you have a special usability PDF you find extremely helpful and it’s not listed here please do share them in the Comments (go ahead, share them right now), that way we can all grow smarter about usability together! I hope you find these helpful! Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines by the U.S. Usability.gov should be in any usability fan’s list. A Comparison of Questionnaires for Assessing Website Usability Assessing Website Usability by Tullis and Stetson, from the UPA 2004 Conference (2004) How well do web site usability questionnaires apply to the assessment of websites? Usability Issues in Web Site Design by Bevan, from the UPA 1998 Conference (1998)
Usability.Edu: 25 Incredibly Useful Usability Cheat Sheets & Checklists | Designer City, USA Is your Web site primed for any viewer? How do you know? The nicest thing about a usable Web site is that it’s just a good thing to do for others so they can easily read your online information. The following list of cheat sheets and checklists are fairly recent; however, some older usability checklists are useful for older sites that haven’t been upgraded. 15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website: Use this Smashing Magazine list to double-check your site’s usability before you launch.15 Valuable Usability PDFs You Never Heard Of: This list of usability papers in PDF format will put you well ahead of the pack.25-point Website Usability Checklist: A concise list of checkpoints to make sure your site is usable.Checklist for Usability Forms: This checklist is for HTML forms along with links to a few articles that are very helpful.Everyday Usability – 14-Point Checklist for Success: Kimberly Krause Berg from Cre8pc.com is convinced that a “tweak a day convinces visitors to stay.”
Main Page - Social Patterns From Social Patterns #What is this site? #What's a pattern? Social Patterns & Best Practices Getting started What is this site? skip to the patterns! The Designing Social Interfaces patterns wiki is a companion site to the book that Christian Crumlish and Erin Malone are currently writing for O'Reilly Media. We decided to share the patterns as we write the patterns and the book to get community feedback. If you choose to contribute, we ask that you don't delete sections out right, but rather add your information with attribution. We look forward to talking with you! What's a Pattern? A pattern describes an optimal solution to a common problem within a specific context. A pattern is not a finished piece of code or design. When we talk about patterns, we often start by noticing social behavior patterns. The patterns in this collection are social design patterns (a.k.a. social user experience design patterns). Want to work on a pattern? The Site and The Book
UI Design Patterns and Library Builder Interaction Design Pattern Library - Welie.com Suggest a pattern Have you seen new examples of patterns out there that have not been described on this site? Send me a link to an example and I'll add it to my to-do list. Latest comments Form (Lucas Gwadana) Sometimes the ERROR handling is not explicit enough because when a user makes an... Map Navigator (Marcus) For print pages etc static maps are still relevant. Accordion (dellmre) Ajax accordion samples with source code Autocomplete (Zorg) I believe the name of this pattern to be misleading. Slideshow (Joshua) Slideshows on Homepages can be very beneficial. Main Page - Social Patterns