“A simple, semi-structured, one-on-one interview can provide a very rich source of insights. Interviews work very well for gaining insights from both internal and external stakeholders, as well as from actual users of a system under consideration. Though, in this column, I’ll focus on stakeholder interviews rather than user interviews. (And I’ll come back to that word, insights, a little later on, because it’s important.)” (Steve Baty – UXmatters)

“Conceptual prototypes are often very interesting projects because the ideas are leading edge. But they also present some unique challenges compared to more traditional projects where we are designing for actual implementation.” (Heidi Adkisson – Blink Interactive)

“In design research, the issues of what exactly constitutes user value and how design can contribute to its creation are not commonly discussed. This paper provides a critical overview of the theories of value used in anthropology, sociology, philosophy, business, and economics. In doing so, it reviews a range of theoretical and empirical studies, with particular emphasis on their position on product, user, and designer in the process of value creation. The paper first looks at the similarities and differences among definitions of value as exchange, sign, and experience. It then reviews types and properties of user value such as its multidimensionality, its contextuality, its interactivity, and the stages of user experience dependency identified by empirical studies. Methodological approaches to user value research and their possible applications in design are also discussed. Finally, directions for future research on user value are discussed giving particular emphasis to the need of tools and methods to support design practice.” (Suzan Boztepe – International Journal of Design 1.2)

“Drawing lessons from my experience with this kind of agile approach, I can state that its advantage is certainly the ability to produce a satisfying result despite time and budget constraints—even though the result is not perfect and will certainly need refinement later on. Another advantage of this kind of project is that both our team and our client’s team got to know each other better and learned how to exploit each person’s know-how, improving the overall ability of the design team.” (Luca Mascaro – UXmatters)

“This article provides some basic tips to help you better prepare to walk through your product designs with stakeholders.” (Daniel Szuc – UXmatters)

“Making the case for user-centered design (UCD) is a topic of recurring discussion for UX professionals. Much of the discussion has centered on strictly objective approaches such as cost-benefit or return-on-investment (ROI) analysis. However, recent commentary suggests proving ROI is not always enough. For example, Dray, Karat, Rosenberg, Siegel, and Wixon have raised concerns about significant weaknesses of the ROI argument, including their concern it ties UCD to tactical, not strategic initiatives.” (Colleen Jones – UXmatters)

“Observing a user perform a task provides more reliable information than simply asking the user how easy it would be to perform the task.” (Isabelle Peyrichoux – UXmatters)

“This book will help software makers – developers, designers, and architects – build effective prototypes every time: prototypes that convey enough information about the product at the appropriate time and thus set expectations appropriately. This practical, informative book will help anyone – whether or not one has artistic talent, access to special tools, or programming ability – to use good prototyping style, methods, and tools to build prototypes and manage for effective prototyping.” (The Book)

“Recently, I was reading through a sample chapter of a soon-to-be-published book. The book and author shall remain nameless, as shall the book’s topic. However, I was disappointed to read, in what otherwise appeared at first glance to be an interesting publication, a very general, sweeping statement to the effect that qualitative research doesn’t prove anything and, if you want proof, you should perform quantitative research. The author’s basic assumption was that qualitative research can’t prove anything, as it is based on small sample sizes, but quantitative research, using large sample sizes, does provide proof. This may come as a shock to everyone, but quantitative research does not provide proof of anything either.” (Steve Baty – UXmatters)

“(1) Technology Serves Humans. (2) Design is not Art. (3) The Experience Belongs to the User. (4) Great Design is Invisible. (5) Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.” (Joshua Porter – Bokardo)

“User experience professionals continue to attempt to move their work and impact ‘upstream’ — to play an earlier and more strategic role in their workplaces’ business. But exactly what does that mean? What is it that user experience practitioners or groups thereof should be doing differently or working towards doing (more)?” (Richard Anderson – riander)

“Agile software development has become fairly popular in the last few years, leaving many UX professionals wondering how user-centered design (UCD) can fit into an extremely fast-paced development process that uses little documentation. User-centered design can involve a variety of techniques that provide insights into users’ wants, needs, and goals, including ethnography, contextual inquiry, contextual interviewing, usability testing, task analysis, and others. But all of these take time-time that an agile development process might not allow. There is hope, though. Agile and UCD methods are not completely at odds with each other-and in some cases, agile development can even enable a more user-centered approach. By taking the time to understand the differences and similarities between agile development and UCD, it’s possible to devise a process that is both user-centered and agile.” (Richard F. Cecil – UXmatters)

DRAFT: Chapter 1 of ‘The Design of Future Things’ – “As our technology becomes more powerful, more in control, its failure at collaboration and communication becomes ever more critical. Collaboration requires interaction and communication. It means explaining and giving reasons. Trust is a tenuous relationship, formed through experience and understanding. With automatic, so-called intelligent devices, trust is sometimes conferred undeservedly.” (Donald A. Norman) – courtesy of michelvuijlsteke

“There has been an interesting dialogue on the IxD Discussion mailing list in recent months, in which some participants have questioned the need for and benefits of doing user research rather than relying on the experience and intuition of designers. These comments led others to voice concerns about the actual quality of the user research companies are undertaking and the validity of any conclusions they have drawn from the resulting data.” (Steve Baty – UXmatters)

“The design community keeps making a lot of noise about designing for people/users/customers. However, while this notion is well-intentioned and even conceptually correct, I find much of it boils down to empty rhetoric. What exactly are we doing? More user research? More usability testing? Certainly these are valid approaches to finding out about people’s needs, but they’re only a small part of an optimal solution. Are we using hollow tasks and tools like personas and scenarios? Those approaches typically take design farther away from the people for whom we are designing products rather than closer. How about focusing on usability and the user experience? That gets at only part of the issue and tends to come from the perspective of the product—as opposed to the more universal needs and desires of actual people” (Dirk Knemeyer – UXmatters)

“Communicating Design is for everyone who creates, uses, or approves documentation during the web design process. Covering 10 of the most common types of documents, the book walks readers through creating and presenting each deliverable. It describes the document’s essential contents, tips for preparing the document, strategies for managing risk, how to structure presentation meetings, and lots of other practical advice.” (Dan Brown) – courtesy of petermorville

“Usability testing is like Beta testing of software. It should never be used to determine ‘what users need’. It is for catching bugs, and so this kind of usability testing still fits the new, iterative programming models, just as Beta testing for software bugs fits the models. I have long maintained that any company proud of its usability testing is a company in trouble, just as a company proud of its Beta testing is in trouble. UI and Beta testing are meant simply to find bugs, not to redesign.” (Donald Norman – uiGarden.net)

“Words matter. Psychologists depersonalize the people they study by calling them ‘subjects’. We depersonalize the people we study by calling them ‘users’. Both terms are derogatory. They take us away from our primary mission: to help people. Power to the people, I say, to repurpose an old phrase. People. Human Beings. That’s what our discipline is really about.” (Donald Norman)

“The most successful sites are those that understand the experience range of their users. Some are veteran traders who know what to do, while others can’t tell a bid from an ask price. Accommodating the novice traders is crucial to the success of these markets, as well as moving them along as they gain experience.” (Alex Kirtland – Boxes and Arrows)

“Communicating design does take time, no doubt about it. But it will save a lot more time by reducing the thrash that occurs when developers don’t have a clear understanding about what it is they are supposed to build.” (Steve Calde – Cooper Newsletter3.2)