Notes for About For With w David Heller
Who is david?
Vp for ixda, designer, blogger, speaker
Top 4 books for user exp:
- design of everyday things (donald norman)
- elements of UE (jesse james garrett)
- the inmates are running the asylum (alan cooper, the guy who designed visual basic)
- information anxiety2 (richard saul wurman)
What's User Centered Design (UCD)?
paradigm for building soluitions that ppl interact w
major components:
- research in context, research THE context, observe users in the wild
- *mkt research is NOT the same as going into the field & doing ethnographic research
- empathy for humans - we like them, we are them, lets not torture them w our projects / svcs
- *personas: putting pictures of (hyptothetical? fictional?) users in the shop to keep the human face on things
- validate before release
Where does this all fit in?
Don Norman, _Invisible Computing_
3-legged stool supporting the product:
- technology
- marketing
- user experience
david runs throuhg a few other paradigms and metaphors, none of which are as concise as the stool metaphor, although some are more sophisticated and nuanced.
affordances: the form of something tells me what to do with it; instructions are built into the design, eg, "raised round thingees" are usually buttons that can be pushed. a doorknob is another good example.
interface = form
time = behavior
information = meaning
context = enviornment
Human powered (eg loom) --> self powered (eg steamboat) --> electronic (analog, eg telephone) --> digital (eg alarm clock) --> multi use dvc (eg treo) --> multi channel exp (eg ipod+itunes)
twds social interaction, twds contextual
david's crazy about the design in teh film Minority Rpt
marcrettig.com
envisions UX as waves:
operate the machine--> use the software--> ...
UX is about merging concepts
body/mind
form/function
software design manifesto - mitch kapor: "delight" is key
UCD != expensive
UCD != time consuming
UCD != anti-technology
UCD != agile methodologies
What can UCD do for you?
- lower downstream change
- increase bottom line results
- increase brand appeal
- reduce overhead costs
Q&A
Q: could you talk about agile dvlpment? [http://agilemanifesto.org/]
A: SOMEthing has to be upfront. if i had to pair two ppl together, it would be the designer and the coder
yr always going to ahve to make a deciscion: are you ready to code or not? i'd always ask teh Q "do i know who i'm coding for?" that should be the user, not yr boss.
Q: what kind of tools do you use for observation
A: i don't review recorded matierials, but when i do ethnography, i've discovered that the most important things are the ones i observe directly. but that's n ot the norm. a lot of ppl get stuck inthe details, so they need to have the recorded matierials for review. i write notes after, rather than before, so i can expirience the interaciton.
Emotional Design:
- viceral ("i want that!")
- behavioural ("oh yeah, i'll use this")
- reflective ("how did i ever live without this?" it becomes an appendage)
Q: what about acclimating the user to a re-design? eg, apple moving from OS9 to OSX
A: kind of similar to the move from win 3.1 to win 95. check out [http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh]
