Fostering even a moderate level of UX design in any team or project can at times be an impossible task.
Often there are things that we do that can stifle and sometimes even oppose UX techniques we are trying to support.
In a way, it’s as if we are by accident forcing UX people to leave or just warp back into simple pixel pushing designers or worse photoshop operators.
Over the years I have been trying to implement UX design tools and techniques into my day-to-day production cycle. This would be very simple if all my projects where large ones with moderate size teams. However business reality is that this is not often the case. The projects I tend to work on, as an independent user experience consultant, can be with a large team for a limited amount of time, to 8-24 weeks as the sole user experience practitioner on a project.
More often it is the case that the projects are just micro projects for small business. These projects can be anything from 2-3 weeks in length.
This is the presentation given on Wednesday 24th June 2009 to the Perth Branch of the Silverlight Developer and Designer Network. The slidedeck isn’t going to make much sense without the transcript below. Just be aware of that if you are slide deck with out following with this transcripts.
Let’s ground this a little and get real before we even start.
To often we design web sites and applications with a limited amount of information and specifications as to what is really is required. It’s a fact. Let’s not stand around and pretend otherwise.
A while back Matthew Hodgson had a glance over the usefulness of personas, I have to agree with what he had to say, they tend to be under used.
I have encountered the odd projects where they has been a distinct undercurrent to just jettison personas altogether. After all what are they good for … absolutely nothing.
Okay before you all start jumping up and down. I’m going to add to Matthew’s persona usage list and hopefully dispel this myth. I’m not going to explain how to build a persona, there are plenty of books and articles on the web that have covered this.
Gary Barber
I’m an independent User Experience Consultant.
I design interfaces, build information architectures, HTML prototypes, run workshops on UX design, do user research and conduct usability & accessibility testing and audits.
I can work within your existing team or as an external consultant on a contract or adhoc basis.
You can contact me via my company, radharc or just email me.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
