I mean, what the hell is that? I don’t understand the file name. What does postpone it’s recovery mean? If it needs to recover wouldn’t I want to do it now? Postpone it until when? How will I choose to recover it when I want to later? Yes means recover it later. No doesn’t mean recover it now either, I think it means delete it - well, “delete recovery data”, which sounds a lot like delete. Cancel means to recover it….erm….later. Hmmm….
Maybe it’s just the curse of being an independent consultant, but all too often i’m dropped into the middle of a project where there’s been absolutely no research - of any kind.
Now i’m used to dealing with that kind of situation, and have plenty of experience of conducting various kinds of “guerilla” UCD activities to get some understanding of users in a short-time frame, but in too many cases there’s no desire to even do that.
I think my main concern is that IA, UX and UCD are seen as buzz words, and their role is taken out of context. Some companies see UX consultants as some kind of magician who can simply whip up a solution to a given information, content or interaction design problem. This results (quite understandably) in other web professionals seeing us as not adding much (any) value, as they recognise this work as the fiction that it is.
This is a tragic situation. On the one hand, the market for freelance UX / IA professionals in London seems to be booming. On the other hand, i’m not sure many clients are really making best use of those freelancers, and other professionals in the industry are failing to see the benefits of our work.
It has to be said too, there are those in the freelance market who spread this misunderstanding because they themselves think drawing a few wireframes makes them an expert in UCD….
So what’s the solution to this? Well on the one hand it’s about education. Educating ourselves, our colleagues and our clients. Help them understand that a user-centred design project should be just that - user-centred. That doesn’t mean “thinking about our users”, it means speaking to, observing and listening to them. Understanding them. This provides the valuable input to our standard “deliverables” such as wireframes, personas, site maps, task analyses etc etc. It makes them real, and most importantly - valuable in creating a good website.
Just came across an excellent resource of examples of paper prototyping, over at deeplinking.net. It basically contains links to examples of sketches and paper prototypes for a range of well known sites, including Vimeo, Twitter, Flickr and mySociety.
I think most of us already appreciate the value of sketching as a way to filter ideas at an early stage before diving into Photoshop, Illustrator or Visio / Omnigraffle, but it’s still good to see examples of big sites in the wild and how they started out.
While i’m at it, I highly recommend Garrett Dimon’s blog too. He often gives an interesting insight into his own process and how he works through sketches to higher fidelity mock-ups.
Cennydd talks recently on his blog about UX and usability folks and the need for them to be more flexible in their approach to how they practice their trade. Specifically he suggests that UX professionals need to be more flexible in the tools we use to get the job done, and I completely agree.
The way I see it, my job is to help a client build a site / product that meets not only the low-level business requirements (”we need a new website in 4 weeks, and it’s got to be impressive”) but also one that meets strategic business objectives (”we need a site that enables our customers to interact with us on a regular basis online, reducing our reliance on call-centre and office staff” for example) and is genuinely useful and engaging for the end user. This takes research, planning, and a fair bit of just, well, thinking.
The outputs of this work can be wireframes, task analyses or anything else, but the key is that my outputs need to help the team develop a successful product. That doesn’t always (ever?) require a beautifully crafted set of wireframes in Visio / Omnigraffle / Illustrator. Sometimes (shock horror) a wireframe scribbled on paper and discussed with the development team gets them where they need to be more effectively. Sometimes it does need the detailed documentation, and i’m happy with that approach too. The point is to deliver what fits the project.
This leads to another related point too: If there’s one thing that leads to the “ivory tower” opinion of UX professionals it’s the situation where that work is done in isolation from the rest of the development team, then they get a set of complex documentation dropped on their desks and are told to build it. The whole project team, from technical to creative and everything in between, should be involved in the process from the start. It’s not only more effective and improves morale, it’s actually faster.
I think this points to a few issues that I may outline further in future posts. For instance, how do we assess the best tools and methods for a given project? Instead of diving into the same old routine we need to be flexible and adapt to circumstances, and know when to use the right tools depending on the project, it’s scope, and the timeline. This leads onto something else i’ve had to think about quite a lot lately - getting research done with virtually no time or budget. This is something that Leisa Reichelt touched on recently too, so I know i’m not the only one! These are issues i’ll be coming back to quite frequently in the near future - watch this space!
There’s another meetup of user experience types in St Albans tomorrow (Wednesday), which will hopefully see a bit of growth from the last one.
Last time we had one of these we only gave people a few days notice, and only managed a small turnout, but this time we’ve given people a couple of weeks notice on various mailing lists, so hopefully we can build from here. There have been a few e-mails from people who are interested but unable to turn up because of other commitments, but it’s really good to get the e-mails anyway. Otherwise you have no idea these people were even interested.
Anyone reading this who fancies a few quiet drinks in St Albans and a chat about UX issues should come along to The Snug, just near the clock tower in St Albans, from about 7.30pm onwards. See you there!
As a UX professional i’m always on the look-out for tools that might help me work faster or more effectively, and Yahoo have produced a small set of wireframing tools that you can use in a range of common packages such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Visio or Omnigraffle for example.
I haven’t used them in anger yet, but they’re worth downloading to the library.
I’ve been working with Wordpress (the blog engine that underpins this site) for a few years now on and off, and given the increasing emphasis on social media in my day to day work, it was becoming an increasing embarassment that I wasn’t actively blogging myself - so here I am!
The current look of the site uses R.Bhavesh’s “WP Premium” theme Derek Powazek’s Depo-skinny theme, until I get around to tweaking something a little more personal - but it’s the content that matters right?? Anyways, i’ll be posting here more often now that it looks vaguely acceptable. Predominantly it’ll be about user experience, customer experience, interaction design and probably the web in general. Hope you keep checking by….
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This site is the home of Lee McIvor (who'd have guessed?), and is my place to share my thoughts on life, user experience and anything else that springs to mind.
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