by David Travis | Jun 2, 2014 | Resources
The great promise of user experience research is to go beyond asking people what they want and instead to discover what they need. But goal-based interviewing is difficult because it requires a very different approach to user interviews than simply running through a list of prepared questions. Two approaches that offer some promise are story elicitation and 'jobs to be...
by David Travis | May 12, 2014 | Resources
Over 40 years ago, comedy duo Morecambe and Wise filmed a now legendary sketch for a television Christmas special. Scratch below the surface of this sketch and you'll discover an important lesson for user experience...
by David Travis | Mar 3, 2014 | Resources
Usability testing is widely accepted as the de facto method for finding usability problems with a user interface. However, test sessions can suffer from a significant observer effect. This article describes some of the evidence for the observer effect along with some suggestions for ameliorating...
by David Travis | Feb 3, 2014 | Resources
Design is easy, writes branding expert Marty Neumeier. All you do is stare at the screen until drops of blood form on your forehead. One element that makes design difficult is a lack of constraints. Focusing on your product’s red routes provides the key constraint you need to ship a high value product from version...
by David Travis | Jan 6, 2014 | Resources
Design teams often experience a common set of growing pains. They design for themselves; don’t know how to choose between design alternatives; accept poor quality design research; prioritise what users say over what users do; and focus on usability and not on the user experience. Adding an experimental psychologist to your team can help fix these...