Looking at process in User Experience
In my last post, I talked about my quest into the world of User Experience (UX). Process is at the core of any endeavor, and most certainly UX. As a graphic designer, I’ve been intrigued to see how process looks in this area. As users, when we encounter interfaces, we often are left to our own devices in determining how to engage with them. UX helps refine the process for the user with clear, specific steps. User Experience addresses how a product, system or service behaves or performs, and what expectations users have in engaging with it. Users past experiences are key.
Below is a basic outline of three preliminary steps I’ve seen noted and have used that are important to this process.
• Define the users
• Identify the core expectations users have
• Look at how these expectations will play in the process
Brainstorming Alone
A nice article at How Design outlining a 9-step process to brainstorming alone.
Here are the first six (6). You can find all via the link at the end.
Brainstorming alone often feels, to paraphrase Churchill, like standing in a bucket and trying to lift yourself by the handles. It can be a lonely and listless experience. No volleying ideas with partners. No yakking it up with teammates. No high-fives or shout-outs.
But not to worry. Here are nine steps to keep solo brainstorming from being a so-so experience.
1. Feed the mind.
Before you bounce into brainstorming, break out of solitude. Get outside. Look around — small scenes can lead to big ideas. Walt Disney came up with the idea of Disneyland while watching bored kids and tired parents dawdle in a dilapidated park.
Talk to other people. Ask questions. Actively listen. Take notes. Snap photos. And even when you’re stuck inside and alone, read books and magazines, websites and blogs, anything and everything.
“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines and music, said Ray Bradbury, author of more than 500 published works, “you will automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry period in my life because I feed myself well.”
2. Make time to brainstorm.
“Every morning between nine and twelve, I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper,” says writer Flannery O’Connor. “If an idea does come between nine and twelve, I’m ready for it.”
With deadlines on our backs, most of us can’t spend three hours waiting for muses. But we can carve out small chucks of time here and there. Make appointments with yourself to brainstorm. And make those sessions short, fun and furious.
3. Judge not.
Opening a meeting one day, Sam Goldwyn, the legendary filmmaker, told his staff, “I had a fantastic idea this morning — but I didn’t like it.”
Sound familiar? Probably. Because, like Goldwyn, we’ll have fantastic ideas one moment and then the next moment convince ourselves that they are utter nonsense. Catch yourself judging your own ideas and slam on the brakes. Brainstorming isn’t the time to evaluate or edit ideas. That comes later. Focus on quantity, not quality while brainstorming.
4. Go nuts.
“Learn not to be careful,” photographer Diane Arbus told her students. Post that advice when brainstorming with yourself. Go beyond safe ideas. Move past the weary and welcome the wacky. Sensible thinking usually proffers predictable answers. Non-sensical ideas often lead to sensible solutions.
5. Create mind maps.
Mind maps — also called word maps and semantic maps — are great for single-handed brainstorms. Take a blank sheet of paper. Write your topic in the center and circle it. As your brain makes free associations, follow along with your pen, jotting down words and connecting them with circles and lines. In 20 minutes, you’ll have a page crammed with ideas.
6. Unplug technology.
It’s impossible for your right brain to be storming with ideas while your left brain is sifting through e-mails, texts, caller IDs, instant messages and other distractions. Disconnect from technology before starting to brainstorm.
See all nine (9) here: Brainstorming Alone.
Also: Check out the Creative Marathon for more tips on turning on the creative juices.
Multimedia Content and Form Class Today
Student peer commenting on the final project.
I have begun to integrate a peer commenting exercise in my classes as a valuable tool to help students “get out of their boxes” and expand their perspectives by engaging each other around the projects and work. This exercise is received well and students truly become engaged and begin to develop more confidence in their work.
Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four
This is an incredible talk by Hans Rosling illustrating statistical data on the increase of the human lifespan from 1810 forward. Enjoy. (A teaching colleague, Marcia Beales brought this to my attention.)
What Visual Designers Can Learn From Biggie Smalls | from the design mind blog
I found this post by Andreas Markdalen (twitter.com/youthprojects) on Frog Design’s The Visual Design Dept. blog on design mind quite interesting. Here he discusses how design and design thinking can benefit from Chris Wallace’s (aka Biggie Smalls) creative process in constructing his raps.
In his post, Markdalen outlines five areas that designers can use to create a five-prong strategic process. They are:
-Create “A Central Theme”
-Create “A World of Context”
-Rehearse and Repeat
-“The Non-linear and Organic Process”
-“The House of Cards”
You can read the full article via the link below. What are your thoughts?
What Visual Designers Can Learn From Biggie Smalls | Blog | design mind.
Designing for Mobile Devices (via AIGASF)
Designing for Mobile | AIGA SF Interactive Chats
Design is About Solving Problems | Design Informer
One of my Twitter colleagues, Jan Jursa of Information Architecture Television (@IATV on Twitter) shared this interesting post by James Young on Design Informer (See link below) and I thought I would share it.
It is always good to step back and reassess where one is in respect to the design process. This is a good post followed by good comments. Enjoy.
Recently, a couple of things happened in my design career that have made me sit down and reflect a bit on where I’m at and how I can improve what I deliver to my clients and their users. I’d noticed that my source of inspiration had changed and that I was being inspired more by clever solutions and ideas than by visual flourish.
Like many designers, my RSS feed of inspirational websites is full of great work and posts. I’m also active on Twitter, and I meet up with other designers regularly at local events. But I find that at a basic level, I actually don’t draw that much inspiration directly from these things anymore.
The full article can be read here or via the link below.
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