Found on Johnny Holland

I have read a lot of books about user experience. I think the first UE book I read was “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug. Since then I have read many books about information architecture, interaction design, user research, design deliverables, etc. These readings have helped to shape my knowledge and opinions about what UE is, and how it should be practiced.

I have a list of books that I have been recommending to people who are interested in becoming a user experience practitioner. The list below is a good starting place for a UE newbie who needs a place to begin exploring the vast amount of information that exists about user experience design.

This book was first published in 1988, and its contents are still very relevant today. After reading this book, I knew that user experience design was what I wanted to do. Don’s books are easy reads, insightful, forward thinking, and entertaining. Read all of his books, but read this one first.

Great overview of what interaction design is, and how it is practiced.

You’ll like Mike Kuniavsky’s broad selection of practical user research methods–presented clearly and usably. It demonstrates how to discover what is in users’ heads, and suggests how we might balance those considerations with business objectives.

Why software design is broken. Alan Cooper (former software engineer) explains why and what to do about it.

While “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” book tells you what is wrong with software development, this book tells you what to do about it in detail.

This is the only book I know of that focuses completely on UE deliverables.

A complete overview of what information architecture is and how it should be practiced.

Currently I am reading “Sketching User Experiences” by Bill Buxton. I am half way through it, and I am thinking I should add this one to my UE newbie list.

Thanks a lot, stoopid error message.

“I’m sorry, but we completely screwed up, lost all of your data, and have no idea why this happened. Have a nice day!”

Jared Spool talks about why experience design is so important

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Here at UMUC, our LMS uses a couple of different methods that facilitate communication between instructor and student. The two primary vehicles for communication are the announcement area and the discussion board. The announcement area is used as a ‘one way’ communication from the faculty to the student, while the conference area is used as a discussion area for both student and faculty. The former is a ‘push’ medium where the latter facilitates participation in a conversation.

I suggest making the announcement area more like a blog. Breaking the paradigm of one way communication in the announcement area will help facilitate interaction between faculty and student. What if a student has a question about something in an announcement? Currently, we force the student to post this question inside a ‘questions’ conference, away from where the inquiry originated. Adding a comments area, a common blogging feature, to each post in the announcement area allows students to question and comment at the original point of communication. Keeping both the announcement and response interface on the same page works to reduce the student’s cognitive load—they don’t have to remember the text in question because it is adjacent to where the comment is being posted. It also encourages questions and comments by students which enriches the communication for all.

Adding the ability to categorize announcements, as do most blogs, would allow instructors a wider variety of information on the front page of the class without having to resort to the conference area. I see instructors do this all the time. They have materials they want to post, but want to categorize it. Sometimes responses are required by students, sometimes they are not. By providing blogging elements such as categorization of posts and comments, instructors can post such materials in way that better fits the genre of the information.

I am convinced that adding blogging features to the announcement area would create a rich environment of communication that is currently lacking in our classrooms at UMUC. Blogging is popular because it serves a certain genre of information and interaction. I believe that WebTycho’s announcement area is a similar genre of information as blogging, thus incorporating blogging feature seems an ideal solution.

A response from someone I was having a conversation with at lunch. I was trying to describe to my fellow conventioners what I did. I told them I was an interaction designer, and proceeded to explain the methodology of user centered design. The responses? “Oh, we just usually skip over that part.”

Classic.

My colleague Yulia Nemchinova and I have had a significant breakthrough that will begin to make user centered design a common practice at UMUC. We have found an ally in our department who just happens to be the newly hired director. We had a meeting with him yesterday, and we did not need to sell the idea of user centered design to him at ALL. He is already a believer, and is willing to support us in our efforts. I see exciting times ahead. I am now in a position to change UMUC for the better. Only time will tell how implementing user centered design at UMUC will impact the organization as a whole. I think that it has the potential to take what is now a poor user experience and turn it into an excellent one.

Corporate Usability Steps 1-4
Corporate Usability Steps 5-8

These two links outline the typical cycle of the acceptance of usability practices within an organization. I believe that UMUC is currently in Step 2: Developer Centered Usability. The next logical step is Step 3: Skunkworks Usability, which was discussed yesterday. Yet, even though, as the article outlines, there is typically no ‘official’ recognition of the practice and no budget for the activities, this level of usability acceptance is the point where the practice actually shows RESULTS. It is these results that can allow me and my colleagues to move UMUC through the next steps of the usability life cycle. I believe a goal of moving to Step 4, having dedicated budget usability, by the start the next fiscal year will be necessary to be successful in this Endeavour. To accomplish this, we need to make sure we can begin to show the results of our efforts SOON so that this can be justified when budget proposals come around next year.

I am excited about this project.

…or, a user experience designer, interaction designer……maybe a usability engineer? I have discovered that there are many titles that permeate this field of practice. I am in the process of finding the title that best suits me.

Currently, I am an instructional support specialist at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). Eighty percent of our class sections are conducted online using our home grown Learning Management System (LMS), known as WebTycho. This LMS was designed sometime in the late 90’s, and it suffers from some extremely poor interaction design on both the student and administration side. WebTycho is currently being overhauled. My fear is that the new design will be decided by a committee and designed from what I like to call the “ivory tower”. I am taking it upon myself to be an advocate for user centered design as this process commences. My immediate supervisor has promised to put me on the committees that handle these issues. Hopefully I will be able to help UMUC create a better user experience for our students, faculty, and staff.

I have started my first project here at UMUC that is based upon user centered design principles. The project is a website for the Masters of Distance Education program at UMUC. The techniques I will be using include research into the business goals of the organization, goal and task analysis of the users, an evaluation of the content, an iterative design process including rapid prototyping and testing, deliverables of site maps and wire frames, and formal usability testing of an implemented prototype.

Jakob Neilson has said that a successful usability program in an organization typically start small and grow as it achieves more and more buy in from the higher stakeholders. This is my plan: start small. Sprinkle the goodness of the usability lifecycle where ever I can.

I will keep you posted as to my successes and failures. Buy the ticket, take the ride.