builder.au’s Interview with Larry Constantine
I just read an interview that builder.au conducted with Larry Constantine, Chief Scientist at Constantine & Lockwood, in 2004. While the interview is a few years old, the principles and techniques...
View ArticleQualitative Research
Leisa Reichelt, over at Disambiguity, is writing a 3-part series on accepting the unscientific qualities of qualitative research, and using qualitative research as a flexible way to gather rich and...
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Study Participant Playing Cards
When we’re doing user research, such as usability tests or field studies, we like to keep our users’ real needs in constant consideration. To keep our users on our mind, we create a set of cards with...
View ArticleUIEtips Article: Five Survival Techniques for Creating Usable Products
UIEtips 8/21/07: Five Survival Techniques for Creating Usable Products At User Interface Engineering, we’ve spent two decades researching the usability and design techniques employed by both successful...
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Resolving Group Name Differences in a KJ Analysis
We’re big fans of the KJ Technique, a method that helps teams rank the important issues for a focus question, such as “What are the most important usability problems we need to fix in this version of...
View ArticleUIEtips Article: Making Personas Work for Your Web Site — An Interview with...
UIEtips 9/06/07: Making Personas Work for Your Web Site — An Interview with Steve Mulder These days, we’re seeing more and more design teams successfully adopt personas into their design process....
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: 5-Second Usability Tests
UIE Usability Tools Podcast: 5 Second Tests Recorded: August 7, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 16 min | File size: 9.5 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via...
View ArticleUIEtips Article: 5-Second Tests — Measuring Your Site’s Content Pages
UIEtips 9/11/07: 5-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site’s Content Pages It’s hard enough creating usable designs when there is ample time and plenty of resources, but what do you do when that’s just not...
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Usability Tests with 30 Observers
Often times, the clients we’re working with have never conducted a usability test before. Since it’s not part of the regular process, almost no one in the organization has been exposed to watching...
View Article9/27 Virtual Seminar: Design and Usability Under Impossible Pressure...
I’m very excited about our upcoming Virtual Seminar presented by my good friend, Larry Constantine. If your team is facing an aggressive deadline for your web site or product launch and you don’t have...
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: Inherent Value Tests
UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Inherent Value Tests Recorded: September 17, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 25 min | File size: 14.5 MB [ Subscribe to our...
View ArticleMore on Usability Tests with 30 Observers
We’ve had some great comments on my post, Usability Tests with 30 Observers. Here are my responses: Daniel asked: Would the result be the same if the participant sat in a different room from the 30...
View ArticleUIEtips Article: The Power of Comics for Understanding User Needs
UIEtips 9/27/07: The Power of Comics for Understanding User Needs As designs and product visions become more complex, there is an increasing need to find ways that effectively convey just how people...
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: Interview-Based Tasks for Usability Testing
UIE Usability Tools Podcast: Interview-Based Tasks for Usability Testing Recorded: September 26, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 29 min | File size: 16.5...
View ArticleKJ Analysis is Sweeping The Company!
A while back, I wrote about a question our friend Cheryl had about the KJ technique. Recently, Cheryl got back to me about her company’s reaction: A few months back you kindly responded to my inquiry...
View ArticleCrappy Personas vs. Robust Personas
There’s been a lot of discussion lately on the Interwebs about how personas are a useless tool. 37Signals’ Jason Fried recently wrote: We don’t use personas. We use ourselves. I believe personas lead...
View ArticlePersonas vs. User Descriptions; Apples vs. Tomatoes
The always intriguing Christopher Fahey commented on yesterday’s post about Crappy Personas vs. Robust Personas: Personas provide a fabulous way for people who understand their audience/users to...
View ArticleA Few Followup Questions from the Building Robust Personas Seminar
Yesterday, I gave my Virtual Seminar on Building Robust Personas in 30 Days or Less. If you missed it, you can watch it on demand. The session went well, but we ran tight on time and I didn’t get to...
View ArticleGreat writeup of our Building Robust Personas Virtual Seminar
Bruce McCarthy offers this great writeup of our recent Virtual Seminar on Building Robust Personas. A while back I wrote a piece about personas where I talked it about why it’s a bad idea to base your...
View ArticleThe missing skill: Creating UI Mockups
I bet you can tell I’m cleaning out my inbox. Jen wrote: I enjoyed your December 10th article, on assessing UX skills, so I sent it around to my colleagues. It was favorably received, but the folks on...
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Personas are NOT a Document
Joshua Porter (formerly of UIE, but now doing great work on his own at Bokardo Design) recently described much of the latest online debate about the need to develop personas when designing. Josh got a...
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: Successful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 2
Usability Tools Podcast: Useful Web App Usability Techniques, Part 2 Recorded: January 25th, 2007 from the studios of UIE Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 22min | File size: 12.5 MB [...
View ArticleUIEtips article: 3 Important Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps
Web-based applications are different from content-based web sites because the users are involved in a transaction. In our work researching the usability of a content-based site, we focus on how users...
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IA Summit Keynote: Journey to the Center of Design
On April 12, I gave the keynote at the IA Summit. It was my second time keynoting this event and a real honor for me. The audience was great and it lead to some very interesting discussion, both at the...
View ArticleSpoolCast: Usability Guerilla Techniques with Dana Chisnell
SpoolCast: Usability Guerilla Techniques — An Interview with Dana Chisnell Recorded: June 7th, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 24m | File size: 12.5 MB [ Subscribe to our...
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Case Study: Comparing Design Alternatives
Last week, I spoke at the Boston IxDA night of Short Talks, where I gave a 10-minute (!) presentation called Case Study: A Discount Approach to Comparing Multiple Design Alternatives. Here’s what the...
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Assessing Weights for Users’ Needs, Part 1
When I presented my suggestion for how to compare multiple design alternatives, one step involved creating what I called a Weighted Differences Matrix. In the matrix, each row represents a difference...
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Assessing Weights for Users’ Needs, Part 2
Yesterday, I talked about how we come up with each row in our Weighted Differences Matrix. For each of these differences, we need to then assess how important it will be to the user’s experience, which...
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 1
Usability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 1 Recorded: July 3rd, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 33m | File size: 19 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes....
View ArticleUsability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 2
Usability Tools Podcast: Moderating Usability Tests, Part 2 Recorded: July 3rd, 2008. Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer Duration: 34m | File size: 19 MB [ Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes....
View ArticleAsking Participants to “Pretend” in User Studies
On one of the member-only lists I hang out on, there’s been a discussion about asking participants in studies to role play in a usability test’s scenario. Instead of saying, “Find information about the...
View ArticleUIE Virtual Seminar – The Quick, the Cheap, and the Insightful: Conducting...
UIE Virtual Seminar – The Quick, the Cheap, and the Insightful: Conducting Usability Tests in the Wild With Dana Chisnell of Usabilityworks Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Time: 1pm ET It’s not clear...
View ArticleLife w/o Javascript: A look at Nokia vs. SonyEricsson
Have you looked at your site with Javascript disabled? Robert Nyman does just that with the Nokia and SonyEricsson UK sites and finds some surprising results. It’s quite a good write up. Very much...
View ArticleUIEtips: Five Techniques for Getting Buy-In for Usability Testing
Producing a usable design takes time, money, and resources. It also requires an organization’s dedication to focus on usability testing and customer needs throughout the entire design process. Knowing...
View ArticleUsability Testing: Do You Have the Right People In the Room?
In our next UIE Virtual Seminar, Recruiting for Usability Testing on Wednesday, September 30, usability testing expert Dana Chisnell shows you how to maximize your time and money on the right...
View ArticleThe Art of Asking the Question
The topic of our next UIE Virtual Seminar is so important, and no one talks about it. On Thursday, January 28, Steve Portigal will deliver his talk: Deep Dive Interviewing Secrets: Making Sure You...
View ArticleArticle: Interview-Based Tasks: Learning from Leonardo DiCaprio
UIEtips 1/19/10: Interview-Based Tasks: Learning from Leonardo DiCaprio When we do our jobs well, important decisions are made correctly. Designs are improved. Experiences transition from frustrating...
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SpoolCast: Steve Portigal’s Deep Dive Interviewing Tips Revisited
Duration: 48m | 28.5 MB Recorded: January, 2010 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer [ Subscribe to our podcast via ←This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast...
View ArticleUIEtips: Pros and Cons of Remote Usability Testing
30 years ago, I conducted my first usability study. The lab we had— the first ever built for this purpose— was the size of a janitor’s closet (because it was a converted janitor’s closet) and was...
View ArticleUX Design when Time, Money, and Support is Limited
You’re going to want your entire team to see our next UIE Virtual Seminar on Thursday, July 21, UX Design when Time, Money, and Support is Limited with Cennydd Bowles. In this 90-minute online seminar,...
View ArticleTask Success Rate – Is that the right way to judge a usability test?
Over at the Boxes and Arrows LinkedIn discussion group, Carrie asked: What is a good success rate for a usability test task? We just conducted user testing on a site map. So we have success rate...
View ArticleOutsourcing Your User Research Is Like Outsourcing Your Vacation
Hang around me long enough and you’ll hear me say this: Outsourcing your user research work is like outsourcing your vacation. It gets the job done, but probably won’t have the effects you were...
View ArticleDesigning Dashboards: The Do’s, Don’ts, and D’ohs! – Our 2/23 Virtual Seminar
Dashboards are a great idea. The problem is, many are useless. In this seminar, Hagan Rivers will show you which elements to include, how to structure them, and what to slash out of your existing...
View ArticleGuess What?!? Task Design is Critically Important! – A hard-learned lesson
Years ago, we were watching people try to find products on IKEA.com. (Not for IKEA, but for our other nefarious purposes.) We took several stabs at our study because, well, the first ones seemed fishy...
View ArticleDiscovering the Right Tasks Using an Interview-based Approach
The other day, I wrote about how choosing the right words in your tasks makes a critical difference to the outcome of your user research. Mike Pauley wrote a comment, asking how to make sure you’ve got...
View ArticleResources for Yesterday’s Virtual Seminar on Building A Winning UX Strategy...
Yesterday, a couple of hundred of my favorite UX folks tuned in to my UIE Virtual Seminar while I talked about the ways to use the Kano Model as the basis of a winning UX strategy. During the talk, I...
View ArticleUIEtips: Conducting Usability Research for Mobile
In this week’s UIEtips, I speak with Cyd Harrell on conducting user research on mobile devices. Here’s an excerpt from the article Jared: Does mobile usability testing require a lot of hardware? Cyd:...
View ArticleUIEtips: Starting Your User Research
In this week’s UIEtips, we look back at a past article where I discuss several different user research strategies and the profound impact they can have on your products. Here’s an excerpt from the...
View ArticleUsability Testing Delivers More Value Before You’ve Changed Your Design
Teams faced with only a single opportunity to conduct usability testing often decide to schedule those tests after they’ve made changes to their design. They think the testing will help them work the...
View ArticleConducting Usability Research for Mobile Apps
Mobile changes everything about how we conduct usability research. With the right strategy, we can quickly understand our users’ behavior, wherever they are. Join Cyd Harrell at the UX Immersion Mobile...
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