The process by which most enterprise software is developed is fatally flawed. There are flaws in any software development process, but in the past 13 years I’ve seen one approach produce more bad software and blow more budgets than any other: requirements-driven software development. Thankfully, I’ve also had the opportunity to see the success of an alternative type of process, a process in which user experience design drives what gets developed. This type of process helps teams deliver good software on time and within their budgets.
Archive for the ‘Recent Posts’ Category
Requirements-Driven Software Development Must Die
Monday, July 25th, 2011Accountable Care Organizations and Patient Engagement
Tuesday, June 14th, 2011Evantage has been working in the healthcare realm for over 12 years now in a variety of projects. For the past 2 years, we have been working with a large hospital system to redesign the way they care for patients with chronic conditions. We’ve helped them establish and implement standard care guidelines for all providers and staff to proactively monitor and manage people with conditions like asthma, diabetes, heart failure, kidney disease, heart disease and hypertension (high blood pressure). This is a big change for providers, who today generally treat these patients only when they have complications or their condition worsens. (more…)
How Usability Testing Adds Value to Accessibility Evaluations
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011Whenever I am presented with steps on how to conduct an accessibility evaluation, user testing with real users is always listed as a step. What I rarely see is information on why testing is so important, what the benefits from testing real users are, and what you get by testing with real users that you can’t get by using accessibility tools or testing with your own screen reader.
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The Most Dangerous Game
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011This month marked another milestone in game show history. On February 14-16, Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter defended their trivial supremacy against Watson, a computer program created by IBM. Drawing on vast stores of information and a complex algorithm for selecting the most probable answer, Watson all but ran the board on its way to a $1 million prize for IBM, which the company pledged to donate to charity. Yet the hype around Watson’s victory obscured a more important contest—that between humans and our ability to understand our own technology—and we’re not doing so well in that one, either. (more…)
The Key to the Hover Craft: An Axure Expedition
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010Hover interactions are everywhere. Netflix shows you movie details when you point at the DVD image. Google’s image search results shows you a magnified thumbnail, filename, and dimensions. Yahoo! News displays the first sentence of a news article when you point at a headline.
Hover overlays can add a lot of value when used judiciously, but they have their pitfalls. One factor that can make or break a hover is timing. If you’ve ever tried to read a page containing contextual advertising pop-ups, you’ve probably been irritated by how hard it is to avoid them—they’re on a hair trigger. A short delay between the time the user points at the trigger object and the appearance of the extra information helps avoid accidental triggering and ensuing rage.
Tips for Women Submitting to Conferences
Friday, September 3rd, 2010Evantage Consulting is about 75% female. I know a lot of women personally who work in technology, and yet I still see that the majority of the “experts” in our field are male. Of all the technology conferences I have attended, there have always been more men than women attendees and presenters. I’m not entirely sure why this is. There are two sides to this debate: whether women submit for conferences or whether conferences don’t do a good enough job of recruiting women to speak. I recently attending a one day conference for women in technology, and it was interesting what bubbled up to the surface on why women don’t submit or why women submissions aren’t selected. (more…)
A Detailed Look at HTML5 for UX Designers
Monday, August 9th, 2010Lately, I’ve been preaching about how it’s important for UX designers to understand the technology our designs will be implemented in. I’m going to try to put this gospel into practice by unpacking for you the hidden treasures that HTML5 offers UX designers. HTML5 is a big deal. Maybe the biggest deal in Web technology since JavaScript. (I’m still in denial about Flash.) HTML5 is going to make it easy for developers to make websites with desktop application interactivity, performance, and functionality, which is going to open up vast horizons of possibility for UX designers.
Insecure Footing: How Bad Usability Endangers Internet Users
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010How do you communicate danger to people who don’t speak your language? How do you not only alert them, but give them enough information to act even though you will never meet face-to-face? These questions were behind an effort to design a warning for the proposed nuclear waste storage facility inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, and they’re similar to the ones you face when trying to design for user security online.
In 2003, the Desert Space Foundation, a Nevada arts organization, hosted an exhibition that showcased novel ideas for a warning sign that would retain both its meaning and its structural integrity for the 10,000 years that Yucca Mountain was projected to pose a hazard. The difficulty of the task manifested itself in the variety of entries. Several artists assumed that familiar symbols like the yellow and black radiation icon would carry the scent of danger across the divide, but not everyone agreed, according to a Los Angeles Times article at the time.
The risk of radiation burns is lower for Internet users (especially with modern LCD monitors), but being online can be dangerous all the same. The recipients of the communication are separated not by time but by their lack of technical expertise. However, the complexity of the threat and the jargon used to describe it is at least as opaque to many people as ancient pictograms can be to us.
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The Value of Failure
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010I used to consider failing as something to avoid at all costs. But occasionally something went wrong and I spent loads of time trying to figure out what I could do differently in the future. After years of beating myself up, I’ve come to appreciate failure. I learn something new and often it can open new avenues of creativity. This article includes a few ways to embrace failure. (more…)
A Template for Gathering Plausible Prototype Content
Sunday, May 30th, 2010At Evantage, interactive prototyping and iterative prototype testing are key components of our process. We typically work on complex, business critical systems that must serve a wide array of audiences. Iterative prototyping and testing are absolutely crucial to designing a pleasant, usable experience for systems like these. There are many factors that contribute to the effectiveness of prototype testing, but one of the biggest is content. I recently cooked up a tool to help designers articulate their needs and get that content from those who have it.
Prototyping iPad Optimized Websites Using Axure
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010I have been tasked with creating an Axure prototype that will be demonstrated on an iPad. I’ve seen the iPad, played with the iPad, but this is first time I will be creating a prototype to be displayed on the iPad.
The first question I had was, “How will I get the Axure prototype onto the iPad? Is there an app for that? “
Fred is speaking at SXSW 2010!
Thursday, March 11th, 2010Are you going to SXSW? If you are then check out “The Right Way to Wireframe!” This is a two-part talk in which myself and three other user experience designers tackled the same business problem using different tools.
In the UX world, we don’t get to see each other’s work very much; this talk changes that. It shows how, no matter what tool you use, the important part is the thought process you go through to arrive at your solution. Here are the links to the two workshops:
The Right Way to Wireframe – Part 1
The Right Way to Wireframe – Part 2
Also, I’m running a little social & technological experiment… I’m sharing all the notes I take at SXSW with the whole world via Evernote. Of course I’ll take notes at panels, but the really interesting part of SXSW is the discussions on the side. Those’ll show up in my notes too. Here’s the URL if you want to follow along!
http://www.evernote.com/pub/fred_beecher/sxsw2010notes
The environment at SXSW is… well, I’ll be kind and say, “fluid.” If you want to see what I may or may not be attending, check out my schedule on Sitby.Us.
User Experience Design Career Development – Part 1: A Formal Career Path
Monday, February 15th, 2010User experience (UX) design has a reputation for being both hard to get into and hard to progress from. I talked about how to get into UX design in my last article, so now I want to talk about where you go once you get in. In some ways, this is actually a harder problem. There are books that introduce you to UX design but none that really show you how to branch out once you’ve established yourself as a UX designer. Fortunately, I work at Evantage, where in 2006 Mary Donnelly and I helped management and HR to define a comprehensive UX design career path. I’m going to share it with you here and then discuss some other options to consider in a follow-up article. (more…)
Does Your Website Really Need a Mobile App?
Thursday, January 21st, 2010Word on the street is that if you have a great site you should create a mobile app. I’ve been hearing it a lot from clients lately that everybody is on their phone and “if users could access our information then our product will be more valuable.” Is this just a fad or is it valid? Well, that depends on your customers and your business goals. (more…)
Fun Gifts for your Favorite User Experience Professional
Friday, December 4th, 2009
If you’re at a loss for what to get that special user experience designer in your life whether it’s because we’ve already bought it (“I need it to keep up on trends for work”) or you still aren’t quite sure what we do exactly, I’ve compiled a few ideas from the UX consultants at Evantage and my own Christmas list to help you out.
Getting Started in User Experience Design
Monday, November 16th, 2009In the past few months I’ve taken on two and-a-half mentees through the Information Architecture Institute’s mentorship program (two are local, one is remote… sorry Tyler, I know you’re a full person!). This has got me thinking even more than usual about how to get started in user experience (UX) design, so I’ve decided to save myself some time and write a post that collects all the resources and advice I usually give out on this topic. I hope this is useful for you, but if you feel like I’ve missed something there’s a comments box at the bottom. ; )
Tips to Improve Collaboration on a Shared Axure Project
Sunday, November 15th, 2009I recently had the opportunity to work on a Shared Axure Project. While I enjoyed the collaboration, I also learned several things you can do to make the process easier.
Sustainability and User Experience Join Together for World Usability Day
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009This Thursday marks the fourth year of World Usability Day. Held the second Thursday of November every year, it is an event that celebrates the design around us that makes our lives easier. This year’s focus on sustainability and design.
Having always been an environmental geek, the theme of this year’s World Usability Day is especially important to me. Sustainability and creative reuse has been a focus of mine since I was in an organization lobbying for recycling containers in high school. I’ve always focused on how daily actions can affect the Earth. I was one of the few people who used her palm pilot to store directions to friend’s homes and measurements for an ottoman I was building because I did not want to waste paper. My current phone maps directions, stores measurements and even lets me check in for a flight without the hassle and guilt of paper. Not only does this design create less waste, it also makes me more organized.
The last few years has seen a greater consciousness in how we treat the world and how thoughtful design of systems and products can improve someone’s day. Instead of jumping into design, we take a moment to study how people use existing technology and how they live their lives or do their jobs and then make recommendations for the systems and products they use. This may result in a higher initial cost, but the benefit is a long term savings that resounds with many people in this economy. I realize that this doesn’t work for everyone. For example, my brother isn’t an eco freak like myself, but he loves smaller energy bills and I love that he makes less of an impact on the Earth.
Join the discussion of this year’s celebration. UPA chapters around the world have events focusing on sustainability and user experience. Find your local chapter event.
