Short notes on articles I’ve read recently:
Audience Segmentation Models by Steve Baty
Outlines methods (other than personas) such as market segmentation, mental models, and capability levels, to segment audiences for understanding user requirements and defining the user experience. “The use of a variety of different audience segmentation models can inform the design of products and services in different ways.”
One particularly interesting off-shoot is an Experience Lifecycle diagram for when Lego’s senior execs travel.
Designing Tables 101 by Mike Hughes
When to use tables and how to present data. There are suggestions for what information should be in columns and rows based on readability. Unfortunately no general insights about accessibility*, but these suggestions can be applied not only to reading tabular data on web pages, but also when writing documents for clients, etc.
* it wouldn’t have been appropriate for the aims of the article, I’m just personally interested in exploring that topic more.
Testing Your Own Designs: Bad Idea? by Paul J. Sherman
Tries to answer the questions: “Is it possible to do both design and usability testing effectively? If so, how can we test our own designs well?” Includes thoughts from others on the topic that focus on the idea of avoiding bias, or being aware of it. If you have to test your own designs, focus on the negatives (things that don’t work) and remember the requirements you’re aiming to fulfill.
A shorthand for designing UI flows by Ryan Singer
Demonstrates a simple approach to sketching a user path for completing goals by jotting down what they see and what they do at each step. The idea is summed up well by his response in the comments: “Sketching a flow isn’t about meticulously documenting everything that’s possible on a given screen. It’s about taking a single goal and asking how does the user get started, what happens when they execute the action, what are the main forks in the road, and what happens when they are finished. If you scope the flow by a specific goal instead of by screens, then there should be fewer complexities.”
Integrating Prototyping Into Your Design Process by Fred Beecher
Explains how combinations of low/high visual/functional fidelity in prototypes can achieve particular goals. Consideration is given from sketches through to “production ready” prototypes. The article also provides tips on how to encourage the use of prototyping to different types of project stakeholders. At the heart of it all, “‘Appropriate fidelity’ refers to a level of prototype fidelity that allows you to achieve the goals you’ve set for doing a prototype in the first place.”