The classic texts of project management outline the importance of initial planning and design activities. While they only consist of 10-30% of the project, they lay the groundwork for everything to come. This is no different in the world of SharePoint intranets. Quite the contrary: ...
Blog category: Usability & user-centered design
January 23, 2012 by James Robertson
Spend 10-15% of SharePoint intranet projects on planning and design
Tags: design, Information architecture, Intranets, planning, SharePoint, strategy, usability
December 21, 2011 by James Robertson
Intranets: global and local
Not all staff needs are the same. Staff in different parts of the organisation, located in different areas and doing different jobs will have quite distinct needs. In a globe-spanning manufacturing business, these differences are very obvious: individual countries sell different products; the sales division operates very differently from product ...
Tags: framework, global, Information architecture, Intranets, local
October 26, 2011 by James Robertson
Tree testing for effective navigation
'I can't find what I am looking for' is one of the most common complains staff make about intranet content. Contributing to this issue is poor search, and poorly named or simply missing material. However, most often, the issue comes down to poor site structure and a lack of good ...
Tags: Information architecture, Intranets, tree testing, usability, user-centred design
October 17, 2011 by James Robertson
Presentation: personalisation vs targeting
Last week in London I had the pleasure of presenting at the Interactions 2011 conference. This was the second of my presentations, a 20-minute exploration of the eternal question: user-driven personalisation or ...
Tags: Intranets, personalisation, targeting
August 29, 2011 by James Robertson
Card sorting: online versus offline
Card sorting is a common technique within user-centred design (UCD) methodologies. It's also an activity that can polarise opinions; people either believe in it, or think it's a waste of time. There are many articles and blog posts out there that measure the value of this UCD technique. This article ...
Tags: card sorting, Intranets, ucd, usability, user-centred design
May 25, 2011 by James Robertson
Presentation: Delivering a mobile enterprise
Yesterday I was honoured to give a presentation at the monthly meeting of intranet managers organised by NetJMC. These were some of the world's largest organisations, across a range of industries. There ...
Tags: enterprise, Intranets, mobile, mobile devices, user experience
May 22, 2011 by James Robertson
Make SharePoint intranets beautiful
SharePoint is many things, but out of the box, beautiful isn't one of them. The boxy design and shades of blue isn't ugly per-se, but do little to inspire adoption and enthusiasm. It used to be said that it was too hard to make SharePoint beautiful, but the following selection of ...
Tags: brand, branding, design, Intranets, SharePoint
April 28, 2011 by James Robertson
Ticker tape on the home page
Ticker tapes were developed in the late 1880s for transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines. Nowadays we see electronic ticker tapes on the sides of large buildings or TV screens displaying current news headlines. On intranets, ticker tapes can be used for: emergency information when major disruptions occur such as storms ...
Tags: design, homepage, Intranets, tickertape
March 2, 2011 by James Robertson
Don’t rely on vendors to meet your mobile enterprise needs
Mobile is hot, increasingly so within enterprises. This has been picked up by the major technology vendors, who are all scrambling to deliver mobile functionality, from mobile-friendly web interfaces to iPhone apps that connect to their systems. Despite their enthusiasm, I say: Don't rely on vendors to meet your mobile enterprise needs. Let's ...
Tags: enterprise, intranet 2.0, mobile, mobile devices, user experience
November 10, 2010 by James Robertson
Jargon test your intranet
Jargon is generally language that applies to a particular trade, profession or group of people. Within organisations jargon can be like secret shorthand, with many variations, including abbreviations, made-up words and acronyms. Who has ever been on a Genesis project or had to go to a meeting in the CQ ...
October 27, 2010 by James Robertson
Capture the intranet high ground
The introduction of a new technology platform is a two-edged sword for intranets. On the positive side, a good technology solution will bring much-needed improvements and features, both of which can underpin the delivery of a great intranet. On the negative side, ...
Tags: design, strategy, vision, wireframes
October 26, 2010 by James Robertson
Creating effective intranet “shop windows”
Intranets must be productive and easy to use if they are to be successful. As outlined in the earlier article Why staff visit the intranet, there are two things that bring staff to the intranet: to find a specific piece of information to complete a task In both cases, staff come to the ...
Tags: blah blah, Information architecture, Intranets, shop windows, usability
September 28, 2010 by James Robertson
Should intranet links open in a new window?
It is often the small things that are the most contentious in a community. As a vigorous debate on the LinkedIn 'Intranet Professionals' group showed, "should links open in a new window?" is one such topic. While these discussions echo the policies established for public-facing websites, intranets may require very different ...
August 19, 2010 by James Robertson
How did intranet homepages become so static?
Something strange has happened to intranet homepages. Despite the diversity of staff needs and activities, intranets have ended up with a fixed, static and unreactive homepage that only targets generic requirements. Having fought so hard to balance competing stakeholder demands, intranet ...
August 12, 2010 by James Robertson
Discussing the length of the intranet homepage
Some while back I posted an article which asked the question: how long should the intranet homepage be? I then discused what attractive intranets look like, providing examples of modern designs, including some long homepages. This generated some discussion and debate. Most recently, it has led Toby Ward to ...
August 5, 2010 by James Robertson
Card sorting beauty shots
Writing a book is a funny process. When putting the final touches to Designing intranets: creating sites that work, I found myself taking beauty shots of card sorting cards: These are far ...
Tags: book, card sorting, Photos
August 3, 2010 by James Robertson
Pre-order your copy of Designing intranets: creating sites that work
Followers of our blog posts and tweats would be aware that I've been working on our next book. Called Designing intranets: creating sites that work, this is the definitive textbook for teams tasked with designing a new intranet, or redesigning an existing site. In 275 pages, this book ...
July 14, 2010 by James Robertson
The scent of search
Tyler Tate and H. Stefan Olafsson discuss information scent and search. To quote: While the principles for amplifying information scent in search-based interfaces are complimentary to those of browse-based models, they are yet distinct from them. Understanding how information scent applies to search first requires an understanding of human search ...
Tags: information scent, search
July 7, 2010 by James Robertson
UX myths
A new site has been launched, UX Myths, which aims to bust some of the misconceptions commonly heard about designing websites (and intranets). To quote: UX Myths collects the most frequent user experience design misconceptions and explains why they don't hold true. And you don't have to take our word ...
Tags: myths, user experience
June 22, 2010 by James Robertson
So, you want to do user research: characteristics of great researchers
Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain have written about the characteristics of great user researchers. To quote: One of the best things about user research is that anyone can do it. On the other hand, it takes real commitment and a lot of personal development to do user research well. People ...
Tags: user research
June 10, 2010 by James Robertson
Pros and cons of remote usability testing
Nate Bolt writes about the pros and cons of remote usability testing. To quote: n-person user research used to be the only game in town, and as with most industry practices, its procedures were developed, refined, standardized, and then became entrenched in the corporate R&D product development cycle. Practically everything ...
Tags: usability testing
June 8, 2010 by James Robertson
A taxonomy of constraints
Dan Brown has written an interesting post outlining typical project constraints, and they impact they have. To quote: Constraints are inputs into the design process that make designers are focused on solving the right problem. The design process depends on exploration and iteration, two things that can take designers further ...
Tags: constraints
June 8, 2010 by James Robertson
8 tips for making ambush ‘guerilla user testing’ clip reel videos
Martin Belam has written a followup post on creating "guerilla user testing" videos. To quote: Yesterday I posted my 10 tips for ambush 'guerilla user testing'. Once you've got some footage of people using your website, you need to find the best way to present that back to the business. ...
Tags: usability testing
June 7, 2010 by James Robertson
10 tips for ‘ambush guerilla user testing’
Martin Belam has written a post on "ambush guerilla user testing". To quote: Over the last couple of years I've been practicing 'ambush guerilla user testing', which is basically the art of pouncing on lone people in cafes and public spaces, and quickly filming them whilst they use a website ...
Tags: usability testing
May 28, 2010 by James Robertson
Identifying staff tasks
Intranets are most useful when they help staff do their jobs. This includes finding a key piece of information (‘what is the address for our interstate office?’) or completing a process online (‘I need to apply for some leave over Christmas’). The best approach for helping staff is to focus on ...
Tags: Information architecture, Intranets, tasks, usability
May 18, 2010 by James Robertson
Not to prime, is a crime!
Jodie Moule gives examples of how to prime users before workshops, using a range of rich techniques. To quote: We first trialled this method in May 2007 for the redesign of an online education and training website. We decided to run design workshops as one of the initial stages ...
Tags: user research, user-centred design
May 14, 2010 by James Robertson
Seeking a better design for intranet news
The design of intranets has been in the forefront of my thinking recently. I've been writing hard on our next book, which is specifically on intranet design (180 pages done, just three chapters to go!). This week's Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Melbourne also had a session on the ...
Tags: communications, design, homepages, Intranets, news
May 4, 2010 by James Robertson
Planning your UX strategy
Renato Feijó has written an overall approach to UX strategy. To quote: A strategy is a set of coordinated, orchestrated, planned actions, or tactics, which will take you along a journey to reach a desired future state, over an established period of time. Design objectives are conditions or outcomes that ...
Tags: user experience
May 3, 2010 by James Robertson
Debunking the myths of online usability testing
Bill Albert explores the practicalities of online usability testing. To quote: The motivation for this article is to help UX researchers keep an open mind about online usability testing. There are some researchers who have been using this approach for years and find it useful (in certain situations). Others are ...
Tags: usability testing
April 29, 2010 by James Robertson
Do intranets only need search?
Every once in a while, intranet teams have to justify the amount of time they spend structuring their sites and improving navigation. Stakeholders, often very senior ones, ask: 'Why don't we just provide search, like Google'. This would save the time spent ...
Tags: Information architecture, Intranets, search
March 30, 2010 by James Robertson
Structuring three types of content
The fundamental goal of developing a new structure for an intranet is to produce something that works well for staff. As discussed in the earlier article Escaping the organisation chart on your intranet, this often means getting away from a navigation structure that mirrors content ownership. Experience has shown that ...
Tags: content, Information architecture, Intranets, publishing
February 17, 2010 by James Robertson
Eight intranet design mistakes
Intranet projects are challenging at the best of times. Sites are large and content rich. Project teams are often thrown into the deep end, with many constraints and expectations. Intranet projects may confront challenges such as: unclear intranet ownership and governance tight timeframes limited (and often insufficient) budgets varied (and sometimes competing) stakeholder opinions large number ...
Tags: design, Information architecture, Intranets, mistakes, usability
December 22, 2009 by James Robertson
So you want to be a user researcher?
Patrick Kennedy provides a useful introduction on learning user research techniques. To quote: While I teach whole workshops on the subject of user research, in essence it really is very simple. User research is about understanding an audience; what they need, what they want, what they think, how they interact ...
Tags: user research
December 17, 2009 by James Robertson
The three clicks myth
When designing intranets or websites, it is helpful to have some rules of thumb to follow when making decisions. Over time, many of these have become elevated into principles or rules, widely used throughout the industry. The best-known is the 'three clicks rule', which says that all content should be no ...
Tags: Information architecture, Intranets, myths, usability, websites
December 11, 2009 by James Robertson
Tree testing: a quick way to evaluate your IA
Dave Obrien has posted details on tree testing, a mechanism for evaluating a draft information architecture. To quote: As we started experimenting with “card-based classification” on paper, it became clear that, while the technique was simple, it was tedious to create the cards on paper, recruit participants, record the results ...
Tags: card-based classification evaluation, tree testing, usability testing
December 11, 2009 by James Robertson
Sketchy wireframes
Aaron Travis writes about the benefits of making wireframes look rough. To quote: When it comes to user interface documentation, wireframes have long been the tool of choice. However, using traditional diagramming tools like Visio, OmniGraffle, and InDesign, most wireframes today look the same as their ancestors did from a ...
Tags: design, Information architecture, usability, wireframes
December 10, 2009 by James Robertson
A summary of user research methods
Patrick Kennedy has posted a great summary of user research methods. To quote: There are many user research methods one can use, and there are even more variations and names for them. But regardless of what name they’re given, methods should be chosen that are suitable for the situation at ...
Tags: user research, user-centred design
November 30, 2009 by James Robertson
Podcast interview with Gerry Gaffney
The Step Two team have been very busy recently across every possible medium. Having been in the US for a week at KMWorld, I've fallen hopelessly behind in sharing all this. So this will be the first of a series of posts over the coming week that highlights our outputs... To ...
Tags: Intranets, podcast, strategy, user experience
November 18, 2009 by James Robertson
Intranets must be task-centric
Gerry McGovern argues that intranets must be task-centric. To quote: Let's say you have an organization of 1,000 people, and 50 of them work in Human Resources (HR). An organization-centric intranet will work great for those 50 people, but it will not work very well for the 950 people who ...
November 17, 2009 by James Robertson
The collaborative intranet: involving users in intranet designs
Patrick C. Walsh writes about directly involving staff in redesigning the intranet. To quote: So let’s imagine that we’re in the process of designing or re-designing an intranet. We’ve done all our user research and now its that scary time when you have to somehow turn the research into design ...
Tags: Intranets, user-centred design
November 17, 2009 by James Robertson
How to create clear web navigation menus
Gerry McGovern has written about the value of clear navigation menus. To quote: Good web navigation is unsubtle. It is clear, precise, familiar, consistent, boring, unemotional. Good navigation is ugly and functional. You've just designed a new plane. It's sleek and ergonomic, fuel efficient yet roomy. You're now sitting with ...
November 9, 2009 by James Robertson
Inexpensive ways to target problem areas
Todd Elliott has written an article on remote usability techniques. To quote: Until fairly recently, when designers wanted to test an idea or design, they sought out an outside usability agency or, rented a room, some expensive equipment and recruited users to come into an artificial environment to participate in ...
Tags: card sorting, remote testing, usability, usability testing
October 29, 2009 by James Robertson
Some testing is better than none
Ideally, all intranet design projects should adopt a design approach which consults with users throughout the process, from identifying needs to input and evaluation of structure and design. This is not always possible. Time and cost limitations occasionally result in corners being cut with testing often being the victim, because ...
Tags: Intranets, usability testing
October 29, 2009 by James Robertson
Seven roles of the intranet homepage
There is no more contested or challenging page on the intranet than the homepage. As it is the most visible page on the site, everyone wants their piece of the homepage. There is also contention about the role of the intranet homepage: Should the homepage be mostly about news? Is navigation the ...
October 26, 2009 by James Robertson
Eyetracking: is it worth it?
Jim Ross has written an article looking at eyetracking. To quote: It is easy to get excited about eyetracking. Seeing where people look while using your Web site, Web application, or software product sounds like an opportunity to get amazing insights into their user experience. But eyetracking is expensive and ...
Tags: eye tracking
October 20, 2009 by James Robertson
How to understand your users with personas
Brad Colbow has posted a superb comic on personas. To quote: Personas are a powerful tool for helping you to better understand the needs of your users. In this comic, drawn exclusively for Think Vitamin, you’ll learn more about Personas and how they’ll revolutionize the way you design and build ...
Tags: personas
October 8, 2009 by James Robertson
A method for quantifying user experience
Eric Reiss outlines a method for quantifying user experience. To quote: There are lots of complicated ways to work numbers, particularly when dealing with the subjective data that invariably lies at the heart of any discussion of user experience. But rather than putting together confusing formulae to present our research, ...
Tags: user experience
August 24, 2009 by James Robertson
How to combine multiple research methods: practical triangulation
Patrick Kennedy has written an article on using triangulation in user research projects. To quote: This is where the concept of “triangulation” comes into its own. Also known as “mixed method” research, triangulation is the act of combining several research methods to study one thing. They overlap each other somewhat, ...
August 21, 2009 by James Robertson
Fluid Persona Format
Fluid have published their persona format, based on a competitive analysis of many other approaches. To quote: This persona format was created to organize information in the Fluid Personas. The format chosen was based on the competitive analysis of many persona examples below.
Tags: personas
August 20, 2009 by James Robertson
Intranets: defining IA and UX in the Enterprise-wide Information System (Part 1)
Patrick C. Walsh looks and information architecture, intranets and information management. To quote: In my view the EIS must consider all instances of information and knowledge transfer that take place within an organisation. This does not mean that it is possible to actually manage all transactions. For instance the tacit ...
Tags: Information architecture, Information management, Intranets, user experience
August 18, 2009 by James Robertson
Web teams, go meet your end-users
Peter Erik Bang Nissen highlights the importance of understanding user needs. To quote: One problem with this approach is, however, that many organisations omit the second part of “launch and learn”. Another is that as the organisation’s web presence matures, the quality of solutions comes to the fore. If users ...
Tags: Intranets, needs analysis, user research
July 31, 2009 by James Robertson
“Best bets” functionality for search systems
Karen Loasby has written about search engine best bets, highlighting some of the debate that surrounds this functionality. To quote: Best Bets are essentially editorial picks that appear at the top of the search results. They are a manual intervention for use when the search engine isn’t developing the best ...
July 27, 2009 by James Robertson
Relaunch of usability.gov
I heard on the grapevine recently that usability.gov has been refreshed and relaunched. This is a superb resource that every web and intranet designer should know about. To quote: Usability.gov is a one-stop source for government web designers to learn how to make websites more usable, useful, and accessible. The ...
Tags: guidelines, heuristics, usability testing
July 24, 2009 by James Robertson
Our government and council work
Step Two Designs has been in business since 1996, we've generated a substantial client list over that time. We are proud of the work we have done, and have shared much of the insights we have learnt via our many articles, reports and workshops. Our client list page has, however, become ...
July 10, 2009 by James Robertson
Understanding the product when conducting user research
Daniel Szuc talks about how to incorporate an understanding of the product into user research. To quote: As my company planned for a recent study, we noticed we were asking more questions about the product to help us determine how our research could drive key business results. For example, we ...
Tags: user research
July 8, 2009 by James Robertson
Laddering: a research interview technique for uncovering core values
Michael Hawley discusses a user-research technique called laddering. To quote: A number of my previous Research That Works columns on UXmatters have focused on semi-structured user research techniques. My interest in these techniques stems from my desire to get the most out of my time with research participants and to ...
Tags: user research
June 10, 2009 by James Robertson
What is an experience strategy?
Steve Baty answers the question: what is an experience strategy? To quote: We often discuss the need for us to be designing for an experience. And we talk about the importance of experience design - and design generally - playing a strategic role in business decisions. But we’re less forthcoming ...
Tags: usability, user-centred design
June 2, 2009 by James Robertson
Paper prototyping
Shawn Medero has written an article on paper prototyping. To quote: As interfaces become ever more complex and development schedules seem to get shorter and shorter, you may find it useful to give up your user-interface modeling software for awhile in favor of something simpler. All you need is paper, ...
Tags: design, paper prototyping, prototyping, usability
June 1, 2009 by James Robertson
Real or imaginary: the effectiveness of using personas in product design
Frank Long has published a research paper on the effectiveness of personas. To quote: The use of personas as a method for communicating user requirements in collaborative design environments is well established. However, very little research has been conducted to quantify the benefits of using this technique. The aim of ...
Tags: personas, usability, user-centred design
May 21, 2009 by James Robertson
Designing site structures for intranets and websites
Maish Nichani has written an extensive article on designing site structures for intranets and websites. To quote: A good site structure makes users happy. They can easily find, understand and use the information on your site. For the business, this makes all the difference. In this article I’ll go through ...
April 28, 2009 by James Robertson
Use good interview techniques
Successful intranets are delivered on the back of an in-depth understanding of staff needs and issues. This involves getting out from behind the desk and spending time with operational and frontline staff. The earlier article Conducting intranet needs analysis outlined a structured approach to conducting user research to improve intranets. A ...
Tags: interviews, Intranets, research
April 22, 2009 by James Robertson
Principles for designing global-local intranets
A little while back I wrote a post about the global-local challenge for many intranets. To quote: In any large organisations, there will be many different business units, with different needs. Individual staff across the organisation will also need specific tools and information. The challenge is to meet global needs ...
April 2, 2009 by James Robertson
No designer is an island
Sarah B. Nelson talks about the role of collaboration in design. To quote: When I suggest collaborative design to some designers, I often hear, “Yuck! Collaboration is just design by committee!” They aren’t wrong. Poorly facilitated collaboration can kill a design project and demoralize a team. But the truth is, ...
Tags: usability
March 27, 2009 by James Robertson
Beware of using opinions to design an intranet
I've just settled back in from my most recent conference tour, and I've spent a lot of time talking with intranet teams from a wide variety of organisations, across three continents. Based on the types of approaches I've seen to intranet designs, I'm going to state: Beware of using opinions to ...
March 9, 2009 by James Robertson
Writing usability requirements and metrics
Janet M. Six has written an article on writing usability requirements and metrics. To quote: I think we overemphasize metrics when it comes to usability. They often introduce problems in terms of the validity and reliability of the data. First, ask whether a metric is a valid measure of usability. ...
March 6, 2009 by James Robertson
Intranet user research: a methodology for contextual enquiry
Patrick C. Walsh has written an extensive article on conducting contextual inquiry for an intranet. To quote: Its motivating simply because you get to meet your users face to face. When I think of a change in design or when problems are reported I don’t think of my users as ...
Tags: contextual inquiry, Intranets, needs analysis, user research
March 5, 2009 by James Robertson
In which a concept model makes me giddy
Dan Brown has written an article on concept models, to bring together project teams. To quote: About a decade ago, my site maps--a design artifact that describes the structure of a web site--started evolving. They changed from org chart-like boxes and right-angle connectors to networks of circles with straight-line connectors. ...
Tags: concept model
March 4, 2009 by James Robertson
User experience treasure map
Peter Morville has posted about a new User Experience Treasure Map, created in collaboration with Jeffery Callender. To quote: If you've made it this far, you deserve a reward. That's a lot of words about a lot of deliverables. And, that's the problem. It's hard to find the best trees ...
Tags: Information architecture, map, usability, user experience
March 4, 2009 by James Robertson
Google details results of eye tracking study
ReadWriteWeb reports on the results of a Google eye tracking study into search. To quote: Google posted an update about its eye tracking usability studies today. Most of the results are not exactly groundbreaking. It is, for example, no surprise that most users only scan the first couple of search ...
Tags: eye tracking, usability
February 13, 2009 by James Robertson
Starting from zero: winning strategies for no search results pages
Greg Nudelman discusses designing search results pages when there are zero results. To quote: The typical product team has no coherent strategy for cases when there are no search results. Most teams spend the bulk of their design phase working on the search results pages for a successful search. Then, ...
February 12, 2009 by James Robertson
17 usability tips to make your CMS rock
Patrick Kennedy has posted a superb article containing 17 usability tips to make your CMS rock. To quote: More than likely your content management system (CMS) will have many usability problems if you just use it “out of the box”. Having been involved in a number of projects tasked with ...
February 11, 2009 by James Robertson
Needs analysis from a distance
How do you address the needs of staff that work in a different city, state or country? Visiting each of these offices may not always be practical. Therefore different techniques need to be employed to conduct research and gather information about their needs. Principles The same principles apply as for face-to-face interviews: involve a ...
Tags: diaries, interviews, Intranets, needs analysis, research
January 14, 2009 by James Robertson
More on breadcrumbs as a design cop-out
Jared Spool continues to look at the problems with breadcrumbs as a navigation aid. To quote: Users don’t care about the hierarchy of the site. The thousands of users we’ve observed for the last 12+ years clearly tell us that users don’t care how the site is constructed. Users only ...
January 8, 2009 by James Robertson
User Interviews – analysis simplified
Alistair Gray has written about analysing user interviews. To quote: After interviews you'll find that you've lots of interesting thoughts and ideas bouncing around your head, but probably in no clear structure. The results will be much easier to understand and convey to others if they are ordered into a ...
Tags: needs analysis, user research
January 5, 2009 by James Robertson
Quick turnaround usability testing, part II
Paul Nuschke has completed a second article on quick turnaround usability testing. To quote: In Part I, I discussed how to make the first three steps of Quick Turnaround Usability Testing (QTUT)—Sales & Kickoff, Recruitment, and Preparation—as short and efficient as possible. In Part II, I discuss the final two ...
December 4, 2008 by James Robertson
Exploring new techniques
It's great when we get a chance to try out some new techniques in our client work. Two examples at the moment: We are starting into the user research for an intranet project within a major international brand. With offices throughout S-E Asia (and beyond), we can't conduct staff interviews in ...
December 1, 2008 by James Robertson
Stop calling it usability testing
Patrick Kennedy writes about the confusion surrounding usability testing. To quote: The term “usability testing” often gets misconstrued by technical types, project managers and business analysts. It gets turned into a stale, rigid, bureaucratic affair. The old “unit, integration, system” mantra. It’s done as a matter of course, at the ...
Tags: usability, usability testing
November 25, 2008 by James Robertson
Practical ways to assess CMS usability
The usability of a content management system is paramount. If authors and site owners can't work out how to use the CMS, you've got nothing. The CMS can have all the functionality in the world, but usability trumps it all. I've written about this before, outlining 11 usability principles for ...
November 21, 2008 by James Robertson
Accessibility is getting better in CMS products
I've been facilitating CMS vendor demos for most of this week, as part of the final stages of a University CMS selection project. One of the things that has changed in the products is their support for accessibility, generally for the better. The good news There have been some encouraging improvements: Some now ...
November 19, 2008 by James Robertson
PDF manuals: the wrong paradigm for an online experience
Mike Hughes writes about the problems with PDF manuals. To quote: Let me describe a familiar user assistance experience. A user installs a new application, and when the user wants Help, the application directs her to the user documentation on a Web site or CD-ROM. What the user finds there ...
Tags: documentation, pdf
November 11, 2008 by James Robertson
Making decisions about user research
Donna Spencer has written a post on making decisions about user research, in which she introduces a nice model to help the organisation understand when to conduct user research. To quote: Importance to the business: Just how important is the project/application in meeting organisational/business goals? Importance to users: What will happen ...
Tags: user research
October 22, 2008 by James Robertson
Selling UX
Daniel Szuc, Paul J. Sherman, and John S. Rhodes have written an article on selling user experience (UX) within organisations. To quote: At some point in your career, you’ll be called upon to sell UX to someone in your organization. You’ve probably already done it. Perhaps you’ll need to justify ...
Tags: selling, usability, user experience
October 21, 2008 by James Robertson
25 reasons why saving time on your intranet is a bad metric
We've all heard the argument: if we can save staff 2 minutes a day looking for information on the intranet, we can multiply this out by the number of staff and the days in the year to get a huge productivity benefit. This can then be used to justify the ...
Tags: findability, Intranets, metrics, time saving, usability
September 30, 2008 by James Robertson
Asking participants to “pretend” in user studies
Jared Spool has written about the dangers of getting users to pretend during usability testing. To quote: One of the places we kept noticing this was when we watching people shop online. Asking a shopper to pretend to purchase (“Could you find a pair of shoes you might like to ...
Tags: usability, usability testing, user research
September 19, 2008 by James Robertson
Quick turnaround usability testing
Paul Nuschke writes about quick turnaround usability testing techniques. To quote: It starts with any number of scenarios: Design and development have taken too long to produce a prototype, you need to release in three weeks, and you suspect there may be design flaws. You are trying to incorporate usability ...
Tags: usability, usability testing
August 22, 2008 by James Robertson
Design cop-out #2: breadcrumbs
Jared Spool writes about the issues with breadcrumbs. To quote: Breadcrumbs aren't bad, per se. However, like all things, they take resources to implement well. Of course, with less resources, you can create poorly designed breadcrumbs. But poorly designed breadcrumbs won't help anyone, so if you're going to make them ...
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August 14, 2008 by James Robertson
The site map: an information architecture cop-out
Jared Spool has written an article on site maps, highlighting their weaknesses. To quote: A 'design cop-out' is when a designer works on treating a symptom instead of putting resources into solving the root problem. It's choosing a quick fix over solving what could be a wicked problem. Don't get me ...
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August 6, 2008 by James Robertson
Low value content is destroying your website
Gerry McGovern has written that low value content is destroying your website. To quote: The study also found that the ratio of content/data being accessed in the system versus new content/data being published was about 2-1. In previous studies this ratio was 4-1 or higher. This means that the rate ...
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August 5, 2008 by James Robertson
Using persona advocates to develop user-centric intranets and portals
Howard McQueen has written an article on using personas for intranet and portal projects. To quote: Persona development can be an enjoyable and rewarding group process that focuses and prioritizes audience segments. A longer-term benefit is that personas feed into the iterative usability testing and user feedback that will ...
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August 4, 2008 by James Robertson
Designing a different kind of intranet: an intranet for a UX team
Anirban Basu Mallik has written about creating an intranet for a UX team. To quote: Ideally, a UX team’s intranet should provide a platform where team members belonging to different disciplines --with their diverse profiles—can collaborate on design and research activities. Often on large teams -- especially in cases where ...
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July 8, 2008 by James Robertson
Assessing weights for users’ needs
Jared Spool has written several articles on what he calls a Weighted Differences Matrix. From part 1: The process we’d use is to compare the designs side-by-side and list the differences. A method I’m fond of is to do the comparisons with two sites at a time. In this case, we’d ...
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July 7, 2008 by James Robertson
Preparing for user research interviews: seven things to remember
Michael Hawley has written an article on preparing for user research interviews. To quote: Interviewing is an artful skill that is at the core of a wide variety of research methods in user-centered design, including stakeholder interviews, contextual inquiry, usability testing, and focus groups. Consequently, a researcher’s skill in conducting interviews ...
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June 30, 2008 by James Robertson
Search usability research findings
Avi Rappoport has written about the search usability research conducted at Open University in the UK. To quote: Whitney Quesenbery and her colleagues convey the findings of a long study about how search is used at the UK's Open University, She gave a talk at the Enterprise Search Summit, and ...
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June 20, 2008 by James Robertson
Information Architecture TV
There's a new site: Information Architecture TV. To quote: Information Architecture Television is a weblog that contains quite an extensive collection of online videos concerning usability, information architecture, interaction design and user experience design. [Thanks to putting people first.]
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June 19, 2008 by James Robertson
Beyond fake personas
Angela Quail has written about assessing the validity of personas. To quote: Robust Personas are personas we can stand behind with confidence. We have conducted stakeholder interviews, internal research interviews, general industry and domain research, ethnographic field research, and we have tried hard to shoot holes in what we ...
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