How do your users view your user interface design?

Usability experts are into user testing to evaluate the quality of an interface since they need to be sure that the designed interface is usable, accessible and close to the user needs.

These evaluations are managing different artifacts, such as heuristic tests, thinking aloud sessions, interviews, surveys, eye tracking analysis, etc. All these tools have a motive: to collect statistical data in order to analyze it and go back to refining and re-designing - if necessary.

Any mistake during the preparation of a usability test can make it fail. So, to select the right target users and the right questions, items, topics, tasks, etc. to be performed is a very difficult decision. Despite nowadays there are thousands of templates; they will require adaptations to fit the application purpose.

Because of that, and because the visual communication is easier to understand by designers, I’ve been thinking why don’t we change the rules and the roles and let the user sketch the interface exactly as they are perceiving it, however.

This sketching test can be interesting for different reasons:

Help designer to know whether users have understood the hierarchy, the most important items and the general idea or not.

1. It's very quick and you can get in a look the main goods and fails.
2. Let users to put attention in details important for them, not just for designers.
3. Let designers realize about the useless visual components according to user draws.
4. It is easy to understand by designers.
5. It is funny to try out for target users.

And you, what do you think? Does it make any sense?

• How to integrate User Centered Design approach into agile development?
• How can we take advantage of SketchFlow to speed up the communication and the product design?
• How to define, design, refine, test and enhance the user experience using Blend?
• How to write user stories in order to reflect user needs, to prioritize user goals and to improve the usability from the product definition to the product maintenance?

A very illustrative slides to make us know the answer of those and other questions.

View more presentations from www.donburnett.com.

If I knew the bus to choose, I wouldn't have to consult the map.

Focusing on the wrong problem, well, focusing on just one of the solution of the problem will make this situation happens. I just wanted another way of visualizing the same information, exactly an standard way like the map.

Anyway, it was a long time without writing, at least, I did the first step.

Reading this "Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes" we can make good construstive self-criticism.

So, I'm writting down some of the main ideas taken from Nielsen for not forget:

• Base the decisions on user research.
• Don't just implement feature requests from "user representatives" or "business analysts."...Requirement specifications are always wrong.

Basically, as he says: applications fail because they (a) solve the wrong problem, (b) have the wrong features for the right problem, or (c) make the right features too complicated for users to understand.

Via Olga Carreras' Blog.

We cannot forget that besides interaction, goals and tasks, the user has a deep desire of touch every touchable thing. We have to let them experiment with the interface without dramatical disasters.

Simplifying the Chess game. Far from classical metaphore and closer to intuition, what do you think? Would it be better for you?

I always put the same example, but it's because I think that if you have to learn something from someone, is better doing it from the best or at least from the leader, Google Chrome for me.

Here is there user experience once again. Now, we can see it in error messages, a new way to communicate to users beyond the system state status information.

So, what is the lesson learned? the face is personalizing a web browser not a user, because it is not a user mistake but a system one. Obviously, the art pixel contributes to catch the attention... well, don't get confused, main reason is it's strongly cool :) like my smiley.

Lovely Package es una web donde podemos encontrar cantidad de diseños de packaging (envasado) originales y atractivos.

Para alguien no profesional, visitar esta web puede resultarle precisamente eso: original y atractiva; pero, ¿qué se esconde realmente detrás de esa primera impresión?

La presentación, el envoltorio, la superficie, que no lo superficial y menos aún lo superflúo, también forman parte del objeto.

Y más aún, son la parte del objeto más cercana a la persona que lo maneja.

• Printed books on User Experience free to read online
• La ingeniería del software tiene aún muy poco camino recorrido
• When is the “flow” in a use case part of the system requirements?

Vía HCNet:

Ya está disponible para su descarga el Informe APEI sobre Usabilidad, escrito por Sergio Ortega Santamaría y un Yusef Hassan.

Un recurso imprescindible para los profesionales de la Usabilidad, Arquitectos de Información, Diseñadores web e interesados en el desarrollo de interfaces eficaces.