At 6:05 PM +0000 3/27/08, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: ... snip ... >So should I stop talking about focus groups? Is the old method of ask and >listen not applicable - particularly when designing stuff that's 'future >proof' and therefore impossible to assess with the users of the future - or >should we seek out new methods?...
If you're designing something completely new you have the opportunity to approach it in an entirely new way (cf the iPhone), but if you are improving or extending an existing product you can't break completely out of the existing mold (cf the 2nd to 5th generations of the iPod). And each project will have it's own limits imposed by time, budget, the visions/imaginations of stakeholders, the political structure, etc. Given all that, I have learned that you can almost never take a user's words verbatim. Listen to them, gather all the raw data that seems reasonable, but then try to dig down to the root causes, the core motivations that leads people to say what they do. then try to solve the "real" problems rather than the "stated" problems. For two interesting and useful perspectives on how far what users think and say depart from what the fundamental reality truly is, you might read "Freakonomics" and "The Culture Code". These don't directly apply to UX design, but from two very different viewpoints they make it clear that you shouldn't take what most people say at face value. FWIW, Bill -- ====================================================================== Bill Fernandez * User Interface Architect * Bill Fernandez Design (505) 346-3080 * bf_list1 AT billfernandez DOT com * http://billfernandez.com ====================================================================== ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
