Paul is right on. In the middle of a big project this year, our client came to us with another piece of software they were working on, but were having a hard time get off the ground. They asked us to "do interaction design" to it, but there was no budget or time for research.
What did we do? We did research anyhow. We took our own time to have coffee with half a dozen people and talk to them about the problem space. It quickly became clear, despite the informality and the relatively small sample size, that the product concept was destined for failure. We reported back to the client, they axed the product, and spent their resources in more productive ways. A victory for our team, and only possible because we talked to people. Think of it this way: you are a painter, and your paint is user research. Fancy brushes, canvases, or gallery space are useless without the paint. -Jon On Sat, Nov 21, 2009 at 4:21 AM, Paul Bryan <[email protected]> wrote: > Understanding what real people will do when presented with your design > requires data. If you don't have budget for research, I suggest > taking a weekend to go to a place where people do whatever activity > you are designing for, observe them for a few hours, and jot down > attributes and behaviors that you feel are germane to the overall > context and experience. How do charcteristics like age, affluence, > preparedness, experience in the topic, flexibility, hurry, etc. > impact what they do? > > The list you create from this activity is a starter set of attributes > and behaviors that you can bring into your exercise that might carry > more weight than making it all up. It doesn't cost you anything > other than a weekend. > ________________________________________________________________ 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
