7 Additional Ways to Focus on Users

Post from September 10, 2007 (↻ October 17, 2021), filed under (feed).

Smashing Magazine just published my article on 20 [Alternative] Ways to Focus on Users, and not only do I like to point to the article, I also like to extend it. A quick bonus level, so to speak.

  1. “A day in the life”: Compile the activities and conditions that users experience over an entire day in order to derive design decisions for everyday life products.

  2. Competitive product survey: Conduct and compare competitive product evaluations in order to determine product standards and to specify requirements.

  3. “Quick and dirty” prototyping: Sketch design ideas in order to uncover and test the underlying concepts.

  4. Rapid ethnography: Spend as much time as possible with people relevant to the topic in order to understand their behavior.

  5. Scenarios: Illustrate and describe the context of use of a service in order to identify and evaluate the essence of a design idea.

  6. Try it yourself: Sometimes missed, use the products you are designing in order to get a minimum understanding of the experience that users make.

  7. Word-concept association: Let people associate words with (design) concepts in order to cluster user perceptions and to range in features.

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About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on September 30, 2021.

I’m Jens, and I’m an engineering lead and author. I’ve worked as a technical lead for Google, I’m close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly. I love trying things, sometimes including philosophy, art, and adventure. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.

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