Jens Oliver Meiert

7 Additional Ways to Focus on Users

Published on Sep 10, 2007 (updated Jun 13, 2024), filed under (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

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.

About Me

Jens Oliver Meiert, on November 9, 2024.

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)