So calm and charming to annoying in seconds. What happened? Something at work was a little annoying. I was irritated and was talking with my wife, hoping to change the thought. My 8 year boy starts acting up and is seeking negative attention. Even when he is asked to redirect, he continues … As he… Continue reading Best Kind of Design Empathy
Category: Analysis
Analysis: Competitive Analysis
As part of the overall competitive analysis, my clients ask me to compare the competitors’ products and services to their own. An organization typically has a list of competitive issues encountered during the sales process. In addition, there may be marketing and product checklists of feature by feature comparisons. Due to companies using design as a differentiator, clients are now seeking a… Continue reading Analysis: Competitive Analysis
Analysis: Domain Model
Domain models are a useful way for technologists to model the business or domain they use. Domain modeling describes all of the objects, actors, and relationships in the system. I have found that it is not common for people to create domain models anymore, and instead use shortcuts to put the model in code or in the… Continue reading Analysis: Domain Model
Analysis: Interactions
Interactions analysis is used to understand the strengths and constraints of your technology to meet the needs of the user to accomplish their work. I have worked for several companies that had old technologies and wanted to modernize. The question we considered; in moving from a native Windows application to a web-based trading application, what would the user gain or… Continue reading Analysis: Interactions
Analysis: Workflow Analysis
The Workflow Analysis is a tool to document and enumerate the workflows around products and services of the company that are touched by end-users. The workflow analysis follows key workflows through the organization’s products and services entering, crossing boundaries, and exiting upon conclusion of the work. The workflows may occur across personas, departments, and organizations.… Continue reading Analysis: Workflow Analysis
Analysis: Day-in-the-life
The day-in-the-life walk-through of a persona provides documentation and context of the users’ work throughout the day. The day-in-the-life walk-through focuses on the user, independent of your company’s particular interest, from the time they wake up in the morning until they go to bed. The walk-through is at high-level, “5000 feet”, and shows the typical… Continue reading Analysis: Day-in-the-life
Analysis: Personas
Personas are developed from data collected about targeted users. The patterns that emerge from your research create the user archetype- the persona. Creating personas serves several purposes. Personas help remove the tendency of the team to make assumptions about the user or see themselves as the user. Personas also provide team members an accurate short cut to reference a group of users. Personas are also… Continue reading Analysis: Personas
Analysis: Customer Experience Analysis
A Customer Experience Analysis is a heuristic or expert analysis of the utility and usability of an application. Using key tasks and the profiles of the targeted users, the analysis walks you through how this user encounters the application. We need a few things to get started with this analysis: Identify the key tasks and primary users for each task Provide… Continue reading Analysis: Customer Experience Analysis
Analysis: The intersection of users and technology
At the intersection of users and technology, we find the interactions of the users. These interactions are highly dependent on the technology- mobile device, desktop application, gaming controller, kiosk – and the and the abilities and limitations of the users. Technology choices are often impacted by existing products. Is there a legacy stack? Are you hoping to adapt what… Continue reading Analysis: The intersection of users and technology
Analysis: The intersection of business and technology
The intersection of business and technology is where we find the domain model. The domain model is the representation of the business through technology. Understanding the domain model creates the underpinnings for a stable set of business rules and engines for powering many applications. I have worked in a variety of domains; timekeeping, scheduling, payroll, compliance, trading,… Continue reading Analysis: The intersection of business and technology
Analysis: The intersection of business and users
Where the business and users intersect, we find the business processes, the “workflows” of your customers. Optimizing workflows yields improvements to their business processes, resulting in efficiency and the benefits that may come along with that such as improved customer service, faster turnarounds, and higher quality work. Independent of the technology, analysis of the workflows of the users… Continue reading Analysis: The intersection of business and users
Analysis: How do we frame the analysis?
As we start doing analysis for a project, let’s frame the approach. Many designers start by pushing for user analysis. I like to step back and take a “holistic” approach, considering the perspective of Users, Business, and Technology. Why? Users, Business, and Technology are the constraints for any solution/ design. The intersections of each are… Continue reading Analysis: How do we frame the analysis?
Analysis: Why all the questions?
Sometimes asking a question is not to get an answer. There are many reasons to ask questions during the analysis and design process. So why do I ask so many questions? To reframe and start from the beginning To challenge assumptions To challenge constraints To get someone to state the answer out loud so everyone… Continue reading Analysis: Why all the questions?