Process: User-Centered Design

When Microsoft launched Windows 8 in 2012, I installed it on my computer and used it for a while, then spent the next three days trying to revert back to Windows 7. Windows 8 boldly did the unthinkable: it removed the Start button from the Windows desktop after it had been a fixture for nearly two decades. The Start menu and button had been mainstays since Windows 95 in the ’90s. Despite that, Microsoft’s design leads decided to retire them in favor of a new approach.

Windows 8 greeted users with a full-screen Start screen, comprising colorful, dynamic tiles, as shown in Figure 1, instead of the familiar Start menu. Microsoft believed a touch-first, mobile-inspired user interface (UI) was the future and, thus, made a huge gamble. Internal telemetry data had suggested that users were relying less on the old Start menu, which emboldened the design team to scrap the traditional Start button in hopes of streamlining navigation with a modern user experience across the desktop and tablets, even if it meant breaking one of computing’s most ingrained visual conventions. Read More

As UX professionals, we have a great many analytical and descriptive tools available to us. In fact, there are so many that it can sometimes be difficult to decide which tool is most appropriate for a given task! Hierarchical task analysis (HTA) is an underused approach in user experience, but one you can easily apply when either modifying an existing design or creating a new design.

This technique has applications across a range of different problem domains, including time-and-motion studies, personnel selection, or training, and provides a broad and deep understanding of task performance. While there are core principles that guide a hierarchical task analysis, it’s possible to adapt the basic approach in a huge number of ways to support the needs of any domain under consideration. In this column, I’ll examine one approach to hierarchical task analysis that enables UX designers to quickly understand both what a system does and how its capabilities translate into the system’s user experience. You can also use this approach to support the UX development process. Read More

Personas are essential tools in adopting a user-centered approach to product design. Personas help a product team maintain a constant focus on their target users, ensuring that the designed product conforms to their needs and requirements. Personas are useful throughout the complete design lifecycle—from developing business requirements, product concepts, functional specifications, and Web content to interaction and visual design for the product user interface.

Alan Cooper pioneered the adoption of the Goal-Directed Design methodology, including the use of personas, as a practical approach to interaction design for high-technology products. Creating personas is a quick, efficient way of gauging the needs and requirements of a potentially diverse user base that would make use of a particular product, service, or system in different contexts and environments. Read More