Posts Tagged ‘ reading guidance ’

Reading guidance: Oct 31, 2012

This week’s readings are quite straightforward.

The first thing you need to understand is what is usability testing and why it’s done.

Then, imagine you had to run usability testing (you will have to for UR4). What do you do? The book explains the procedures step-by-step.

Reading guidance: Info architecture; Prototyping Oct. 24, 2012

This week completes the topic of conceptual design. Organizing information (information architecture) is an important part of the design. Please head to Bb > Readings > Week 10… and read at least the first reading posted there. As you read, please try to understand the following about information architecture:

  1. What is it?
  2. What are some user-centered techniques for creating the information architecture?
  3. What are various website topologies (ways of organizing information)?

As you skim the other two research articles, try to figure out:

  1. What navigation topologies and structures are better in what kind of situations?

UX Book Chapter 11 is about Prototypes. They are the logical continuation of sketches and wireframes that you read about for last week. The most important thing to get out of the chapter, IMO, is:

  1. How do you choose between the different types and fidelity levels of prototypes? (this assumes you know the types and fidelity levels)
  2. What are some pitfalls to avoid when prototyping?

Note: I am aware that there is a report due on class day, but this is NOT an excuse to not do the readings!

Is this reading guidance useful to you? Do I need to invest the time to write a post each week, or is my time better spent elsewhere? Please let me know in the comments and ratings below.


Reading guidance for Oct. 17, 2012

While you are working on the Persona report, we are reading about the next step: Conceptual design.

As you do the readings, try to understand:

  3. What are other useful tools and techniques for creating conceptual design?
  5. What role do users, user research, and user feedback play in conceptual design?

Reading guidance for Oct. 10, 2012

This week, you will read about some core concept of user-centered design: Personas, Scenarios, Use cases, and Task analysis. As you read, try to understand:

  1. What each concept is, and how it is different from the others
  2. How to create each one
  3. Why these are used, why they are useful, and how they are used in the larger design process

Reading guidance for Oct 3, 2012 readings

Please read the Cooper chapter first, for an overview of the topic, and the UXB chapter second, for detailed how-to information. Cooper will provide the context you need to better understand the UXB chapter.

As you do the readings for Oct 3, please focus on finding answers to these questions:

  • What are the goals of user research?
    • Why conduct it?
    • What kinds of information do we want to find out?
  • What are some available tools (research methods) for conducting user research?
  • What kinds of data can we collect? What counts as data?
  • What are some big mistakes (pitfalls) to avoid when conducting user research?