| I agree with weego that the place to start with user experience designs is with THE USER. Describe these (assumed) primary and secondary players that support whatever business and marketing efforts you've got. Simple persona style might be: -- Jim is 32, an accountant, online 4-5 hours a day, has an iPhone, 2 toddlers, and no time for anything except his fantasy football league and the occasional game of Angry Birds while on the metro each morning. -- By getting my team or clients onboard with Jim right out of the gates, I've found that I can say "Seriously, 'Jim' doesn't care about button colors or sharing this on Facebook," when projects typically might otherwise get distracted, and the development cycle then stays more uniformly focused on the user (our ultimate goal, usability wise). Then, I complement this user development with MEANING creation. What does "Jim" really care about? What core aspect of our app makes his life easier, means more to him, or is /the/ most entertaining way to engage his attention? From there, I'd build (ugly) only that feature/interaction with great content that provides necessary cues, then go find a few Jims. Test, re-test, evolve, and FINALLY layer in the pretty (and additional features essential to bolstering usability... not just for the purpose of adding stuff). Rinse and repeat for all target audiences. Well, repeat anyway. :) |