Comments for User experience and usability

Comment on Multicolumn lists, reading direction and alphabetic ordering by Dustin Hamilton

Dustin Hamilton — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:42:34 +0000

I like your work here and wanted to know if you have any data and/or citations which support the information…?

Comment on Creating interesting personas with techniques from RPGs by marielle

marielle — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:41:35 +0000

Hi Bojhan,

Thanks for your comments!

Yes, I think all this can be very valuable (but not for every project). There can be a huge distance between developers and users, and personas certainly help in getting a connection. The techniques I describe here work best for projects with a long development phase. In that case you can start with a few raw personas and gradually add detail. The ‘fun part’ of working with personas is at least as valuable as the practical value. When your team starts joking about them, or loving them, or hating them, you’ll know they have come to live

Of course, as with any other technique, there are many cases when personas don’t have much added value (for example when you have real users readily available).

Comment on links for 2008-08-30 by Kaz Maslanka

Kaz Maslanka — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:51:28 +0000

As far as Generative Cogart is concerned — Michael Fields is my favorite.

Peace,
Kaz

Comment on Creating interesting personas with techniques from RPGs by Bojhan Somers

Bojhan Somers — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:15:16 +0000

Did you find communicating all this to your team members worthwhile? I never considered the persona it self very valuable, the only value you really get is getting you’r team to set them up. Which requires the hard work of actually talking to your users.

Christina Wodkte in her book on personas makes it absolutely clear not to go over-done. Which to me looks like most of these points are.

8 : Very interesting, but it is always hard to predict what a user will do in the future, its best to find what he has done (never ask the future), and thinking in terms of what persona will do in the future is very risky.

http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/11/14/crappy-personas-vs-robust-personas/

Comment on Multicolumn lists, reading direction and alphabetic ordering by David Airey

David Airey — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:28:41 +0000

Hi Marielle,

Many thanks for this post.

You pick up on a point that was bugging me. Thing is, because the list is being amended on a daily basis, I was waiting until a more final point before using the order you mention.

Do you know a straightforward way to get around this?

All the best.

Comment on Different purposes for an icon by Marielle Winarto usability » Quick sketch: from textual pointer to arrow

Marielle Winarto usability » Quick sketch: from textual pointer to arrow — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 15:58:17 +0000

[...] at the same time weak because they are so general they could mean just about everything (see my earlier post about different purposes for an icon). The user needs more information, either in the form of a [...]

Comment on Balancing cognitive load by Odile S

Odile S — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:56:00 +0000

good article Marielle. Very concise.