-
User Research – The Beginner’s Guide
Why should I conduct user research? As designers, if we fail to understand how potential users expect to interact with a product, we will fail to create satisfying, productive and enjoyable experiences for them. Carrying out user research will allow you to explore, throughout the design process, what your users’ perceptions, expectations and aspirations might be…
-
Content for your target persona – how to write it
Writing content that speaks to your personas is crucial to the success of your product and a key part of any content strategy. We all know that badly written content is an immediate turn-off to anyone considering purchasing a product. Something as simple as a spelling mistake or typo can create distrust in a brand, while…
-
How I built an app – Part 4: Marketing and release strategy
Getting ready for release So the app was finally built, bug tested and ready to go. But there were a number of things that had to be in place in order to finally launch it on the app store. Getting the MeetMate website ready Preparing the feedback survey Populating the app description and metadata in…
-
How I built an app – Part 3: Development and testing
In this series I’ve now covered the user needs gathering and prototyping, product roadmap and branding. Now it’s time to tell you about how I actually got my MeetMate app developed and built. Finding my developer For me, this was the hardest part of the process. Not least because for some reason iOS developers were the one type of person I seemed…
-
How I built an app – Part 2: Product roadmap, branding and UI
In part 1 of this series in how I built my app – MeetMate, I told you about how I understood the user needs and began prototyping the initial ideas. In this part i’m going to talk you through how I understood the product roadmap for the app and worked on the branding and early interface ideas. Understanding the product roadmap…
-
How I built an app – Part 1: User needs and prototyping
It was a few months ago. I was in a meeting which was going round and round in circles. It’s a situation that has happened over and over throughout my working life. I tried to pin down exactly why it was and then it hit me: almost none of these meetings had an agenda. Or…
-
Why you should give public sector UX a try
We’ve all been dazzled by the promise of working in a fast paced agency environments, designing super cool campaigns, innovative apps and social media strategies for well known brands. The public sector may not have the same type of glamour – but what it does have is users who really need your help. I have…
-
Quick Tips – How to record a user testing session using only Mac OS X
Constraints force us to think creatively. A locked down laptop forces us to throw ourselves out the nearest window. Need a way to record some user testing without installing any additional software on your Macbook or waiting 6 months for a procurement order? I came up with this quick and dirty method which uses only what OS X…
-
How reassurance seeking patterns can help your user experience design
Your Amazon shopping screen has just told you your payment has gone through and the order was successful. What do you do next? Do you believe it and go on to your other tasks? Or do you sit by your inbox to see if there’s a confirmation email just to make sure? Well, I am…
-
Higher Education Websites – 3 Budget User Experience Techniques
Higher education websites need to fill multiple functions for a wide variety of users types, each with different goals. Shrinking budgets, limited resources, and complicated governance can cause problems in decentralised models of site creation and maintenance. These effects are compounded by relying on subject matter experts or other untrained content contributors responsible for many departmental websites. That…
