Five Sketches™

Here are three techniques for eliciting more feedback on your designs:

show users some alternatives, so more than one design.
show users a low-fidelity rather than high-fidelity rendering.
ask users to sketch their feedback.

To iterate and improve the design, you need honest feedback.  Let’s look at how and why each of these techniques might work.
Showing alternative designs signals that the design process […]

In my quest to make this content more accessible, I added a translation widget for readers who prefer another language.
Veni, Vidi, Reverti
Although the quality of the translation was very good, this video tells why I removed it:

A presentation on seductive interaction that I’d like to see, live: http://ping.fm/JzHcT
In Vancouver? I’m presenting tonight at 7pm, on core competencies and ideation-design. Details at http://ping.fm/SVNGp
I want to try it: Easy Meet for mobile devices/phones lets users view & mark up each other’s PPT slides. http://ping.fm/3uyav
Cute & funny, but this “PC in biohazard suit” ad […]

Three-quarters of the way through a Five Sketches™ session, to help iterate and reduce the number of possible design solutions, the team turns to analysis. This includes a usability analysis.
 
After Œ informing and defining the problem  without judgement  and  generating and sketching lots of ideas  without judgment , it’s often a relief for the team to […]

When you’re tempted to cut corners off your product, what do you cut?
Is it the usability?
Today, I watched a video of people helping a motorised cardboard construction or “robot” to navigate. The so-called tweenbot has a flag on it that says “Help me,” and that asks people to send it on its way to its outdoor […]

It takes a range of skills to develop a product. Each skill—embodied in the individuals who apply that skill—brings with it a different focus:

Product managers talk about features and market needs.
Business development  talk about revenue opportunities.
Developers talk about functionality.
Usability analysts talk about product- and user performance.
Interaction designers talk about the user experience.
QA talks about quality and defects.
Marketing talks about the messaging.
Technical communicators […]

I find this funny for two reasons.

It spoofs the “choice” that many error messages present to us. It amounts to: “The program failed. OK?” It’s not OK, but your only choice is to “agree” with the message.
It spoofs the developer jargon that we read in error messages: a reboot versus a system restart.

The location of USB jacks affect my usability rating of a laptop computer. Must I rotate/flip it over each time, or can I truly plug & play? #
Spam is so crafty! I have “Nadine” commenting on my blog (http://FiveSketches.com) using a north-American idiom, but her domain’s in Russia. #
Someone recommended the PublicSpeaker site & podcasts […]

I’m presenting on repurposing the core competencies that relate to ideation and design, at the April 2009 Society for Technical Communication session, in Vancouver, Canada. The presentation is titled: Ideation and design with Jerome Ryckborst.
During this session, I’ll talk about how technical communicators have skill sets that make them valuable outside the “traditional” domain of […]

I first heard Bill Buxton talking about sketching in Texas, at the UPA 2007 annual conference. I was running around with a video camera asking people what they thought of Bill Buxton’s presentation. Everyone loved it, including his ideas on sketching and design. But almost everyone I spoke to also said Buxton’s requirement for five sketches […]