Five Sketches™

Currently, I’m on a project team that’s designing, building, and implementing call-centre software. You can probably imagine the call-centre experience from the customer side—we’ve all had our share of call-centre experiences. I’ve been looking at call centres from the other side—from the perspective of the customer-service agents and their employer.
I started by observing customer-service agents […]

This week, I’m attending a few days of training in agile software development, in an Innovel course titled Lean, Agile and Scrum for Project Managers and IT Leadership.
My first exposure to agile was in Desiree Sy’s 2005 presentation, Strategy and Tactics for Agile Design: A design case study, to the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) annual conference […]

Designing is usually a rewarding activity, but the path from start to finish can be filled with frustration and even panic. I’ve seen design processes work—and come to the realisation that “My own designs benefited from rapid iteration!”
These humbling experiences helped me learn to trust the process, even in the face of frustration or panic. It’s these experiences that give […]

Involving users throughout the software-development cycle is touted as a way to ensure project success. Does usability testing count as user contact? You bet! But since most companies test their products later in the process, when it’s difficult to react meaningfully to the user feedback, here are two ways to get your testing done sooner.
Prioritise. […]

User-centred design (UCD) advocated involving users in the design process. Have you wondered what form that user involvement could take, and which forms lead to the most successful outcomes?
I recently came across data that Mark Keil published a while ago. He surveyed software companies and correlated project outcomes with the type of user access that designers and developers had.

Type […]

I received an e-mail from someone at the 2008 IA Summit about Jared Spool’s declaration that UCD is dead:
 —  —  — Forwarded message —  —  — 
From: P
Date: Sun 13/04/2008, 2:54 PM
Hi Jerome,
I’m at the iA Summit in Miami right now, and hearing about all of the things that are going on makes me think of you. One of the interesting sessions was Jared Spool’s keynote […]