Personas or Users? TecEd has teamed with clients on hundreds of research projects and in many cases, our researchers use the techniques of user modeling. The process of user modeling identifies the typical “personas” of the website or application being studied, and puts the focus on each persona’s goals for interacting with the application. What’s important to note is that the concept of a “persona" -- an archetypical user of a website or product – is ... Read More >
Jul 25
What Does It Look Like When UX Takes the Lead?
We got a kick out of a recent Harvard Business Review blog post written by Robert Fabricant. His post entitled The Rise of UX Leadership begins by characterizing UX as “the new black” in business, borrowing from a fashion phrase to demonstrate the prevalence of UX in product strategy and development. This characterization certainly rings true for the companies to which we offer user experience services. In every engagement, the focus is on developing ... Read More >
Jun 26
UX and ROTI: What’s Your Return on Testing Investment Success Story?
What’s the value of a website or application with a great user experience? This compelling question should be driving all product launch strategies. The answer could be worth a half-million dollars. When TecEd presented at the 2011 Internet User Experience Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we explored this very question which is still relevant today. Our presentation about winning stakeholder support for UX research budgets shared findings from ... Read More >
Jun 5
31 Awesomely Practical UX Tips Demystified!
I attended last week’s Rosenfeld One-Day Virtual Conference of “31 Awesomely Practical UX Tips “ hosted by the UX Toledo Region User Experience Community with TecEd’s Senior UX Consultant Larry Rusinsky. It was a terrific event, thanks to Keith Instone and other volunteers - over 50 people attended at the Bowling Green State University Levi Commons site. Afterwards Larry and I decided it would be fun to write up all 31 tips, in fact Larry counted 29 of ... Read More >
May 29
Focus Groups and Usability Testing: Yes There is a Difference
Focus Groups vs. Usability Testing In our work with clients from a range of industries, we’ve often picked up on an understandable confusion between the definition of the terms “Focus Groups” and “Usability Testing.” In some cases, we hear people using the two terms interchangeably, as if they have the same meaning. This confusion is understandable because: Both focus groups and usability testing are user research techniques that involve assembling ... Read More >
May 15
Why Wear the User’s Hat? 3 Reasons to Perform Heuristic Evaluation
Heuristic Evaluation is Worth It Performing a heuristic evaluation is a low-cost, time-efficient technique for discovering usability problems in a product user interface. Evaluators examine the interface, comparing its design to a list of heuristics, or usability guidelines. Technology developers want their products to be successful. The goal is to deliver an application that increases user productivity. When the application also increases user ... Read More >
May 9
When “UX” Really Means “User Expectations”
Real User Expectations I recently attended the 2013 Digital Day event sponsored by Adcraft Club of Detroit. Held last week, the keynote speaker was John Battelle, Federated Media’s Chairman and CEO and multiple digital entrepreneur who helped launch Wired magazine. Battelle’s remarks covered a lot of ground: from the origins of the banner ad (first deployed by the first commercial web magazine “Hotwired” in 1994) to the proliferation of big data (on average ... Read More >
Apr 30
In Business Matters, it’s the User that Matters
We enjoyed this recent UX Matters post by Baruch Sachs. The article was posted earlier this month on the UX community website, and is the second in a series about what makes a great UX consultant. The article makes the case that effective UX consultants should know how to collaborate, communicate well, and not so much educate, but inspire clients to develop amazing user experiences for a product, application, or Web site. The UX Matters article is a ... Read More >
Apr 25
Multiple Facilitators, One Test: What’s a UX Team To Do?
Most UX teams would agree that in user experience research, it’s not optimal to run a single study with multiple facilitators. Yet oftentimes, situations dictate that this is in fact the case. Timing is usually a major factor. As an example, a large-scale study might require dozens of sessions, with stakeholders who need the results urgently. For practical reasons, there might be insufficient time for both planning and execution of the study. One option ... Read More >
