Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research - Softcover

Goodman Ph.D. School Of Information University Of California Berkeley, Elizabeth; Kuniavsky, Mike

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0123848695 ISBN 13: 9780123848697

Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann, 2012

Synopsis

The gap between who designers and developers imagine their users are, and who those users really are can be the biggest problem with product development. Observing the User Experience will help you bridge that gap to understand what your users want and need from your product, and whether they'll be able to use what you've created.

Filled with real-world experience and a wealth of practical information, this book presents a complete toolbox of techniques to help designers and developers see through the eyes of their users. It provides in-depth coverage of 13 user experience research techniques that will provide a basis for developing better products, whether they're Web, software or mobile based. In addition, it's written with an understanding of product development in the real world, taking tight budgets, short schedules, and existing processes into account. 

Since the publication of the first edition, the business of user research has exploded with new technologies and new techniques. This second edition takes those changes into account with extensive revisions to existing topics. It also adds entirely new material on observational research, mobile usability, diary studies, remote research, and cross-cultural and multilingual projects. 

• Explains how to balance usability with creativity and originality

• A valuable resource for designers, developers, project managers -- anyone whose work affects the end user experience

• Provides a real-world perspective on research. Helps you do user research cheaply and quickly, and present it persuasively

• Gives you the tools and confidence to perform user research on your own design, tuning user experience to the unique needs of your product and its users.

About this title

About the Author

Through writing, design and research, Elizabeth Goodman works to inform and inspire the future of interaction design. Over the past decade, she has worked with exploratory user experience teams at Intel, Yahoo! and Fuji Xerox, and taught user research at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently a Phd candidate at Berkeley, she has a masters degree in interaction design from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. She frequently speaks on interaction design and research to businesses, schools, and industry groups. 

Mike Kuniavsky is a user experience designer, researcher and author. A twenty-year veteran of digital product development, Mike is a consultant and the co-founder of several user experience centered companies: ThingM manufactures products for ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things; Adaptive Path is a well-known design consultancy. He is also the founder and organizer of Sketching in Hardware, an annual summit on the future of digital product user experience design tools. Mike writes and speaks on digital product and service design, and works with product development groups in both large companies and startups. His most recent book is Smart Things: Ubiquitous Computing User Experience Design.

Andrea Moed believes that research is essential in designing to support human relationships. She has been a design researcher and strategist for over 15 years, observing users of websites, phones and other mobile devices, museums, retail environments and educational and business software. She is currently the Staff User Researcher at Inflection, a technology company working to democratize access to public records. Andrea has master's degrees from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and the UC Berkeley School of Information, and has taught at the Parsons School of Design in New York. Her writing on design and technology has appeared in a variety of publications.

From the Back Cover

"This new version retains the approachable style of the original edition while making the most of recent developments in mobile and social technology. The clear instructions and comprehensive overview of research methodologies make this volume a perfect guide for novices and a reference for experienced practitioners looking for new ideas."

-- Dr. Aviva Rosenstein, User Research Manager, salesforce.com

Observing the User Experience is a groundbreaking, comprehensive resource for user experience research. For over a decade, it has helped readers better understand what their users want and need from their products and whether users will be able to use what they've created. This second edition improves upon a classic, adding new methods and approaches to meet today's challenging and diverse research requirements.

You'll find revised methods chapters that explain how to adapt time-tested techniques for designing mobile and cross-platform products and services. New sections offer strategies for conducting remote user research, using new tools for digital ethnography, and informing cross-cultural design. Filled with real-world experience and a wealth of practical information, this book helps designers and developers see through the eyes of their users.

• Explains how to create usable products that are still original and creative.
• Provides a real-world perspective on research, with tips on conducting user research inexpensively and quickly, and on persuasively presenting the results.
• Gives readers the tools and confidence to get started fast, while introducing more advanced questions and techniques.

Edition details

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0123848695
• ISBN 13: 9780123848697
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 608