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THE ROLE OF a user experience consultant, and specifi cally the user-centered design process,
is to help guide and shape the development of products and services based on what the
user understands and requires. To do this, the consultant needs to be a facilitator and communicator,
ensuring that the right user information is uncovered and conveyed to the project
stakeholders.
The purpose of the book is to help you communicate the user experience more eff ectively by
producing insightful documents that successfully communicate the needs of the user to the
business. It shows you what needs to go into the documents; what research needs to be done;
ideas for facilitating practical workshops. Th ese workshops are designed for the project team
and stakeholders to help them understand user goals and behavior, enabling the team to collaborate
on process, content and design solutions. Th is book also shows you how to work with
PowerPoint, OmniGraffl e, Axure, Word, or Excel to produce these documents (though the
theory can be applied to many more applications beyond these, such as HTML prototyping).
Th e ultimate goal is for you to create better products and services that have a transformational,
measurable, and lasting impact to their users.
We’re mindful of the real-world constraints of time, budget, and resource availability, so
throughout the book we’ve included straightforward ways to conduct research and produce
documents (call center listening and rapid sketching can transform decision-making in minutes
and hours rather than days and weeks). Th e fi delity of the output is less important than
the message—although conversely, well-presented documents are often better received
because they show care and rigor. |
