Sneak peek: Designing for the Digital Age
Today is a big day for me. At long last, my book is going to press. It’s a soup-to-nuts how-to with tons of detail on every aspect of the method as it applies to a wide range of design problems and business situations. Visual, industrial, and interaction design are all integrated in the discussion, as are communication and project management. People have been asking for this book for years, so hopefully it will deliver what you’ve been looking for.
The writing is done. The 300 or so examples, exercises, and illustrations are finished. 750 pages of editing and proofreading and layout and color tweaking…all done. Now, whatever typos exist are going to be there for all time. Of course, there’s plenty still to do between now and when the book lands on shelves around the end of February: a Web site to assemble, a launch party to plan, and a sample chapter or two to select and share with all of you who read the Journal. For now, though, I thought I’d share a peek at the table of contents.
[You can pre-order the book on Amazon; they aren't listing a date yet, but it should be coming out in mid-late February.]
1 Goal-Directed Product and Service Design
Digital Product and Service Design
Goal-Directed Design
- Origins of Goal-Directed Design
- Components of Goal-Directed Design
2 Assembling the Team
The Design Team
- Interaction designers
- Visual interface designer
- Industrial designer
- Design team lead
Close Collaborators
- Project owner
- Design engineer
- Business or systems analyst
- Subject matter expert
- Usability tester
Other Product Team Members
When You Don’t Have the Ideal Team
- Understaffed design team
- No design engineers or subject matter experts
- No clear project owner
- Too many people in working meetings
3 Project Planning
The Ideal Project Starting Point
Determining Your Project’s Parameters
- Revenue or cost focus
- Desire to innovate
- Length of time horizon
- Understanding the problem before solving it
- Willingness to invest
- Risk factors
Developing the Project Plan
- Research
- Modeling and requirements definition
- Framework definition
- Detailed design
- Ongoing support
4 Research Fundamentals
Benefits of Doing Research
Barriers to Doing Design Research
- “It will cost too much and take too long.”
- “We already did market research.”
- “Our subject matter experts know the users.”
Components of Design Research
User Research Methods
- Usability testing
- Focus groups
- Individual interviews
- Direct observation
- Combining observation and interviews
The Research Team
Essential Research Skills
- Active listening
- Capturing the data
5 Understanding the Business
Identifying Stakeholders and Scheduling Interviews
Officially “Kicking Off” the Project
Conducting Stakeholder Interviews
- Getting started
- Things to watch out for
- Topics applicable to most stakeholders
- Marketing stakeholders
- Engineering stakeholders
- Sales stakeholders
- Senior executives
- Subject matter experts
- Other product team members
Project Management for Stakeholder Interviews
When You Can’t Interview Stakeholders
6 Planning User Research
Identifying the Number and Type of Interviewees
- Step 1: Identify likely roles
- Step 2: Determine the base number of interviewees per role
- Step 3: Multiply for important factors
- Step 4: Trim the sample and incorporate other factors
- Step 5: Adjust for no-shows and poor interviews
Introducing the Practice Design Problems
- Consumer device and service: LocalGuide
- Business application: Room Finder
Recruiting and Scheduling
- Enterprise site visits
- Recruiting individuals
- The interview schedule
Dealing with Challenges
7 Understanding Potential Users and Customers
Interviewing Customers in a Business Environment
- Useful questions for customers
- What not to do when interviewing customers
Interviewing and Observing Prospective Users
- The interview setting
- Essential techniques
- What not to do in user interviews
- Structuring the user interview
- Getting started: introductions
- Essential interview topics
- Observation and the guided tour
- Wrapping up the interview
- Dealing with challenging interview circumstances
- Project Management for Interviews
- Between interviews
- Staying sane
Team roles and responsibilities
Communicating outside the team
8 Example Interview
(Interview transcript with running commentary)
9 Other Sources of Information and Inspiration
When You Have Less Time
When You Have More Time
Supplemental Research Methods
- Public-space observation
- Mystery shopper
- Diaries
- Surveys
- Web analytics and customer support data
- Focus groups
- Card sorting
- Competitive products and services
- Literature and media
10 Making Sense of Your Data: Modeling
Synthesizing Stakeholder Findings
- Topics to cover
- Handling controversy
- Preparing to communicate stakeholder findings
Analyzing Customer and User Data
- Qualitative analysis
- Quantitative analysis
- Explanations and relationships
- Risks and opportunities
- Preparing to communicate your user findings
Project Management during Modeling
11 Personas
Definition and Uses
- What personas are good for
- Why personas work
- What personas are not
- How many personas do I need?
- How often do I need to create personas?
- Personas who aren’t users
Creating Personas
- Step 1. Divide interviewees by role, if appropriate
- Step 2. Identify behavioral and demographic variables
- Step 3. Map interviewees to variables
- Step 4. Identify patterns
- Step 5. Define goals
- Step 6. Clarify distinctions and add detail
- Step 7. Fill in other persona types as needed
- Step 8. Group and prioritize user personas
- Step 9. Develop the narrative and other communication
Validating your personas
When Time Is Limited: Provisional Personas
Persona Pitfalls
Project Management for Creating Personas
12 Defining Requirements
The Problems with Requirements
- Requirements cannot be “gathered”
- Requirements are not features
- Requirements are not specifications
Generating Effective Requirements
Sources of requirements
Types of requirements
The process for generating requirements
- Brainstorming
- Scenarios
- Why use scenarios?
- How Goal-Directed scenarios differ from similar tools
- Crafting effective context scenarios
- Extracting requirements from scenarios
- Other Requirements from User Personas
- Mental models
- Environments
- Physical and cognitive characteristics
- Skills and knowledge
- Goals
- Requirements from Business and Other Needs
- Customer persona goals
- Stakeholders
- Lawyers and regulations
- Competitors and media
- Accessibility
- Sustainability
- Experience Attributes
- Step 1: Compile desirable qualities from research
- Step 2: Group related qualities into clusters
- Step 3: Refine and filter clusters
- Step 4: Optimize terms to guide visual decisions
- Step 5: Choose the best term from each cluster
- Step 6: Describe and optimize relationships
- Step 7: Develop additional communication tools
Project Management for Developing Requirements
13 Putting It All Together: The User and Domain Analysis
Typical Structure
- Introduction of the project parameters
- Research activities: what you did
- Research findings: what you learned
- Personas
- Context scenarios
- Requirements
- Next steps
Developing an Effective Document
Developing an Effective Presentation
Conducting the Meeting
- Before the meeting
- Delivering the presentation and leading the discussion
Project Management for Developing the U&DA
14 Framework Definition: Visualizing Solutions
Essential Principles of Framework Definition
- Consider the whole system at once
- Learn by sketching and failing
- Focus on structure, not details
- Design for the long term
Process Overview for Framework Definition
- Process for design on a novel platform
- Process for design on a known platform
- Process for designing services
Project Management for Framework Definition
- How many directions to explore
- Planning your time
Essential Skills for Framework Definition
- Sketching and storyboarding
- Collaboration
- Capturing what happens in meetings
15 Principles and Patterns for Framework Design
The Importance of Context
Principles for Form and Behavior
- Design values
- Minimizing unnecessary work
Patterns for Form and Behavior
- Organizing objects and activities
- Combinations of patterns
- Organizing by nouns or verbs
- Additional ways to manage real estate
16 Designing the Form Factor and Interaction Framework
IxDG and IxDS: Define Data Object Types and Relationships
Full Design Team: Define Possible Functional Elements
- Functional elements in product design
- Functional elements in service design
- Making decisions
Full Design Team: Define Possible Platforms
- Input and output methods
- Other form factor considerations
Full Team: Brainstorm with Sketches
- Brainstorming for software on a fixed platform
- Brainstorming for services and new platforms
ID: Refine the Form Factor
IxDG and IxDS: Define the Interaction Framework
- Develop a first draft of the framework
- How to approach specific design situations
Full Design Team: Iterate Form and Behavior Together
Typical Challenges in Designing the Framework
Project Management for Defining Platforms and Frameworks
- Internal design team check-ins
- Project owner, SME, and design engineer review
- User feedback
17 Principles and Patterns in Design Language
General Principles
- Visual information + context = meaning
- Visually communicate what elements do
- Have a purpose for every element and a reason for every decision
- Repeat elements for unity
- Be decisive, but use the smallest effective difference
Patterns and Principles for Specific Elements
- Color
- Size
- Shape
- Line weight and style
- Type
- Texture
- Images
- Materials and manufacturing
- Signature elements
18 Developing the Design Language
The Process of Developing the Design Language
- Look for inspiration
- Determine how many directions to share
- Determine what elements to represent
- Decide what choices best represent primary attributes
- Adjust for context as needed
- Begin to render the studies
- Adjust for secondary attributes as needed
- Review, iterate, and finalize options to present
Example: NetApp
Example: Executive Telephone
Project Management for Design Language Exploration
19 Communicating the Framework and Design Language
Preparing Stakeholders for the Meeting
Crafting the Story
- Project summary and expectations
- Review key personas and requirements
- Introduce the big ideas and major anatomy
- Show how it works using scenario storyboards
- Revisit anatomy in more detail
- Describe how the design serves persona needs
- Introduce the design language(s)
- Discuss and get agreement on direction and next steps
Managing Your Time and Preparing for the Meeting
Conducting the Meeting
- Presenting the material
- Facilitating discussion and handling concerns
20 Detailed Design: Making Your Ideas Real
Essential Principles of Detailed Design
- Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate
- Drive to complete detail, but maintain a systems view
- Touch everything a second time after it’s documented
- Design for the appropriate time horizon
- Settle the big issues quickly
- Consider the cost-benefit equation
- Reinforce the experience attributes
Process and Project Management for Detailed Design
Expanding the team
Integration with engineering methods
Typical detailed design tasks by role
Drafting a work list and detailed project plan
21 Detailed Design Principles and Patterns
Principles: a Bit of Science, a Bit of Common Sense
- Communicating Flow, Priority, and Relationships
- Map visual flow to workflow
- Align elements for readability and simplicity
- Use visual properties to establish a clear hierarchy
- Use visual properties to establish association
- Communicating Data: Information Design
- Using Icons to Communicate about Objects and Tools
- Making icons recognizable
- Making icons understandable
- A summary of useful icon guidelines
- Text and Type
- Type size
- Additional principles
- Widgets and Data Entry
- Use widgets appropriate to the task and input method
- Allow flexible input even in bounded widgets
- Use custom controls only with good reason
- Considerations for touch screens
Managing Large Data Sets
- Search versus categories
- Detailed queries
Audible and Speech Interfaces
- Personality, emotion, and anthropomorphism
- Minimizing frustration
Products Involving Safety Concerns
Accessibility
“That Little Extra Something”
22 Detailed Design Process and Practices
Evolving the Interaction Design: Round One
- Supplemental research
- Detailed design meetings
- Additional iteration through individual work
Defining the Visual System: Round One
- Incorporating early stakeholder feedback
- The visual system first draft: archetype screens
- Continued expansion and evolution
- Personas, scenarios, and experience attributes
- Shared Image Files
Evolving the Industrial Design
- Refining the form and materials
- Refining color and surface details
- Appearance models as design and communication tools
Design Reviews and Collaboration
- Within the design team
- With design engineers, SMEs, and business analysts
- With other stakeholders
- Remote collaboration
Iteration After Feedback
Common Challenges During Detailed Design
- Framework flaws
- Unavailable or unhelpful SMEs or engineers
- Shifting assumptions and constraints
- Team member time management
- Consistency within a brand or product family
- Uneven depth
Using later work to improve earlier work
23 Evaluating Your Design
Why, When, and What to Evaluate
Types of Evaluation
- Focus groups
- Expert reviews
- Usability testing
Comparative evaluations
24 Communicating Detailed Design
The Form and Behavior Specification
- Background
- Executive summary
- Personas and critical requirements
- Product or service overview
- Interaction framework overview
- Scenarios for each interface
- Overview and details for each screen or function
- Visual system or style guide
Ways to expand or cut back: the F&BS as a product roadmap
Qualities of an Effective Spec
- Prescriptive, not suggestive
- Clear and professional, not pretentious
- Unsurprising
- Persona-focused
- Standardized
- Effectively formatted
Documentation Process and Practices
- Documenting as you go
- Managing images
- Technical review and document QA
Documentation tools
Presenting Detailed Design
- Structuring and delivering a stakeholder presentation
- Comprehensive walkthroughs
25 Supporting Implementation and Launch
Supporting Software Construction
- Asset production
- Questions and reviews
Supporting Hardware Manufacturing
Common Challenges
- Specification as suggestion
- Insufficient engineering skills or resources
26 Improving Design Capabilities in Individuals and Organizations
Realizing Your Own Design Potential
- Academic programs
- Self-education
- Experience and mentoring
Expanding Design’s Role in an Organization
- Characteristics of successful change efforts
- Instigating change from the bottom (or the middle)
Concluding Thoughts
27 Comments
Can't wait to read it!
Congratulations. I'm so looking forward to it!
Wow Kim, this looks incredible.
Congratulations. This is going to be a great resource for so many!
Looks terrific. Very much looking forward to this!
preorder! - looks fantastic - we needed an update... as so much has changed in the last year or two.
Nice looking book. I look forward to using it at work, it seems like it will be nice complement to face 3.0, with what seems like more practical guidelines.
agree with the rest, this really looks fantastic! looking forward!
That table of contents looks incredible. No doubt this will be a must-have book.
Congrats Kim!!!
I'm a huge fan of Goal-Directed Design and read "The Inmates are Running the Asylum". I can't wait to get my hands on this book and add it to the shelf next to the aforementioned book and About Face 3. I may even read it too! LOL.
Now if I could only find a job in Houston doing this =)
Can't wait...congratulations!!
The timing of this book couldn't be better for me. I've got the ear of our senior leaders here and are establishing a goal-directed design program. Thanks for all the hard work on the book!
Kim, well done! Congrats :)
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http://iatelevision.blogspot.com
This looks to be an invaluable and detailed end-to-end design process reference guide. I've already pre-ordered a copy on Amazon.co.uk! A nice complement to Dan Saffer's excellent introductory Designing for Interaction text.
It'll be great to have a book that sets out your methods - just one question as I am looking for materials for universal/inclusive design, are there are any examples/case studies involving older or disabled people/personas?
Wow, thanks for all the kind remarks, everyone! We've been pretty excited about the book here at Cooper, so it's great to see that it's not just us ;-)
Suzette: the book does briefly address Universal Design as something to which designers should aspire, but there are no specific case studies or examples.
At Cooper, we've certainly done our share of older personas (especially for consumer-oriented devices such as TV remotes, or for products and services with large older audiences, such as glucose meters or online prescription ordering). When older or disabled users are not big part of your population, my experience is that accessibility guidelines are more helpful than specific disabled personas, especially since it would take a large cast of personas to represent people with a full range of sensory, physical, and cognitive challenges.
There are quite a few books on accessible design for environments and physical products, but not a lot for software--certainly a gap that needs filling. One book on my "reading to catch up on" list is:
Universal Design for Web Applications: Web Applications That Reach Everyone)
by Wendy Chisholm and Matt May.
Please feel free to share any other resources you've found especially helpful!
Kim - Congratulations. The table of contents looks great and I'm looking forward to picking up a copy of the book!
Your book looks like it will soon become required reading @ schools and institutions across the world.
I'm a graduate student in the HCI Masters Degree program @ Iowa State University and I would love to review your book for my blog and for Amazon.com. Is there any way I can get a review copy?
Looking forward to your book becoming a classic....
Real or Imagined
John McSwain's Amazon Profile
Kim,
Congrats on the book!!!! It looks incredible. Get ready to earn some frequent flyer miles. I sense some speaking engagements are coming!
Congratulations! Kim for your new book. The table of contents really look good and the book seems to be more informational. I am really looking forward to get a copy of your book. I hope, I could get it in India :)
My best wishes for your book.
very much looking forward to reading it!
well designs are so much important these days.
Kim, Give us a digital version too, yes?! Kudos . . .
This looks great, saw the link at www.choosenick.com I'm particularly looking forward to hearing your thoughts on evaluation. An often overlooked element of the design process.
This looks very comprehensive. I'll definitely be getting a copy. It's a pity I don't live in San Francisco any more, I would definitely have come along to the book launch.
Seems my copy just shipped from Amazon and will be here Monday - I love it when they release early. Kim, great job - I'm really looking forward to reading it.
Congratulations on getting it finished! We're planning to review it on The Designer's Review of Books too.
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