Kelly and I had the opportunity to attend UI 13, put on by Jared Spool's group User Interface Engineering. It was a great conference, full of interesting ideas to share and try. While it is still in my mind, I thought I would share a few of the lessons I learned this week.
In no particular order...
To have a successful design, you have to connect to a clear strategy. (learned from Peter Merholz)
Strategy is about "fit" (learned from Peter Merholz)
"User-centered design NEVER worked." (Jared Spool) [This one deserves some explanation -- Jared's explanation -- Many great designs weren't user-centered. Many user-centered design processes have created less than successful products. There is no evidence that user-centered design ever improved market acceptance. Jared stated that for each of the success stories they examined there were a myriad of reasons that the projects were successful, so could not be attributed to user-centered design alone. If you think you have an example of user-centered design *alone* improving market acceptance, twitter it to Jared. I can't believe they don't exist, but trust him when he says his group found no examples.]
The most successful teams generally do not have a formal methodology. Instead, they tended to have a toolbox of "techniques" and "tricks" that can be applied as appropriate to the situation at hand. (learned from Jared Spool)
The most successful teams spend more time in testing and learning from their designs then they do in planning or executing on them. (Christine Perfetti)
Success often comes from "constructive failing" or phrased differently -- "successive refinement". So it is often good to start drawing, testing and iterating earlier rather than later. (Christine Perfetti)
A team should be no bigger than it has to be. Two or three are fast, four are slower, too many are deadly (Kim Goodwin)
Metaphors frame the way we think. (Bill Verplank)
Creative play with my daughter is not only good for her, but is good for me and good for my business (Kim Goodwin)
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