Lessons learned this week at UI 13

Denise — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:57:03 -0400

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)

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Lessons learned this week at UI 13