Column: Envision the Future

This column was spurred by a simple question I posted to Twitter in mid-August: Can designers effectively usability test their own designs?

This isn’t just an academic question. With the current state of the economy and many UX teams downsizing, it’s entirely probable that your company will call upon you to both create a UX design and do usability testing to validate it. In the future, as the field of user experience progresses, agile UX becomes more common, and functional disciplines become more blended, I think this will occur more and more.

People have often likened doing both design and usability testing on the same project to defendants serving as their own counsel in a court of law. How does that saying go? Something like this: A lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client. Is testing one’s own design a similarly bad idea? What are the pitfalls? Are there any advantages? And most important, if you must do it, what pitfalls should you beware of? Read More

Since the advent of the World Wide Web and the growth of ecommerce, social networking, and Web-based applications, greater connectedness and interaction have characterized the personal-computing user experience, both between users and between users and their far-flung applications and systems. It’s not a very daring prediction to say that the amount of connectedness and interaction will continue to increase, offering users many new varieties of user experiences.

In this column, I’ll explore the user experience of malicious software, or malware. My position is that, like many qualitative attributes, malware is in the eye of the beholder. And, I’ll suggest a method that product or service developers can use to assess the risk that their users, the media, or the market at large might perceive their offerings as malware. Read More

Let me get a bit meta with you right at the top. This month’s column is more than a touch formulaic. But here’s the thing: The reason columnists keep coming back to drink from the X-things-you’re-not-doing-but-should well is because readers find it irresistible. Why? Because, when this format is done right, it scratches the itch that UX professionals have for self-improvement—for lifting themselves out of their ruts.

So, enough with this combined apology/meta explanation, let’s get right to it. In no particular order, here are 8 things you should be doing to improve and grow in your professional practice, but that you’re probably not doing—or not doing enough. Read More