As the only product analyst in the company I’ve been working closely with our UI/UX designer lately and decided to educate myself on interaction design and design processes.
This is a repost from my old blog that is now lost to time and carelessness. I found some of my drafts and reedited a handful that might be interesting to read.
So you might have read it before but it's not like I have a massive following so you probably haven't ;)
Design of Everyday things and About Face which everyone recommends are a good start and a pleasure to read. Digging deeper into user centered design though I kept encountering time and time again a notion that, ‘Your building is a fact free environment’!
And guess what, I have a problem with that.
Now that might be a good idea when what you try to do is to force young inexperienced designers outside of their office and make them interact with people. People who hopefully resemble the personas you worked out for the product you’re building. Hopefully is the key here.
Not everyone is building Google and Instagram. Bearing in mind that almost none of us does, is it wise to let a man or a woman from the street define your vision?
- Is it useful to conduct an interview or two outside of our tech bubble? Hell yea it is!
- Is it the only source of information on how are people gonna use your product? Absolutely not.
Your stakeholders have spent far more time dealing with this market and have some idea what works (not necessary a good one, that’s why you do the interviews, but nonetheless). Even better, your colleagues from the sales team know exactly what sells and the support guys know what bothers your customers and causes them to make mistakes.
Your building is a giant well of helpful feedback. Do not shy away from it.