Sketching User Experiences

Sketching User Experiences

By Bill Buxton

The author first explains the importance of design in any kind of organization, he mentions that very often little value is given to design phase when it should be a fundamental part of the planning and development of a product or service. An interesting observation is that if the design stage is not taken into account, we would just be extending what was done before and most likely end up making the same mistakes with the new products.

The book also mentions that the design process is not something particular to designers alone, but that other roles should also be aware of it, from management to engineering. This requires for a base set of fluency so that people from different roles can communicate about design issues effectively.

Buxton then presents some methodologies and examples of them from successful design projects. The first one is the one called "The Wizard Of Oz" technique,  which consists of testing a design concept as early as possible while spending the least amount of time developing the technology that will drive it, focusing in the fidelity of the experience rather than the fidelity of the prototype. Along this line, he points out that "the last thing you should do when beginning to design an interactive system is write code".

(to be continued…)