Human-centred decisions
Information architecture normally focuses on the objects that need to be represented in a system. Some human-centred practitioners focus instead on the tasks users need to do. These approaches are sometimes framed in opposition. But combining these techniques can make services and systems easier to use as well as more efficient to manage.
Decades-old approaches are being brought up to date with new techniques to create a robust way of structuring content to enable reuse and make content management more efficient.
I have long been an advocate of agile ways of working. One of the things that originally drew me to user experience was the opportunity to have evidence-based ways of understanding the changes you need to make. So I was surprised whenever I encountered people who believed that user experience methods ran counter to the principles of agile.
Many designers talk about user-centred design. But design approaches alone aren’t sufficient to ensure we are human-centred. Design approaches can be used carelessly — or even maliciously — to centre the designer and sideline the user.
Have you ever been told that by doing human-centred work you’re stepping on someone else’s toes? I have heard it a number of times. More and more people are exploring the apparent overlaps between human-centred approaches and other disciplines.
It is difficult to find a phrase that exactly describes my work and the way I approach it. I’ve started to talk about human-centred approaches. This post explains what I mean by that.
Many people are intrigued by content design but unsure if it’s the right fit for them. So here is my beginner’s guide to being a content designer. Find out why it might be a better fit for you than you might think — and why it might not be.
How a chat at a conference underlined that user experience itself has a user experience problem — and what we can do about it.
At Service Design in Government, I discovered that service designers see themselves as Mario. But that is an unrealistic model for what service design should be.
