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Duncan Stephen

Human-centred decisions

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Tag: Usability testing

Article — 17 July 2025 — 1,715 words

Top tasks survey — One weird trick to improve information architecture and user experience

Information architecture — User experience

Stylised zipf curve, with a long neck and a long tail. The long neck element is coloured teal, with a gradient fade to white ending about 20% of the way along the curve

One of the most powerful methods in information architecture and user experience is also one of the least well-known. The top tasks method uses a single survey question that tells you exactly what matters most to your users. I find it so effective that I’m amazed more people haven’t used it.

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Article — 22 October 2020 — 212 words

A service design approach to improving student experience

Service design — User experience — Work

A service design approach to improving student experience — opening slide

Slides from my UCD Gathering talk on Thursday 15 October 2020, about the work we’ve been doing at the University of Edinburgh to improve the experience of students and staff working with course materials digitally.

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Article — 25 January 2017 — 650 words

Why people are losing trust in the media — and advertisers

Digital — Digital design digest — Media — User experience

Close-up of a newspaper

Why people are losing trust in the media and advertisers, why ugly websites succeed, and why it’s time to ditch PDFs.

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Article — 4 May 2016 — 901 words

Avoiding bias in design

Digital design digest

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One of the biggest challenges designers face is avoiding bias. We all have perspectives that subconsciously affect our decisions. In the case of design, those choices we don’t even realise we are making can have big consequences.

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