On September 27-28, 2008 I presented two talks at Info Camp. If you haven't heard of Info Camp it is Seattle's unconference for information professionals. This was it's second year and also my second year attending. It is a great event and I highly recommend attending. On Saturday I presented for the first session "User Experience 101" meant as a basic overview and introduction to user experience.

I started out by giving a quick definition of user experience: usability, usefulness, and desirability. Usability means can people use your product, is it error free for users to complete the intended tasks. Usefulness is does your product perform a useful function. Desirability means people wanting your product. Of course this all applies to website design, but also to all products in particular whether it is a can opener or an iPod.

Then I covered a design process that I use that I have collected some several different methodologies. This process is planning - research - modeling - development - integration - refinement - support.

The planning phase involves setting scope, budget, strategy, timeline and resources. In this part of the project you are collecting initial information. For website design work this usually involves forming an agreement with the client, signing contracts and a quote, and nailing down the goals of the project. The next phase is research, an important part of the design process that many seem to skip, especially in small website design projects. Research can be focus groups, interviewing current and potential users, observational studies, and surveys. As part of research you should develop personas, target users that are representations of the people that would use your product based on actual data you have collected.

The third phase is modeling, which can include storyboarding, wireframes, mockups, sitemaps, specs, prototypes, and all sorts of diagrams. The purpose of this phase is to come up with a plan for what you are building and how it will work. With those details worked out you can move on to the design phase, picking what colors and fonts to use, how people will interact with the product, where features will be positioned. There are lots of documents, diagrams, and specifications that can come of the modeling and design phase and it is very important to get this information written down so everyone working on the project can refer to it and submit feedback.

Now onto the fun stuff, writing the code, making the product, or creating the product samples. Everyone involved with the project should understand the design and the personas that are being targeted. Testing should be done through this phase to catch bugs early. You can also conduct internal usability tests to validate design assumptions. Then it is on to integration (although this may largely be a phase for software engineering). At this point the main code is done and it is time to get everything working together. Most of the work is on fixing bugs, not creating new features.

Now comes the content phase. I place this phase at this point, but it is often and should be around the planning phase. The content is really what mattes when creating a website so the development and design should really be based around the message you want to convey. Now with most of the work done it is on to refinement where you make everything ready for actual customers. It is time to start beta tests with customers, conduct demonstrations to get feedback, and take care of remaining issues. The final phase is support. If you are making a website I hope you have a plan for support and maintenance of it. Customers will be using that website, are you going to update content? How will you do it? Pay a web master or do you have a content management system that employees know how to use?

The actual presentation was an hour long so this is definitely a condensed version, but this should give you some insight into the design process that I use.