Posts Tagged ‘publications’

Making Customer-Centered Design Work for Teams

by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

Introduction Building today’s systems requires a more intimate understanding of users’ work than ever before. Computers are smaller and more common and interfaces are more powerful. Today, many users of computers neither know nor wish to learn how the computer operates. They merely wish to get their jobs done. In addition, vendors are under increasing [...]

Where Do the Objects Come From?

by Hugh Beyer

Introduction One of the most difficult obstacles for the beginner in object-oriented techniques is simply getting started: where do the initial objects come from? Given this set it is easier to go on, but how are these first objects identified? This is the first step of object-oriented analysis (OOA) and the most difficult. Our approach [...]

Calling Down the Lightning

by Hugh Beyer

You’re the chief designer of a product that is second in its field. It’s technically adequate, but essentially a me-too copy of the market leader. You want to take over the market. How do you do it? How do you discover the edge-the fundamental new perspective that will make the difference between the leader and [...]

If We’re a Team Why Don’t We Act Like One?

by Karen Holtzblatt

Communication is a Basic Design Tool I coach design teams in the use of Contextual Design, a customer centered design process. When I first started this work I thought it was about how to talk to customers and use customer data effectively. But not surprisingly effective design for the customer also hinges on effective face-to-face [...]

Representing Work for the Purpose of Design

by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

Abstract Designing products well requires a clear and detailed understanding of how people work. However design teams are not usually expert at understanding work, and there are no generally-accepted techniques for representing how people work appropriate to design. Without support for thinking about the customer, design teams tend to focus on the technology and the [...]

Apprenticing with the Customer: A Collaborative Approach to Requirements Definition

by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt

A new computer system changes how its customers work. Designing such a system requires intimate knowledge of customers’ work and motives to ensure that the system supports them well. The creation of a new system implicitly means designing the new work practice it will support. Because system design is so intimately involved with how people [...]