In usability tests, people say our application is easy to use. But in the field, very few users are actually using the app. What should we do?

Your user adoption could be low for many reasons. A common reason is lack of usefulness. That’s what we’ll discuss here. Usability testing typically focuses on how easily and efficiently users can complete their tasks. Those are important. Just as important is [...]

Producing great user experiences in an Agile environment can be a challenge. As a designer who has been working in the User Experience (UX) field for over 20 years and as part of Agile teams since 2006, I have truly come to embrace Agile. Dare I say, often I prefer it. As the product releases move ever faster, Agile, Kanban and other Lean methods are here to stay. It’s time [...]

I’m designing the UI for an application, and people here have different ideas about what this product should do. How am I supposed to design when I don’t know what I’m designing?

This is a common problem, especially when requirements haven’t been written down and agreed on by the project and business stakeholders. We recommend doing a stakeholder survey early in the project, to help align the stakeholders. The [...]

How can we find people to be in our studies?

Study participants can be found in many ways. Start by defining the types of users you want for your study. A typical persona will not be enough here. For example, if you have a persona called “Amy”, a 27-year-old office manager who likes romantic comedies, etc., whom will you recruit for your study? People named Amy? 27-year-olds? Office managers? [...]

We’re redesigning our site, but there’s internal debate about whether the new design is any better than the current site. What’s the best way to determine which one is better?

Rather than continue to debate internally, you should get data from your end-users so you can make an informed decision. The guy down the hall has an opinion, and so do you, but your users’ responses matter a lot [...]