Looking Forward, Beyond Launch

Patricia Krueger — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:56:00 GMT

I have the misfortune of being an Oregonian who doesn't know how to ski. Too young (it seemed) to join my brother and sisters on ski weekends as a child, I was the neighborhood sled queen. Too old (it seemed) to learn in high school for ski week, I stuck with my fellow flat-landers on the track and field.

Recently, however, I had the fortune of receiving ski lessons from an instructor with 65 years of experience under his belt. Learning to ski as an adult is an unsettling experience no matter how you slice it. While pole-less three-year olds raced effortlessly by our sides, our ungainly crew plowed rather desperately after our guide. There was one tip, however, that helped steer us through the dreaded turns. Most simply: Look at the spot you want to head toward, and your skis will follow. This is probably common-knowledge for any skier, but when you take to the slopes for the first time, this bit of information is nothing short of miraculous. Somehow by looking at your target spot in the trees to the right or to the left, your body takes its cue and follows suit.

I was thinking of this recently when reading Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow That Works. It's not a new book on the subject of project management but is still a highly recommended one. One of the more interesting aspects of its recommended workflow was not just the internal organization of a discrete project, but the strategic approach to thinking beyond a project's deadline to what comes next. In a constantly evolving medium where a project is rarely an island but often a component of a more far-reaching strategy or goal, Web ReDesign's approach has never seemed more apt.

Many of the specific points are familiar -- what are the steps for maintaining a newly launched site, what iterative updates should be anticipated, and did we learn something new from direct and indirect feedback -- but they provide good reminder of the over-arching question facing a company. What are our core strategic goals and are how do we meet them?

Off the slopes, of course, there's no simplified, single means of navigating toward objectives. A single project, however, may be a means of not just steering toward a goal, but also determining course-corrections needed along the way. With the complex modeling and measurements available through analytics, a project's greatest value generated may not be the immediate results, but an understanding of the conditions that led to them.

Are you integrating appropriate messaging for your audience, are you qualifying your audience when possible to optimize clicks? And most importantly, are you listening to your audience? Are your eyes on the same target as theirs?

Which brings us back to Web ReDesign's recommendations for project planning, including the post-launch assessment -- a key opportunity to gauge direction and feedback, whether through tracking performance or directly tapping user input. "User feedback," notes Web ReDesign "is integral to shaping the redesigned site and planning how to approach your next refresh/redesign." When you need to gauge whether or not you're off course -- if your current strategies are aligned with your long-term goals -- your most powerful allies may in fact be your own consumers, and you're ability to hear what they're saying.

User Testing the Book

Patricia Krueger — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:07:00 GMT

For many content mediums, it can be difficult to tell to what extent the potential audience influenced a work -- how much the invisible reader influenced a story, or how much an observer was in mind when an image took shape on a canvas.

In the instance of a web site, though, it's more often assumed that the medium and the audience are inextricably connected. To design a web site is to design a user experience: a web page isn't just a page, it's a space that users navigate.

Any testing or assessment of a design, then, will extend beyond the content on a page to a number of factors associated with it: where did the user come from, what were their expectations coming to the site, what did they first gravitate towards, and where will they go from here?

Even if a plan isn't user-tested specifically, questions about the user experience will undoubtedly inform the design of a site, or the design of any tool or structure associated with interaction. In industrial design, the questions of whether to couple the Pause button with the Play or Power button may vary depending on what function, exactly, the user expects to pause.

One group, though, has applied a similar line of questioning to what's often perceived of as a non-interactive medium, the book. Rosenfeld Media recently began crafting a plan to user-test both the design and content of their upcoming book, "Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior."

On his blog, Publisher Lou Rosenfeld asked readers How would you test the design of a book? And the responses shed light on the book's use as not just a vehicle for traditional content, but as a medium experienced through its design and its qualities as an object.

Regarding reference books, one reader noted context as a design consideration. "Where will readers use the book-as-object? Sitting at a computer? Teaching in a classroom? Training in office meetings? Does the type leave enough room for underlining/note taking, or does the ink hold up OK to highlighting? How might its shape, binding, weight, etc. lend itself to those activities?"

Other ideas include: What makes a book findable on a crowded desk or on the bookshelf? Should it be small enough to transport easily, or should it be designed to stay open for reference? Do the design and content both impart credibility? And how will users most easily navigate internal references, such as subscripts, for example.

This isn't to say that there aren't already parallels between print and the web. Early feedback on a website's plan can be effectively garnered by testing the design on paper, as Pop Art did when designing SelecTrucks web site. By applying user-testing practices to the book, however, it brings up the question of what might be ‘interactive’… and how an audience can influence any medium, when asked to respond to it.

The greatest benefit of the user testing may not just be the validation of baseline expectations -- if the typography is optimal for the book's design, for example -- but opening oneself up to the unanticipated responses or possibilities.

Patricia Krueger's Blog

Looking Forward, Beyond Launch

User Testing the Book