 |
|
Here is a bit of my process and some of the environments I have worked in. |
|
Over the years, I have worked in various labs at AOL Time Warner, When.com, and Yahoo! on various products that give designers direction. I have conducted everything from paper prototype tests to more advanced studies that have eye tracking and scripts to go by. Most companies I have worked at have usability specialists that work directly with designers to help with product decisions. |
|
 |
|
Sketches, personas, and mockups |
|
| First I research the problem... | |
| Find out where this problem has been seen before on other web sites and how it was solved. Look out my specific requirements and see if any other solutions currently used will be able to work for me. If no, then a new approach may need to be taken. | |
| Then make sure I know my target user... | |
| Make sure that the team is all on board with the current user base and begin to build a persona around that user. This helps in the process of design to keep people in check with the target audience. | |
 |
|
Yahoo! Membership personas |
|
| Review my requirements... | |
| The requirements will include shedule and resources, features and "wishlists". | |
| Begin sketching frameworks and light wireframes... | |
| This may involve a quick block flows and diagrams that give me an idea of how the pieces effect other parts of a product. | |
 |
|
| Conduct usablity tests if time or resources permit... | |
| Of course this is the bread and butter of design. Wether it be paper prototypes or a more functional prototype, the information gathered from these tests are highly valueble for solving internal disagreements and to give me a better direction how I need to refine my design. | |
 |
|
 |
 |
Usability testing at AOL |
|
| Refine wireframes and clean up the design... | |
| This process usually is considered "detailing". It is when we have all agreed on the architecture and which pages are needed in a product flow. Usually at this point all business objectives are accounted for and we are just refining with a front end developer to get the design looking right. Once the design is 95% done, I will work closely with a visual designer to make sure the design makes sense graphically. | |
 |
|
Reviewing designs |
|
 |
|
Yahoo! Membership development meeting |
|
 |
|
Yahoo! HackDay 07. Instant messenger translation concept |
|
 |
|
Visual design making edits |
|
 |
|
Concept design meeting for MyAOL |
|
 |
|
Reviewing design with QA leads |
|
|
|
|
2007 - Rob Metzgar Design - All work launched and usable |
|
