Hermeneutics for Designers. “To understand the whole of a book it is necessary to grasp its individual words and sentences, but those words and sentences only have meaning within the larger context of the book, hence interpretation must be a matter of constant revision: revising one’s sense of the whole as one grasps the individual parts, and revising one’s sense of the parts as the meaning of the whole emerges.”
-Paul Kidder – Professor of Philosophy in Gadamer for Architects The process Paul Kidder identifies in Gadamer for Architects is known as the “hermeneutic circle.” Central to this process is understanding both the bigger picture in relation to the details and the details in relation to the bigger picture. This understanding grows and changes as we continue to come across additional details, whether the big picture is a UX project or something as simple as reading a book.
In design we are constantly moving along the hermeneutic circle. How might we use hermeneutics to benefit our designs? Prejudices. Envisioning Experience Outcomes. By Jim Nieters and Pabini Gabriel-Petit Published: April 20, 2015 “When your organization’s goal is to differentiate on the experience, you must start every product-development project by defining the experience that you want people to have with your product or service. ” When your organization’s goal is to differentiate on the experience, you must start every product-development project by defining the experience that you want people to have with your product or service.
Companies that differentiate on the experience do not begin by defining feature sets. They first define a vision for the experience outcome that they intend to deliver to their users and customers. This is the fourth column in our series about what companies must do if they want to stop producing average user experiences and instead design great experiences. Nevertheless, the goal of envisioning experience outcomes does not stand at odds with agile methods. Defining Clear Goals Let’s take Visual Voicemail as an example. How to Win on Mobile: Understanding Micro-Moments and Consumer Behavior. The mobile landscape has completely changed consumer behavior.
Over the last few months Google released new research that has major implications for brands who want to win in an increasingly mobile world. There’s no doubt that mobile is becoming more popular every year. In fact, mobile searches now outpace desktop searches in 10 countries, including the United States and Japan. In order to understand this trend we need to look at specific user behaviors.
The Big UX Impact You Can Make With Just a Few Words. When we think about designing a great user experience, it’s easy to get caught up with all the things.
The fonts, the colors, the overall design, the content. Everything. But there’s another component to UX that can instantly delight—or disappoint—your users that you might be overlooking. It’s small, and if you blink you might miss it, but when done right you’ll remind your users there’s a human behind all that code and design. I’m talking about microcopy. For example, have you ever started to fill out a form, only to abandon it because you couldn’t imagine why all the requested information was needed?
For many companies, microcopy is an afterthought and often overlooked as an opportunity to connect with your users. But just because microcopy is small, doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement. How to identify microcopy opportunities If you haven’t paid much attention to microcopy yet, it probably sounds like a big job to get started. Conversion rates Errors Usability testing How to use microcopy. Merging Service Design with User Experience Design – Pt. 3: The What. The Psychologist’s View of UX Design. Notification Styles Inspiration.