Building a Project Vision by Understanding Users

Boxes and Arrows: Building a Vision of Design Success

Since I started to learn a little more about Contextual Inquiry/Ethonography, it seems like it is coming up every where.

Though this article does not mention the terms above, it describes the techniques as a viable way to build and promote a vision for a project.

Personas and Intranet/Web Design

Step Two Paper: An introduction to personas and how to create them

As I mentioned previously, I've been learning a lot about something called "Contextual Inquiry" which is similar to "Ethnographic Research". This article touches on the basics.

The premise is that you work directly with and observe users before making any judgements/assumptions about their needs. Using contectual inquiry, a team builds a reality-based model of how a group is really working together.

Part of this process is the development of personas. As the paper states: