Context and user requirements

Early design and prototyping

Test and evaluation

Brainstorming can be an effective way to generate lots of ideas on a specific issue and then determine which idea – or ideas – is the best solution. Brainstorming is most effective with groups of 8-12 people and should be performed in a relaxed environment

Card sorting is a user-centered design method for increasing a system’s findability. The process involves sorting a series of cards, each labeled with a piece of content or functionality, into groups that make sense to users or participants.

Cognitive walkthrough involves one or a group of evaluators inspecting a user interface by going through a set of tasks and evaluate its understandability and ease of learning.

Contextual inquiry is a specific type of interview for gathering field data from users. It is usually done by one interviewer speaking to one interviewee (person being interviewed) at a time. The aim is to gather as much data as possible from the interviews for later analysis.

Focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, idea.

Heuristic evaluation is the most popular of the usability inspection methods. The goal of heuristic evaluation is to find the usability problems in the design so that they can be attended to as part of an iterative design process.

Expert users are asked in-depth questions by an interviewer in order to gain specific knowledge,Interviews may follow a pre-specified list of items (structured) and/or may allow users to provide their views freely (unstructured).

Paper prototyping is a method of usability testing that is useful for Web sites, Web applications, and conventional software. Here's how it works:

1) You first decide on the tasks that you'd like the user to accomplish.

2) You make screen shots and/or hand-sketched drafts of the windows, menus, dialog boxes, pages, popup messages, etc. that are needed to perform those tasks.

With parallel design, several people create an initial design from the same set of requirements. Each person works independently, and when finished, shares his/her concepts with the group.

The creation of low-cost representations of the user interface to a system as a method of brainstorming, creating, testing and communicating ideas about the system being developed.

Scenario is a brief description of an event or a series of events

Personas are fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product

Surveys are an important tool in usability evaluation and product or process design. In some cases, they are used indirectly to contribute to the total background knowledge about the users of a product.

Task analysis is the analysis or a breakdown of exactly how a task is accomplished, such as what sub-tasks are required. This information can then be used for many purposes, such as improving the design of tools or procedures that aid in performing the task.