UIE Virtual Seminar Presentation (How does this work?)

The Secrets of Great UX Documentation

Dan Brown

Principal, EightShapes

Buy the Recording $149

Documentation is a cornerstone of the web design process. It helps move the design process forward, capturing decisions made or requirements learned. It allows the team to move onto the next set of decisions. Great documentation establishes a comfort level with team members, telling them, “We have the same idea about where this project is going.”

Documentation is one of the cornerstones of the web design process. It helps move the design process forward, capturing decisions made or requirements learned, allowing the team to move onto the next set of decisions. They establish a comfort level with team members, telling them, “We have the same idea about where this project is going.” Web designers talk about the same challenges over and over: creating documentation that no one reads, spending too much time on documentation, and getting distracted by the documentation process. For many teams, documentation has become an albatross, not contributing enough value to the design process, but demanded by the organization. Here are some of the deliverables we’ve seen that mire design teams:

• Requirements documents that don’t capture the design problem clearly, so everyone on the team has a different idea of what the web site should do.
• Usability reports that don’t convey actionable issues for the design team.
• Functional specifications that contain unnecessary information, without spelling out the user experience.

Great documentation overcomes these challenges by relying on a repeatable framework for composing stories. It combines words and pictures to engage readers and explain abstract ideas in a grounded way. Most importantly, great documentation adapts to different situations: Deliverables don’t rely on canned templates forcing teams to answer irrelevant questions. They aren’t items on a checklist, but instead meaningful contributors to the design process. As web sites grow more complex and web projects involve more people, good documentation must maintain a place in the design process, balanced with new techniques.

In this virtual seminar, Dan will explain the evolving role of formal documentation in a design process that continually reinvents itself. He'll offer practical tips for making documents easier to read, easier to produce, and relevant throughout the design process.

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Why Dan Brown, and this Special Series from EightShapes?

Quite honestly, we've been chasing the folks from EightShapes to be part of our Virtual Seminar program for some time. They have been part of the UIE live conferences and delighted our audiences with their experience, resources, and great ideas.

EightShapes, a user experience design firm based in Washington, DC, collaborates with their clients to design web sites and other interactive products. They employ user-centered techniques and the latest methods for documenting design. The team at EightShapes does extraordinary work, and when they do something, they do it right. So in considering an online seminar, our talks evolved into a full program of teaching experience design—this desire to share their learning being one of the organization's core values.

Dan Brown is a principal and founder of EightShapes. His experience includes work with National Geographic, Cisco, WebEx, US Department of Energy, US Department of Education, to name just a few. He's written numerous articles in information architecture and design, and in 2006 published Communicating Design, widely considered part of the “UX canon.” Newly updated, the second edition (New Riders, 2010) expands on principles for creating user experience documentation.

Recently, Dan shared his 5 Simple Principles to Improve Your IA. You can still get this seminar!

Buy the Recording $149

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