“This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It’s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I’ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks.” –Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research ”Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there.” –Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human—systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research “User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions.” –Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. “This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today’s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book.” –Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie “If you’re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company.” –Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. ”For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ‘way of life’ for their companies.” –Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T “Dr. Schaffer’s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals.” –Colin Hynes, president, UX Inc. Computer hardware no longer provides a competitive edge. Software has become a broadly shared commodity. A new differentiator has emerged in information technology: user experience (UX). Executives recognize that the customer satisfaction that applications and websites provide directly impacts a company’s stock price. While UX practitioners know how to design usable, engaging applications that create good user experiences, establishing that process on an industrial scale poses critical IT challenges for an organization. How do you build user-centered design into your culture? What infrastructure do you need in order to make UX design faster, cheaper, and better? How do you create the organizational structure and staffing solution that will support UX design over time? Institutionalization of UX shows how to develop a mature, user-centered design practice within an enterprise. Eric Schaffer guides readers step by step through a solid methodology for institutionalizing UX, providing practical advice on the organizational change, milestones, toolsets, infrastructure, staffing, governance, and long-term operations needed to achieve fully mature UX engineering. First published in 2004 as Institutionalization of Usability, this new, expanded edition looks beyond the science of usability to the broader, deeper implications of UX: Once customers can use your applications and websites easily, how does your organization ensure that those engagements are satisfying, engaging, and relevant? Contextual innovation expert Apala Lahiri contributes a new chapter on managing cultural differences for international organizations. Whether you are an executive leading the institutional-ization process, a manager supporting the transition of your organization’s UX practice, or an engineer working on UX issues, this guide will help you build a mature and sustainable practice in UX design.

"This book is a great how-to manual for people who want to bring the benefits of improved user experience to their companies. It''s thorough yet still accessible for the smart businessperson. I''ve been working with user-centered design for over twenty years, and I found myself circling tips and tricks." -Harley Manning, vice president & research director, customer experience, Forrester Research "Some argue that the big advances in our impact on user experience will come from better methods or new technologies. Some argue that they will come from earlier involvement in the design and development process. The biggest impact, however, will come as more and more companies realize the benefits of user-centered design and build cultures that embrace it. Eric offers a practical roadmap to get there." -Arnie Lund, connected experience labs technology leader and human--systems interaction lab manager, GE Global Research "User experience issues are a key challenge for development of increasingly complex products and services. This book provides much-needed insights to help managers achieve their key objectives and to develop more successful solutions." -Aaron Marcus, president, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. "This handy book should be required reading for any executive champions of change in any development organization making products that demand a compelling user experience. It does an excellent job in laying the foundation for incorporating user experience engineering concepts and best practices into these corporations. In today''s competitive economy, business success will greatly depend on instituting the changes in design methods and thinking that are so clearly and simply put forth in this most practical and useful book." -Ed Israelski, director, human factors, AbbVie "If you''re tasked with building a user-experience practice in a large organization, this book is for you (and your boss). Informed by years of case studies and consulting experience, Eric Schaffer provides the long view, clearly describing what to expect, what to avoid, and how to succeed in establishing user-centered principles at your company." -Pat Malecek, former user experience manager, AVP, CUA, A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. "For those of us who have evangelized user experience for so many years, we finally have a book that offers meaningful insights that can only come from years of practical experience in the real world. Here is a wonderful guide for all who wish to make user experience a ''way of life'' for their companies." -Feliça Selenko, Ph.D., former principal technical staff member, AT&T "Dr. Schaffer''s mantra is that the main differentiator for companies of the future will be the ability to build practical, useful, usable, and satisfying user experiences. This is a book that provides the road map necessary to allow your organization to achieve these goals." -Colin Hynes, president, UX Inc. Computer hardware no longer provides a competitive edge. Software has become a broadly shared commodity. A new differentiator has emerged in information technology: user experience (UX). Executives recognize that the customer satisfaction that applications and websites provide directly impacts a company''s stock price. While UX practitioners know how to design usable, engaging applications that create good user experiences, establishing that process on an industrial scale poses critical IT challenges for an organization. How do you build user-centered design into your culture? What infrastructure do you need in order to make UX design faster, cheaper, and better? How do you create the organizational structure and staffing solution that will support UX design over time? Institutionalization of UX shows how to develop a mature, user-centered design practice within an enterprise. Eric Schaffer guides readers step by step through a solid methodology for institutionalizing UX, providing practical advice on the organizational change, milestones, toolsets, infrastructure, staffing, governance, and long-term operations needed to achieve fully mature UX engineering. First published in 2004 as Institutionalization of Usability, this new, expanded edition looks beyond the science of usability to the broader, deeper implications of UX: Once customers can use your applications and websites easily, how does your organization ensure that those engagements are satisfying, engaging, and relevant? Contextual innovation expert Apala Lahiri contributes a new chapter on managing cultural differences for international organizations. Whether you are an executive leading the institutional-ization process, a manager supporting the transition of your organization''s UX practice, or an engineer working on UX issues, this guide will help you build a mature and sustainable practice in UX design.

User experience design is the discipline of creating a useful and usable Web site or application that’s easily navigated and meets the needs of the site owner and its users. There’s a lot more to successful UX design than knowing the latest Web technologies or design trends: It takes diplomacy, management skills, and business savvy. That’s where the updated edition of this important book comes in. With new information on design principles, mobile and gestural interactions, content strategy, remote research tools and more, you’ll learn to: Recognize the various roles in UX design, identify stakeholders, and enlist their support Obtain consensus from your team on project objectives Understand approaches such as Waterfall, Agile, and Lean UX Define the scope of your project and avoid mission creep Conduct user research in person or remotely, and document your findings Understand and communicate user behavior with personas Design and prototype your application or site Plan for development, product rollout, and ongoing quality assurance

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research aims to bridge the gap between what digital companies think they know about their users and the actual user experience. Individuals engaged in digital product and service development often fail to conduct user research. The book presents concepts and techniques to provide an understanding of how people experience products and services. The techniques are drawn from the worlds of human-computer interaction, marketing, and social sciences. The book is organized into three parts. Part I discusses the benefits of end-user research and the ways it fits into the development of useful, desirable, and successful products. Part II presents techniques for understanding people's needs, desires, and abilities. Part III explains the communication and application of research results. It suggests ways to sell companies and explains how user-centered design can make companies more efficient and profitable. This book is meant for people involved with their products' user experience, including program managers, designers, marketing managers, information architects, programmers, consultants, and investors. - Explains how to create usable products that are still original, creative, and unique - A valuable resource for designers, developers, project managers - anyone in a position where their work comes in direct contact with the end user - Provides a real-world perspective on research and provides advice about how user research can be done cheaply, quickly and how results can be presented persuasively - Gives readers the tools and confidence to perform user research on their own designs and tune their software user experience to the unique needs of their product and its users

Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life—which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job—Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy. At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away.

Recognition is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary social and political thought. Its proponents, such as Axel Honneth, hold that to be recognized by others is a basic human need that is central to forming an identity, and the denial of recognition deprives individuals and communities of something essential for their flourishing. Yet critics including Judith Butler have questioned whether recognition is implicated in structures of domination, arguing that the desire to be recognized can motivative individuals to accept their assigned place in the social order by conforming to oppressive norms or obeying repressive institutions. Is there a way to break this impasse? Recognition and Ambivalence brings together leading scholars in social and political philosophy to develop new perspectives on recognition and its role in social life. It begins with a debate between Honneth and Butler, the first sustained engagement between these two major thinkers on this subject. Contributions from both proponents and critics of theories of recognition further reflect upon and clarify the problems and challenges involved in theorizing the concept and its normative desirability. Together, they explore different routes toward a critical theory of recognition, departing from wholly positive or negative views to ask whether it is an essentially ambivalent phenomenon. Featuring original, systematic work in the philosophy of recognition, this book also provides a useful orientation to the key debates on this important topic.

When it comes to delivering product design innovations to mobile device users, Nokia is the yardstick by which all others are judged. Now the process and working methods that have enabled Nokia to revolutionize usability are fully explained for the first time in this beautiful, four-color book. Written with insight by two veterans of Nokia's design triumphs (co-author Christian Lindholm was featured in the August 2002 issue of Business 2.0 magazine)this one-of-a-kind reference vividly delivers: * The complete design process, from concept creation to product testing * The future of small interfaces * Usability engineering in practice in the mobile environment * The elements of a Nokia User Interface * First person accounts of the product development cycle Learn the processes that helped Nokia develop the world's most desirable handheld