Items tagged "james kalbach"

“Personas and Mental Models” - James Kalbach (Hamburg, Germany)

Thursday, January 8th, 2009 by Karen Lindemann

May 20, 2009

MAY 20, 2009 - Workshop in Hamburg, Germany:

Communicating user research effectively is critical for user-centred design. This full-day course has two parts that show how to bring your research to life:

Part 1: Personas - Personas have become a mainstream design tool. There’s even a growing body of literature on the subject, including two full-length books. But there are also misconceptions and misuses of personas in the field.

This course will begin by outline the importance and the use of personas. You will then be presented a simplified technique for consistently creating a balanced set of personas that is relevant to your business needs. You will learn:

About the history and application of personas
How to segment personas along the most important aspects of your target groups
How to write effective persona documents
How to use personas effectively in daily work

Part 2: Mental Models - The term “mental models” means different things to different people. In this workshop, we use the term broadly to refer to any technique used to understand the behavioural, cognitive, and emotional states of users.

You will learn about some of the leading tools to both capture and reflect mental models, including:

Scenarios: These are written descriptions of users’ actions and thoughts used to envision an ideal future.
Behaviour Models: Based on a phased approach of understanding user behaviour, you’ll effectively map features and requirements to user needs.
Alignment Diagrams: This is a particular methodology pioneered by Indi Young in her book of the same name. You’ll learn how to create these diagrams and use them in your work.

Who should attend:

Usability and user experience consultans, information architects, web designers, product managers, market managers, webmasters and others who are concerning about websites.

For more information please see www.uxworkshops.com

“Commercial Ethnograpy” - James Kalbach (Hamburg, Germany)

Thursday, January 8th, 2009 by Karen Lindemann

May 19, 2009

MAY 19, 2009 - Workshop in Hamburg, Germany:

Ethnographic research methods have many potential advantages for businesses, including helping to:

Increase insight into customer behaviour
Make the real world visible the entire organisation
Discover product enhancements, reveal differentiators, and point to new business models
Identify opportunities for innovation

In this course, you will learn about practical skills needed to conduct an ethnographic study from beginning to end. The course outline walks through each phase step-by-step:

Evangelise: To get buy-in, demonstrate the value of ethnography by making a sound business case. You will learn the key arguments to make to get support, as well as the background and history of ethnography.
Prepare: Planning an ethnographic study is similar to other research techniques, but with some important differences. You’ll find out about the details of preparing for ethnography, including how to scope a study for maximum business impact.
Conduct: Commercial ethnography relies on observational interviews at the participant’s place of work. Through practical exercises, you’ll learn interview techniques and how to conduct a study.
Analysis: The Analysis phase is the most difficult part of a study. This is where you can easily go over time and budget. You’ll hear about ways to analyse of your data both effectively and efficiently.
Ideate: You must make your findings actionable. To do this, hold a workshop with stakeholders to bring the findings to life. This part of the course will show you concrete ways to present your findings and to involve people in creative brainstorming.
Validate: Iterate your understanding of users’ work by confirming findings with a sample of users.