Designmethodsbeta.net

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your comments on the design methods beta so far. We have had over 15 people’s input from a range of methods practitioners, businesses, students and tutors. Having pooled all your feedback together we want to keep you up to date with some of the emerging themes;

Methods process
What are they? Which one do I pick? When do I use them? How do I analyse the results?

Personalisation
Different views of methods; for page layout, for basic and advanced users for quantity of methods shown, for research specific or prototype specific. Tagging of methods to create individual classifications.

Credibility
How do I trust the methods.

Contributing
If I contribute what will I get out of it?

Evidence
Methods practise in context. Potential for a Wiki on this subject. Video case studies supported/provided by industry experts. FAQ support with questions and answers. Play combinations of different methods being pieced together successfully.

Measurements
Visually show most popular and least popular methods being used. Ability for users to rate different methods.

Sustainability
Methods need to stay up to date and valid.

Tips & Tricks
Products that aid the methods process e.g. tips on video recording and logging, where to buy the latest spy camera and cultural probes ideas.

User Management
Policing strategy for adding your own method and content.

Application
Ability to print the methods or order a box set from us. Potential facilitation of methods with schools, methods as a teaching aid.

Back end
Building platforms from Youtube, Flikr, Digg, Delicious etc

Inspiration
Ebay, My space, Flikr, Boxes and arrows, Chatsum, Digg, Yahoo!

Who are they For ???
We are currently developing personas which shall give us a better idea of who our target audience are and how we appeal to them. We shall keep you posted with this information…

Posted by Tamsin at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This movie sketches out the potential functionality of the designmethods site and gives some direction on look/feel. It looks slick (that's because we had to convince the directors) - but they are early ideas - feel free to shoot them down.. We'd appreciate your comments on this below or by email to Tamsin. In particular we'd like you to answer this question:

What would be on your wish list for a site of design methods? What functionality and content would be genuinely useful to you?

Some ideas:
the ability to share methods with others
upload your own methods
download methods
pictures and diagrams of methods in action
video of methods in action
the ability to read methods contributed be designers across the globe

There are some more ideas of what it may look like here

Posted by Chris Vanstone at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Designmethods v1.0 build on the work done in Desigmmethods v0. That project produced a resource of 50+ design methods, and an internal intranet. If you want to see the content we created in version 0 you can download a sample here.

Posted by Chris Vanstone at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Designmethods v1.0 is a project by the Design Council to build the biggest, brightest and most useful resource of user centred design methods online. Specifically this project will develop a v1.0 website and community around the sharing of design methods and to transfer these learnings to a v2.0 site which will go live and public as part of the new Design Council site, early in 2006.

Content-wise the site will include methods to help you understand users, generate ideas, prototype solutions, facilitate workshops etc, etc. The project is starting right now and we're building an international team of demanding and critical friends who will first of all tell us what they want and then review our work in progress.

Why?
Design Methods is a project to encourage and facilitate more widespread and higher quality user centred design practice. From our experience the majority of designers don't practise user centred design and the approach is only taught in a small number of design schools. We'd like to change that by documenting best practice and sharing it. This platform will also serve an emerging need; with designers increasingly work in interdisciplinary teams, we hope this resource can help them to articulate, share and transfer methods to 'non-designers'.

Posted by Chris Vanstone at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)