Software design has traditionally been conducted in somewhat of a vacuum – Business Analysts gather requirements from talking to users and then the BA communicates the requirements to Systems Analysts usually in the form of a dense Business Requirements Document. What gets lost in translation from End User to BA to SA are the nuances of behaviours that truly reflect what a user means when they state a requirement. The Experience Design process enables discovery of those lost nuances so that the end product is much closer to meeting the needs of its users.

Would a programmer who is building an application ever launch that app without putting it through a number of rounds of SDLC tests? Never. Similarly, we should not be launching a GUI or Web interfaces that merely meet functional requirements. Just as we need to debug software from a functional point of view, we also need to debug the User Experience or GUI – from the user’s point of view. We do this through an iterative process of protoyping, testing, refining the protoype, adding design, testing again. These designs really work – not just on the computer – but for the end user.

It is better to look at human experience as something that is happening to someone as they interact with something – products, software, services – somewhere – in some sort of context. These elements of people, interaction and context of use form the basis of our approach. They also form the basis of UCD – user centered design – an established process of determining business or organizational goals and user goals and ensuring that there is an alignment there.
In the UCD toolbox there is an established method that allows us to diagnose usability issues by watching how people interact with products, services or software and listening to what they say during that interaction. We use rigour, science and a systematic, repeatable process, and unlike other UX firms, we have professional designers working with us throughout the process.
The result: designs that Wow and work well for the people you are trying to reach.

Cindy Beggs