An Unexpected path from Unger to Zachi Warfel

UX Designer and author, Russ Unger is next week’s podcast guest. We focused primarily on his new book, Designing the Conversation: Techniques for Successful Facilitation (Voices That Matter). However, I could not resist discussing a favorite book of mine that he wrote several years ago and a 2nd edition was recently published,  A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making (2nd Edition) (Voices That Matter)

Joe: Well, going back to the book A Project Guide to UX Design. I think you did hit a nice chord there. That book has a lot of granularity. You always get that twenty thousand foot level on projects, but when you start doing a project and follow most books, there are a lot of holes. Your book didn't have a lot of holes, I didn't think?

Russ: Well, thanks. We tried to take the approach of what's a good starting point. Especially, if you are kind of new to this and you're working on a real project in the real world outside of a college scenario where it is kind of safe. What is a great starting point, a good place to start and learn as a foundation and try to give you articles or at least information to help you kind of grow yourself. For example, we provided basic persona and then linked out to Todd Zachi Warfel's personas, which are really, really super detailed. Todd probably does some of the best personas in the business. He was generous in showing us some of his expertise, and that gives people direction to reach out and learn on their own.

Joe: I saw that and there is a real art to building personas?

Russ: You know, there's a lot of art, but I would say there's a heck of a lot more science. When you start to do the research, and you start to collect a lot of data about people's scenarios, various demographics. Those data points really are important. They are a part of what keeps it from being a myth. You start to make it real when you draw in the data from any of the research that you've done.

If you are not familiar with Todd Zachi Warfel’s work, you are missing something. His book Prototyping: A Practitioner's Guide even for a Non-UX person is exceptional. I have incorporated a few of Todd’s ideas along with a mind map at the bottom of this page: Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers