Part I: Research
When building a house or remodeling a kitchen, it’s not uncommon to spend a fair amount of time planning before you let contractors go willy-nilly. Typically, you research neighborhoods or cabinet manufactures, and look for inspiration in various interior design or architecture magazines. Then during the build-out, things will more or less go according to plan and everybody’s happy. Can you imagine what the process would be like if you didn’t plan anything upfront and winged it? It would be a disaster—you wouldn’t even consider it…Not surprisingly, designing software without a plan usually ends the same way—a disaster.
I talk to many folks that have great ideas for apps, yet so many of those apps remain exactly that—ideas. Nothing gets built and ideas fade away. Or what’s worse, they jump in headfirst, slapping things together and the result, amongst other things, is a poorly designed product. On the contrary, I’ve seen applications come together in a mere few weeks that look and work great. As with any process, doing the due diligence and planning upfront has its benefits.
The first two chapters of the book will help you kick off your next project right. If you’re new to the field and aren’t sure how to get started, or if you’re looking for inspiration to help kick-start your design, these chapters will be helpful. Throughout Part I you will learn about the following topics:
• Performing fundamental user research
• Gleaning user insights that will fuel ...
