Blog

The same holds true for those of us who are currently employed in design and development. Having worked on the web for about three years at this point, I’ve seen the typical wax and wane of concepts, strategies, and systems. Every day we as developers and designers re-enter the familiar pattern, a brand-new engineering or thought emerges to shake things up and completely alter the world.

How we got below

I built my first website in the mid-’90s. Design and development on the web back then was a free-for-all, with few established norms. For any layout aside from a single column, we used table elements, often with empty cells containing a single pixel spacer GIF to add empty space. We styled text with numerous font tags, nesting the tags every time we wanted to vary the font style. And we had only three or four typefaces to choose from: Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman. When Verdana and Georgia came out in 1996, we rejoiced because our options had nearly doubled. The only safe colors to choose from were the 216 “web safe” colors known to work across platforms. The few interactive elements (like contact forms, guest books, and counters) were mostly powered by CGI scripts (predominantly written in Perl at the time). Achieving any kind of unique look involved a pile of hacks all the way down. Interaction was often limited to specific pages in a site.

online standards were born.

At the turn of the century, a new cycle started. Crufty code littered with table layouts and font tags waned, and a push for web standards waxed. Newer technologies like CSS got more widespread adoption by browsers makers, developers, and designers. This shift toward standards didn’t happen accidentally or overnight. It took active engagement between the W3C and browser vendors and heavy evangelism from folks like the Web Standards Project to build standards. A List Apart and books like Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman played key roles in teaching developers and designers why standards are important, how to implement them, and how to sell them to their organizations. And approaches like progressive enhancement introduced the idea that content should be available for all browsers—with additional enhancements available for more advanced browsers. Meanwhile, sites like the CSS Zen Garden showcased just how powerful and versatile CSS can be when combined with a solid semantic HTML structure.

Server-side languages like PHP, Java, and.NET overtook Perl as the predominant back-end processors, and the cgi-bin was tossed in the trash bin. With these improved server-side tools, the first era of web applications started with content-management systems (especially those used in blogs like Blogger, Grey Matter, Movable Type, and WordPress ) In the mid-2000s, AJAX opened doors for asynchronous interaction between the front end and back end. Pages now no longer needed to reload their pages ‘ content. A crop of JavaScript frameworks like Prototype, YUI, and jQuery arose to help developers build more reliable client-side interaction across browsers that had wildly varying levels of standards support. Techniques like image replacement enable skilled designers and developers to use fonts of their choosing. And technologies like Flash made it possible to add animations, games, and even more interactivity.

The industry was reenergized by these new tools, standards, and methods in many ways. Web design flourished as designers and developers explored more diverse styles and layouts. However, we still relied heavily on numerous hacks. Early CSS was a huge improvement over table-based layouts when it came to basic layout and text styling, but its limitations at the time meant that designers and developers still relied heavily on images for complex shapes ( such as rounded or angled corners ) and tiled backgrounds for the appearance of full-length columns (among other hacks ). All kinds of nested floats or absolute positioning ( or both ) were necessary for complicated layouts. Flash and image replacement for custom fonts was a great start toward varying the typefaces from the big five, but both hacks introduced accessibility and performance problems. Additionally, JavaScript libraries made it simple to add a dash of interaction to pages without having to spend the money to double or even quadruple the download size for basic websites.

The web as software platform

The interplay between the front end and the back end continued to grow, which led to the development of the current era of modern web applications. Between expanded server-side programming languages ( which kept growing to include Ruby, Python, Go, and others ) and newer front-end tools like React, Vue, and Angular, we could build fully capable software on the web. Along with these tools, there were additional options, such as collaborative build automation, collaborative version control, and shared package libraries. What was once primarily an environment for linked documents became a realm of infinite possibilities.

Mobile devices increased in their capabilities as well, and they gave us access to the internet in our pockets at the same time. Mobile apps and responsive design opened up opportunities for new interactions anywhere and any time.

This fusion of potent mobile devices and potent development tools contributed to the growth of social media and other centralized tools for people to use and interact with. As it became easier and more common to connect with others directly on Twitter, Facebook, and even Slack, the desire for hosted personal sites waned. Social media made connections on a global scale, with both positive and negative outcomes.

Want a much more extensive history of how we got here, with some other takes on ways that we can improve? ” Of Time and the Web” was written by Jeremy Keith. Or check out the” Web Design History Timeline” at the Web Design Museum. A fun tour of” Internet Artifacts” is also available from Neal Agarwal.

Where we are now

It seems like we’ve reached yet another significant turning point in recent years. As social-media platforms fracture and wane, there’s been a growing interest in owning our own content again. There are many different ways to create websites, from the tried-and-true classic of hosting plain HTML files to static site generators to content management systems of all kinds. The fracturing of social media also comes with a cost: we lose crucial infrastructure for discovery and connection. The IndieWeb‘s Webmentions, RSS, ActivityPub, and other tools can assist with this, but they’re still largely underdeveloped and difficult to use for the less geeky. We can build amazing personal websites and add to them regularly, but without discovery and connection, it can sometimes feel like we may as well be shouting into the void.

Browser support for standards like web components like CSS, JavaScript, and other standards has increased, particularly with efforts like Interop. New technologies gain support across the board in a fraction of the time that they used to. I frequently find out about a new feature and check its browser support only to discover that its coverage is already over 80 %. Nowadays, the barrier to using newer techniques often isn’t browser support but simply the limits of how quickly designers and developers can learn what’s available and how to adopt it.

With a few commands and a few lines of code, we can currently prototype almost any concept. All the tools that we now have available make it easier than ever to start something new. However, as we upgrade and maintain these frameworks, we eventually pay the upfront costs that these frameworks may initially save in terms of our technical debt.

If we rely on third-party frameworks, adopting new standards can sometimes take longer since we may have to wait for those frameworks to adopt those standards. These frameworks, which once made it easier to adopt new techniques sooner, have since evolved into obstacles. These same frameworks often come with performance costs too, forcing users to wait for scripts to load before they can read or interact with pages. And when scripts fail ( whether due to poor code, network issues, or other environmental factors ), there is frequently no other option, leaving users with blank or broken pages.

Where do we go from here?

Hacks of today help to shape standards for the future. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with embracing hacks —for now—to move the present forward. Problems only arise when we refuse to acknowledge that they are hacks or when we choose not to replace them. So what can we do to create the future we want for the web?

Build for the long haul. Optimize for performance, for accessibility, and for the user. weigh the costs associated with those user-friendly tools. They may make your job a little easier today, but how do they affect everything else? What is the cost to the users? To future developers? to the adoption of standards? Sometimes the convenience may be worth it. Sometimes it’s just a hack that you’ve gotten used to. And sometimes it’s holding you back from even better options.

Start with the basics. Standards continue to evolve over time, but browsers have done a remarkably good job of continuing to support older standards. The same holds true for third-party frameworks, though. Sites built with even the hackiest of HTML from the’ 90s still work just fine today. The same can’t always be said of websites created with frameworks even after a few years.

Design with care. Consider the effects of each choice, whether it is your craft, which is code, pixels, or processes. The convenience of many a modern tool comes at the cost of not always understanding the underlying decisions that have led to its design and not always considering the impact that those decisions can have. Use the time saved by modern tools to think more carefully and make decisions with care rather than rushing to “move fast and break things”

Always be learning. If you’re constantly learning, you’re also developing. Sometimes it may be hard to pinpoint what’s worth learning and what’s just today’s hack. Even if you were to concentrate solely on learning standards, you might end up focusing on something that won’t matter next year. ( Remember XHTML? ) However, ongoing learning opens up new neural connections in your brain, and the techniques you learn in one day may be used to inform different experiments in the future.

Play, experiment, and be weird! The ultimate experiment is this web we created. It’s the single largest human endeavor in history, and yet each of us can create our own pocket within it. Be brave and make new friends. Build a playground for ideas. In your own bizarre science lab, conduct absurd experiments. Start your own small business. There has never been a place where we have more room to be creative, take risks, and discover our potential.

Share and amplify. As you play, experiment, and learn, share what has worked for you. Write on your own website, post on whichever social media site you prefer, or shout it from a TikTok. Write something for A List Apart! But take the time to amplify others too: find new voices, learn from them, and share what they’ve taught you.

Go ahead and create.

As designers and developers for the web ( and beyond ), we’re responsible for building the future every day, whether that may take the shape of personal websites, social media tools used by billions, or anything in between. Let’s incorporate our values into the products we produce, and let’s improve the world for everyone. Create that thing that only you are uniquely qualified to make. Then distribute it, improve it, re-use it, or create something new with it. Learn. Make. Share. Grow. Rinse and repeat. Everything will change whenever you believe you have mastered the web.

The personalization space is true, between the dream of getting it right and the worry of it going wrong ( like when we encounter “persofails” similar to a company’s repeated pleas for more toilet seats from regular people ). It’s an particularly confusing place to be a modern professional without a map, a map, or a strategy.

There are no Lonely Planet and some tour guides for those of you who want to personalize because successful personalization depends so much on each group’s talent, technology, and market position.

But you can ensure that your group has packed its bags rationally.

There’s a DIY method to increase your chances for victory. You’ll at least at least disarm your boss ‘ irrational exuberance. Before the group you’ll need to properly plan.

We refer to it as prepersonalization.

Behind the audio

Take into account Spotify’s DJ element, which debuted this year.

We’re used to seeing the polished final outcome of a personalization have. A personal have had to be conceived, budgeted, and prioritized before the year-end prize, the making-of-backstory, or the behind-the-scenes success chest. Before any customisation have goes live in your product or service, it lives amid a delay of valuable ideas for expressing consumer experiences more automatically.

How do you decide where to position personalization wagers? How do you design regular interactions that didn’t journey up users or—worse—breed mistrust? We’ve discovered that several budgeted programs second required one or more workshops to join key stakeholders and domestic customers of the technology in order to justify their continuous investments. Make it count.

We’ve closely observed the same evolution with our consumers, from major software to young companies. In our experience with working on small and large customisation efforts, a program’s best monitor record—and its capacity to weather tough questions, work steadily toward shared answers, and manage its design and engineering efforts—turns on how successfully these prepersonalization activities play out.

Effective workshops consistently distinguish successful future endeavors from unsuccessful ones, saving countless hours of time, resources, and overall well-being in the process.

A personalization practice involves a multiyear effort of testing and feature development. It’s not a switch-flip in your tech stack. It’s best managed as a backlog that often evolves through three steps:

1. customer experience optimization ( CXO, also known as A/B testing or experimentation )
2. always-on automations ( whether rules-based or machine-generated )
3. mature features or standalone product development ( like Spotify’s DJ experience )?

This is why we created our progressive personalization framework and why we’re field-testing an accompanying deck of cards: we believe that there’s a base grammar, a set of “nouns and verbs” that your organization can use to design experiences that are customized, personalized, or automated. These cards won’t be necessary for you. But we strongly recommend that you create something similar, whether that might be digital or physical.

Set the timer for the kitchen.

How long does it take to cook up a prepersonalization workshop? The activities we suggest including during the assessment can ( and frequently do ) last for weeks. For the core workshop, we recommend aiming for two to three days. Here are a summary of our broad approach and information on the most crucial first-day activities.

The full arc of the wider workshop is threefold:

Kickstart: This specifies the terms of engagement as you concentrate on both the potential and the team’s and leadership’s readiness and drive.
1. Plan your work: This is the heart of the card-based workshop activities where you specify a plan of attack and the scope of work.
2. Work your plan: This stage essentially entails creating a competitive environment in which team members can individually present their own pilots that each contain a proof-of-concept project, its business case, and its operating model.

Give yourself at least a day, split into two large time blocks, to power through a concentrated version of those first two phases.

Kickstart: Apt your appetite

We call the first lesson the “landscape of connected experience“. It looks at the possibilities for personalization at your company. A connected experience, in our parlance, is any UX requiring the orchestration of multiple systems of record on the backend. This might be a marketing-automation platform combined with a content-management system. It could be a digital-asset manager combined with a customer-data platform.

Create a conversation by mentioning consumer and business-to-business examples of connected experience interactions that you admire, find familiar, or even dislike. This should cover a representative range of personalization patterns, including automated app-based interactions ( such as onboarding sequences or wizards ), notifications, and recommenders. We have a list of these in the cards. Here’s a list of 142 different interactions to jog your thinking.

It’s all about setting the tone. What are the possible paths for the practice in your organization? Here’s a long-form primer and a strategic framework for a broader perspective.

Assess each example that you discuss for its complexity and the level of effort that you estimate that it would take for your team to deliver that feature ( or something similar ). We break down connected experiences into five categories in our cards: functions, features, experiences, complete products, and portfolios. Size your own build here. This will help to draw attention to both the benefits of ongoing investment and the difference between what you currently offer and what you intend to deliver in the future.

Next, have your team plot each idea on the following 2×2 grid, which lays out the four enduring arguments for a personalized experience. This is crucial because it emphasizes how personalization can affect your own ways of working as well as your external customers. It’s also a reminder ( which is why we used the word argument earlier ) of the broader effort beyond these tactical interventions.

Each team member should decide where their focus should be placed for your product or service. Naturally, you can’t prioritize all of them. Here, the goal is to demonstrate how various departments may view their own advantages over the effort, which can be different from one department to the next. Documenting your desired outcomes lets you know how the team internally aligns across representatives from different departments or functional areas.

The third and final KickStart activity is about filling in the personalization gap. Is your customer journey well documented? Will data and privacy protection be a significant challenge? Do you have content metadata needs that you have to address? It’s just a matter of acknowledging the magnitude of that need and finding a solution ( we’re fairly certain that you do ). In our cards, we’ve noted a number of program risks, including common team dispositions. For instance, our Detractor card lists six intractable stakeholder attitudes that prevent progress.

Effectively collaborating and managing expectations is critical to your success. Consider the potential obstacles to your advancement in the future. Press the participants to name specific steps to overcome or mitigate those barriers in your organization. As research has shown, personalization initiatives face a number of common obstacles.

At this point, you’ve hopefully discussed sample interactions, emphasized a key area of benefit, and flagged key gaps? You’re all set to go on, good.

Hit that test kitchen

Next, let’s take a look at what you’ll need to create personalization recipes. Personalization engines, which are robust software suites for automating and expressing dynamic content, can intimidate new customers. They give you a variety of options for how your organization can conduct its activities because of their broad and potent capabilities. This presents the question: Where do you begin when you’re configuring a connected experience?

The key here is to avoid treating the installed software like some imagined kitchen from a fantasy remodeling project ( as one of our client executives humorously put it ). These software engines are more like test kitchens where your team can begin devising, tasting, and refining the snacks and meals that will become a part of your personalization program’s regularly evolving menu.

Over the course of the workshop, the ultimate menu of the prioritized backlog will come together. And creating “dishes” is the way that you’ll have individual team stakeholders construct personalized interactions that serve their needs or the needs of others.

The dishes will be made from recipes, which have predetermined ingredients.

Verify your ingredients

Like a good product manager, you’ll make sure you have everything ready to cook up your desired interaction ( or figure out what needs to be added to your pantry ) and that you validate with the right stakeholders present. These ingredients include the audience that you’re targeting, content and design elements, the context for the interaction, and your measure for how it’ll come together.

This doesn’t just involve identifying requirements. Documenting your personalizations as a series of if-then statements lets the team:

1. compare findings to a common method for developing features, similar to how artists paint with the same color palette,
2. specify a consistent set of interactions that users find uniform or familiar,
3. and establish parity between all important performance indicators and performance metrics.

This helps you streamline your designs and your technical efforts while you deliver a shared palette of core motifs of your personalized or automated experience.

Create your recipe.

What ingredients are important to you? Consider a who-what-when-why construct:

• Who are your key audience segments or groups?
• What content, what design elements, and under what circumstances will you give them?
• And for which business and user benefits?

Five years ago, we created these cards and card categories. We regularly play-test their fit with conference audiences and clients. And we still come across fresh possibilities. But they all follow an underlying who-what-when-why logic.

In the cards in the accompanying photo below, you can typically follow along with right to left in three examples of subscription-based reading apps.

1. Nurture personalization: When a guest or an unknown visitor interacts with a product title, a banner or alert bar appears that makes it easier for them to encounter a related title they may want to read, saving them time.
2. Welcome automation: An email is sent when a new user registers to highlight the breadth of the content catalog and convert them to happy subscribers.
3. Winback automation: Before their subscription lapses or after a recent failed renewal, a user is sent an email that gives them a promotional offer to suggest that they reconsider renewing or to remind them to renew.

We’ve also found that cocreating the recipes themselves can sometimes be the most effective way to start brainstorming about what these cards might be for your organization. Start with a set of blank cards, and begin labeling and grouping them through the design process, eventually distilling them to a refined subset of highly useful candidate cards.

The later stages of the workshop could be characterized as moving from focusing on a cookbook to a more nuanced customer-journey mapping. Individual” cooks” will pitch their recipes to the team, using a common jobs-to-be-done format so that measurability and results are baked in, and from there, the resulting collection will be prioritized for finished design and delivery to production.

Better architecture is necessary for better kitchens.

Simplifying a customer experience is a complicated effort for those who are inside delivering it. Beware of anyone who contradicts your advice. With that being said,” Complicated problems can be hard to solve, but they are addressable with rules and recipes“.

A team overfitting: they aren’t designing with their best data, is what causes personalization to become a laugh line. Like a sparse pantry, every organization has metadata debt to go along with its technical debt, and this creates a drag on personalization effectiveness. For instance, your AI’s output quality is in fact impacted by your IA. Spotify’s poster-child prowess today was unfathomable before they acquired a seemingly modest metadata startup that now powers its underlying information architecture.

You can withstand the heat without a doubt.

Personalization technology opens a doorway into a confounding ocean of possible designs. Only a deliberate and cooperative approach will produce the desired outcome. So banish the dream kitchen. Instead, head to the test kitchen to save time, preserve job security, and avoid imagining the creative concepts that come from the doers in your organization. There are meals to serve and mouths to feed.

This framework of the workshop gives you a strong chance at long-term success as well as solid ground. Wiring up your information layer isn’t an overnight affair. However, if you use the same cookbook and the same recipes, you’ll have solid ground for success. We designed these activities to make your organization’s needs concrete and clear, long before the hazards pile up.

Your time well spent is being able to assess your unique situation and digital skills, despite the associated costs associated with investing in this kind of technology and product design. Don’t squander it. The pudding is the proof, as they say.

I’ve been fascinated by movies since I was a child. I loved the heroes and the excitement—but most of all the stories. I aspired to be an artist. And I believed that I’d get to do the things that Indiana Jones did and go on fascinating experiences. Yet my friends and I had movie ideas to make and sun in. But they never went any farther. However, I did end up in the user experience ( UX) field. Today, I realize that there’s an element of drama to UX— I hadn’t actually considered it before, but consumer research is story. And to get the most out of customer studies, you must tell a compelling story that involves stakeholders, including the product team and decision-makers, and piques their interest in learning more.

Think of your favourite film. It more than likely follows a three-act narrative architecture: the installation, the turmoil, and the resolution. The second act shows what exists now, and it helps you get to know the figures and the challenges and problems that they face. The issue begins in Act 2, which introduces the issue. Here, difficulties grow or get worse. And the quality is the third and final work. This is where the issues are resolved and the figures learn and change. This structure, in my opinion, is also a fantastic way to think about consumer research, and it might be particularly useful for explaining user research to others.

Use story as a framework when conducting research.

It’s sad to say, but many have come to see studies as being dispensable. Research is typically one of the first things to go when expenses or deadlines are tight. Instead of investing in study, some goods professionals rely on manufacturers or—worse—their personal judgment to make the “right” options for users based on their experience or accepted best practices. That may lead some groups, but that approach can so easily miss the chance to solve clients ‘ real issues. To be user-centered, this is something we really avoid. User study improves style. It keeps it on trail, pointing to problems and opportunities. You can keep back of your competition by being aware of the problems with your goods and fixing them.

In the three-act structure, each action corresponds to a part of the process, and each part is important to telling the whole story. Let’s take a look at the various functions and how they relate to consumer study.

Act one: installation

The basic research comes in handy because the layout is all about understanding the background. Basic research ( also called conceptual, discovery, or preliminary research ) helps you understand people and identify their problems. Like in the movies, you’re learning about the difficulties users face, what options are available, and how they are affected by them. To do basic research, you may conduct cultural inquiries or journal studies ( or both! ), which may assist you in identifying both prospects and problems. It doesn’t need to get a great investment in time or money.

Erika Hall writes about the most effective anthropology, which can be as straightforward as spending 15 hours with a customer and asking them to” Walk me through your morning yesterday.” That’s it. Give that one ask. Locked up and listen to them for 15 days. Do everything in your power to keep yourself and your pursuits out of it. Bam, you’re doing ethnography”. Hall predicts that “[This ] will likely prove quite fascinating. In the very unlikely event that you didn’t learn anything new or helpful, carry on with increased confidence in your way”.

This makes sense to me in all its entirety. And I love that this makes consumer studies so visible. You can only attract participants and do it! You don’t need to create a lot of documentation. This can offer a wealth of knowledge about your customers, and it’ll help you better understand them and what’s going on in their life. That’s what action one is really all about: understanding where people are coming from.

Maybe Spool talks about the importance of basic research and how it really type the bulk of your research. If you can complement what you’ve heard in the basic studies by using any more user data that you can obtain, such as surveys or analytics, or if you can identify areas that need more investigation. Together, all this information creates a clearer picture of the state of things and all its deficiencies. And that’s the start of a gripping tale. It’s the place in the story where you realize that the principal characters—or the people in this case—are facing issues that they need to conquer. This is where you begin to develop compassion for the characters and support their success, much like in films. And finally partners are now doing the same. Their concern may be with their company, which could be losing money because people are unable to complete specific tasks. Or probably they do connect with people ‘ problems. In any case, action one serves as your main strategy to pique the interest and interest of the participants.

When stakeholders begin to understand the value of basic research, that is open doors to more opportunities that involve users in the decision-making approach. And that can influence product teams ‘ focus on improving. This benefits everyone—users, the product, and stakeholders. It’s similar to winning an Oscar for a film; it frequently results in a favorable reception and success for your product. And this can be an incentive for stakeholders to repeat this process with other products. Knowing how to tell a good story is the only way to convince stakeholders to care about doing more research, and storytelling is the key to this process.

This brings us to act two, where you iteratively evaluate a design or concept to see whether it addresses the issues.

Act two: conflict

Act two is all about digging deeper into the problems that you identified in act one. This typically involves conducting directional research, such as usability tests, where you evaluate a potential solution ( such as a design ) to see if it addresses the issues you identified. The issues could include unmet needs or problems with a flow or process that’s tripping users up. More problems will come up in the process, much like in the second act of a film. It’s here that you learn more about the characters as they grow and develop through this act.

Usability tests should typically consist of five participants, according to Jakob Nielsen, who found that that number of users can typically identify the majority of the issues:” As you add more and more users, you learn less and less because you will keep seeing the same things again and again… After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings repeatedly but not learning much new.”

There are parallels with storytelling here too, if you try to tell a story with too many characters, the plot may get lost. With fewer participants, each user’s struggles will be more easily recalled and shared with other parties when discussing the research. This can help convey the issues that need to be addressed while also highlighting the value of doing the research in the first place.

Usability tests have been conducted in person for decades, but you can also conduct them remotely using software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other teleconferencing software. This approach has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the pandemic, and it works well. You might consider in-person usability tests like attending a play and remote sessions as more of a movie watching experience. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Usability research in person is a much more extensive experience. Stakeholders can experience the sessions with other stakeholders. Additionally, you get real-time reactions, including surprises, disagreements, and discussions about what they’re seeing. Much like going to a play, where audiences get to take in the stage, the costumes, the lighting, and the actors ‘ interactions, in-person research lets you see users up close, including their body language, how they interact with the moderator, and how the scene is set up.

If conducting usability testing in the field is like watching a play that is staged and controlled, where any two sessions may be very different from one another. You can take usability testing into the field by creating a replica of the space where users interact with the product and then conduct your research there. Or you can conduct your research by meeting users at their locations. With either option, you get to see how things work in context, things come up that wouldn’t have in a lab environment—and conversion can shift in entirely different directions. You have less control over how these sessions run as researchers, but this can occasionally improve your understanding of users. Meeting users where they are can provide clues to the external forces that could be affecting how they use your product. In-person usability tests add a level of detail that is frequently absent from remote usability tests.

That’s not to say that the “movies” —remote sessions—aren’t a good option. A wider audience can be reached through remote sessions. They allow a lot more stakeholders to be involved in the research and to see what’s going on. Additionally, they make the doors accessible to a much wider range of users. But with any remote session there is the potential of time wasted if participants can’t log in or get their microphone working.

The advantage of usability testing, whether conducted remotely or in person, is that you can ask real users questions to understand their reasoning and understanding of the problem. This can help you not only identify problems but also glean why they’re problems in the first place. Additionally, you can test your own hypotheses and determine whether your reasoning is correct. By the end of the sessions, you’ll have a much clearer picture of how usable the designs are and whether they work for their intended purposes. The excitement centers on Act 2, but there are also potential surprises in that Act. This is equally true of usability tests. Unexpected things that are said by participants frequently alter how you view things, and these unexpected developments in the story can lead to unexpected turns in your perception.

Unfortunately, user research is sometimes seen as expendable. Usability testing is often the only method of research that some stakeholders believe they ever need, especially in this regard. In fact, if the designs that you’re evaluating in the usability test aren’t grounded in a solid understanding of your users ( foundational research ), there’s not much to be gained by doing usability testing in the first place. That’s because you’re narrowing down the area of focus on without considering the needs of the users. As a result, there’s no way of knowing whether the designs might solve a problem that users have. In the context of a usability test, it’s only feedback on a particular design.

On the other hand, if you only do foundational research, while you might have set out to solve the right problem, you won’t know whether the thing that you’re building will actually solve that. This demonstrates the value of conducting both directional and foundational research.

In act two, stakeholders will—hopefully—get to watch the story unfold in the user sessions, which creates the conflict and tension in the current design by surfacing their highs and lows. And in turn, this can encourage stakeholders to take action on the issues raised.

Act three: resolution

The third act is about resolving the issues from the first two acts, while the first two acts are about understanding the background and the tensions that can compel stakeholders to take action. While it’s important to have an audience for the first two acts, it’s crucial that they stick around for the final act. That includes all members of the product team, including developers, UX experts, business analysts, delivery managers, product managers, and any other parties who have a say in the coming development. It allows the whole team to hear users ‘ feedback together, ask questions, and discuss what’s possible within the project’s constraints. Additionally, it enables the UX design and research teams to clarify, suggest alternatives, or provide more context for their decisions. So you can get everyone on the same page and get agreement on the way forward.

Voiceover narration of this act is typically used with audience input. The researcher is the narrator, who paints a picture of the issues and what the future of the product could look like given the things that the team has learned. They offer the stakeholders their suggestions and suggestions for how to create this vision.

Nancy Duarte in the Harvard Business Review offers an approach to structuring presentations that follow a persuasive story. The most effective presenters employ the same methods as great storytellers: By reaffirming the status quo and then revealing a better way, they create a conflict that needs to be resolved, writes Duarte. ” That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently”.

This type of structure aligns well with research results, and particularly results from usability tests. It provides proof for “what is “—the issues you’ve identified. And “what could be “—your recommendations on how to address them. And so forth and forth.

You can reinforce your recommendations with examples of things that competitors are doing that could address these issues or with examples where competitors are gaining an edge. Or they can be as visual as quick sketches of a potential solution to a problem. These can help generate conversation and momentum. And this continues until the session is over when you’ve concluded by bridging the gaps and offering suggestions for improvement. This is the part where you reiterate the main themes or problems and what they mean for the product—the denouement of the story. The stakeholders will now have the opportunity to take the next steps, and hopefully the will-power to do so!

While we are nearly at the end of this story, let’s reflect on the idea that user research is storytelling. The three-act structure of user research contains all the components of a good story:

Act one: You meet the protagonists ( the users ) and the antagonists ( the problems affecting users ). This is the plot’s beginning. In act one, researchers might use methods including contextual inquiry, ethnography, diary studies, surveys, and analytics. These techniques can produce personas, empathy maps, user journeys, and analytics dashboards as output.

Act two: Next, there’s character development. The protagonists encounter problems and challenges, which they must overcome, and there is conflict and tension. In act two, researchers might use methods including usability testing, competitive benchmarking, and heuristics evaluation. Usability findings reports, UX strategy documents, usability guidelines, and best practices can be included in the output of these.

Act three: The protagonists triumph and you see what a better future looks like. Researchers may use techniques like presentation decks, storytelling, and digital media in act three. The output of these can be: presentation decks, video clips, audio clips, and pictures.

The researcher performs a number of tasks: they are the producer, the director, and the storyteller. The participants have a small role, but they are significant characters ( in the research ). And the audience are the stakeholders. But the most important thing is to get the story right and to use storytelling to tell users ‘ stories through research. In the end, the parties should leave with a goal and an eagerness to fix the product’s flaws.

So the next time that you’re planning research with clients or you’re speaking to stakeholders about research that you’ve done, think about how you can weave in some storytelling. User research is ultimately a win-win situation for everyone, and all you need to do is pique stakeholders ‘ interest in how the story ends.

It came as no surprise when YouTube legends RackaRacka, also known as Danny and Micheal Philippou, were hired to lead a fresh Street Fighter film following their enormous success with their divine young Talk to Me. It appeared that after moving into theater film, the film industry rose to prominence with its bloody, unwarranted action and horror videos.

The first article on Den of Geek: Talk to Me Executives Explain Why Their Street Fighter Movie Got KO’d was originally published by.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with a Spotify executive and two top panelists about the upcoming boom in the sector.

When two podcasters are sat in a place with a Spotify execute, their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion topics will immediately make you wonder where the medium will go in the future. Similar to what happened at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us to the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible visitors, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how the pandemic and changing visitors choices have influenced how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video structure, have grown and changed over the past five years. Additionally, Newman chimed in with his thoughts on how blogging has evolved since its inception and where points might be headed. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the channel is on screen throughout the movie.

Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows in just three months on the streaming service.

” The limited series amassed another 30.4 % of views between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7 million views since its debut. That was sufficient to get you to No. 9 on the list of the Most Popular English TVs of all time, removing Bridgerton Season 2 from it altogether and pushing Stranger Items 3 to eighth spot.

Learn more at Deadline.

At CinemaCon, Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried shared a picture and the video for the movie” The Housemaid.”

” Sydney Sweeney joined chairman Paul Feig and her friend The Housemaid actors at CinemaCon to share the angry second film. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar showed up on the set of the Lionsgate film to encourage the mental thriller and show the truck, which has not yet been made available for public viewing. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day, adapts Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestseller into its own text.

Read more about The Hollywood Reporter.

Supporters of Kendrick Lamar’s comic will have to delay until 2026 before seeing Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park makers.

The unnamed comedy” Kendrick Lamar didn’t make its debut on America’s bday, after all. The release dates for Paramount, the studio that produced the carefully guarded film Matt Stone and Trey Parker from Lamar and South Park, have been changed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

Learn more at Variety.

The first article on Den of Geek was Link Tank: How Music Is Changing the Nature of Podcast.

Tommy Callahan’s performance as a seller is terrible. Tommy Boy, Tommy, and his disinterested selling partner Richard take a break at a meal to smother their misery with bad food midway through the film Tommy Boy. The waiter orders a shrimp cocktail, but Tommy asks for chicken wings and the hostess orders a chicken martini.

The second article Tommy Boy Keeps the Greatest Testament of Chris Farley’s Comedic Genius appeared on Den of Geek.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with a Spotify executive and two top listeners about the upcoming boom in the sector.

When two podcasters and a Spotify executive share a area, you’ll quickly wonder where the channel will go in the near future. Their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion content will be obvious. Similar to what happened at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us to the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible visitors, Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes and Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how their shows, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video formats, have grown and changed over the past five years, unquestionably as a result of the crisis and the changing tastes of the market. Additionally, Newman echoed his views on how blogging has evolved since its inception and where things might be headed. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the channel is on screen throughout the movie.

Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows in just three months on the streaming service.

” The limited series has received an additional 30.4 % of views as of March 24 through March 30,” bringing its total to 96.7M views since its debut. That was adequate to get at No. 9 on the list of the Most Popular English TVs of all time, removing Bridgerton Season 2 from it altogether and pushing Stranger Items 3 to eighth spot.

Learn more at Deadline.

At CinemaCon, Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried shared a picture and the video for the movie” The Housemaid.”

The Housemaid actors, along with chairman Paul Feig, shared the first few minutes of tension at CinemaCon. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar staged the Lionsgate presentation to promote the mental thriller and show the video, which has not yet been made available to the public. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day and features a text from Rachel Sonnenshine that adapts the 2022 best-selling book by author Freida McFadden, is scheduled for release on December 1.

Learn more at The Hollywood Reporter.

Supporters of Kendrick Lamar’s comic will have to delay until 2026 before seeing his comic duo with Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

The unnamed comedy” Kendrick Lamar won’t make its debut on America’s bday, after all. The release dates for Paramount, the studio that produced the carefully guarded film Matt Stone and Trey Parker from Lamar and South Park, have been changed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

More information is available at Variety.

The first article on Den of Geek was Link Tank: How Music Is Changing the Nature of Blogging.

This content contains a few gentle clues for season three of Yellowjackets. The conflict and tension have only increased as Yellowjackets ‘ next season comes to an end. The minds behind Yellowjackets have set in motion pivotal and interweaving plot threads with significant implications for [ …] due to impulsive decisionmaking, to put it politely, from teen Lottie in episode 7,” Croak.”

The first article on Den of Geek was How The Yellowjackets Creative Team Embraces and Avoids Screens Feedback Loop.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with a Spotify executive and two top panelists about the upcoming boom in the sector.

When two podcasters and a Spotify executive share a area, you’ll quickly wonder where the method will go in the near future. Their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion content will be obvious. Similar to what happened at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us to the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible guests, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video formats, have grown and changed over the past five years, unquestionably as a result of the crisis and the changing tastes of the crowd. Additionally, Newman expressed his thoughts on how blogging has evolved since its inception and potential directions. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the medium is evident throughout the movie.

In just three months on the streaming service, Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows of all time.

” The confined line amassed another 30. 4M opinions between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7M views since its debut. That was adequate to get at No. 9 on the list of the most popular American TVs of all time, removing Bridgerton Season 2 completely from it, and tenth place for Stranger Things 3.

Learn more at Deadline.

Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid celebrities, were present at CinemaCon to discuss a picture and the video for the movie.

” Sydney Sweeney joined chairman Paul Feig and her friend The Housemaid actors at CinemaCon to share the angry second film. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar showed up on the set of the Lionsgate film to encourage the mental thriller and reveal the video, which has not yet been made available to the public. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day and features a text from Elizabeth Sonnenshine that adapts the 2022 best-selling book by author Freida McFadden, is scheduled for release on December 1.

The Hollywood Reporter has more information available.

Fans of Kendrick Lamar’s comic will have to delay until 2026 before seeing Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park makers.

” Kendrick Lamar’s unnamed funny won’t debut on America’s day, after all. The release dates for Paramount, the studio that produced the carefully guarded film Matt Stone and Trey Parker from Lamar and South Park, have been changed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

Read more about Variety.

The first article on Den of Geek was Link Tank: How Music Is Changing the Nature of Podcast.

What do you believe? asks a drunken, ill-tempered Doc Holliday, who is alleged to be the world’s fastest gunlinger, Johnny Ringo. May I despise him, or not? Everyone in the tavern shivers when Holliday asks that question. After all, the conflict takes place in Tombstone, a 1993 Northern about an […]

The second post Val Kilmer Will Always Be Our Huckleberry was a post on Den of Geek.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with a Spotify executive and two top panelists about the upcoming boom in the sector.

When two podcasters and a Spotify executive share a area, you’ll quickly wonder where the channel will go in the near future. Their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion content will be obvious. Similar to what happened at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us to the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible visitors, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video formats, have grown and changed over the past five years, unquestionably as a result of the crisis and the changing crowd preferences. Additionally, Newman expressed his thoughts on how blogging has evolved since its inception and potential directions. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the channel is on screen throughout the movie.

Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows in just three days on the streaming service.

” The limited series amassed another 30.4 % of views between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7 million views since its debut. That was sufficient to get you to No. 9 on the list of the Most Popular English TVs of all time, removing Bridgerton Season 2 from it altogether and pushing Stranger Points 3 to eighth spot.

Learn more at Deadline.

Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid celebrities, were present at CinemaCon to discuss a picture and the video for the movie.

The Housemaid actors, along with chairman Paul Feig, shared the first few minutes of tension at CinemaCon. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar showed up on the set of the Lionsgate film to encourage the mental thriller and reveal the video, which has not yet been made available for public viewing. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day and features a text from Elizabeth Sonnenshine that adapts the 2022 best-selling book by author Freida McFadden, is scheduled for release on December 1.

Learn more at The Hollywood Reporter.

Supporters of Kendrick Lamar will have to wait until 2026 to see his comic duo with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park makers.

” Kendrick Lamar’s unnamed funny won’t debut on America’s day, after all. The shift in release dates was made known ahead of CinemaCon, the annual convention of movie theater users that is taking place this week in Las Vegas, and Paramount, the studio behind the strongly guarded film from Lamar and South Park authors Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Read more at Variety.

The first post on Den of Geek was Link Tank: How Spotify Is Changing the Nature of Podcasting.

Star Trek: Odd New Worlds’ time three video makes a lot of links to that pioneering show as a prelude to The Original Series. Martin Quinn’s Scotty is toasting Paul Wesley’s Kirk. The holodeck mystery by the team [ …] feels more like the criminals from” A Piece of the Action” than they do.

The second postStar Trek: The Next Generation appeared initially on Den of Geek.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with two top listeners and a Spotify execute about the industry’s future.

When two podcasters are sat in a place with a Spotify execute, their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion topics will immediately make you wonder where the medium will go in the future. Similar to what transpired at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us in the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible visitors, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how the pandemic and changing visitors choices have influenced how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video structure, have grown and changed over the past five years. Additionally, Newman expressed his thoughts on how blogging has evolved since its inception and potential directions. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the medium is evident throughout the movie.

Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows in just three days on the streaming service.

” The limited series amassed another 30.4 % of views between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7 million views since its debut. That was sufficient to get you to No. Bridgerton Season 2 was eliminated from the list immediately, pushing Stranger Points 3 to eighth place, and it received a ranking of 9 on the list’s All-Time Most Popular English TV list.

Learn more at Deadline.

Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid celebrities, were present at CinemaCon to discuss a picture and the video for the movie.

The Housemaid actors, along with chairman Paul Feig, shared the anxious first clip at CinemaCon. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar staged the Lionsgate presentation to promote the mental thriller and show the video, which has not yet been made available to the public. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day, adapts Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestseller into its own text.

Learn more at The Hollywood Reporter.

Supporters of Kendrick Lamar will have to wait until 2026 to see his comic duo with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, South Park makers.

The unnamed comedy” Kendrick Lamar didn’t make its debut on America’s bday, after all. The release date change was made prior to CinemaCon, the yearly agreement of movie theater owners taking place this week in Las Vegas, and Paramount, the studio behind the strongly guarded film from Lamar and South Park authors Matt Stone and Trey Parker, has been delayed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

More information is available at Variety.

The first article on Den of Geek was Link Tank: How Music Is Changing the Nature of Podcast.

The Nintendo Switch is reportedly only yesterday’s release to praises, largely due to its game-changing combination functionality as both a portable and home console as well as its acclaimed flagship title, The Legend of Zelda: Breathing of the Wild, one of the game’s absolute best in 2010. A lot’s ]… ]

The second article Upcoming Nintendo Switch Games You Need to Play in 2025 appeared initially on Den of Geek.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with a Spotify executive and two top listeners about the upcoming boom in the sector.

Put two listeners in a place with a Spotify executive, and you’ll soon be left wondering where the channel is headed in the near future. Their infectious enthusiasm for long-form and short-form conversation content will immediately leave you wondering. Similar to what happened at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us to the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible guests, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video formats, have grown and changed over the past five years, unquestionably as a result of the crisis and the changing tastes of the market. Additionally, Newman chimed in with his ideas on how blogging has evolved since its inception and where points might be headed. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the medium is evident throughout the movie.

Adolescence has managed to become one of Netflix’s most watched shows in just three days on the streaming service.

” The limited series amassed another 30. 4M opinions between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7M sights since its debut. That was adequate to get at No. Bridgerton Season 2 was eliminated from the list immediately, pushing Stranger Things 3 to eighth place, and it received a ranking of 9 on the list’s All-Time Most Popular English TV record.

Read more at Deadline.

Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid stars, were present at CinemaCon to share a scene and the trailer for the thriller.

” Sydney Sweeney joined director Paul Feig and her fellow The Housemaid actors at CinemaCon to share the tense first footage. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar staged the Lionsgate presentation to promote the psychological thriller and reveal the trailer, which has not yet been made available to the public. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day, is based on the 2022 best-selling novel by author Freida McFadden and is based on the script by Rebecca Sonnenshine.

The Hollywood Reporter has more information available.

Fans of Kendrick Lamar’s comedy will have to wait until 2026 before seeing his comedy duo with Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

The untitled comedy” Kendrick Lamar’s won’t even be released on America’s birthday. The release date change was made prior to CinemaCon, the annual convention of movie theater owners taking place this week in Las Vegas, and Paramount, the studio behind the closely guarded film from Lamar and South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, has been delayed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

More information is available at Variety.

On Den of Geek, a link to the article Link Tank: How Spotify Is Changing the Type of Podcasting.

Every skilled actor is aware that falling down is a part of the job. Every time you hit the mud, you just need to get back up and continue on. With that in mind, Cliff Booth’s return as a performer for a sequel to Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood is hardly surprising. ]… ]

Netflix is currently streaming A Follow-Up to Quentin Tarantino’s Celebration of Cinema? second appeared on Den of Geek.

At South by Southwest, we spoke with two top listeners and a Spotify executor about the industry’s future.

When two podcasters and a Spotify executive share a area, you’ll quickly wonder where the channel will go in the near future. Their infectious enthusiasm for both long-form and short-form discussion content will be obvious. Similar to what transpired at South by Southwest when Jordan Newman, the Spotify Senior Director of Content Partnerships, welcomed us in the Den of Geek theater along with two incredible visitors, Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning and Morgan Absher of Two Popular Takes.

Absher and Lindsay briefly discussed how their displays, which are available on Spotify in both audio and video formats, have grown and changed over the past five years, unquestionably as a result of the crisis and the changing tastes of the market. Additionally, Newman chimed in with his thoughts on how blogging has evolved since its inception and where items might be headed. You won’t want to miss some of the great stories that podcasting allows them to explore, and the couple’s shared passion of the medium is evident throughout the movie.

In just three months on Netflix, Adolescence has managed to become one of the streaming service’s most watched shows ever.

” The limited series amassed another 30. 4M opinions between March 24 and March 30, putting it at a total of 96.7M sights since its debut. That was adequate to get at No. 9 on the list of the most popular American TVs of all time, removing Bridgerton Season 2 completely from it, and eighth place for Stranger Things 3.

Learn more at Deadline.

Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, The Housemaid stars, were present at CinemaCon to discuss a picture and the video for the movie.

The Housemaid actors, along with director Paul Feig, shared the anxious second clip at CinemaCon. On Tuesday, Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar showed up on the set of the Lionsgate film to encourage the mental thriller and show the truck, which has not yet been made available to the public. The film, which premieres on Christmas Day, is based on the 2022 best-selling tale by writer Freida McFadden and is based on the script by Rebecca Sonnenshine.

Read more about The Hollywood Reporter.

Supporters of Kendrick Lamar’s comic will have to delay until 2026 before seeing his comic duo with Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

” Kendrick Lamar’s unnamed funny didn’t debut on America’s day, after all. The release dates for Paramount, the studio that produced the strongly guarded film Matt Stone and Trey Parker from Lamar and South Park, have been changed from July 4, 2025 to March 20, 2026.

More information is available at Variety.

On Den of Geek, a connection to the article Link Tank: How Music Is Changing the Type of Podcasting.