Time(s)
Description
We know that user research is important, but many of us work in organizations that don’t. Personas can be really great tools, but they don’t always fit our needs and often seem to be tools just for us (UXers).
We (two speakers) work in different organizations within the same large research university. While working on separate projects to help others in our organization start to think about our users in more user centered way, we found that standard personas just couldn’t do what we needed in terms of sharing our research with our organizations.
This session will feature two parallel case studies and a discussion of how we tailored our methods to match our goals and contexts. We’ll share our processes, our challenges, our successes, and how we ultimately achieved our goals by creating very different artifacts, that met our colleagues where they were, and were tailored to our individual organizational cultures.
About the speakers
Kat King is an information architect interested in language, and meaning, and what it takes to do Good work. She has a master’s degree in information science from the University of Michigan School of Information.
She works as a business intelligence analyst for University of Michigan Library Operations division, where she works on projects that help the library strategically plan for changes to their spaces and work processes, understand data about collections and building use, and shift towards a more user centered service design process. Her previous work has included consulting for non-profits, and teaching IA to undergraduates.
Jackie Wolf is an information professional who’s passionate about creating accessible, reliable, and meaningful products. The rest of her energy is spent gathering community for Ignite UX Michigan and Ladies that UX Detroit, trying to live a low-waste lifestyle, making the most of her snowshoes, and arguing with banks about their lack of proper authentication practices.
Her interest in UX has led her to work with social enterprises creating innovative solutions to poverty and health issues in Paraguay and India, and even founding a startup to tackle financial literacy among college students. Currently a web project manager for Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan, she earned her master’s from the University of Michigan’s School of Information.