Understanding Your Users 2

"Understanding Your Users is an easy to read, easy to implement, how-to guide on usability in the real world. It focuses on the "user requirements gathering" stage of product development and it provides a variety of techniques, many of which may be new to usability professionals. For each technique, readers will learn how to prepare for and conduct the activity, as well as analyze and present the data - all in a practical and hands-on way. The techniques can be used together to form a complete picture of the users' requirements or they can be used separately to address specific product questions. These methods have helped product teams understand the value of user requirements gathering by providing insight into how users work and what they need to be successful at their tasks."--BOOK JACKET.

This new and completely updated edition is a comprehensive, easy-to-read, "how-to" guide on user research methods. You'll learn about many distinct user research methods and also pre- and post-method considerations such as recruiting, facilitating activities or moderating, negotiating with product developments teams/customers, and getting your results incorporated into the product. For each method, you'll understand how to prepare for and conduct the activity, as well as analyze and present the data - all in a practical and hands-on way. Each method presented provides different information about the users and their requirements (e.g., functional requirements, information architecture). The techniques can be used together to form a complete picture of the users' needs or they can be used separately throughout the product development lifecycle to address specific product questions. These techniques have helped product teams understand the value of user experience research by providing insight into how users behave and what they need to be successful. You will find brand new case studies from leaders in industry and academia that demonstrate each method in action. This book has something to offer whether you are new to user experience or a seasoned UX professional. After reading this book, you'll be able to choose the right user research method for your research question and conduct a user research study. Then, you will be able to apply your findings to your own products. Completely new and revised edition includes 30+% new content! Discover the foundation you need to prepare for any user research activity and ensure that the results are incorporated into your products Includes all new case studies for each method from leaders in industry and academia

This new and completely updated edition is a comprehensive, easy-to-read, "how-to" guide on user research methods. You'll learn about many distinct user research methods and also pre- and post-method considerations such as recruiting, facilitating activities or moderating, negotiating with product developments teams/customers, and getting your results incorporated into the product. For each method, you'll understand how to prepare for and conduct the activity, as well as analyze and present the data - all in a practical and hands-on way. Each method presented provides different information about the users and their requirements (e.g., functional requirements, information architecture). The techniques can be used together to form a complete picture of the users' needs or they can be used separately throughout the product development lifecycle to address specific product questions. These techniques have helped product teams understand the value of user experience research by providing insight into how users behave and what they need to be successful. You will find brand new case studies from leaders in industry and academia that demonstrate each method in action. This book has something to offer whether you are new to user experience or a seasoned UX professional. After reading this book, you'll be able to choose the right user research method for your research question and conduct a user research study. Then, you will be able to apply your findings to your own products. Completely new and revised edition includes 30+% new content! Discover the foundation you need to prepare for any user research activity and ensure that the results are incorporated into your products Includes all new case studies for each method from leaders in industry and academia

A hands-on guide for creating a winning engineering project Engineering Project Management is a practical, step-by-step guide to project management for engineers. The author – a successful, long-time practicing engineering project manager – describes the techniques and strategies for creating a successful engineering project. The book introduces engineering projects and their management, and then proceeds stage-by-stage through the engineering life-cycle project, from requirements, implementation, to phase-out. The book offers information for understanding the needs of the end user of a product and other stakeholders associated with a project, and is full of techniques based on real, hands-on management of engineering projects. The book starts by explaining how we perform the actual engineering on projects; the techniques for project management contained in the rest of the book use those engineering methods to create superior management techniques. Every topic – from developing a work-breakdown structure and an effective project plan, to creating credible predictions for schedules and costs, through monitoring the progress of your engineering project – is infused with actual engineering techniques, thereby vastly increasing the effectivity and credibility of those management techniques. The book also teaches you how to draw the right conclusions from numeric data and calculations, avoiding the mistakes that often cause managers to make incorrect decisions. The book also provides valuable insight about what the author calls the social aspects of engineering project management: aligning and motivating people, interacting successfully with your stakeholders, and many other important people-oriented topics. The book ends with a section on ethics in engineering. This important book: Offers a hands-on guide for developing and implementing a project management plan Includes background information, strategies, and techniques on project management designed for engineers Takes an easy-to-understand, step-by-step approach to project management Contains ideas for launching a project, managing large amount of software, and tips for ending a project Structured to support both undergraduate and graduate courses in engineering project management, Engineering Project Management is an essential guide for managing a successful project from the idea phase to the completion of the project.

Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research aims to bridge the gap between what digital companies think they know about their users and the actual user experience. Individuals engaged in digital product and service development often fail to conduct user research. The book presents concepts and techniques to provide an understanding of how people experience products and services. The techniques are drawn from the worlds of human-computer interaction, marketing, and social sciences. The book is organized into three parts. Part I discusses the benefits of end-user research and the ways it fits into the development of useful, desirable, and successful products. Part II presents techniques for understanding people’s needs, desires, and abilities. Part III explains the communication and application of research results. It suggests ways to sell companies and explains how user-centered design can make companies more efficient and profitable. This book is meant for people involved with their products’ user experience, including program managers, designers, marketing managers, information architects, programmers, consultants, and investors. Explains how to create usable products that are still original, creative, and unique A valuable resource for designers, developers, project managers - anyone in a position where their work comes in direct contact with the end user Provides a real-world perspective on research and provides advice about how user research can be done cheaply, quickly and how results can be presented persuasively Gives readers the tools and confidence to perform user research on their own designs and tune their software user experience to the unique needs of their product and its users

In these turbulent times, with the challenges of a constantly changing job market, shifting information-seeking behaviour and a vast array of new resources continually being produced, library and information services need to constantly keep one step, or more, ahead of their users. The benefits of analysing user behaviour are self-evident: better strategic planning, cost benefits and better use of budgets, better marketing, satisfied customers, satisfied management, and a library or information unit that is central to the needs of your parent organization. However, paradoxically, user needs and levels of expectation, including those of remote users, are often not fully explored. This accessible text goes back to the basics and investigates the following key issues: Why this book? Defining your users Understanding users: the what, why, where, when, how and who What is the current knowledge of user behaviour and needs: is it really predictable? Great expectations: how LIS professionals can manage and train users Using information about past user behaviour Making the most of knowing your users Keeping track of changes in what users want Tracking the future: electronic and social networking Future perfect? Readership: This book will help any library or information professional anywhere to take a fresh look at this important area and to tackle it in their organization, so as to ensure that their users will always obtain exactly what they want. Webmasters and knowledge managers will also find much to interest them.

Research, strategize, market, and continuously measure the effectiveness of APIs to meet your SaaS business goals with this practical handbook Key FeaturesTransform your APIs into revenue-generating entities by turning them into productsMeet your business needs by improving the way you research, strategize, market, and measure resultsCreate and implement a variety of metrics to promote growthBook Description APIs are crucial in the modern market as they allow faster innovation. But have you ever considered your APIs as products for revenue generation? API Analytics for Product Managers takes you through the benefits of efficient researching, strategizing, marketing, and continuously measuring the effectiveness of your APIs to help grow both B2B and B2C SaaS companies. Once you've been introduced to the concept of an API as a product, this fast-paced guide will show you how to establish metrics for activation, retention, engagement, and usage of your API products, as well as metrics to measure the reach and effectiveness of documentation—an often-overlooked aspect of development. Of course, it's not all about the product—as any good product manager knows; you need to understand your customers' needs, expectations, and satisfaction too. Once you've gathered your data, you'll need to be able to derive actionable insights from it. This is where the book covers the advanced concepts of leading and lagging metrics, removing bias from the metric-setting process, and bringing metrics together to establish long- and short-term goals. By the end of this book, you'll be perfectly placed to apply product management methodologies to the building and scaling of revenue-generating APIs. What you will learnBuild a long-term strategy for an APIExplore the concepts of the API life cycle and API maturityUnderstand APIs from a product management perspectiveCreate support models for your APIs that scale with the productApply user research principles to APIsExplore the metrics of activation, retention, engagement, and churnCluster metrics together to provide contextExamine the consequences of gameable and vanity metricsWho this book is for If you're a product manager, engineer, or product executive charged with making the most of APIs for your SaaS business, then this book is for you. Basic knowledge of how APIs work and what they do is essential before you get started with this book, since the book covers the analytical side of measuring their performance to help your business grow.

User story mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it. This insightful book examines how this often misunderstood technique can help your team stay focused on users and their needs without getting lost in the enthusiasm for individual product features. Author Jeff Patton shows you how changeable story maps enable your team to hold better conversations about the project throughout the development process. Your team will learn to come away with a shared understanding of what you’re attempting to build and why. Get a high-level view of story mapping, with an exercise to learn key concepts quickly Understand how stories really work, and how they come to life in Agile and Lean projects Dive into a story’s lifecycle, starting with opportunities and moving deeper into discovery Prepare your stories, pay attention while they’re built, and learn from those you convert to working software