On these pages you’ll find summaries of the concepts and methods we’ve found most useful in our consultancy work. The methods are simple, inexpensive, and easy to use. The best way to understand them is to try them for yourself. We’ll be adding to the list from time to time.
methods
- card sorts – how people categorise
- content analysis – seeing what is, and isn’t, in a text
- co-occurrence matrices – measuring similarity between entities
- hexagonal cards – steps to achieving goals
- idea generation being both creative and systematic
- indirect observation – work out what happens when no-one’s watching
- iterative non-functional prototyping – how to check what works
- laddering – what people mean, and why they mean it
- Likert-style scales – measure responses
- liking & disliking scales – liking & disliking are not always opposites
- observation – learning what to look for
- projective approaches – for topics people usually won’t talk about
- think-aloud – real-time insights into what people are thinking
- visual analogue scales – more versatile than Likert-style scales
concepts
- constraints and affordances – what can’t you do and what can you do?
- design rationale – a systematic approach to design
- facet theory – thinking about more than one set of features
- graph theory – mapping and analysing knowledge
- knowledge modelling – how people organise their knowledge
- significant absences – what’s not there is as important as what is there
- User/Person Centred Design – what does it really look like?
- Verifier – finding errors in research
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