Short description of some User Centered Design Techniques

Guerrilla
Intercept users at the action moment with specific questions related to their activities.
This technique is used to outline a first hypothesis about the experience complexity.

Shadowing
Follow users during a specific time period.
From this technique comes out the behaviors and the social and emotional concerns about a topic, and is also is useful to understand the experience as a whole.

Visual Diaries (also known as probes)
Research team gives a disposable camera and a notebook with instructions and triggering questions and images to each user, and users are asked to take a picture and annotate any action related to what's being studied.
With this technique we capture the users reality in inaccessible moments and in geographically dispersed areas. This technique brings a lot of diverse visual material to the research within a short time and at low cost.

Vídeo-Ethnography
Video recording of user behaviors within the context of use.
video is later analyzed and is useful to understand the user interactions with the environment, the product usage and associated behaviors in different situations.

More and more techniques on User Centered Design are continuously being developed, and each project needs a customized research plan with new or re-thought techniques in order to gather the desired knowledge form users and to achieve project objectives.

* observation * cultural Probes * self documentation * photo and video diaries * visual diaries * camera journal * direct observation * Fly on the wall * shadowing * lag sequential analysis LSA * rapid ethnography * site observation * user observation * field work * contextual field research * video and photography field studies * video ethnography * talk through (tour) * narration * think aloud protocols * Tour * guided tours * task analysis * activity analysis * cognitive task analisys * a day in a life * behavioural archaeology * behavioural archaeology * material culture studies * trend and cultural changes * expert theories * cultural inventory * trend analysis * cultural advisors * foreign corresponsals / cross cultural comparisons * user profiling * weblogger * webtracker * personal inventory * log file analysis * *
interviews * long range forecasts * expert interviews * guerrilla * in-home * shadowing * in store intercepts * targeted intercepts * exploratory intercepts * expert interviews * phone * shadowing * contextual interviews * explorative interviews * in depth interviews * intesnsive interviewing * 5 whys? * be your customer * extreme user interviews * particiapation * heuristic evaluation * scenario testing * UserExperience Probes * role-playing with toys * low fidelity prototypes * high fidelity prototypes * collaborative sketching * collective dreaming * iterative prototyping * non-expert evaluation * participatory design * participatory design * collaging * lifestyle scenarios * Velcro modelling * word concept association * card sort * paper prototyping * usability testing * checking understanding * user participation * behavioural prototyping * usability testing * activity groups * environmental testing * participatory design * participatory design * collage * card sort * cognitive maps * draw the experience * unfocused group * xperimenting * immersion * bodystorming * participant observation * empathy tools * mapping * social map * narratives * concept mapping * flow charts * interaction analysis * mapping * storyboarding * task analysis * user scenario development: * user profile development * video ethnography: * collages * affinity diagram * flow model * sequence model * cultural model * physical model * artefact model * artefact analysis * activity model * AEIOU framework * POEMS framework * behavioural sampling * scenario building * taxonomy * intuitive clustering * AEIOU * mapping * TDU * photoExpanding * sessionsLab * affinity diagramming / intuitive clustering * metaphors * scenario planning * substitution * synectics * semantic analysis * comparison tasks * concept generation workshops * idea lab * Teamwork * cool ideas bulletin board * visual project room * acting * storytelling * idea frameworks * idea database * user profiling * illustration of design criteria * design examples * conceptual frameworks * role-playing * character profiles * character creation * human factors rationale * informance *