Undercover user experience design is a recommended book from the front lines, giving open advices on how to make UX work effectively in real companies having real problems. Readers will find how to fit research, prototyping, ideation & testing into their everyday workflow, ways to design the best user experiences under all-too-common constraints of budget, culture and time.
Who Should You Read Undercover User Experience Design?
Let me begin by saying that Undercover User Experience design has targeted mostly the broader audience. A junior to mid -user experience professional, a designer/ developer planning to move into this field or to introduce the user- centered ideas into his business, will reap great benefits from this undercover user experience design book. It is my belief, however, that seasoned user experience practitioner will able to pick up a few things on the way as well.
What is Undercover User Experience Design About?
The book is a thorough manual where James and Cennydd explain in details, a whole range of user experience guidelines as well as the approaches, following through the various company processes & is loaded with tons of pragmatic pieces of advice. How to effectively conduct user research, usability testing, design principles, prototyping, A/B and multivariate testing and how to sharpen wire framing skills are just a few graphical user interface design examples.
What I like most is the way James and Cennydd go beyond the topics. They explain in detail how best to prepare your company to find the best user experience tool, how to get your whole company and your stakeholders on board, when to report and what to report, ways to work together and get along with others as well as departments, and how best to plan design reviews. To me, this book about “undercover user experience design” is about gathering the graphical user interface design examples and putting them to practice the next day.
Although it’s not as thorough as the UX Book, I didn’t expect it to contain such detailed information. UUXD or Undercover User Experience Design shows a collection of tools as well as possibilities to assist you tailor UX design process, ways to integrate it into your organization’s culture and also how to put it in the field with minimum budget and time.
What is Undercover User Experience Design?
As mentioned earlier, this book gives pragmatic guide from the front-line, offering open advice on making user experience work in a real company with a real problem. After reading this book, you will learn how to generate ideas, fit research, prototyping & testing into your everyday workflow, and ways to design better UX under “all-too-common constraints of budget, time and culture
This crafty and clever book will also teach you ways of making your own rules, play safely with others and also create a culture of user experience from ground up.
The benefit of this book is that it will show you ways to get your company even more focused on user experience, without them having to notice. It is based on the premise that there are several companies who do not have user experience at the epicenter of what they do, so may require some convincing so as to reach there. After reading this book, you will get more ways to receive UX techniques into your day to day work and also enable many of you, not just your UX designers, to follow user experience principles.
Conclusion
I have discovered that UUXD is great due to its practical advice, however not very deep as far as theory is concerned. It explains a lot of basics that are amazing to its intended users. Your value as a more seasoned user experience practitioner would be reading of the tips provided at the end of every chapter and also the online resources and user experience tools mentioned throughout.