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Assessing weights for users’ needs

Jared Spool has written several articles on what he calls a Weighted Differences Matrix.

From part 1:

The process we’d use is to compare the designs side-by-side and list the differences. A method I’m fond of is to do the comparisons with two sites at a time. In this case, we’d probably start with the current design and alternative #1. We’d put them side-by-side and ask, “What makes these designs different?” Once we’d exhausted our thinking, we’d replace alternative #1 with alternative #2 and repeat the questioning, looking for new differences to add to the list.

From part 2:

The quality of the weights will depend on what information the team already has. In the case of the project I described in my presentation, the first time that team sat down to create their matrix, they had done very little user research (as in virtually none) to work from. So, to some extent, they were going to guess on the weights. However, they had been in business for years with a web site that was attracting millions of visitors a month, so they knew something about their users and the users’ needs. It’s with this information that they’d start the process of assessing weights.

Posted by jamesr on July 08, 2008 09:13 AM
Categories: Usability & user-centered design