Chris Nodder, Chris Nodder Consulting
Chris is a user researcher and interaction design specialist. He is the founder of Chris Nodder Consulting LLC, an agile user experience company that helps large organizations and startups build products that users love. He was previously a Director at Nielsen Norman Group and a Senior User Researcher at Microsoft. He has an M.S. in Human Computer Interaction and a B.S. in Psychology.
Chris enjoys spreading the word about User Centered Design. Aside from his work coaching Fortune 500 clients, he has presented on user experience topics at conferences all over the world. He authors training videos for Lynda.com, writes about agile user experience research and design techniques at QuestionableMethods.com, and is the author of Evil By Design, a book that describes the persuasive techniques that companies use to draw us in.
Linking UX Ideas for an Aha Moment from Non-Empathizers
I will describe a specific set of tools I've been using in a particular order that really helps all the members of a project (makers, monetizers and managers) understand user needs and build for those needs. None of the methods I use are new, but by focusing on the idea of empathizers and systemizers I ensure that there is sufficient continuity between the activities we perform that non-empathizers can still understand that they are not the user, and agree on a sensible user-centric way forward. This stops arguments and focuses everyone on the team towards customer based solutions. There is always a paper trail back to observed user data. There is always enough information pinned to the wall that people can point and say "see, this is why we're doing what we are doing". There is always enough verification built in to the process that we know whether we're on track before we invest in code. I'll describe the concept of systemizers and empathizers, share the set of tools I use and show the flow of information between each tool.