Communication is essential to UX design. As with other contexts, communication can be impaired by – sometimes very subtle – influencing factors, some of which were described in part 1 of this article. This second part of the article deals with additional aspects that can be detrimental to communication, such as (unconscious) language barriers and the “human factor” in UX design.

There is a multitude of roles and job titles in the field of UX design. But regardless of what the involvement of someone in a UX design project is – communication is a key activity when it comes to successfully accomplishing many of the tasks in the collaborative domain of UX design.

Whether with users, project stakeholders or within a UX design team, “communication” entails much more than simply talking to respective receivers and making sure that the words come out right. There are certain pitfalls to avoid. This two-part article examines the role of communication in UX design in order to provide information that helps in communicating efficiently. In the article, the term “UX practitioner” is used to refer to the diverse roles in a generic fashion. The ideas described can be applied to in-house as well as external (consulting) UX practitioners.

User interface prototyping is an essential activity in the field of user interface design that provides a basis for continuous evaluation and improvement of a to-be-designed user interface. In usability engineering, the focus of using prototypes lies on evaluating the usability of intended approaches and on generating concrete recommendations for advancing an interface design. While doing so, there are several aspects to keep in mind in order to maximize the efficiency of prototype use for usability engineering. Three issues are described in this post.

It is still a common complaint uttered by usability professionals that organizations in general and software developers in particular “just don’t get” usability engineering. They are frustrated because they have all good intentions to provide support for creating user-friendly systems but the reactions they get are reserved at best and developers simply don’t buy into the whole usability engineering process.

So, whose fault is it? Who is it that is just not getting it?

As often in life, it takes two and an occasion to create a problem. Let’s have a closer look.