Sketching User Experiences

(This post was originally posted for Hill Holliday Blog)
In Sketching User Experiences, Bill Buxton advocates that sketching should become part of the design process early on.

The sketches Buxton discusses are not perfectly crafted masterpieces – that is, they are messy with cross-outs and multicolored lines darting all over the page. Buxton reassures readers that you don’t have to be a designer to sketch. Everyone can get involved through participatory design whereby the “design professional is to work with the users/customers as a combination coach/trainer, to help them come to an appropriate design solution”. The role of the designer in this case is to facilitate communication from participants through visual storytelling.

“In the HCI domain, sketching isn’t optional. Sketching is the foundation for inspiration, transformation, and communication” says Chauncey Wilson, Senior Manager, AEC User Research Team and professor of Bentley University’s HFID Prototyping class. Wilson encourages designers to carry a sketch notebook to carry with you everywhere you go. Whenever an idea comes to mind, don’t write it, but sketch it. Sketching can serve as a brain dump, but also as way to avoid time wasted on those perfectly constructed wireframes and high fidelity prototypes.

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