What a UX year!

Happy New UX Year to you all!  Wow, the staff at Saint Mary's Press has had a busy year. 

As an organization, we've committed to implementing the principles of user-centered design in the creation of new products or the improvement of our existing product line.

To that end, over the last 12 months, Saint Mary's Press staff spent:

• 287 hours observing, interviewing and learning from our customers in their native environments
• 575 hours usability testing products for our customers and the markets we serve.

This spring we are releasing a number of products that have benefited from the insights we've gleaned from site visits as well as the work of usability testing.

We have learned many things this year including but not limited to:

• the necessity of the product
• the need for additional content within the product
• the need for different labeling in website headings
• the location where customers expected to find information
• specific information customers expected to find
• how colors affected a product's readability
• how design elements could assist the user in navigation

In the coming weeks, I will be interviewing some people who were part of the teams that gathered the insights (from our site visits and usability testing) and decided how to build or improve products based on what was learned.

Until then, here's a short quote from Br. Michael French who visited Saint Mary's Press back in November.  He affirmed that

 

“To interpret the culture— you have to be present to it.” 

I wanted to thank each of you and congratulate all of you on staff for taking the time (and making it possible for folks to take the time) to listen and to be present, so that no matter what we create, it is done in collaboration and in partnership with those whose work we support.