Dana Chisnell

Category: Library

  • Helping policy makers

    Early in 2020, I got to work with a couple of amazing people on exploring what it would mean for policy makers to use the methods and techniques of human-centered design. Alberto Alvarez and Vivian Graubard led the way. Thanks to New America and the Beeck Center for support and publishing.

  • What can go wrong when we get things right?

    Using stakeholder maps to envision outcomes for users and ecosystems

  • Can we design a better ballot?

    Every presidential election cycle, people get interested in why ballots are the way they are, so every few years, I give a talk about that. I’ve updated my talk about ballot design for 2020.

  • The epic journey of American voters

    Every 4 years, I get a lot of requests to talk about design in elections from the UX and civic tech communities. Watch the talk at Midwest UX in 2018. I’ve also written quite a bit about the hurdles that U.S. voters encounter, based on research I did before and while I was at the…

  • Rethinking user research for the social web

    While the Web has evolved from flat documents to being fluidly ambient, we’re using user research methods from 1994. In this session, Dana presents 5 major issues confronting UXers working in the social web, challenges you to creative solutions, and shares experiences from pioneering researchers. Watch the video of this talk from ConveyUX in 2013…

  • Gaining design insights from your research recruiting process

    I gave a virtual seminar for UIE in October 2013 about how to look at recruiting participants for studies as bonus user research. You can get the archived seminar from UIE. Or, have a look at the slides.

  • Heuristics for understanding older adults as web users

    In 2004, Ginny Redish and I, along with Amy Lee, conducted a review of the relevant literature — research by other people — about designing for older adults (people over age 50). Doing this changed my thinking about universal design. It wasn’t enough to generate design heuristics. We also came up with ways to operationalize…

  • Designing for older adults: Reviewing 50 websites

      AARP, an American organization for people over age 50, commissioned Ginny Redish and me to give them a scorecard of how well the Web was supporting older people in terms of design. We weren’t to evaluated sites only directed at older adults, but do conduct a broad review of sites that regular people might…

  • Testing in the wild: Conversation with Tim Keirnan

      It’s always stimulating talking with Tim Keirnan, who is the host of the podcast Design Critique. We had a great conversation about how to do evaluation of designs in the field rather than in the lab — and how easy and quick it can be. (Recorded in November, 2008)  

  • The difference between good UX teams and great ones, with Jared Spool

      I had a blast in this conversation with Jared Spool (recorded June 7, 2008) about what qualities make user experience design teams great and why some teams just can’t get past good.