I am writing this post to introduce myself and to invite both developers and UX designers to discuss a concept that I think is central to UX systems design - that of the User Narrative.
I am a UX designer and software developer with over 20 years of experience in the commercial software industry. Over the last 4 years I have shifted my focus from desktop to web applications. The last 3 years have been almost entirely spent on learning the ins and outs of building web sites on the Drupal platform.
During that time I've taken note of where I see aspects of the internal architecture impacting on my ability to carry out user experience design as precisely as I would like. To capture some of these thoughts, I've begun to post a series of articles on my web site, the first group being concerned with this concept of the User Narrative.
This group of articles (still unfinished with 2 more to go) is called 'Users, Roles and Narratives'. I consider this area to be of fundamental importance for any user interface system and especially applicable to Drupal. I use the term 'User Narrative' to mean the story that is told to a user, either implicitly or explicitly, within a given user interface. I believe this story aspect holds the potential to carry much of the burden of usability fulfillment in any user interface system – but especially so with web applications.
The thrust of these articles is to make a case for greater systematic control by UX designers of user-facing text (AKA strings) in order to permit a practical means of designing and implementing intentional (rather than accidental) User Narratives. I begin with an overview of the importance of Role oriented UX design and draw a distinction between this definition of Roles and the customary Drupal usage of the term.
I believe the articles raise some useful questions and present a valuable frame of reference that touches simultaneously on design and development issues. I think this line of discussion could help Drupal developers and UX designers find some new strategies for tackling a variety of usability challenges.
I'm new to posting on drupal.org. I'm looking forward to some good discussions on this and other issues that I've been following from the sidelines. Any suggestions for other threads to check out would be appreciated.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Michael Keara
@useradvocate
www.tuag.ca