Whilst at the Design Museum at the weekend I picked up a copy of "Touching the State" a document about what it means to be a citizen in the 21st Century.
I was thrilled to discover this well presented work apparently commissioned by the government to explore why the general public are disengaged from the political process and the State. The project explores: jury service, the new citizenship ceremony, and voting.
From a 'User Experience Design' perspective this is a great resource, and it's on the web too in its final form but also in much more detail. This is a great example on a number of levels. It shows how User Research may be carried out in a very thorough and practical way but also how this data can then be presented in a very communicative and powerful fashion.
People involved in design processes, like Cooper's Goal-Directed Design, often spend time writing up Personas as representive users of the products they are designing for. This report describes real people, so the emphasis is very slightly different, but the art used to communicate what these people are like is the same.
This is an excellent read, highly recommended.
Posted by carl.myhill at March 14, 2005 05:38 PM