A few weeks ago I discussed “Bottom Up” Design vs “Top Down” design methodology. Before you go any farther kindly read Web Strategy: Beyond Usablity –Designing using ‘Bottom Up’ Techniques and Mental Models.

I posted my thoughts in the Intranet User Experience Forum that I manage, and received wonderful feedback from Paula Thornton of Corante. She made me pause and rethink my approach.

Here’s Paula’s response to me:

“Eliminate all arguments. Use “Evidence-Based Design”. If there is no evidence to support the change/suggestion it doesn’t get done. In order to do such, then you have to place a high value on research.

While we all do research, there is no consistency in our research across projects and no ‘comprehensive’ responsibility. Thus, the new role of UX Research Steward, the first part of a multi-page description below:

There are four distinct areas of focus for experience design research:

• Discovery
• Continuous Listening
• Metrics
• Synthesis and Sharing

The fundamentals of these activities might readily be compared to Market Research or even to the Requirements phase of Systems Engineering, but here the `individual’ is not perceived as the `subject of’ or is being `subjected to’ the intended solution. Instead, data is gathered from their perspective, their concerns and their contexts – solutions are designed using this evidence.

Multiple techniques, tools, services and approaches are required to collect a meaningful breadth of information to tell a credible story about the individuals for whom we design.

A centralized role ― to specialize in evolving the methods by which all research is conducted and to coordinate the capture and sharing of results ― ensures that these valuable activities get dedicated attention. This is the least evolved practice area and yet this is the role which captures the science of experience design: the means by which to describe, explain, predict and control. An individual dedicated to these activities will need to be passionate about discovery and driven by continuous innovation to champion corresponding action.”

She’s given me permission to repurpose her content from the forum, and I encourage you to visit her blog at Corante: Total Experience