A lot of the discussions I have about our profession end with somebody saying "Well everything is design at the end of the day". This is a great way of ending a conversation when you're bored and have a bus to catch. It's the designers equivalent of Godwins law.
User research is an extremely powerful tool (or set of tools) for understanding customer needs and behaviours. As digital projects grow in size and complexity, the risk of building the wrong thing becomes an increasing danger. So it makes sense to spend a portion of your budget to ensure that you've done the due diligence and are investing wisely.
The argument for "designing in the browser" seems very seductive at first glance. The web is an interactive medium that defies the fixed canvas of traditional layout tools, so why not use the browser as your primary design environment?
First off let me apologise for the laboured metaphor I'm about to inflict on you, but I thought it could be entertaining to try and describe the web design industry using a medium I'm sure you're all familiar with; Dungeons & Dragons.
I first came across the concept of the Lean Start-up three years ago while speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in New York. I'd finished my duties and there was little else of interest on the schedule so I dropped into a panel discussion about start-ups.
As I explained in my previous post, user experience design is a multidisciplinary activity which includes psychology, user research, information architecture, interaction design, graphic design and a host of other disciplines. Due to the complexity of the field a user experience team will typically be made up of individuals with a range of different specialisms.