The Dancing Bear is Gaining Endangered Status: Games User Research for Developement

摘要

A Dancing Bear is a piece of code, or software functionality that is written to do a task; not to do it well, not to do it optimally, but just to do it. Often, its value derives from the quick fix, and introduction to the market. One can typically identify software that is a Dancing Bear by examining how much training support is necessary to help people use it. Often, the Dancing Bear is the result of a lack of user research, which should examine how people expect to do a task. It is important for development and design teams that they realize that they are not their users. By recruiting actual users, learning methods in contextual inquiry, and applying learning research and methods, teams can develop products with effective ergonomics, difficulty tuning, and insight into the behavioral economics of software usage for their users.