A narrative approach to user requirements for Web design

STEFANA BROADBENT AND FRANCESCO CARA business Last month we published two case studies by Jared Braiterman and his colleagues on the response to the increasing time pressure facing professionals involved in human–computer interaction (HCI) working with the Web. This month Stefana Broadbent and Francesco Cara at Icon Medialab discuss their approach to handling this pressure. You will notice similarities and differences in the two articles, which is why they are being published in consecutive issues. One common theme is the need to rapidly collect information about users and their environment or context and to instantly feed that information into the design process. The Life Stories approach at Icon Medialab integrates these two " phases " and feeds in to design in different ways; it too, has been effective in the development of sites that directly meet users' needs. E-business and Internet consultancies such as Icon Medialab work under increasing pressure to meet clients' demand for utmost speed in producing quality digital solutions for their online services. The same clients, however , hire Internet consultants for their talent in providing a creative solution and an effective user experience that will repeatedly bring users back to the site. The challenge faced by the project team is therefore to ensure not only features such as solid architecture, speed of interaction , sound security, and great financial returns, but also an excellent user interface supported by reliable user research—all within ridiculously short periods of time. These constraints are not new and HCI practitioners involved in software design have for decades fought with difficult deadlines. In Web design, however, the situation has reached new peaks of complexity because of the variety of users targeted by Web services and the number of