UX or User Experience is a popular topic in the industry today. My session will provide a brief overview of what UX is and why it has become such a critical part of today’s workflow. We’ll discuss how UX methodologies can be implemented with a minimal amount of effort to boost the overall value and ROI of any project. Whether you are a designer or developer, building your own product or building products for clients, this session will include rich information to aid you in bootstrapping your own UX efforts and thought-process.
2. Who is this guy?
Steve Adams
Senior Web Developer @ Bit-Wizards
What I do:
Front-end design
Front-end development
UX
Manage teams and projects
3. My UX Story
Over the course of my career, I’ve always been frustrated with the subjectivity of the
design process
My decisions were largely based on my own preference and intuition, and my projects
suffered because of it
Then, I discovered the principles of UX
5. What is UX (User Experience)?
Understanding UX is challenging:
The term User Experience is interchangeable between both a process for achieving a good user
experience and the actual user’s experience itself
User Experience (UX) - Also - User Experience Design (UXD)
UX Methods (Research, Interviews, Wireframes, Prototypes, Usability Testing)
There isn’t a good shared vocabulary in the field
No single agreed upon definition of UX
Nielson Norman Group - “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's
interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/
9. 1.
2.
3.
4.
No dipping
Hard to open and use
The packets were too small, you had to eat 20 of them
You had to have something to squeeze the ketchup
on if you wanted to use it…messy!
“When the point of contact between the product and
the people becomes a point of friction, then the designer
has failed.“
10. • Heinz’s new ketchup packet considers
the user’s overall experience as well as
the product.
• The new packets provide a good
experience and address the pain-points
of the previous design
• How did they get this so right? – Good UX
“On the other hand if people are made
safer, more comfortable, more eager to
purchase, more efficient --- or just plain
happier --- by contact with the
product, then the designer has
succeeded.“
11.
12. What’s wrong with this
picture?
The reservation app failed at three
main components of the UX
honeycomb
1.
Usable (Usability) – It wasn’t easy
to use, too many clicks
2.
Useful (User needs) – It wasn’t
useful, it didn’t account for
people waiting in the bar
3.
Valuable (Business requirements) –
It wasn’t valuable. They paid a
custom software price tag for a
whiteboard.
13. How do we do it right?
We need a framework for success – The UX process
The UX Process
Discovery – Research to obtain an understanding of the business and user needs
Strategy – Establish a shared vision for an ideal user experience that meets these needs
Design – Realize the strategy and ensure that it truly accomplishes the goals…iterate if necessary
How does the UX process help?
Helps flush out legitimate business and user needs that would otherwise been overlooked
Builds credibility and consensus with decision makers
Provides real data to drive design decisions
Ultimately produces a more polished and valuable final product
15. Demonstration: UX Process
Nordstrom Innovation Lab: Sunglass iPad App Case Study - http://youtu.be/szr0ezLyQHY
16. Discussion
Did you notice the UX process throughout the video?
What kinds of methods were used?
Interviews
Paper prototyping
Card sorting
User story maps
Usability testing
Usability Testing was the key!
17. What is Usability Testing?
Usability Testing: Observing real users performing critical tasks with the goal of identifying
pain-points and opportunities for improvement.
18. Why test for usability?
Designing and developing for yourself is stupid – you are not every end-user
Usability testing doesn’t have to be time consuming or costly – Guerilla Usability Testing
You only need 5 people - http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5users/
19. How to go Guerilla
1. Find Real Users
Identify real users and target them for
optimal feedback
2. Where
Context matters, think back to that waiter
and his fast paced-environment
3. Create a Testing Plan
Identify key scenarios, tasks, and user
flows
4. Record session
Observe, talk out loud, interview
5. Analyze results and iterate
20. In Summary
1. Creating a good user experience requires empathizing with those users…UX helps with this
2. Don’t design based on intuition and assumptions; use UX to make data-driven design decisions
3. Get your project functional as fast as possible and put it in front of real users
4. Gather feedback and improve and iterate
The UX Honeycomb was developed by Peter Morville in 2004 to illustrate the facets of user experience.Ultimately these facets are what contributes to an overall good user experience.Valuable (Business Requirements). Our sites must deliver value to our sponsors. For non-profits, the user experience must advance the mission. With for-profits, it must contribute to the bottom line and improve customer satisfaction.Useful (User Needs). As practitioners, we can't be content to paint within the lines drawn by managers. We must have the courage and creativity to ask whether our products and systems are useful, and to apply our deep knowledge of craft and medium to define innovative solutions that are more useful.Usable (Usability). Ease of use remains vital, and yet the interface-centered methods and perspectives of human-computer interaction do not address all dimensions of web design. In short, usability is necessary but not sufficient.Desirable (Appeal to Emotion). Our quest for efficiency must be tempered by an appreciation for the power and value of image, identity, brand, and other elements of emotional design.Findable (IA). We must strive to design navigable web sites and locatable objects, so users can find what they need.Accessible (Accessibility). Just as our buildings have elevators and ramps, our web sites should be accessible to people with disabilities. Today, it's good business and the ethical thing to do.Credible (Good Design). Thanks to the Web Credibility Project (Standford), we're beginning to understand the design elements that influence whether users trust and believe what we tell them.
When questioned he stated, “The guys that create these kinds of systems…well, you can’t do things the way you want to do them. You can check off a reservation in the system, with the mouse, but hey, it’s at least four clicks away from this screen. And you can’t tell if the guests have been showed to their table or are waiting in the bar. So it’s much easier just to draw on the screen. (And when the evening is over you just wipe the screen with a cloth.) We’re very busy here, and this works just fine.”
This is one approach, there is no certified UX processNot all of these methods must be used, let the project requirements drive the choices
