User experience design is often misunderstood in three key ways: 1. It is not just about technology or user interfaces, but about all aspects of a user's interaction with a product or service. 2. It is not solely focused on usability, but also considers emotional and behavioral responses as well as learnability. 3. It must balance the needs of the user with business objectives and constraints, so the user perspective is not the only priority in design decisions.

1. 10
Most Common
Misconceptions About
User Experience Design
Whitney Hess
whitney@whitneyhess.com
@whitneyhess
http://whitneyhess.com

3. 1
User experience design is NOT
User interface design.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

4. “User experience isn't a layer
or component of a product or
service. It's really about the
design of whole systems and
their interconnections.”
Andrew Hinton
Senior information architect at Vanguard
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

5. http://www.jjg.net/elements/

6. 2
User experience design is NOT
A step in the process.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

7. “User experience design
isn't a checkbox. You don't
do it and then move on. It
needs to be integrated into
everything you do.”
Liz Danzico
Chair, MFA in Interaction Design
School of Visual Arts in NYC
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

9. SOLUTIONS
Future state
Current state
Write user-centered
It stands almost complete
and finished in my mind so
requirements specifications
ABSTRACTION
that I can survey it like a fine
picture or a beautiful statue. Research user interface topics
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from
Information Design, edited by Robert
Jacobson Create user interface style guides
An ounce of action is worth CONCEPTUAL Conceptual and detailed design
a ton of theory.
MODEL of user interfaces
Friedrich Engels (1820 - 1895)
Review and test usability
USE Information architecture
CASES “An architect is defined as
for large bodies of content
someone who forgets to put
in the staircase.” Write and edit documentation
Gustave Flaubert, French novelist
(1821-80), Dictionnaire des idées
reçues (1881).
CONCEPTUAL
Dilbert: “Your user require- DESIGN
ments include four hundred
features. Do you realize that
no human would be able to
use a product with that level
of complexity?”
“Rules are sparse; we forget Feature Creep: “Good point.
them. Stories, being rich in I’d better add ‘easy to use’ “If you want to know what
details, are multiply index- to the list.” happens when you throw
able...Moreover, if a rule fails,
Dilbert as quoted in Paper a stone into a pond, it is infi-
it can be reassessed only
Prototyping, Carolyn Snyder nitely better to make a trial
with great difficulty because
and film it than to attempt
rules hang in the air, unat-
to theorize about it.”
tached to experience. But if “Igloo: an indigenous home
the lesson attached to a spe- René Thom, Physicist
constructed of local building
cific story fails, the events of materials. Bavarian castle:
MOCK-UP
the story can be reassessed a home constructed to impress
to figure out why the lesson the neighbours. Space station:
failed and what other lesson a mobile home with a view.”
might have been drawn.”
SCENARIOS Donald C. Gause & Gerald M. Weinberg,
Tell Me a Story, Roger C. Schank
USER OF USE Exploring Requirements: Quality Before
Design
REQUIREMENTS FUTURE STATE
I’m going to kill myself.
I should go to Paris and jump USABILITY
off the Eiffel Tower. I’ll be
CONTENT “I write scripts to serve as TEST “Just wait, Gretel, until the
moon rises, and then we shall
PROTOCOL
dead. You know, in fact, if
skeletons awaiting the flesh see the crumbs of bread
I get the Concorde, I could
INVENTORY and sinew of images.” which I have strewn about;
TAXONOMY
be dead three hours earlier,
which would be perfect. Or Ingmar Bergman, NY Times 22 Jan 78 they will show us our way
wait a minute. It – with the SCENARIOS “Our burgeoning digital cul-
ture is heading for oblivion, AND METADATA
home again.”
OF USE
time change, I could be alive Hansel and Gretel
for six hours in New York but and fast…future anthropolo-
dead three hours in Paris. CURRENT STATE gists will find our pottery but
I could get things done, and not our e-mail.”
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE
I could also be dead. James Gleick, Faster: the
Woody Allen (one of the greatest Acceleration of Just about
personas of the 20th century… good Everything
thing he didn’t take the plane to
Paris)
“Technical work needs
reviewing for the same USABILITY “Break it, stretch it, bend it,
crush it, crack it, fold it.”
“Regulations [are] written for
the obedience of fools and
reason that pencils need
erasers: to err is human.” TEST Bruce Mau, Lifestyle the guidance of wise men.”
Anonymous. Featured in the film
Freedman and Weinberg, Handbook
EXPERT
Reach for the Sky (UK, 1956).
of Walkthroughs, Inspections and
PERSONAS
Technical Reviews
REVIEW GRAPHIC
DESIGN STYLE
“Those things that hurt,
GUIDE
TEST instruct.”
REPORT Ben Franklin
“Sight, even though used by
all of us so naturally, has not COMMUNICATION PLAN
yet produced its civilization.
Sight is swift, comprehensive,
simultaneously analytic and
RESEARCH synthetic. It requires so little
DETAILED
REPORT energy to function, as it does,
SPECIFICATION DOCUMENTATION
FIELD
at the speed of light, that it
permits our minds to receive
STUDIES and hold an infinite number
of items of information in
a fraction of a second. With
Observation The men of experiment are “First, the taking in of scat- “He who every morning plans “To determine whether or not
sight infinities are given at
“A little manure on the boots like the ant, they only collect tered particulars under one the transaction of the day a spark is being delivered to
once; wealth is its description.”
may disturb city folks, but in and use; the reasoners Idea, so that everyone and follows out that plan, the spark plug, hold a spark
requirements work, you learn resemble spiders, who make Caleb Gattegno, Toward a Visual understands what is being carries a thread that will plug wire approximately 1/4
cobwebs out of their own Culture talked about…Second, the guide him through the maze inch away from the cylinder
not to mistake appearance
for value.” substance. But the bee takes separation of the Idea into of the most busy life. But head as the engine is cranked
Donald C. Gause & Gerald M. the middle course: it gathers parts, by dividing it at the where no plan is laid, where with the starting motor…If a
Weinberg, Exploring Requirements: its material from the flowers joints, as nature directs, the disposal of time is surren- spark is noted from each of
Quality Before Design of the garden and field, but not breaking any limb in dered merely to the chance the wires, the trouble is not
transforms and digests it by half as a bad carver might.” of incidence, chaos will soon likely to be with the ignition
a power of its own. Not unlike Plato, Phaedrus, 265D reign.” system.”
this is the true business of Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) from Ford’s 1941 Deluxe and Super
philosophy (science). Deluxe Reference Book (Ford did not
Francis Bacon caution the reader against getting
shocked or performing this quick-fix
Current state
while standing in a puddle.).
Future state
hoto credits: Geert Allegaert, Joannes Vandermeulen and Karolien Taverniers - Thanks to Alain Schiffeleers and Andreea Chelaru
http://www.namahn.com/resources/poster.htm TIME
COMMUNICATION PLAN CONCEPTUAL MODEL DETAILED SPECIFICATION FIELD STUDIES INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE PERSONAS STYLE GUIDE USABILITY TEST USE CASES
A document describing the scope and the The concepts that the design must communicate A detailed specification describes the compo- Observing users in the environment in which Document describing the information architec- Personas are lively descriptions of typical users. A document describing the formal conventions A method by which users of a product are asked A use case defines a set of use-case instances
planning of the communication project: what in order for the user to understand and operate nents and behaviour of the user experience they will work with the digital product that is ture of a digital product. In some cases, the They are based on patterns and findings to be followed within a family of digital prod- to perform tasks in an effort to measure the in which each instance is a sequence of actions
is to be communicated, for whom and how; the product. The conceptual model in sufficient detail for the developer, and may being designed. information architecture specification offers gathered during field studies. Using personas ucts. Conventions can be lexical (what are the product’s ease-of-use, task time, and the user’s a system performs that yields an observable
where the challenges and opportunities lie. differs from the technical model, which is the include the design rationale. two perspectives: prevents designers from drifting towards an codes, both visual and linguistic) and syntacti- perception of the product. result of value to a particular actor, often a user.
way the developer understands the product. GRAPHIC DESIGN • User’s side: what the user sees —the taxonomy idealized view of users that lacks nuance. cal (how the codes can be assembled to form
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN It also differs from the mental model, which is DOCUMENTATION The design of the look and feel of the digital and structuring of the information on the pages. practical wholes). USABILITY TEST PROTOCOL USER REQUIREMENTS
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess
A set of sketches illustrating the main interaction the concept that an individual user develops The final deliverables of a documentation product. The graphical design usually consists • Authoring/Storage side: describing the author- RESEARCH REPORT The protocol describes scope, goals, settings, User requirements are a formal expression
concept of a digital product. The conceptual in order to understand the product. project. Usually the writing process of docu- of a specification of standard colours, icons, the ing and storage of the information, workflows, A document that expresses the findings of a TAXONOMY AND METADATA instructions and tasks to be performed by of the desired functions and qualities of the
design starts with paper and pencil. mentation takes three iterations: draft version, location of graphical elements and typography. metadata, topics and information types. research project. Creative and rational at the Design of the information structure, the labelling a test participant. future digital product. Not only product features,
CONTENT INVENTORY pre-final version, and final version. same time, it provides insight into murky territory. and the terminology that will be applied to the but also non-functional requirements, such
A structured list of all content (documents, digital MOCK-UP content of a digital product. The information as reliability and usability, are included.
assets, information chunks, etc.) that must be EXPERT REVIEW A more or less realistic simulation of the user SCENARIOS OF USE structure is usually a tree or a matrix (faceted
considered for publication in a digital product. During expert reviews, a number of experts interface that combines the scenarios of use [current state/future state] classification).

10. “Most clients expect experience design to
be a discrete activity, solving all their
problems with a single functional
specification or a single research study. It
must be an ongoing effort, a process of
continually learning about users,
responding to their behaviors, and evolving
the product or service.”
Dan Brown
Co-founder and principal at EightShapes
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

12. 3
User experience design is NOT
Just about technology.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

13. “User experience design is not
limited to the confines of the
computer. It doesn't even need a
screen... User experience is any
interaction with any product, any
artifact, any system.”
Bill DeRouchey
Director of interaction design at Ziba Design
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

14. Carelman’s teapot
from Don Norman’s ﬔe Design of Everyday ﬔings
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

15. 4
User experience design is NOT
Just about usability.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

16. “While usability is important, its focus
on efficiency and effectiveness seems
to blur the other important factors in
UX, which include learnability and
visceral and behavioral emotional
responses to the products and
services we use.”
David Malouf
Professor of interaction design
Savannah College of Art & Design
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

17. http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

19. 5
User experience design is NOT
Just about the user.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

20. “We just can’t always do what is
best for the users. ﬔere are a set
of business objectives that are
needing to be met—and we’re
designing to that, as well.”
Russ Unger
Director of Experience Planning, DraFCB
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

21. http://www.semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/images/threecirclesbig.jpg
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

22. http://idea-sandbox.com/blog_images/strategic_sweet_spot.png
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

23. 6
User experience design is NOT
Expensive.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

24. “Sometimes a fully-fledged, formal UCD
process may not be the best thing to try first
time. It’s extremely important–and totally
possible no matter where you’re working or
when you arrive on a project–to make small
improvements to both the project and the
product by introducing some user
experience design techniques.”
Steve Baty
Principal and UX strategist, Meld Consulting
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

25. Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

26. “People cling to things like personas,
user research, drawing comics, etc. In
reality the best designers have a
toolbox of options, picking and choosing
methods for each project what makes
sense for that particular project.”
Dan Saffer
Founder and principal, Kicker Studio
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

27. 7
User experience design is NOT
Easy.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

29. Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

30. Cutting corners
All assumption, no validation
One-size-fits-all solutions
Feature creep
Design during development
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

31. 8
User experience design is NOT
ﬔe role of one person
or department.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

32. “User experience isn’t just the responsibility
of a department or a person. ﬔat
compartmentalist view of UX is evidence
that it is not part of the organizational
culture and hints to teams not having a
common goal or vision for the experience
they should deliver collectively.”
Livia Labate
Principal, UX, Comcast Interactive Media
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

33. Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

34. http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool/
journey-to-the-center-of-design

35. 9
User experience design is NOT
A single discipline.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

36. “User experience may not even be a
community just yet. At best, it’s a common
awareness, a thread that ties together people
from different disciplines who care about good
design, and who realize that today’s
increasingly complex design challenges
require the synthesis of different varieties of
design expertise.”
Lou Rosenfeld
UX book publisher at Rosenfeld Media
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

37. Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

38. http://www.montparnas.com/

39. 10
User experience design is NOT
A choice.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

40. “ﬔe biggest misconception is
that companies have a choice to
invest in their user’s experience.
To survive, they don’t.”
Joshua Porter
Principal at Bokardo Design
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

41. Experiences happen,
whether or not you plan them.
When not intentionally designed,
there’s a much higher likelihood
of the experience being poor.
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

42. User experience design is
NOT...
1. User interface design It is the system
2. A step in the process It is the process
3. Just about technology It is about behavior
4. Just about usability It is about value
5. Just about the user It is about context
6. Expensive It is flexible
7. Easy It is a balancing act
8. ﬔe role of one person or dept It is a culture
9. A single discipline It is a collaboration
10. A choice It is a means of survival
Whitney Hess @whitneyhess

43. ﬔank you.
Whitney Hess
whitney@whitneyhess.com
@whitneyhess
http://whitneyhess.com