-Or-
Congratulations, you're a designer now!
My plan...
Half teaching, half activities
Practice drawing and discussing UX
Alternate: practice interviews and data synthesis
Thoughts?
So what the bloody hell even is UX, anyway!?
Two design disciplines
UX = User Experience
UI = User Interface
Important
UX != UI
Other terms you might hear
- Interaction / Interactive Designer
- CX = Customer Experience
- Service Design
- Human-Centered Design
- Design Thinking
- Others?
A dirty secret...
UX (user experience) as a discipline is messy, imperfect, filled with overlapping methodologies. It's an umbrella term that's so broad it can feel meaningless. It sometimes lacks internal consistency. It's a work in progress. It's immature and it needs to get better.
But...
This isn't an exuse to dismiss UX
All of the javascript
Why should I care about UX?
Your ability to practice introspection and empathy and then use your learning in each to develop the other, in other words, your ability to practice inpathy, shifts your mindset around how you interact with others.
-Aimee Gonzalez-Cameron
UX has 2 major domains
UX Research
UX Design
1. UX Research
Qualitative vs Quantitative data
Learn...
About the user
Can they use the thing?
Do they want to use the thing?
Learn about the user
User interviews
Card sorting
Diary studies
Co-design workshops
Ethnographic studies
Quantitative surveys
Can they use the thing?
Usability testing
(Remote, in-person, in a lab)
Guerilla testing
A/B Testing
Eye tracking
Do they want to use the thing?
Product-market fit
Gateway test
A/B Testing
Activity time!
UX Chinese Whispers
UX Chinese Whispers
Break up into 3-4 groups and make a circle
We'll give you a user problem
First person: The problem is xxx
Second person: The solution is yyy
Third person: The problem is zzz
And so on...
"meta-solutions"
The space of possible solutions to any given user problem is infinite
More resources
- Cognitive Bias Codex http://ritholtz.com/2016/09/cognitive-bias-codex/
- Julia Claviens: http://www.mmweekly.com/
So we have data, now what?
Synthesis
Affinity mapping
Sharing themes and insights
Quantitative metrics
UX artefacts to communicate learnings
UX Artefacts
Affinity Mapping
User Personas
Customer Journey Mapping
Empathy Mapping
Diary Study
Further reading
2. UX Design
UX Design considers
Cognitive load (how many nodes?)
Mental map (how to get around)
User empathy (emotions and needs)
Business needs (how can we succeed?)
UX Design decides
Which components go on the screen
Accessibility (supporting users of all kinds)
How to name & label elements on the screen
Visual hierarchy and relationships
User flows (multi-step processes)
UX Design produces
Accessibility audits
Site map
User-centered labels
User Stories
User Flows
Moodboards & Storyboards
Wireframes
Prototypes
Moodboards
Storyboards
Wireframes
Activity time!
Let's practice do some drawing warm-ups
Activity time!
How to draw toast
Two kinds of designers
Why can it be so hard to talk to designers about design?
Let's apply some user empathy
- feedback withough context
- back seat designing
- git-blame or competetive work cultures
- focus on aesthetics or trends over strategy
If developers got feedback like designers...
That's an interesting name for your class...
Hey - FYI I think I saw some similar code at company XX the other day. You might want to fix that...
I'm not a programmer, but, that function looks awfully complex... Shouldn't it be simpler!?
So how do we do it better?
Focus on...
Design strategy
Asking for context
For example
I had some responses to your design, but I'm not sure I have all the most recent context. Could you give me a quick update before I offer any feedback?
For example
I'm concerned this design will be hard to use for our target audience because the added complexity increases cognitive load...
For example
Can we chat about hierarchy of information on this view? I think the visual prominence given to XX element is unnecessary given our strategy of getting users to focus on YY.
Good words are good...
Words plus images are better
Words are poor abstractions for interfaces
Pop up
Activity time!
Let's practice some UX design
You're working for a startup called Nuzzl. Nuzzl is a home automation smartphone app that coordinates your smart pet devices.
Your users have a problem: They don't know when to top up the food and water in their Nuzzl-connected iOT food-dispensers for their pets. An additional problem is that sometimes the pets dirty the water in the water bowls and they need to be manually rinsed. Let's brainstorm some ways to help users.
Think about user context. When can they top up the food? Where will they be? What sorts of reminders might be useful?
5 minutes for note-taking
10 minutes for rough solution sketches
8 minutes for Crazy-8s
10 minutes to refine a solution idea
Aesthetic preference
-vs-
Design strategy
We try not to get them mixed up
Activity time!
Let's practice design critique!
Given this door handle...
Which is the more strategic design feedback?
A) Users may not see this on a black wall
B) It just doesn't 'pop' enough
Given this checkout flow...
Which is the more strategic design feedback?
A) I don't like the use of turquoise in this page.
B) The color use on buttons confuses hierarchy. Primary CTA should be stronger than Secondary.
Let's go back to our sketches!
Practice strategic design critique
Reflection time
Take a few minutes to jot down what you've learned, what you already knew, what you might want to explore further.
Further reading
User Experience Design Process
Don't Make Me Think, Revisited
Thanks!!
Get the slides
http://summerscope.github.io/slides/ux-for-developers/
Find me
@summerscope