The USER & The Design Process

The USER & The Design Process Jane Pirone

User Friendly User Centered Design UX (User Experience) User Testing Usability UI (User Interface) why should we care so much about the USER? oh and what about participatory design, HCI, co-design, and agile dev etc? 2

The Rise of The USER 1983 - The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Edward Tufte 1988 - The Psychology of Everyday Things (now the Design of Everyday Things ) - Donald Norman 1990 - The Art of Human - Computer Interface Design & Computers As Theater - Brenda Laurel 1990 - Computers As Theater - Brenda Laurel 1991 - Programming as if People Mattered - Nathaniel Borenstein 1993 - Usability Engineering - Jakob Nielsen 1995 - About Face: The Essentials of User Interface Design (now About Face 3) - Alan Cooper 1996 - Bringing Design to Software - Terry Winograd 2005 - Ambient Findability - Peter Morville 2006 - Designing Interactions - Bill Moggridge 3

typical forces, factors & constraints influencing design decision-making administrative & bureaucratic needs technology technical budget costs site location laws, codes & regulations time schedule revenues profit clients political factors aesthetics style users stakeholders brand conventions social environmental sustainability maintainability manufacturability Jane Pirone

putting the user at the center; prioritize user experience over everything else by always testing against and clarifying: the goals, objectives, motivations and intentions of the project the users (primary, secondary) through personas understand the needs and experience through use-case scenarios the context (when, how, why, where the users are using it) how you will receive feedback and participation how you will measure the success of the user experience it s all in the process (and the team)... which is a consulting firm s secret sauce Jane Pirone

Standard Commercial Design Process Integrated Experience Design 01 Discovery 02 Design 03 Deliver Discovery & Research Iterative Design Release - Alpha, Beta, v1, v2, etc Interdisciplinary & Collaborative Teams Facilitated Design Workshops Product, Service and Brand Strategy Trends & Market Research Ethnographic Studies Concept Ideation & Visualization UI/UX Design Visual Design Prototyping User Testing Specifications & Requirements Software Development Quality Assurance Documentation & Guidelines Evaluation Maintenance 6

CaseStudy: Not For Tourists Jane Pirone

SOME thoughts on USER TESTING user testing has to be an integral part throughout a user-centered design process. one needs to strategically choose the most appropriate methods and tactics given the circumstances and situation of the project -- there is no one way -- time/cost vs benefit -- do it early and often you have to have a deep understanding of the project - its purpose, goals, users, stakeholders, etc to conduct useful user testing - meaning you ve got to understand at each stage what you re testing, what the context is, and what the fundamental goals and purpose of the project is and who its for. at many points in the early development it provides an opportunity to challenge assumptions, reveal missed opportunities or implicit knowledge, clarify direction, resolve discord (especially in large team collaborations), provide insight for informed decision making. keep your mind open; check your ego at the door (don t be defensive or attached) one should design as a system that yields constant & continuos feedback from the user - both qualitative and quantitative. understand the measurement criteria against the articulated goals and criteria of the enterprise generally the best results come from observing behavior -- *want to see what they do, not hear them say what they do* 2011 10

SOME user testing METHODS DIRECT OBSERVATION watch people use your prototype (presence of observers can bias) observe their behavior and reactions (confusion, frustration, etc - what they do is more revealing than what they say ) try to simulate context of use make sure there is an outcome or goal of use Can add verbal interaction -- effective for revealing details of behavior - why did you do that? Q&A/Interviews structured query of experience can provide answers to specific and standardized questions importance of crafting questions and understanding limits, biases and lack of objectivity - individual Q&A - group Q&A SURVEYS & QUESTIONAIRES - can quantify feedback/opinions 2011 11

SOME user testing METHODS Design Experiments Hypothesis testing - compare two or more conditions - collect data - very hypothesis Predict behavior - define set of variables - investigate resulting relationships Well designed tests can yield empirical and objective data that quantifies behavior around a testable hypothesis eyetracking face recording Heuristic Evaluations 2011 12

Research Questions, User Profiles, Scenarios Research Questions critical to define specifics of the project require s attention, time and understanding helps prevents flailing as you become more knowledgeable from the process, you can refine Multiple Research Methods for engaging in user research Ethnographic - Observation Discovery Phase ITERATIVE...GIANT ongoing FEEDBACK LOOP. 2011 13

Tactics & Methods for designing user experiences There are hundreds... IDEO... Card Sorting youtu.be/-89cj71-vfg Tools for Rapid Prototyping, Wireframing, Flows, etc Visual fidelity (sketched styled) Functional fidelity (static interactive) Content fidelity (lorem ipsum real content) OmniGraffle Balsamiq -- http://balsamiq.com/ 2011 14

CaseStudy: Datamyne Jane Pirone