UX: Avoiding Appsuckdom 4/14/12

Why am I doing this?

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UX is in the middle of a large land grab. Result is a million & one definitions. However, the fundaments remain the same. Click to edit Master subtitle style

4/14/12 http://www.kickerstudio.com/blog/2008/12/the-disciplines-of-user-experience/

Where are we going?

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Destination

UX - WTF? Usability?

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Nuns on stools

Usability and UX

Stool works (usable) Raises a smile (UX)

Goal of UX needs to be known (think of game difficulty level)

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Nunsexplain this image on stools Ill now

Usability and UX

Stool works (usable) Raises a smile (UX)

Goal of UX needs to be known (think of game difficulty level)

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Stools

Usability you can sit without falling off UX raises a smile , gain attention UX Goals Usability Goals
Both sets of goals can be created, tracked and tested just like any system feature.
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AIM IG CL B NING WAR

UX as a differentiator

Anyone can write software that does the job (sort of!) Apps are commoditised UX is the major differentiator UX is experienced by everyone A good UX process can reduce costs, making you even more competitive
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UX

Will suck if not cared for properly. 90% of everything is crud. (Sturgeons Law) 4/14/12

UX Design

We MUST understand:

Designing for Journey is very different to designing for Destination

Users Tasks Goals

The journey Doing vs. Task oriented

vs. vs.

The Destination Completing Goal oriented

Actions

an individual operation or step that needs to be undertaken as part of the task

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Getting there

Concept Storyboarding Prototyping Testing Iterating Fixing #Winning Releasing ro

s ce

d s

m ra ag i

a s

ty n le p

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Sensitivities

Process is not the only answer:

it can make things more efficient e.g. creating UIs within a process may take less time, but there is no guarantee of result

You must appreciate what UX is about UX is not down to one person or one 4/14/12 department

Not The best journeys are random Quite

Nic e C lean C onc ept

This is a constructivist model. For an ecologist model, remove past experience from the purple box. 4/14/12

ha w is eption & Past Experienc e isPercst Th ain ag

Concepts Cog models Delivery Elements Platform

r e tw
*

up e

Person Person

WTF ?
T arget

Modes of Transport

Devices & Machines Print People

w ie vs. native) v Software (incl. Web st u UI m e ic e W rv Anything that plays a part in the concept se

a X

a s

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Support Process

Service Design

OMG! Not another f*ing design discipline View the bigger picture Useful tools :

http:// se servicedesigntools.org/taxonomy/term/13 he

t se s! U l oo t

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Cabin partners

Personas vs. Profiles

Personas are research based Profiles are guesses but still very useful

In General:

People are magpies Memory trumps experience

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Niceties

Skeuomorphism

Affordance

AD B

AD B

Affordances are holistic. What we perceive when we look at objects are their affordances, not their dimensions and properties. 4/14/12 - Excerpt from Gibson's Theory of Affordances

Metaphors please

Beware of:

ambiguity - People must get the metaphor principle must do what the metaphor says

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Fluency

Perceptual fluency

ook note t Iv e & c o 2006 m Paper Fro nsitions a mated tr i forget an Dont
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Mere Exposure

Familiarity does not breed contempt Not just for slime balls

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Patterns

Clear argument for patterns But

Must understand underlying principles

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Design Patterns

Custom does not have to mean start from scratch each time Design patterns allow creation of reusable code snippets & libraries too Grow your own:

Mean a higher initial overhead (but not much more than a normal custom development)

Savings found in 2nd, 3rd Nth 4/14/12 projects

Mobile Design Patterns

Example types:

Activity Feeds Check-in Screens Comment Detail Edu Walk Throughs Empty Data Sets Lists Notifications

Settings 4/14/12

UX & Graphics

Defined by overall device experience

Users have an expectation of app behaviour on their device. Apples transitions expected in all apps We cannot make anything behave like a 5 year old Nokia unless it is a 5 year old Nokia

Graphics at a minimum should be 4/14/12 congruent with device standard

Prototypes & Stencils

iPhone & iPad clickable prototype:

http://unitid.nl/2010/08/touch-application-prototypes-ta more-2460

Many free wireframes available:

http:// www.2expertsdesign.com/resources/40-free-web-and-m

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Getting Mobile

Not always on the move Google says 3 mobile user mind-sets:

Im local Im bored Im micro tasking

I NEED IT RIGHT NOW!!!

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There is one more

Featuritus

Kathy Sierra

How many features does your app 4/14/12 have?

Taking your journey

Eat your own soup. It helps you avoid surprises. Customer support is your sales channel and is a key part of the experience
our friend How to improve?Test frequently sting is y e sability t U
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Costs

Its not about costor is it?

Before coding Coding Test Post-ship Ratio 1:6.5:15:60

Expected Cost to fix (Pressman, 2000)

1 unit

6.5 units 15 units

60-100 units

t cheaply The benefitsou cacleari are n do And y

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Usability testing

Good This means anyone can do simpleit, to a news the existing you can do tests. More point. critical and in-depth testing should be done by an expert. A simple smalltheres notakes little time: This means that test excuse for not doing

Day 1:Plan the study and write the test tasks. Day 2:Test 5 users for about 1 hour each (cleaning up between sessions).

usability tests.

Day 3:Analyse the findings and write up the top recommended design 4/14/12

Interlude

User Centred Design vs. User led design

Never ask why?

IA & Conceptual overlap What people say & what they do is different

Plus memory is reconstructive and conflationary plus attribution issues

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Mobile testing

Test base concepts on anything:

Paper prototypes PCs

Wizard of Oz serve the g b LWAYS o can, A ns walkin I yo target op the les Refinef onu itll stinterfaceso d oo sessions thenext r o (see Lab or field testut slide)

E.g. Log data of gesture input vs. button use (on Android)

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Keep some logging on once live

Mobile testing methods

Early target device test:

Static camera on desk or Mobile sled Stand off video Data logging on phone

Later test

In both stages record the body language & facial expressions

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For a comprehensive and easy guide,

Metrics

A plethora of possible metrics

Horses for courses Consider all stages:

Some guidance:

awareness/on-boarding, install, usage, postuse

Think of:

Effectiveness & number of features used Time taken, errors/corrections made, learnability, help requests, facial

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Usability Results team quotes

Before:

Whats the point? What do we do with the results?

After

OMG!!! Lets fix this first, then this!!!

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Souvenirs

Experience vs. memory

Memory is reconstructive Primacy vs. recency (serial position effect)

Contrary to D. Normans preaching on memory above experience:

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People dont really want to remember filling out a form

Adding UX?

DIY:

plenty of docs & tools. Walk before you run Dont expect magic overnight Get some guidance

Hiring - always get someone who isnt conflated 4/14/12

10 commandments
Make a check list of these and apply common sense to context: Visibility of system status The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time. (sometimes bread crumbs are used) Match between system and the real world The system should speak the users' language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order. User control and freedom Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo. Consistency and standards Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions. Error prevention Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action. Recognition rather than recall Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate. Flexibility and efficiency of use Accelerators -- unseen by the novice user -- may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions. Aesthetic and minimalist design Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

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8 Golden rules of UX design

Strive for consistency

consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar situations identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus, and help screens consistent color, layout, capitalization, fonts, and so on should be employed throughout.

Enable frequent users to use shortcuts

to increase the pace of interaction use abbreviations, special keys, hidden commands, and macros

Offer informative feedback

for every user action, the system should respond in some way (in web design, this can be accomplished by DHTML - for example, a button will make a clicking sound or change color when clicked to show the user something has happened)

Design dialogs to yield closure

Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and end. The informative feedback at the completion of a group of actions shows the user their activity has completed successfully

Offer error prevention and simple error handling

design the form so that users cannot make a serious error; for example, prefer menu selection to form fill-in and do not allow alphabetic characters in numeric entry fields if users make an error, instructions should be written to detect the error and offer simple, constructive, and specific instructions for recovery segment long forms and send sections separately so that the user is not penalized by having to fill the form in again - but make sure you inform the user that multiple sections are coming up

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Permit easy reversal of actions

A point for developers

How will the API behave with a slow connection?

think of the HTTP requests and how they can be used to only retrieve new/different information Caching Static vs. dynamic information

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Thanks for Reading!

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