DIY UX: Give Your Users an Upgrade (Without Calling In a Pro)
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DIY UX Give Your Users an Upgrade (Without Calling In a Pro) Whitney Hess [email protected] @whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com
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Have you fallen in love with your solution and forgotten the original problem? Are you certain that your product actually makes people’s lives better? Not every company can hire someone like me to help you listen to your users, so you’re gonna have to learn how to do some of this stuff yourself. I’ll show you techniques to find out who your users are, what they really need and how to go about giving it to them in an easy to use and pleasurable way. And it doesn’t have to bankrupt you or kill your release date.
Transcript of DIY UX: Give Your Users an Upgrade (Without Calling In a Pro)
DIY UXGive Your Usersan Upgrade(Without Calling In a Pro)
Whitney Hess [email protected]
@whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com
Hi, I’m Whitney Hess
User Experience DesignerConsultantNew Yorker
@whitneyhess
մեisIsIndexed.com
You are a
user experience designer
Shawn Liu & Danny WenFoundersIridescoNew York, NY
http://getharvest.com
Design research
Web analytics
Usability testingExperimentation
& iteration
Designresearch
What do our users actually need?
Footer
Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in Japanese
Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in Japanese
http://iridesco.wufoo.com/forms/harvest-survey/
“We don’t just want to patch; we want to address the core
problem.”– Iridesco
“Customers love to tell you their workflow.”
– Iridesco
Make it easy for customers to reach you
Log their requests & use them to prioritize new features
Dig deeper to discover the underlying problems
Keep in touch
Design Research
Observing the User Experience
Mike Kuniavsky
For more on design research...
Web analytics
What are our users actually doing?
“We don’t believe in data-driven design,
but data doesn’t lie .”*
* Sometimes it does
– Iridesco
One month of visits
Mon Mon Mon Mon
Highest usage at beginning of week
Dropoffs on weekends
Somewhat lower usage mid-month
Google Website Optimizer
Same exact page with three different Free Trial buttons
Found green and blue buttons performed much better than muted gray button
10% improvement in trial acquisition over two buttons (Learn More and Free Trial)
Matthew MarcoVisual DesignerHouse of RepresentativesWashington, D.C.
Chief Administrative Officer -> House Information Resources ->
CAO Advanced Business Solutions -> Web Solutions Branch
House.gov
97 most frequent queries on House.gov and top 10 results of each
97 most frequent queries on House.gov and top 10 results of each
Queries are, in fact, case-sensitive. “Nancy Pelosi” and “nancy pelosi” produce different quantities of results
մեe Pell Grant Underfunding PDF by the Oversight Committee appears in the top-ten results of most state searches; more relevant than any member-generated page in Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas
մեere is no apparent weight given to the title of a document. Untitled documents are not subdued in the results
http://www.matthewtmarco.com/studies/2007/pathetic-to-absurd-to-disheartening-in-97-queries/
Sunday, September 28, 20081347 bailout
419 bailout bill
282 bail out
208 bailout plan
184 financial services
132 Search Other Sites
130 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
103 bail out bill
95 financial bailout
80 Bailout
78 tarp
68 email
68 700 billion
66 rescue plan
66 rescue bill
66 old AND eye AND 6
64 financial
62 rescue
62 financial markets bill
58 contact
“Stats let me refute the client’s notion of how
their constituents were behaving.”
– Matthew Marco, House.gov
Understand your traffic cycles
Use analytics tools to uncover usage patterns
Test design variations
Explore your search logs to see what people are looking for
Web Analytics
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
Avinash Kaushik
For more on web analytics...
Usability testing
How well does our stuff actually work?
NOT Shawn & wife
Usability Testing Light
Shows a build, a prototype, a comp, a sketch, whatever
Doesn’t tell participant what she’s supposed to be doing
Asks “What are your general feelings about this?” and then lets participant talk
“‘It looks good’is the worst feedback
we can get.”
– Iridesco
“You need to have humility and listen.
Users aren’t always right, but you need to
hear them.”– Iridesco
Friends and family
Folks in your office who don’t work on the project: receptionist, HR, sales
Twitter followers
Starbucks
Craigslist
Where to Find Participants
Tools to Capture Feedback
#1 Most Common Question:
What about testing online?
Online Testing Tools
Online Testing Tools
Conceptual
For A Long Time
Self-Moderated
Moderated
Web Analytics
Automated Static
Automated Live
Thursday, July 1, 2010
http://remoteusability.com
Don’t see the participants’ expressions and body language
Can’t ask probing, follow-up questions
A lot harder to internalize the findings
It’s cowardly – you need to feel the embarrassment of a sucky design
Drawbacks of Online Tools
Test your designs early and oen
Informal tests are just as valuable
Use people in your environment who aren’t involved in the project
Choose participants of different backgrounds & capabilities
Do it yourself & acknowledge your poor design choices
Usability Testing
Handbook of Usability Testing
Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell
For more on usability testing...
Remote Research
Nate Bolt andTony Tulathimutte
For more on remote usability testing...
Experimentation
& iterationHow are we always getting better?
SketchPhotoshopTestStatic HTML prototypeTest againWorking prototypeTest againTweakLaunch quietlyGet feedbackTweak
Roz DuffyWeb DeveloperComcast Interactive MediaPhiladelphia, PA
Refresh Philly - June 2009
“We aren’t always working on the most
interesting stuff, but we always want to work
smarter.”– Roz Duffy, Comcast Interactive Media
An amazing thing happened because of
this presentation
A relationship formed
An Experiment:Engineering Lab Week
Never stop improving your product
Make your working environment a creative one
Encourage everyone on the team to solve problems together
Soak up inspiration from everywhere
Experimentation & Iteration
Sketching User Experiences
Bill Buxton
For more on experimentation and iteration...
Design research
Web analytics
Usability testingExperimentation
& iteration
IMPORTANT STUFFAlways be listening
Ask questions to get to underlying problems
Use data and anecdotes to inform the design
Test your designs and have the humility to
admit you’re wrong
Complete the feedback loop
Never stop trying to make things better
Make your users happyand they will thank you
մեank you!Whitney Hess
[email protected] @whitneyhess
http://whitneyhess.com
Special thanks to:Danny Wen and Shawn Liu of Iridesco, Matthew Marco, and Roz Duffy
