The Top 10 Enemies of UX are revealed as well as how "The Best" firms combat them.

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Enemies of UX
Lee Duddell
Camp Digital Manchester
27 March 2014

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Enemies of UX & how to defeat them
• 2 slides to keep Marketing happy
• 3 reasons why me?
• 1 competition
• Top 10 Enemies Chart
• 10 minute scoring workshop
• 5 things to do. Next week.

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UX Research platform

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You

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Why me?
• 20+ years digital UX
• Founder of WhatUsersDo
• Somebody else dropped out LinkedIn

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Competition*
• Join User Experience Insights on LinkedIn
• Comment or start a discussion
• Entered into a £2k Managed Service draw
*If you are watching on iPlayer competition will be closed.

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UX Enemies
• Countdown chart based on severity
• From clients, research & experts
– Case Studies
– Anecdotal evidence
– What the best do
• Score yourself/your neighbour

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#10 Analytics & Data = UX insight
• Only What and How Many not Why
• At best indicate where there is a problem
– not Why
• You only have Analytics for your site
– Most users don’t convert on your site
• The Best gather UX insight to understand Why

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#9 Best practice & 3rd party research
• What exactly is best practice?
– Especially in mobile?
• Relying on 3rd party research does not answer
Why?
• X% of users say they would “do this or not do
that”

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Why?
• Because it’s hard to checkout
• Because they think they are missing something
67%
of users start on
a SmartPhone
& finish on a
computer (Google
Research)

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Fashion Brand Case Study

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#8 Website refresh will fix it
• 20% of incoming sales calls are from failed re-
designs
• Bad: we re-designed because we thought we
needed to
• Worse: because we re-platformed
• The Best make smaller changes based on
evidence

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#7 Occasional Usability Labs
• Not often enough
• Too remote (yes, that’s right)
• Not socialised
• Hammer to crack a nut

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Example video on the next slide shows
how remote UX can reveal issues.
Without the need for a Lab.

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#6 UX Imposters
• MVT ≠ UX
• Session recording ≠ UX
• Hypothesis based on hunches
• Incremental improvements
• The Best use UX insight to make these tools
work harder

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#5 Your Design Agency
• An enemy of UX
• Yes, they are
• The Best test their Agency deliverables with
users
• Checklist later on in this deck

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Video on the next slide shows
what happens if you let your
designers over-design!

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#4 Focus Groups/Surveys
• Not fit for UX purpose

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#3 Aspirational design
• Your competitors have not got it right
• The Best see competitors through users’ eyes
– Observing users starting at Google
– Or user benchmarking

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#2 Process will fix it
• Agile does not = good UX
• Culture is more important
• The Best are creating Satellite teams

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#1 Guessing
• Not finding out Why?
• Hunches, instinct and opinion
• HiPPOs
– Worse HiPPPOs! (the extra “P” means Partner i.e.
“High Paid Person’s Partner’s Opinion”
62% base design decisions on hunches
and guesswork

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UX Enemies Chart
#1 Guessing
#2 Process is a panacea that will fix it
#3 Aspirational Design
#4 Focus Groups & Surveys
#5 Your Design Agency
#6 Thinking it’s done with Imposters (e.g. MVT)
#7 Occasional Usability Labs
#8 Website re-fresh or re-design
#9 Relying on best practice & 3rd party research
#10 Relying on analytics & data

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New Chart entrants discussed during
the workshop
• It’s qualitative, how can it be so good?
• That’s all fine, but the CEO over-ruled the
insight!

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Enemies are caused by wrong inputs
Inputs you have: Inputs you need:
• Data
• Opinion
• Hunches
• HiPPOs
• Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Best practice
• Insight from User
Observation
• Backed up by Data

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5 things you can do next week
You can’t change culture, but you can chip away
at it
… otherwise you may become a UX Martyr!

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1 Read
• Why most UX is shite by Leisa Reichelt
• This CRE article with a long title:
We have designed pages for more top-500
websites than any other company. Here’s why
they are winning.

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2 Introduce “Why?” into meetings
• What if we knew Why?
• Rather than guess, shouldn’t we find out
Why?
• *Boss level+ It’s worth validating with
customers to see how right you are!

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3 User Exposure
• Guerrilla testing
• WhatUsersDo
• “Just try and order something or get your
husband to!”
• Closest thing UX has to Silver Bullet

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4 Use Case Studies
• From this presentation
• We have many – just ask or tweet us
• Mobile Moves On Event & Report

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Conversions Up 9.5%
By observing users
Ripped up their dev plan
We deliver incredible results
Contact Us:
WhatUsersDo, United House, London, N7 9DP
P. +44 (0)207 036 1950, nick.imrie@WhatUsersDo.com
AO.com Case Study

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5 Choosing “UX” Designers
• Emphasis on User Insight
– Professional in-house User Researchers
– How do you deliver a great UX?
– Plan that includes UX Testing & users

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5 things to do next week
1 Read
2 Start asking Why?
3 User Exposure
4 Case Studies
5 Filter UX Designers

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Next…
• Tweet a link to this deck
– Follow @whatusersdo
• Fri 4th April announce the competition winner
on Twitter
– LinkedIn Group

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Thank you
Q & A