UX or User Experience is a popular topic in the industry today. My session will provide a brief overview of what UX is and why it has become such a critical part of today’s workflow. We’ll discuss how UX methodologies can be implemented with a minimal amount of effort to boost the overall value and ROI of any project. Whether you are a designer or developer, building your own product or building products for clients, this session will include rich information to aid you in bootstrapping your own UX efforts and thought-process.

1. Twitter: @steveo_adams
User Experience
The Secret Sauce of Extraordinary Projects

2. Who is this guy?
 Steve Adams
 Senior Web Developer @ Bit-Wizards
 What I do:
 Front-end design
 Front-end development
 UX
 Manage teams and projects

3. My UX Story
 Over the course of my career, I’ve always been frustrated with the subjectivity of the
design process
 My decisions were largely based on my own preference and intuition, and my projects
suffered because of it
 Then, I discovered the principles of UX

4. Agenda
 Definition
 History
 Examples of Good and Bad UX
 Putting it All Together
 Usability Testing

5. What is UX (User Experience)?
 Understanding UX is challenging:
 The term User Experience is interchangeable between both a process for achieving a good user
experience and the actual user’s experience itself

User Experience (UX) - Also - User Experience Design (UXD)

UX Methods (Research, Interviews, Wireframes, Prototypes, Usability Testing)
 There isn’t a good shared vocabulary in the field
 No single agreed upon definition of UX
 Nielson Norman Group - “User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's
interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/

6. UX Team of One – Leah Buley

9. 1.
2.
3.
4.
No dipping
Hard to open and use
The packets were too small, you had to eat 20 of them
You had to have something to squeeze the ketchup
on if you wanted to use it…messy!
“When the point of contact between the product and
the people becomes a point of friction, then the designer
has failed.“

10. • Heinz’s new ketchup packet considers
the user’s overall experience as well as
the product.
• The new packets provide a good
experience and address the pain-points
of the previous design
• How did they get this so right? – Good UX
“On the other hand if people are made
safer, more comfortable, more eager to
purchase, more efficient --- or just plain
happier --- by contact with the
product, then the designer has
succeeded.“

12. What’s wrong with this
picture?
The reservation app failed at three
main components of the UX
honeycomb
1.
Usable (Usability) – It wasn’t easy
to use, too many clicks
2.
Useful (User needs) – It wasn’t
useful, it didn’t account for
people waiting in the bar
3.
Valuable (Business requirements) –
It wasn’t valuable. They paid a
custom software price tag for a
whiteboard.

13. How do we do it right?
 We need a framework for success – The UX process
 The UX Process
 Discovery – Research to obtain an understanding of the business and user needs
 Strategy – Establish a shared vision for an ideal user experience that meets these needs
 Design – Realize the strategy and ensure that it truly accomplishes the goals…iterate if necessary
 How does the UX process help?
 Helps flush out legitimate business and user needs that would otherwise been overlooked
 Builds credibility and consensus with decision makers
 Provides real data to drive design decisions
 Ultimately produces a more polished and valuable final product

14. UX Process & Methods
Discovery
•Questionnaires
•Surveys
•Stakeholder Interviews
•Comparative Analysis
Strategy
•Design Brief
•Personas
•Card Sorting
•User Story Maps
Design
•Sketching
•Wireframes
•Prototypes
•Usability Testing

15. Demonstration: UX Process
 Nordstrom Innovation Lab: Sunglass iPad App Case Study - http://youtu.be/szr0ezLyQHY

16. Discussion
 Did you notice the UX process throughout the video?
 What kinds of methods were used?
 Interviews
 Paper prototyping
 Card sorting
 User story maps
 Usability testing
 Usability Testing was the key!

17. What is Usability Testing?
Usability Testing: Observing real users performing critical tasks with the goal of identifying
pain-points and opportunities for improvement.

18. Why test for usability?
 Designing and developing for yourself is stupid – you are not every end-user
 Usability testing doesn’t have to be time consuming or costly – Guerilla Usability Testing
 You only need 5 people - http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5users/

19. How to go Guerilla
1. Find Real Users
Identify real users and target them for
optimal feedback
2. Where
Context matters, think back to that waiter
and his fast paced-environment
3. Create a Testing Plan
Identify key scenarios, tasks, and user
flows
4. Record session
Observe, talk out loud, interview
5. Analyze results and iterate

20. In Summary
1. Creating a good user experience requires empathizing with those users…UX helps with this
2. Don’t design based on intuition and assumptions; use UX to make data-driven design decisions
3. Get your project functional as fast as possible and put it in front of real users
4. Gather feedback and improve and iterate

21. Thanks!
 Twitter:
@steveo_adams
 Email:
steve@bit-wizards.com
 Web:
BitWizards.com