Hi, Failcon people.

Emphasis on User Experience
Lo-fi Methods, Tools, Tips & Tricks
Product & Service Design
Based in San Francisco
A bit about me
Leah Buley

Good Design Faster is an immersive workshop
that takes you from back-of-the-napkin sketching
to interactive prototyping in two short days.
Learn an agile, fast-paced approach that yields
surprisingly good results in surprisingly little time.
Transform the way you tackle designing for fluid
interactions, service design, and multi-channel
experiences.

My own story of failure

My own story of failure

Leah Buley,

Leah Buley,

An approach that...

1. Sketch and explore ideas

2. Bring lots of ideas together

3. Share and iterate with the team

Bring lots of
ideas together
Our Process
PEOPLE!
Sketch and
explore ideas
Share & iterate
with the team

Bring lots of
ideas together
Our Process
PEOPLE!
Sketch and
explore ideas
Share & iterate
with the team

Rules of thumb for design sketching
Use markers and pens, not pencils
• our goal is fast rather than perfect
If you mess up, keep going
If you really mess up, grab a new page
Yellow marker
Gray marker
Sharpie markers

Sketching tools
Yellow marker
Fat
Regular
Small
Gray marker
Sharpie markers
Start here

Sketching tools
Yellow marker
Fat
Regular
Small
Gray marker
Sharpie markers
Start here
More attention

Sketching tools
Yellow marker
Fat
Regular
Small
Gray marker
Sharpie markers
Start here
More attention
Look at me!

Sketching tools
Yellow marker
Fat
Regular
Small
Gray marker
Sharpie markers
Start here
More attention
Depth:
Pop forward
Push back
Look at me!

ACTIVITY ONE:Cheat #3: line weight
Courtesy of Brandon Schauer

ACTIVITY ONE:Cheat #1: highlighting
Build-a-Bike
Courtesy of Rachel Glaves

ACTIVITY ONE:Cheat #2: shading / warm gray
Courtesy of Rachel Glaves

Helpful sketching patterns
Header
Tab
User
Picture
Photo
Video
Filler text
Pop-up
Module
Arrows
Larger ones can
communicate weight,
or act as labels
Side-scrolling Module
Drop Shadows
Communicate depth and
bring attention to
callouts or popup boxes
Calendar
Page curl
Mouse Cursor
Quietly indicates a
rollover state
Callouts
Can show alerts,
help, guidance or
sketch annotations

What to sketch when

Exploratory sketches
Wildly varied
Meaningful only to you
Low fidelity
Unsubtle

Refinement sketches
More realistic
Interpretable by others
Higher fidelity
Within a framework

ACTIVITY ONE:
1. Grab a sketching template
2. Fill in the boxes with 6 DIFFERENT ideas for the
same problem—a mobile app for Failcon.
3. If you get stuck, find your favorite sketch, and
then think of its OPPOSITE.
4. If you get stuck again, sketch something that
feels SOCIAL, or PERSONAL, or INFORMATIVE,
or SURPRISING.
INSTRUCTIONS
Exploratory Sketching | An Experiment
in 10 minutes

Bring lots of
ideas together
Our Process
PEOPLE!
Sketch and
explore ideas
Share & iterate
with the team

Enter Sketchboards

How to make a sketchboard

In this case, size matters

The structure can change
(use stickies to keep it flexible)

Include anything that drives your thinking

A healthy sketchboard has depth and breadth

Bring lots of
ideas together
Our Process
PEOPLE!
Sketch and
explore ideas
Share & iterate
with the team

How?

How?

The goal

Tips for getting good feedback

ACTIVITY ONE:
1. Working quickly, add a stickie note to the
sketchboard for every question or concern
that you have
2. As a group, talk through the stickies, and
decide how to improve the design to address
issues raised
3. Re-sketch whatever is necessary
INSTRUCTIONS
How to run a black hat session
Try to limit to 20 minutes

It really works

I want to try this
on my marriage!”
Good Design Faster Attendee from Portland, OR Startup
“

There is a drastic difference in the way
stakeholders are getting involved and
it is really great. The only problem was
getting a war room.”
Good Design Faster Attendee from Consumer Reports
“

THE most effective method for
creating a shared understanding of the
end users experience, and for
identifying new opportunities for
improvement or change.”
Designer at ThoughtWorks
“

Bringing it all together

The 5-day sprint

Iterating sprints

Sketchboards are just a jumping off point
Front
Office
Back
Office
Customer
Action

Sketchboards: Discover Better + Faster UX Solutions
Brandon Schauer | http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/essays/archives/000863.php
Leah Buley
leah@adaptivepath.com
Resources to get you started
Made possible by the brilliance of
Brandon Schauer
Rachel Glaves
Kate Rutter
Good Design Faster, Boston, Nov 2011
http://www.uie.com/events/uiconf
The User Experience Team of One (a book in the making)
http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com