What's Next For UX?

What's Next for UX?
Brad Gerstein
VP and General Manager
ThoughtMatrix, Chicago
Chicago Interactive Design & Development (CIDD) Group

My Background
Graduated with a Masters in Architecture at Tulane University in ’95
Quickly switched to being a web designer in ’96
Went back to school for a MFA with an emphasis on New Media at Art Center College of Design and graduated in 2000
Caught on to User Experience in 2000
Joined a new digital agency called Decision Counsel in 2003
Lead the creative team
Built our UX and Development teams
Expanded the firm to NY, Las Vegas and Chicago
Joined ThoughtMatrix last October to expand the business in the Midwest with offices in Chicago

What is ThoughtMatrix
ThoughtMatrix is a digital marketing and technology services firm focused on creating engaging and immersive digital experiences. We serve diverse organizations defining strategies and finding innovative ways to build and improve the way they connect with their constituents.
Content Management
Web Design
Marketing Strategy
Social Media
Mobile
eCommerce

Select Client List

Recent Work
Polycom
SunPower
Outbid
Inspirity
DocuSign

User Experience is Changing
Two major trends in technology are changing the way the design industry and our clients look at the UX design process
+

Explosive Growth in Mobile
Smartphone Shipments to Eclipse
PC/Notebooks Next Year

Smartphone Mobile Access Exceeds
PC/Notebook for Gen Y in 2010

Why?
Great combination of connectivity, ubiquity and data
More and more people are going mobile first, especially in international markets
Mobile users are engaged

Lean UX and Agile Make their Mark
Lean UX has been a successful approach allowing start-ups to get to market quickly with a minimum viable product

Lean Startup
Coined by entrepreneur and blogger Eric Ries
Inspired by Japanese lean manufacturing
Lean Startup is about testing your ideas with customers as early and often as possible

What is Lean UX?
“Inspired by Lean Startup and Agile development theories, it’s the practice of bringing the true nature of our work to light faster, with less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.”
-Wikipedia

What is Agile?
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Responding to change over following a plan (no ganttcharts!)

Agile Development Process
Focus on product not deliverables
Create just enough design to get started
Build a prototype
Test with users often
Validate and move on
Momentum keeps teams engaged
Reduces risks inherent in the typical waterfall process
Walls between teams
Lack of collaboration
Only verify at the end

Major Corporations Using Agile

Graduated with a Masters in Architecture at Tulane University in ’95
Quickly switched to being a web designer in ’96
Went back to school for a MFA with an emphasis on New Media and graduated in 2000
Have worked
So how do UX designers respond?
Insist on Developing for Mobile First
Embrace the Lean UX Design Process

Mobile First

Mobile First
Constraints require you to focus on the core value of your offering creating a better user experience
Limited screen space
Focus on key actions first
Short bursts of interaction

Desktop vs. Mobile Browser

1000x650
Pixels to Burn
320x480

Desktop vs. Mobile Browser

Design for a Variety of Screen Sizes
Palm Pre 320x480 3.1in 186ppi
iPhone 320x480 3.5in 164ppi
iPhone4 640x960 3.5in 329ppi
Droid 480x854 3.7in 264ppi
HTC Desire 480x800 3.7in 252ppi
Nokia N900 800x480 3.5in 266ppi

Design for a Variety of Screen Sizes
Know your target audience
Create a default reference design
Define rules for content and responsive design
Source: http://mobiforge.com/designing/story/effective-design-multiple-screen-sizes

Short Bursts of Activity

Design for one handed touch

Design for One Handed Touch
Apple recommends a touch target size of 44px x 44px
Calculator App is a great guide
Check out http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/ui-guidelines-mobile-tablet-design for all mobile and tablet specs

Design for One Handed Touch
Touch gestures allow users to interact directly with content
Reduces the need for extraneous navigation and puts content front and center
Supported by all mobile platforms and HTML5
Remember no hovers for touch

New Opportunities
Orientation
Location
Audio
Video/Photo

New Opportunities
Orientation
Location
+

Mobile Site vs. Native App
vs.

Mobile Site
Why Mobile Web?
Cost of Development
Leverage existing infrastructure and tech if you have a web product
Develop once for multiple platforms
Cost of Change
Expect to iterate
HTML resources are cheaper
Ease of Adoption
Easier to drive web traffic to mobile web
Build a user base then launch app and to drive it up from app store obscurity

Mobile Site
Why Mobile Web?
Time to Market
Cheaper to build
Cheaper to iterate
Makes speed and option
Addressable Market
iOS used to dominate 90% of the market
Trending toward 30% iOS, 30% Android, 30% + other
Control
Release new features, bug fixes, etc whenever

Native App
Why Native App?
Access to OS Features
Geolocation
Appcache
Local Storage
3D
Accelerometer
Microphone
Light sensors
And more…
Performance
Native apps are faster
Even on WebOS
Consistency
HTML5 is not standardized yet
Big difference in capabilities

Native App
Why Native App?
App Store
Distribution
Sell your app
Virtual goods
In app purchases
Gaming
OpenGL
3D acceleration
Large assets
Media Centric Apps
Is your app oriented around images/video
Native still has an edge

Mobile Site vs. Native App
vs.

Embrace Lean UX

Traditional Design Process is Broken
The Traditional Process
Discovery
Design
Implementation
Testing
Launch/Maintenance

Traditional Design Process is Broken
The Traditional Process
Divided teams by role
Poor communication
Focused on deliverables not the product
Slow
Full of risks

Embracing Lean UX
A New Mindset for UX Designers
Focus on the product not deliverables
Create just enough design to get started
Validate your ideas through prototypes and user testing
Get used to refining design as you iterate
Designers still own the vision
Still control consistency
Integrity of design

Embracing Lean UX
Educating Clients
If clients embrace UX than Lean UX is not much of a stretch
Aligns designers and client on the result rather than the process
Not slaves to the process
Process is not a differentiator
But results are!
Reduces risk
Allows for more input
Different approach to pricing
More resource intensive
Less deliverable focused
More flexible

Embracing Lean UX
Educating Clients
Not for every project
Best for highly interactive work or complex flows
Not for brochure-ware
Not for ad creative

How to Implement Lean UX
User Personas
Persona Workshops
Develop Personas
Write Persona Report
Comparative Analysis
Planning & Discovery
Conduct Field Research
Gather Requirements
Perform User Task Analysis
Brand Research
Develop IA
Design Information Architecture
Create Clickable Models
Iterate and Finalize Specifications
Creative Brief

Planning & Discovery
Gather Requirements
Perform User Task Analysis

Goals
Understand user goals and identify behavior patterns
Obtain a 360° understanding of user roles
Capture and document initial requirements of products and processes
Perform a trends and best practices review
Understanding Your User’s Environment
Behavior
Roles
Req.’s
Trends

Goal: Obtain a basis of data to support a user-centered design process
Understanding Your Users Environment
Activities
Select Primary User Segments
Develop Testing/Research Protocol
Recruit Users
Perform Ethnographic Studies
Assemble & Analyze Data
Goals
Testing Protocol
Ethnography Report
Behavior
Roles
Req.’s
Trends

Ethnographic Research Approach
Benefits
Deep understanding of small group of users
Rich insight into why users behave in certain way
Allow observation of things that users themselves are not aware of, such as brand preferences, interaction models, et al
Provide models of behavior, interaction, context, and goals
Serve as foundation for information architecture models, interaction models, and personas
Drawbacks
Cannot predict magnitude of findings in the population
Trends can be generalized to the population
But not statistically – e.g. whether 20% or 60% is unknown
However, anecdotally, strong trends tend to be strong statistically

Validity of N (Small Groups) in Usability Studies
Demonstrates value of small-n sample sizes
With single test user, learn almost 1/3 of all there is to know about the usability of the design
With second test user, discover some overlap with first user, but also some new observations - so add a bit more insight
With third user, will observe many things seen with first and second users, and less incremental new data
As you add more and more users, you learn less and less
“After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings repeatedly but not learning much new”

Requirements Gathering
Obtain a nearly complete set of high level functional requirements
Define core necessary features to explore in detail
Activities
Content Application Audit
Develop Requirements Roadmap
Interview Stakeholders
Develop Final Requirements Inventory
Deliverables
Audit Results Report
Requirements Roadmap
Final Requirements Inventory
Requirements Matrix

User Task Analysis
Map user behavior and attributes
Define product more deeply, emphasis in user interactions
Activities
Analyze & map task data
Identify priority use cases
Create user flows
Write Task Analysis report
Deliverables
Use Case Documentation
User Task Flows
Task analysis report

We have data, now what?

Personas
Persona Workshops
Develop Personas

Creating Personas
Behavioral patterns observed during interviews with key audiences are derived, documented, and “packaged” in a persona.
Users
Behavior
Personas
Apparent Patters
Gaps in behavioral and user data are filled by supplemental research and data provided by other data channels, such as existing research and site analytics.

What is a Persona Anyway?
Personas are hypothetical archetypes, or "stand-ins" for actual users that drive the decision making for interface design projects
Personas are not real people, but they represent real people throughout the design process
Although personas are imaginary, they are defined with significant rigor and precision.
Names and personal details are made up for personas to make them more realistic
Personas are defined by their goals
Interfaces are built to satisfy personas' needs and goals

Persona Development
Audit and review existing primary and secondary research
Identify primary and secondary personas
Activities
Persona Workshops
Develop Personas
Deliverables
Primary persona documents
Secondary persona documents
Users
Behavior
Personas
Apparent Patters

Develop IA
Design Information Architecture
Create Clickable Models
Iterate and Finalize Specifications

Transitioning Discovery to IA
Synthesize goals
Experience goals: How does the persona expect to experience the product?
Business goals: Concrete expected results of tasks
Goal-Directed Design
Layout
IA
Discovery
Personas

Information Architecture
Turning User Needs
Into Interactions
Goals
Define product/site architecture and core interaction
Create navigation schema
Create interaction patterns of core UI modules and controls (widgets, tools, etc.)
Create User Interface Templates
Navigation
Schematic

Information Architecture
Define application structure
Create navigation schema
Activities
Develop preliminary Information Architecture
Create mental models
Create navigation schemas
Deliverables
Preliminary clickable model
Preliminary IA report

Interaction Design
Merge IA with tactical UI & interaction design
Prototype over 80% of use cases
Update requirements detail
Activities
Develop detailed prototype
Deliverables
Clickable product prototype
Prototype »

Thank You!
@iambradgerstein
Brad Gerstein
linkedin.com/gersteinb
brad@thought-matrix.com
San Francisco Office
The Flood Building
870 Market St.
Suite 642
San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: 415.217.0009
Fax: 925.886.4601
Chicago Office
Two Prudential Plaza
180 North Stetson
Suite 3500
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: 312.268.5731
Fax: 312.268.5801

What's Next For UX?

by Brad Gerstein on Aug 03, 2011

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What’s Next For UX? — Presentation Transcript