riamojo
360|Flex Indianapolis
Making your Flex application
standout with a great UX.
Francisco Inchauste

Boring old Me
‣ UX Specialist at Universal Mind
‣ SpatialKey Team
‣ Agency background
‣ Obsessed with design and typography
‣ I fight ugliness and the unusable

Here’s the plan
‣ Emotion and UX
‣ Basic XD Principles
‣ Overview of UX Process
‣ SpatialKey Case Study

UX = XD
(User Experience) (Experience Design)

What is XD?
‣ Another buzzword
‣ Sum of a series of interactions
‣ All interactions are subjective (best practices)
‣ Emotion and cognition
‣ Understanding the user and their world

This is not XD

“skin the app”

“beauty is only skin deep”

XD is much deeper than just “eye candy.”
There are theories, laws, and best practices.

The interface is the product.

So why are most experiences so
confusing, rude, and ugly?

Technology in our lives is swiftly adding complexity
to our products, services, and environments.

This is where the need for UX has grown.
There’s a problem though.

Haven’t you heard?
There’s a recession.

There’s a UX recession.

Challenges in the UX recession
‣ Scarce resources ($)
‣ Rush to market
‣ UX isn’t understood
‣ Vague = No value
‣ Always an afterthought
‣ Bad experiences

Crappy UX vs. Good UX
* Source: Me

Let’s discuss the why of UX.

1.Emotion

The Three Levels of Processing
Visceral
Behavioral
Reflective

The Three Levels of Processing
Appearance and Aesthetics
Ease of Use and Effectiveness
Self-image, Satisfaction, and
Memory

We are wired to like certain things.

We are wired to dislike certain things.

Attractive things work better.

Researchers in Japan setup two ATMs. The only
difference was that one machine’s buttons and
screens were arranged more attractively than the
other. Researchers found the attractive machines
were perceived to be easier to use.

Attractive things make people feel good. When you are
happy your mind relaxes and is more open to creative
thinking to solve problems encountered. If you are
anxious you to tend to narrow your thought process.

People pay
to be scared

“Do any of these package-design
people actually shop for orange
juice? Because I do, and the new
cartons stink.”
Tropicana Customer

2.Principles

UX principle
Divine Proportion
Also known as The Rule of Thirds. The ratio of the greater
side over the smaller side equals 1.618 (Phi)—the number
known mathematically as \"gold\" or \"golden.\"

The Divine Proportion is evident everywhere in our
known universe. Using it can actually help improve the
aesthetics and communication of the experience.

UX theory
Perceived Affordance
User perceives that some action is possible.

Which one is clearly a button?

UX law
Fitt’s Law
The time to acquire a target is a function of
the distance to and size of the target.

3 4
1
5 2

UX law
Gestalt Laws
The whole is different than the sum of its parts. Set of
principles to explain perceptual organization, or how
smaller objects are grouped to form larger ones.

law of proximity

law of similarity

law of closure

law of continuity

law of simplicity

“Simplicity is about subtracting the
obvious, and adding the meaningful.”
John Maeda

80/20 Rule. Your application should meet the needs of
at least 80 percent of your users. This type of design
typically favors simpler, more elegant approaches to
problems. If you try to design for the 20 percent of your
target audience who are power users, your design may
not be usable by the other 80 percent of users.
Apple Human Interface Guidelines

3.Process

Function. Based on user’s goals.

Code Ship
Initiate Code Ship
Look & Feel
Initiate Code QA Design Ship

Initiate Design Code QA Ship
Users Users

Who is the user?

UI should be based on user mental models.
Implementation Mental
Model Represented Models Model
Reflects Technology (Worse to Better) Reflects User’s Vision

Enhancement or Innovation

Quantitative Research. Market segmentation and
research that is useful for selling.
Qualitative Research. How people actually use
products. Especially those with complex behaviors.

Goals. Not features or tasks.

Goal-Directed Design Process
‣ Research
‣ Personas and goals
‣ Requirements
‣ Framework
‣ Refinement
‣ Support

What the Flip Can’t Do
‣ Screen is tiny (1.5 inches). No swing out for self-portraits.
‣ There are no tapes or discs. Must offload to a computer
when the memory is full (30 to 60 minutes).
‣ There are no menus, no settings, no video light, no optical
viewfinder, no special effects.
‣ No optical zoom — only a 2X digital zoom that blows up and
degrades the picture.

“Somebody at Pure Digital must
have sat through countless meetings,
steadfastly refusing to cede any
ground to the forces of feature creep”
David Pogue - NY Times

Flip took 20% of the market share.

Great UX took 20% of the market share.

What the Flip Can Do
‣ Capture video. Review. Keep or/ Delete.
‣ Everything is self-contained: Software to edit/upload.
USB plug. Videos formatted for YouTube to share.

Extra features sometimes take away from the
experience and actually remove value. In some
cases, doing more actually means less to a user.

I won’t show you Sony’s Handycam guide
since it’s 40 pages.

Featuritus
‣ Larger and slower
‣ More complex
‣ Not refining existing features
‣ Risk affecting existing features
‣ Increase the time required to validate

4.SpatialKey

Officer Jim Smith

After discovery and research extrude the goals.

What are the average response times for high priority calls
(A-priority and B-priority)?
Users: Watch Commander, Patrol Commander and Command Staff
Why it’s important: Life-threatening and potential harm to life
situations are even more critical in response time and a small time/
staffing improvement could mean a larger improvement for crime
levels.
Data: Dispatch information (Response time/High Call Freq Loc/
Number of Units/Call Location)
Other questions: Where are the highest volume of calls located?
What are the top types of incidents? What is the average time on
these calls? When are these calls?
Actions: Appropriate staffing for shifts.
Analyze: Measure is in time (min). Dimension would be last days/
weeks/months increments. For target, hit closer to set goals.

Prototype and iterate.

Explore user workflows.

Get user feedback.

Wrap up

Fighting the UX Recession
‣ Time = Understanding
‣ Educate clients
‣ UX concerns/improvements
‣ Survival of the Fittest
‣ Not an afterthought
‣ Better experiences

Recommended Reading

muchas gracias
Twitter: @iamFinch
Blog: www.getfinch.com