Eating Our Own Dog Food: Using UX Methods to Build a UX Business

Slide 1: Eating our Own Dog Food: Using UX Methods to Build a UX Business Lou Rosenfeld, Rosenfeld Media Design Research Conference Chicago, Illinois, USA September 22, 2007 www.rosenfeldmedia.com

Slide 2: Brief bio Co-author, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web Publisher and founder, Rosenfeld Media (books for User Experience practitioners) Blog: www.louisrosenfeld.com New book: Search Analytics for Your Site: Conversations with your customers

Slide 3: Questions for us all Can we truly improve and innovate …within established industries? …with established media? I’m trying to find out in publishing, using UX methods (a work in progress)

Slide 4: What challenges do publishers face? 1. Book design Can book design be improved upon? 2. Choosing proposals Which books should we publish? 3. Book content How can we ensure quality content? All of these are design challenges

Slide 5: Book Design: Market research Focus groups and blog discussions 1. What UX books do you (dis)like? 2. What about them do you (dis)like? Results louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000410.html www.rosenfeldmedia.com/announcements/2006/02/what_makes_for_a_good_des ign_b.php www.rosenfeldmedia.com/announcements/2006/03/more_on_what_makes_for_a_ good_1.php

Slide 6: Book Design: User testing Print and PDF book testing  Task analysis  Foundation (e.g., What is this book about?)  Navigation (e.g., refinding)  Extension (e.g., grabbing a diagram)  Post-test questionnaire  Rating values (e.g. author credibility, price)  Open-ended comments/feedback

Slide 7: The Gold Standard (DMMT)

Slide 8: Interiors

Slide 9: Covers X √

Slide 10: Obvious lessons 1. Innovation is great, but it’s not for everyone or everything. 2. Real opportunities come from improvements, but they’re easy to miss. 3. Applying UX methods iteratively leads to small but meaningful improvements. 4. Hire an art director!

Slide 11: Choosing proposals: Create and violate boundaries “Horizontal” series √ Mental models √ Card sorting √ Prototyping √ Internal search analytics • Comics as design tool • Contextual inquiry • Story-telling •… The metaphor breaks… √ Web form design “Vertical” series • Shopping cart design • UX for audiences (seniors, •… children, …) • UX for industries (health care, financial services, …) Image from www.classicistranieri.com

Slide 12: Choosing Topics: UXzeitgeist.com

Slide 13: UXZ Person

Slide 14: UXZ Topic Index

Slide 15: UXZ Book Index

Slide 16: Good help isn’t so hard to find Editorial Board Liz Danzico Andrew Dillon Steve Krug Mike Kuniavsky Ginny Redish Marc Rettig Nathan Shedroff Rashmi Sinha Karen Whitehouse

Slide 17: Obvious lessons 1. Create, then violate boundaries. 2. Metaphors will only get you so far. That’s OK. 3. Web 2.0 is expensive. Don’t create; reuse. 4. If you do create, don’t get cute: launch it fast. 5. The best authors, topics, and helpers won’t come to you. But they will talk.

Slide 18: Book content: Dialogues succeed Proposal development  From simple (agile review)…  …to traditional (expert review from editorial board) Readers engaged via book blog  Passive: RSS  Active: SEO, comments, surveys… networks

Slide 19: Revel in infrastructure Enjoy what the Internet has to offer  BaseCamp for authors and editors  MovableType, RSS, Flickr, del.icio.us for authors  FeedBurner and Google Analytics for data analysis (shared with authors) But infrastructure won’t run your projects

Slide 20: Obvious lessons 1. Trust yourself. You already have UX in your veins. Let things emerge organically. 2. Build in iteration everywhere. 3. Feed and care for your network. 4. There’s no excuse to ignore infrastructure. 5. Making books is still damned hard.

Slide 21: Obvious lessons of the general sort 1. In UX, it’s hard not to be a hypocrite. But that shouldn’t stop you. 2. In UX, research equals marketing. 3. Transparency works in new fields: your customers are also your peers. 4. So does asking for help. 5. Eat your own damned dog food.

Slide 22: Contact me Louis Rosenfeld, Publisher Rosenfeld Media, LLC 705 Carroll Street, #2L Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA +1.718.306.9396 voice +1.734.661.1655 fax lou@rosenfeldmedia.com www.rosenfeldmedia.com