Embiggen Your Knowledge: How Cromulent Design Would Make The Simpsons Less Funny

Embiggen Your Knowledge How Cromulent Design Would Make The Simpsons Less Funny A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 1

OR! A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 2

Working With Users Something Something Boring Title A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 3

In Memory Of... Matt Wallens. August 9, 1974 to February 4, 3010. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 4

Users Are Children Children With Money and No Curfew A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 5

The Bad News Is... You have to care. A little. Somewhat. Sorta. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 6

More Bad News... Users will lie. And you’ll base your design on that lie. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 7

Walk in Their Shoes Though, Running Would Be Better Since You Stole Their Shoes A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 8

Talking With Listening to Users The most important thing to do when you want to design stuff is listen to the people you are designing for. Who are those people? Clients, users, support workers... How do you listen to them without being either driven crazy or hearing things you don’t need to know? Ask the right questions, the right way. And how do we do that, Matthew? A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 9

Open Questions ✤ “Can you tell me the last ✤ They can generate a lot of time you had a problem with cruft. this site?” ✤ They are sometimes the best ✤ “Can you show me how you way to ﬁnd out what to do think it’s supposed to work?” next without leading people to your idea of the answer. ✤ “What’s the best way you can think of to make it work?” ✤ Open questions can be hard for some Oliphant. Refreshanswer. 28, 2010 A Talk By Matthew people to Boston, January 10

Closed Questions ✤ “Doesn’t it suck to have to ✤ Closed questions are good use this software that looks follow-up questions, used like Win95 & Cobol had for clariﬁcation. babies?” ✤ Use them sparingly to ✤ “Should these ﬁelds always prompt users who get lost in display instead of hiding their answers or won’t talk. them lie you’ve done there?” ✤ They often say more about ✤ “Should bulk-adding work you than what you’re asking like this?” about. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 11

Importance of a Proper Thesis Be Solution-Agnostic. Lisa Will Respect You More. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 12

Begin Correctly Typical... ✤ “What’s the goal?” ✤ “What should the Web app ✤ “How do the users actually do?” get work done today?” ✤ “Where does the button go?” ✤ “What slows down or stops a task?” ✤ “Our users are just like me, when I was in the ﬁeld 15 years ago!” Better... A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 13

“...Defile what I defile!” Ethnography (contextual ✤ It lets you ﬁnd better inquiry, artefacts) questions. ✤ See what users actually do, ✤ It doesn’t ﬁt into Agile. Stop versus what they (or trying to cram it in! management) say. ✤ It can give you too much ✤ It takes time to do it right. information. ✤ It reveals good insights. ✤ It lets you say big words like Ethnography! A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 14

Users Tell You What They Want Especially When You Tell Them What They Want A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 15

Focus Group or Lack Thereof The Good ✤ Few talkers. ✤ Lots of people. ✤ Hard to manage. ✤ Fast feedback. ✤ Can be a huge waste of your time and theirs. ✤ Snacks. The Bad A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 16

Bring Focus How to make it go well: ✤ Bring other-->s<-- to take notes for you. ✤ Recruit carefully and well. ✤ Have your own opinions and ✤ Recruit well and carefully. share them when the time is right. ✤ Plan all details of the conversation. ✤ Keep people for less time than expected. ✤ Lead the conversation (but not the people). A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 17

“Powerful. Like a Gorilla.” Letting Users Design. It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 18

Participatory Design ✤ Collaboration or Committee? ✤ Buy-in can become more important than good design ✤ One voice = One idea decisions. ✤ Plus: Users tend to create their own efficiencies that the software, the process, you, and management don’t know about. ✤ Minus: They’ve internalized everything so much they have a lot of trouble expressing their ideas. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 19

Plays Well With Others How to make it go well: ✤ Involve the same user(s) at each step of the project; just ✤ Recruit carefully and well. don’t forget they aren’t the only users in the world. ✤ Listen to what the user means, not what they say. ✤ Their agenda is not your agenda. See bullet 1. ✤ Let users draw, but do not consider their drawing to be design. ✤ A user’s POV is only one POV. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 20

Design The cause of & solution to all life’s problems. A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 21

fin A Talk By Matthew Oliphant. Refresh Boston, January 28, 2010 22

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Embiggen Your Knowledge: How Cromulent Design Would Make The Simpsons Less Funny

by Matthew Oliphant on Feb 02, 2010

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Embiggen Your Knowledge: How Cromulent Design Would Make The Simpsons Less Funny — Presentation Transcript