Essential UX Skills for Technical Communicators (STC Summit 2010)

Essential User Experience Skills forTechnical CommunicatorsSummit 2010 • May 5, 2010
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Yina Li
Technical Writer
Horizon Software
Will Sansbury
Interaction Designer
PracticeWorks Systems
Rachel Peters
Sr. Analyst, UX
The Home Depot

Card Sorting
Heuristic Evaluation
Usability Testing

What isuser-centereddesign?

User-centered design is an approach to design that grounds the process in information about the people who will use the product.
What is User-Centered Design? Usability Professionals Association
http://www.upassoc.org/usability_resources/about_usability/what_is_ucd.html

User-centered design looks like this.

User-centered designis common sense.
Phase 1: Analysis
How would you like your hair cut?
Phase 2: DesignSnip, snip.
Phase 3: EvaluationHere’s a mirror. What do you think?
Phase 4: Deployment Have a great day!
Image by malias (flickr)

Essential Skill #1Card Sorting

What aisle is hot dog chili on?

With the hot dog buns?

Chili’s kind of like a soup…

Chili has beans…

Nah, that’s too easy!

Is hot dog chili a condiment?

Card Sorting 101: It’s easy and fun.

events
scholarship
about the local chapter
conference information
job listings
competitions

Typical card sort instructions
How would you organize the STC Atlanta site?
Group the cards into categories.
Is something missing? Use a blank card to add it.
Something doesn’t belong? Put the card aside.
Card belongs in more than one group? Be creative.
Label the categories
Use a blank card to name each category.
Category names are up to you.

Card sorts reveal patterns (usually).

What’s your goal?
Card sorts aren’t just for designing menus or tables of content.

What are these?
My words
flowers
daisies
petals
spring
purple
pink
green
yellow
happy
pretty
photo
Photographer’s words
farmers market
flowers
san francisco
california
cannon
outstanding shots
Your words?
Image by Flickr userSwami Stream

Classification is ultimately an imperfect and messy undertaking; don’t let yourself get caught up in the false goal of getting it “right.”
Donna Spencer, Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories

Classification ≠ Findability

Everything you want to know…
Card Sorting: Designing Usable Categories
Donna Spencer
Available from Rosenfeld Media: http://www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/cardsorting/

Essential Skill #2Heuristic Evaluation

How do you counter bubble bursters?
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Heuristic evaluation involves having a small set of evaluators examine the interface and judge its compliance with recognized usability principles.—Jakob Nielsen
Nielsen’s heuristics for user interface designhttp://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
Nielsen’s heuristics for user interface designhttp://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
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Recognized by whom?
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Louis Rosenfeld’s Heuristics for IA
Accommodate behaviors of repeat users who know what they’re looking for.
Labels and headings should be clear and meaningful.
Provide clear calls-to-action for what a user might want to do next.
Complete list available on Lou’s blog at http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000286.html
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Heuristics…
ground your feedback in industry best practices.
lend the voices of experts to your cause.
give you a means of structuring your feedback in a consistent, digestible format.
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Narrative report
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Visual report
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A common misperception of the evaluation of content quality is that its scope is limited to the correction of typos and grammatical errors.—Colleen JonesFounder, Content Science
Jones’ heuristics for content http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/04/toward-content-quality.php
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Colleen Jones’ Heuristics for Content
Usefulness & Relevance
Does the content meet user needs, goals, and interests?
Does the content meet business goals?
For how long will the content be useful? When should it expire?Has its usefulness already expired?
Is the content timely and relevant?
Clarity & Accuracy
Is the content understandable to customers?
Is the content organized logically and coherently?
Is the content correct?
Does the content contain factual errors, typos, or grammatical errors?
Do images, video, and audio meet technical standards, so they are clear?
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Jones’ heuristics for content http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/04/toward-content-quality.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47LCLoidJh4

Essential Skill #3Usability Testing

What is usability testing?

Image by Seattle Miles - http://www.flickr.com/photos/denemiles/3970279665/
Time to explore!
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Is this your first Summit?

Your local chapter won the Award of Distinction this year. You would like to go to the Award Banquet. Find out what you need to do to attend.

What did we learn?

How to run a usability test?
Define your goals
Create the test
Find people
Run the test
Analyze the results
Report the findings

You do not have to be perfect.

Still interested?
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STC Usability SIG: http://www.stcsig.org/usability
Usability Professionals’ Association
http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/
SIG CHI of ACM
http://www.sigchi.org/
IxDA
http://www.ixda.org/
Jakob Nielsen’s Alert Box
http://www.useit.com/
UX Matters
http://www.uxmatters.com/

Any questions?
Rachel Peters
Sr. Analyst, User Experience
The Home Depot
Will SansburyInteraction Designer
PracticeWorks Systems, LLC
Yina Li
Technical Writer
Horizon Software International

Essential UX Skills for Technical Communicators (STC Summit 2010)

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