Introduction to Usability for Technical Writers by Suman Kumar

yoUXUsability, User Experience, Interaction Design…Technical Communicators & User‐experience design [OR] Conquering the world 101 By Suman Kumar Saturday, March 20, 2010

Agenda∗ Why should you care about UX? ∗ What is UX? ∗ UX RoI ∗ Does it matter to you? ∗ What’s in it for you? ∗ Career option∗ Hands‐on exercise

What is UX?∗ The desired, expected, or actual experience of a user interacting with a product, especially as it relates to the design of the products user interface. [Source: Wikipedia]∗ The quality of the interaction between your product and your customer

Cost Justifying UX∗ IBM, along with several other companies, state that for every $1 invested in usability testing on software, the payback is between $10 and $100. ∗ The cost issues related to usability are well documented. For example, Sun Microsystems has compiled this useful list: ∗ Usability engineering has demonstrated reductions in the product‐development cycle by over 33‐50% (Bosert 1991). ∗ 63% of all software projects overrun their budgetary estimates, with the top 4 reasons all related to unforeseen usability problems (Lederer and Prassad 1992). ∗ The percentage of software code that is devoted to the interface has been rising over the years, with an average of 47‐60% of the code devoted to the interface (MacIntyre et al. 1990). ∗ Ricoh found that 95% of the respondents to a survey never used three key features deliberately added to the product to make it more appealing. Customers either didnt know these features existed, didnt know how to use them, or didnt understand them (Nussbaum and Neff 1991). ∗ 80% of maintenance is due to unmet or unforeseen user requirements; only 20% is due to bugs or reliability problems (Martin and McClure 1993; Pressman 1992) ∗ Design changes due to usability work at IBM resulted in an average reduction of 9.6 minutes per task, with projected internal savings at IBM of $6.8 Million in 1991 alone (Karat 1990).∗ Clean, cutting‐edge UI design cuts McAfees support calls by 90%

Does it matter to you?∗ You are already a UX pro if you perform any two of these tasks: ∗ Audience analysis ∗ Task analysis ∗ Scenarios ∗ Personas ∗ Renew your STC membership every year∗ What separates the best technical writers is their UX design skills

What’s in it for you?∗ UX skills can help you: ∗ Get ahead in your tech writing career ∗ Prepare for a career switch ∗ Improve your people skills ∗ Acquire vital insights into the product development process ∗ Figure out how your wife’s brain works ∗ Build extremely effective mother‐in‐law repellents

What do UX folks do?∗ User research∗ Requirements design∗ Prototyping∗ User tests∗ UI reviews∗ Establish, evangelize, and enforce UX standards and UX design itself

UX Design as a career option∗ You are in a great place (to move to UX design)∗ Read about UX∗ Volunteer: ∗ Your product ∗ Intranet site ∗ Corporate website ∗ Elevators, doors, your cafeteria’s buffet design…∗ Build a personal brand: blog, tweet, network, and connect∗ Do it only if you are interested and passionate about it.

Preparing for the UX job∗ Start with your strength: ∗ Documenting UX standards/guidelines ∗ Error messages…∗ Prepare an ‘elevator pitch’ on why the management should give you UX work∗ Speak in numbers∗ Make friends with developers, testers, and product managers, pre‐sales guys, support folks… you know?∗ Never critique a product. Help build it instead. Which means, “don’t ask questions, if you don’t have answers”∗ Be prepared to be the one‐person UX army

Recommended Reading∗ Books ∗ The Elements of User Experience: User‐Centered Design by Jesse James Garrett ∗ Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug ∗ Designing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen ∗ Handbook of Usability Testing by Jeffrey Rubin ∗ Emotional Design by Don Norman ∗ Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping by Paco Underhill ∗ Phantoms in the Brain by Dr. V.S. Ramachandran

Recommended Sites/Tools Sites Also useful…∗ Reading ∗ MS‐Powerpoint (yes!) ∗ Useit.com ∗ MS‐Visio ∗ Uxmatters.com ∗ Ixda.org ∗ Google Docs ∗ Smashingmagazine.com ∗ MS‐Excel ∗ uxdesign.com ∗ HTML from W3C∗ Prototyping Tools ∗ Balsamiq [paid] ∗ Google Search ∗ Flair Builder [paid] ∗ Beer ∗ Pencil [☺ ]

Thanks people! ☺Questions?∗WWW: http://sumankumar.com/usability∗T: http://twitter.com/sumank∗@: sumank+stcsig@gmail.com

Introduction to Usability for Technical Writers by Suman Kumar

by STC India UX SIG on Jul 12, 2011

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