DIY UX - Higher Ed

DIY UX Give Your Users an Upgrade (Without Calling In a Pro) Whitney Hess whitney@whitneyhess.com @whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com

Hi, I’m Whitney Hess User Experience Designer Consultant New Yorker @whitneyhess

ﬔisIsIndexed.com

You are a user experience designer

Shawn Liu & Danny Wen Founders Iridesco New York, NY

http://getharvest.com

Design research Web analytics Usability testing Experimentation & iteration

Design research What do our users actually need?

Footer

Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in Japanese

http://iridesco.wufoo.com/forms/harvest-survey/

“We don’t just want to patch; we want to address the core problem.” – Iridesco

“Customers love to tell you their workﬂow.” – Iridesco

Design Research Make it easy for customers to reach you Log their requests & use them to prioritize new features Dig deeper to discover the underlying problems Keep in touch

For more on design research... Observing the User Experience Mike Kuniavsky

Web analytics What are our users actually doing?

“We don’t believe in data-driven design, but data doesn’t lie .” * – Iridesco * Sometimes it does

One month of visits Mon Mon Mon Mon Highest usage at beginning of week Dropoﬀs on weekends Somewhat lower usage mid-month

Crazyegg.com

Google Website Optimizer Same exact page with three diﬀerent Free Trial buttons Found green and blue buttons performed much better than muted gray button 10% improvement in trial acquisition over two buttons (Learn More and Free Trial)

Matthew Marco Visual Designer House of Representatives Washington, D.C.

Chief Administrative Oﬃcer -> House Information Resources -> CAO Advanced Business Solutions -> Web Solutions Branch

House.gov

97 most frequent queries on House.gov and top 10 results of each

Queries are, in fact, case-sensitive. “Nancy Pelosi” and “nancy pelosi” produce diﬀerent quantities of results ﬔe Pell Grant Underfunding PDF by the Oversight Committee appears in the top-ten results of most state searches; more relevant than any member-generated page in Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas ﬔere is no apparent weight given to the title of a document. Untitled documents are not subdued in the results http://www.matthewtmarco.com/studies/2007/pathetic-to-absurd-to-disheartening-in-97-queries/

Sunday, September 28, 2008 1347 bailout 419 bailout bill 282 bail out 208 bailout plan 184 financial services 132 Search Other Sites 130 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 103 bail out bill 95 financial bailout 80 Bailout 78 tarp 68 email 68 700 billion 66 rescue plan 66 rescue bill 66 old AND eye AND 6 64 financial 62 rescue 62 financial markets bill 58 contact

“Stats let me refute the client’s notion of how their constituents were behaving.” – Matthew Marco, House.gov

Web Analytics Understand your traﬃc cycles Use analytics tools to uncover usage patterns Test design variations Explore your search logs to see what people are looking for

For more on web analytics... Web Analytics: An Hour a Day Avinash Kaushik

Usability testing How well does our stuﬀ actually work?

NOT Shawn & wife

Usability Testing Light Shows a build, a prototype, a comp, a sketch, whatever Doesn’t tell participant what she’s supposed to be doing Asks “What are your general feelings about this?” and then lets participant talk

“‘It looks good’ is the worst feedback we can get.” – Iridesco

“You need to have humility and listen. Users aren’t always right, but you need to hear them.” – Iridesco

Where to Find Participants Friends and family Folks in your oﬃce who don’t work on the project: receptionist, HR, sales Twitter followers Starbucks Craigslist

Tools to Capture Feedback

#1 Most Common Question: What about testing online?

Online Testing Tools

Online Testing Tools Moderated Self-Moderated For A Long Time Automated Live Conceptual Automated Static http://remoteusability.com

Drawbacks of Online Tools Don’t see the participants’ expressions and body language Can’t ask probing, follow-up questions A lot harder to internalize the ﬁndings It’s cowardly – you need to feel the embarrassment of a sucky design

Usability Testing Test your designs early and oen Informal tests are just as valuable Use people in your environment who aren’t involved in the project Choose participants of diﬀerent backgrounds & capabilities Do it yourself & acknowledge your poor design choices

For more on usability testing... Handbook of Usability Testing Jeﬀrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell http://www.slideshare.net/danachisnell/quick-cheap-insightful- usability-testing-in-the-wild-presentation

For more on remote usability testing... Remote Research Nate Bolt and Tony Tulathimutte

Experimentation & iteration How are we always getting better?

Sketch Photoshop Test Static HTML prototype Test again Working prototype Test again Tweak Launch quietly Get feedback Tweak

Roz Duﬀy Web Developer Comcast Interactive Media Philadelphia, PA

Refresh Philly - June 2009

“We aren’t always working on the most interesting stuﬀ, but we always want to work smarter.” – Roz Duﬀy, Comcast Interactive Media

An amazing thing happened because of this presentation

A relationship formed

An Experiment: Engineering Lab Week

Experimentation & Iteration Never stop improving your product Make your working environment a creative one Encourage everyone on the team to solve problems together Soak up inspiration from everywhere

For more on experimentation and iteration... Sketching User Experiences Bill Buxton

Putting it all together In a university setting

Sorin Stefan Front-end engineer McGill University Montreal, Canada

@syktek

“I don’t care how it’s going to look. I need the information to guide me on how it’s going to work.” – Sorin Stefan, McGill University

Who is your target audience?

Who is visiting your site?

What are the goals for the redesign?

What isn’t working on the site today?

“Staﬀ oen puts up with poor usability because they feel it’s part of their job to learn it.” – Sorin Stefan, McGill University

What does our target user really need?

Persona = “group of people visiting your website with things in common” Scenario = “what people are trying to do on the website”

New Old

Process Education Creating a Culture of UX

Karen Berntsen Information Architect Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

http://www.cmu.edu/cms/

“Using the CMS, and our services, is completely voluntary. ﬔat is the key to our success.” – Karen Berntsen, Carnegie Mellon University

ﬔe Process Initial Consult Content Outline Site Requested Site Created Site Reviewed Site Launched

Initial consult – 30 min meeting to determine if they’re eligible (95% of them are) Must have: Project Sponsor (FT faculty/staﬀ) and Project Lead (day-to-day)

Computer Store Content Outline: Hardware Soware Freshman

“I can suggest that they don’t shoot themselves in the foot, but by all means if they want to, I let them. ﬔat psychology works.” – Karen Berntsen, Carnegie Mellon University

Design research Web analytics Usability testing Experimentation & iteration

IMPORTANT STUFF Always be listening Ask questions to get to underlying problems Use data and anecdotes to inform the design Test your designs and have the humility to admit you’re wrong Complete the feedback loop Never stop trying to make things better

Make your users happy and they will thank you

ﬔank you! Whitney Hess whitney@whitneyhess.com @whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com Special thanks to: Danny Wen, Shawn Liu, Matthew Marco, Roz Duﬀy, Sorin Stefan and Karen Berntsen

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DIY UX - Higher Ed

by Whitney Hess

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