John Douglass Social UX Research,
Google Make Your Ideas Stick UXPA DC - July 2014

flickr: quinnanya

JON
SNOW
www.pakistantoday.com.pk

JOHN
SNOW
johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu

How did Cholera spread? He
had an idea... How did Cholera spread? He had an idea... Johnson Cameraface

The idea could be expressed
many ways.

The way he chose made
it stick. The way he chose made it stick.

UX Tools Help Us Convey
Powerful Ideas UX Tools Help Us Convey Powerful Ideas Lars Kristian Flem

We make lives better by
expressing great ideas, BIG or small.

But our UX education doesn’t
fully prepare us to be great influencers. Nic Price

Hey, Guess What? Hey, Guess
What? Doug88888

YOU
ARE
CURSED
Mikko Luntiala

CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE CURSE OF
KNOWLEDGE timetrax23

Can’t Be an Expert and
Novice Simultaneously Garry Wilmore

CELL PHONE SALESPEOPLE Q: How
long do you think it takes people to learn how to set up their phones?

Experts said 13 minutes Users
spent 33 minutes 154% longer than predicted

We need special skills to
get stakeholders to pay attention, remember, believe and care. We need special skills to get stakeholders to pay attention, remember, believe and care.

Ideas aren’t born interesting, they’re
made interesting.

Put VELCRO on your ideas.
Give each more hooks to get stuck on your audience. more hooks = more stick Doun Dounell

2 1 3 THREE TECHNIQUES
TO MAKE YOUR IDEAS STICK Make It Concrete Tell Stories Know Your First Audience

1
Make it
Concrete

When you sell UX, what
do you talk about?

What do clients or stakeholders
hear?

UX speak doesn’t speak to
stakeholders.

Lessons are encoded with physical,
material details. Lessons are encoded with physical, material details.

Concrete ideas
engage the senses.

“An important ecological area to
the east of Silicon Valley.” “An important ecological area to the east of Silicon Valley.” How do you make this more concrete? How do you make this more concrete?

The Mount Hamilton Wilderness The
Mount Hamilton Wilderness via Made to Stick

Games engage but can get
in the way.

How do we maximize the
best parts of games and minimize the annoying stuff? What did we call this concept? Social gaming aggregator? An entertainment stream?

Game ClosetGame Closet

Had designs to help new
Google+ sign- ups connect with their friends and interests: how did we frame our ideas? Better on-boarding? Increasing edge growth? Friend previewing?

Warm WelcomeWarm Welcome

A new design direction for
all of Google - consistent UI and design guidelines. How do we get developers engaged? Android & Chrome OS design guidelines? Google UX principles? Google design framework?

Material
Design
Material
Design

Statistics, Analytics, Numbers? Use Human
Scale. Statistics, Analytics, Numbers? Use Human Scale. themarkeworld.com

Facts are stickier when they’re
in HUMAN SCALE.

Avoid UX speak. Use metaphors
of physical and material experiences. Use human scale to represent facts & figures. 1 Make It Concrete Recap

2
Tell Stories

Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon Escape
from Alcatraz Triathlon

Thomas Caleshu

Babson College

Me

Bored roomBored room

The facts describe the events

We are swimming in data
and events, not stories

Facts Tell, Stories Sell

Stories change your audience’s physical
state. We simulate what we hear.

Sorry I put this in
your headSorry I put this in your head Thomas Caleshu

Stories are not just a
narrative of events. They should have 1. activities 2. motivations 3. characters

A story focused our design
sprint Mark

Deflate story criticism with stats
Mark ≈ 5 million people with similar issues

But how do you get
find, collect and share stories?

Ask users: tell me about
last time before/after why/why/why Ask users: tell me about last time before/after why/why/why

Use search logs, customer service
records, survey data to find stories. Use search logs, customer service records, survey data to find stories. Jacopo Romei

Pinterest recruits others to help
generate their stories Pinterest recruits others to help generate their stories

Illustrate stories easily MakeBeliefsComix.com

Facts tell, stories sell. Look
for activities, motivations, characters. Find stories in existing data or when talking to users. 2 Tell Stories Recap

3
Know Your First
Audience

You Client Boss Tech Lead
Users In a perfect world: you’re all on the same page.

You Client Boss Tech Lead
Users In a real world: you have a first audience before the user.

You Client Boss Tech Lead
Users These people are your users too.

Conduct user research on your
first audience.

Put your client in an
eye-tracker. Fernando Rodriguez, Jr.

Ask yourself (and them) how
do they get promoted? what keeps them up at night? what reduces their workload? who are their heroes?

In high stakes pitches, people
start with solving a problem. In high stakes pitches, people start with solving a problem.

Define the problem in a
way your stakeholders care about.

Making requests at Tesla goes
better when focusing on the first audience. Making requests at Tesla goes better when focusing on the first audience. Patrick Herbert

Strategic leaders - generate and
maintain a common vision. Managers - keep entire team on track. Tech experts - implement the vision, make the detailed decisions.

What’s your job?

UX Researcher I learn about
users’ needs, goals and behaviors to build great products.

UX Researcher to Grandma You
may get frustrated with our products and stop using them. I find out what’s going wrong and how to keep you happy.

Define the problem You may
get frustrated with our products and stop using them. I find out what’s going wrong and how to keep you happy. Give the resolution

UX Researcher to Tech Lead
You know the analytics but not if people enjoy using our product. I find out which experiences feel broken and how to fix them.

Conduct user research on your
stakeholders. Start with a problem they care about. Reveal the solution. 3 Know Your First Audience Recap

2 1 3 THREE TECHNIQUES
TO MAKE YOUR IDEAS STICK Make It Concrete Tell Stories Know Your First Audience

Apply one technique for your
project. 2 1 3 Use metaphor + human scale Find stories that sell Research your stakeholders. Start with their problems. Concrete Stories First Audience

DO MORE WORK :) k
thx bye

supplements your process
medium.com/@willdjthrill/

BREAKS
YOUR
CURSE

makes UX more influentialmakes UX
more influential

helps your users helps your
users

John Douglass Google.com/+JohnDouglass @JDouglass (twitter)
Q&A