Bootcamp for a UX Team of None

UX BOOTCAMP
for a UX team of none

Monday, March 12, 12
Fred Beecher @fred_beecher

Brynn Evans @brynn

Russ Unger @russu

Krista Sanders @newhighscore

SxSW 2012 : #uxbootcamp

$300
MILLION
SxSW 2012 : : #uxbootcamp
flickr: Jonny Vulkan source: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/


If you’re hoping to leave here being transformed into the next rockstar UX designer, so you can build a Path-killer or one-up Clear, you’re going to have to hire a kickass UX
designer with crazy visual design chops (unicorn!!). Good luck.

if you don’t believe us: designers are a tricky bunch to nail down

$109,999

$112,999 $111,666
$96,110
$101,666
$115,555

$100,483

source: http://iainstitute.org/en/learn/research/salary_survey.php

MVE Minimum
Viable
Experience

You can think like a UX designer to solve real users’ problems

Even if your app doesn’t look beautiful, it can be functional, satisfies your user’s needs, desires and goals, and become REALLY popular:

Eg., HealthMonth & OpenTable

And on the flip side, a beautiful app that doesn’t solve a problem or fill an open need for your users will not be successful:

E.g., Color

MULTIPLE
lo-fi design concepts



ITERATIVE
evaluation



SOME
customer insight



Sketching



@brenton_clarke


--how many of you think you’re not artistic. you don’t draw?
--me too. I’m a terrible artist. i can’t draw a perfect circle for the life of me.
But what i’ve learned:
--drawing & sketching out your ideas is about COMMUNICATING your ideas to others (biggest beneﬁt)

--also helps you think through A LOT of things, evaluate a lot of constraints and pros and cons

(You might already be doing this through whiteboard sketching — or getting people in a room to have a “brainstorming” session - great!)

--helps you work quickly and iterate on ideas before committing to any one (another huge beneﬁt)
http://handdrawnwords.tumblr.com/page/3

6-8-5



Good news for you, the best exercise for THINKING, coming up with LOTS OF IDEAS, and that
involves SKETCHING
it’s called 6-8-5
Goal: big brainstorming, come up with as many ideas a possible, unconstrained, etc.

Show one more slide one of the 6-8-5s we did with Awesome Foundation

6-8-5
1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8


Good news for you, the best exercise for THINKING, coming up with LOTS OF IDEAS, and that
involves SKETCHING
it’s called 6-8-5
Goal: big brainstorming, come up with as many ideas a possible, unconstrained, etc.

Here’s what you need to do: Take your sheet of paper, and fold it in half 3 times
Now you have 8 boxes
We’re going to set the timer for 5 minutes momentarily, and your goal is to ﬁll out between
6-8 of the boxes

SxSw Party App
GOAL: ﬁnd a party to attend at sxsw

3 Considerations:

• will be a mobile app
• parties need to be marked open / private / full / empty
• display parties to the user



Today we’re going to brainstorm how to ...
design an app that helps you ﬁnd a parking spot (nearby)
-without relying on parking ferry

3 minutes left



1 minute left



30 seconds



Time’s up!




Awesome, you guys did it! These aren’t exactly what you came up with, but these are the
result of a previous 6-8-5 that we did previously.
-How many of you got to 8 sketches?!
-6?
-4?
-Awesome! The point of is actually not to get to 6-8 sketches but instead to think through as
many ideas as possible. Even with 3-4 sketches, this helps get you closer to your product
goals
-Also, you might really be feeling antsy or ready to move on to another round. That’s great!
We often do 2 rounds of these, since you’ll ﬁnd some of your creative juices just got going (or
this is bringing up lots of questions that you want to dive deeper into.)

....If we were doing a workshop or doing this at work for real, we’d share these with each
other, provide some critique, and then repeat (do at least another round of 6-8-5).

Brainstorming 201
• brainwriting
• poster session
• 3-12-3

And many many more:
Gamestorming (the book) amz.on/GamestormingBook

Gamestorming Cheat Sheet bit.ly/GamestormingGuide



There’s a number of other good sketching exercises that are good for coming up with tons of
ideas (especially in the early stage).
--look these up later on (or email any of us to ask for more details)!

Pitch & Critique

So, now you have all these sketches, and they’re all sort of messy, and tough to read.

The beauty of these sketches is how little time you spent creating them, so it’s no big deal.

Now, what you need to do is take another 5 minutes getting INTERNAL feedback on your concepts.

Remember, this is just internal for the moment.

Ask for feedback
Give feedback
Receive feedback
The key to pitching and critiquing concepts is feedback.

How you ask for it matters. How you give it matters. But, keeping yourself open to receiving it is what matters most.

Ask for feedback
I want feedback on...

I don t want feedback on...

Set up context in 30 seconds or less.

E.g. “I decided to draw up the flow first, and I found I struggled with the user’s decision point here, so that’s what I want feedback on.”

E.g. “The copy here is still in flux, and I know the visual design needs tweaking, so I’d really rather focus on my flow.”

CONTEXT:

- for some people, the challenge is getting them to provide any context at tall, for others the challenge is getting them to limit the context set up to just the
essentials.

So what are the essentials?

Set up context
The challenge
+ User considerations
+ Technical constraints

Context
What’s the problem your solving for?

Consider your target audience, what is happening around them? What are they doing? Are they rushing from session to session? Are they already drunk at
SXSW? :)

What are the technical constraints? Are they on a mobile device? Is it a smartphone or a feature phone?

Give feedback ?
• Good critique is a constant dialogue
• Questions are welcome

Hmm...

?

No lobbing
bombs!!

http://www.thefilmcynics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BatmanWithBomb.jpg

NO LOBBING BOMBS

For every problem you see, challenge yourself to provide a potential solution, even if that means scrapping the whole flow or feature.

After all, you only spent five minutes on it.

Give feedback ?
• What about this design resonates with you?
• What concerns you?

Hmm...

?

Use post-its or red/green highlighters to mark what’s resonating with you and what you have concerns about.

You’ll ﬁnd new edge cases. Decide whether or not you want to address those use cases. Do they fall into the 80% case.

Which brings me to my next point, being able to receive feedback is CRITICAL.

Receive feedback
• Your mission...(should you choose to accept it)...is to
gain new insights from someone s fresh perspective
• Don t knock it til you consider it
• Be a listenoholic

Bake this into your culture.

Become an organization of curiosity and healthy challenging.

Let’s practice!


Bring someone up on stage to DO a pitch & critique
beneﬁts of this:

- people get aligned on the same page. Feasibility check-in.

- Everyone feels heard. You’ll get more buy-in, and the concepts will be more resolute.

- helps deﬁne clear direction for what do to next

- make this is a recurring activity — this is a cycle, you’ll do this again, and again, and again...

1-ups


If you’re doing it right, you should do several rounds of this.

And this is all internal. None of this is public yet.

Ultimately, you’ll want to combine & merge all of these concepts into one single one. We call this a 1-up.

Creating a 1-up should give you a tangible, single element you can use to test publicly, so you can get real, unbiased feedback on your concept,
prototype or product.

There are millions of testing methods, all of them serve a different purpose depending on context. Russ is going to walk you through 1 that is
thrifty, fast, and highly effective.

Testing & Validation


What are Guerrilla Methods?
...a body of unconventional ways of pursuing

conventional goals. ...a proven method of

achieving proﬁts with minimum money.
gaining insight Jay Conrad Levinson
Source: http://gmarketing.com/


Jay Conrad Levinson is attributed for coining the term “Guerrilla Marketing”, and that’s where we’re kind of coming from.

Jay also says: “Guerrilla marketing has been proven in action to work for small businesses around the world.
It works because it’s simple to understand, easy to implement and outrageously inexpensive.”
How does this apply to UX? Well... How does it not?
There’s also a middle ground here, and that’s largely what I feel like we’re seeing in our project work with our partners at
Happy Cog.

We look for what we call the point of least astonishment.

Jared Spool

Source: http://gmarketing.com/

Jared Spool Quote.

“We look for what we call the point of least astonishment.” - Jared Spool, CEO and Founding principal of UIE.

Examples of Guerilla Methods in the Wild
• Man on the Street / Coﬀee Shop

• Burrito Lunch

• Rapid Iterative ProtoSketching (RIPS)

• User/ Browser Role Playing

• A/B Testing


Time & Place:

Purpose:
Won’t Replace Trad’l Methods:

(Wo)Man on the Street / Burrito Lunch Image Source:http://awkwardfamilyp

Image Source: http://urt.parsons.edu/urt/media/user/images/
SxSW 2012 : #uxbootcamp Image Source:http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/
Artstor_USA_New_York_City_Upper_west_coﬀee_shop.jpg

Bring someone up. Do the Naked Pizza app.

“What does this screen look like to you? What do you think you would do with this / what do you think this is telling
you?”

Image Source:http://awkwardfamilyp


Bring someone up. Do the Naked Pizza app.

“What does this screen look like to you? What do you think you would do with this / what do you think this is telling
you?”

Examples of Guerilla Researh in the Wild
• Man on the Street / Coﬀee Shop

• Burrito Lunch

• Rapid Iterative ProtoSketching (RIPS)


• A/B Testing


Rapid Iterative ProtoSketching (RIPS)


User/Browser Role Playing


Time & Place:

Purpose:
Won’t Replace Trad’l Methods:

A/B Testing

Big Takeaway

A female model more than doubled conversions for this Norwegian

landing page.

A:B Testing is the showing of different options to see which has a desired result.

The only difference between Version A and Version B was the photograph of the model in the page header. Version A had
a Caucasian male who looked like one of Norway’s local couriers. Version B had an Asian female. Rolf Inge Holden, Global
Digital Marketing Specialist, DHL Express, said they conducted this test because marketers in some countries claim they
can’t show female faces because they have no female couriers. He wondered if that was true.

We’re not sure why the image of a woman drastically increased conversions, but the results show the impact of testing
people images in your online marketing. Eyetracking studies find that people love to look at human faces — so DHL was
smart to highlight the 30% savings below the model’s faces. Since visitors are likely to look at human faces, the next step
is to find the most engaging face for that audience. And it may not be one that mimics actual customer experience, as
this test shows.

Examples of Guerilla Methods in the Wild
• Man on the Street / Coﬀee Shop • And so many more...
• Burrito Lunch • Gamestorming
• Rapid Iterative ProtoSketching (RIPS) • Universal Principals Design

• A/B Testing


So What?
--what we’ve done today: not everything, not a deep dive

--highlighting the techniques that work BEST and we use most COMMONLY
--the gist of UX design so that you have good experiences & ﬂows for you users
--there’s LOTS more to discover & learn

These Methods...
• Have a time and a place

• Have a purpose

• Won t replace traditional/non-guerrilla methods

• Some good input/feedback/research is better than none


They Are Also...
• Faster

• Lower-cost

• Less eﬀort

• Providing suﬃcient insight to make informed decisions

• Just enough rigor to determine that a problem exists


And...
• Quantity over quality (6-8-5)

• Pitching and critiquing / Validate against requirements

• Group/Team collaboration

• Design Testing with These Methods...

• Can get results with a limited set of users

• Doesn t (always) need to be done in a lab

• People like free stuﬀ and LOVE to be listened to


Thank You Slide
Fred Beecher @fred_beecher

Brynn Evans @brynn

Russ Unger @russu

Krista Sanders @newhighscore

Bootcamp for a UX Team of None

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