The document outlines key principles of user experience (UX), emphasizing the importance of user-centric design, clear content, and simplicity in creating satisfactory interactions between users and products. It highlights ten guiding UX principles including the necessity of understanding user journeys, maintaining consistency, and actively seeking user feedback. Additionally, it suggests collaborative workshops to explore and refine these principles in practical scenarios.

1. GUIDING UX PRINCIPLES
December 13, 2011

2. WHO ARE WE?
Carl Nelson Jonathan Hung Robert Surrency

3. THANK YOU.
Raised $606 = Educating 21 students for one year.

4. WHAT IS USER EXPERIENCE?

5. “ ‘User experience’ encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s
interaction with the company, its services, and its products. The
first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the
exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother. Next comes
simplicity and elegance that produce products that are a joy to own,
a joy to use. True user experience goes far beyond giving customers
what they say they want, or providing checklist features. In order
to achieve high-quality user experience in a company’s offerings
there must be a seamless merging of the services of multiple
“
disciplines, including engineering, marketing, graphical and
industrial design, and interface design.
Neilson Norman Group

6. PRINCIPLES

7. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
USER-CENTRIC
THINKING
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
• Who is the audience?
• Is this really a good experience for the end user?
• Have I considered the entire experience, not just what’s
in front of me?
(Not just digitally, but in the real world as well)
• Even though it “works”, is there anything that can be
improved to better the experience?

11. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
CONTENT MATTERS
Content is the heart of your experience.
• Do you know what content you have?
• Is the content redundant, outdated, trivial?
• Is your content static or will it change over time?
• Do you have an overall content strategy?

14. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
CLEAR WORKFLOWS
A path! A path!
• Can users get from A to B...easily?
• Is it easy to move forward and back?
• Is there too many steps or too few?
• Can you tell where you are?

17. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
SIMPLIFY
Less is more.
• What can I remove from this screen, interaction, or page
so that the most important functionality is prominent?
• Can you explain why it really needs to be there?
• Is the purpose and function of this page convoluted by too
many visual elements, buttons, form fields?
• Can you say the same thing with less words?

22. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
CONSISTENCY
Lather, rinse, repeat.
• Is the style guide or pattern library being followed?
• Are they violating expectations around established
interface guidelines?
• Would interacting with anything in this system surprise a user?
• Are similar tasks completed in the same way throughout
the system?
• When they updated their product, is the functionality and
content in the locations people expect?

27. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
PATTERNS &
MODELS
Don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
• Are well known patterns and models that people are used to,
difficult to use or interact with?
• Are there opportunities to standardize specific patterns or models
to be more consistent with what people are used to?

29. Cover Flow
Pagination
Checkout Workflow

31. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
DON’T MAKE
ME THINK
Make it easy and clear.
• Are there clear signs for what to do and where to go?
• Do you know what the primary goals for the user are?
• Are you thinking in terms of features or needs?
• Could your grandmother do the basics?

34. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
HONESTY &
TRANSPARENCY
Always the best policy.
• Is it clear why they are collecting sensitive information?
• Can you find help or contact resources easily?
• Do they provide a secure environment?
• Are instructions and directions clearly explained?

37. SquareSpace
Apple Store

38. Facebook Privacy Settings Page (2010)

39. Definition
ZUCKERING
“ The act of creating deliberately confusing
jargon and user-interfaces which trick
“
your users into sharing more info about
themselves than they really want to.
Tim Jones
Electronic Frontier Foundation

40. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
It’s still design, not science.
• Does it include basic design principles?
(Balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, color, texture & lines)
• Does it use layout grids?
• Do components have enough spacing?
• Is there a visual and information hierarchy?

46. No. 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10
ASK FOR FEEDBACK
Practice good listening skills.
• How do you know what you’ve done is best for the user?
• What questions do you have about the design that a user
might answer?
• Are there places on the site that users can solicit feedback?
• Does the brand make communication with customers a
core value?

49. Recap
GUIDING UX PRINCIPLES
1 User-Centric Thinking 6 Patterns & Models
2 Content Matters 7 Don’t Make Me Think
3 Clear Workflows 8 Honesty & Transparency
4 Simplify 9 Design Principles
5 Consistency 10 Ask for Feedback

50. WORKSHOP

51. The Scenario
Re-imagine how you buy a
Kindle on Amazon

52. Breakdown
10 GROUPS
10 PRINCIPLES
3 PEOPLE PER GROUP
30 MINUTES

53. Process
THE APPROACH
1 Ideation 3 Sketch
• Individual brainstorm • Converge ideas
• Anything goes – no critique • Sketch your idea
• Use the assigned UX Principle • One paragraph description
as a Lens
2 Refine 4 Present
• Regroup • Pick a speaker
• Pick 2-3 ideas • Tell us about your group’s idea
• Explore combinations & best traits

54. Reference
CLASS NOTES
http://www.rsurrency.com/classnotes.html

55. QUESTIONS?

56. THANK YOU.
Carl Nelson Jonathan Hung Robert Surrency
e: carl@carlrnelson.com e: jonathan.a.hung@gmail.com e: hello@rsurrency.com
t: @CarlRNelson t: @JonathanHung t: @RobSurrency