This document outlines the fundamentals of user experience (UX) design, emphasizing the importance of understanding user goals to create effective digital products. It discusses the process of user research, goal-directed design, and the various methodologies used to analyze and optimize user experiences. Additionally, it highlights the necessity of focusing design on actual user needs and goals rather than just tasks or features.

1. User Experience Design
Fundamentals 1: Users & Goals
Periscope | www.periscopeux.com
We design smart, usable digital products
Laura Ballay & Meghan Deutscher

2. Takeaways
Understand UX fundamentals:
• Value & Process
• Goal-directed design
• Users and their goals
Learn how to articulate the goals
of your product’s users
Learn how to use user goals to
assess a website or product

3. Diagram from Kimmy Paluch at Montparnas.

5. User Experience Design
User research
Personas
Heuristics analysis
User scenarios
Storyboarding
Information architecture
Interaction design
Workflows
Wireframes
Prototyping
Usability Testing
Mockups
Visual / UI Design

6. Good design is not magic!
There are no cookie-cutter
solutions that you pull out of
a hat.
Good design involves creativity,
balance, and a solid foundation
of guiding principles.
Your activities and how you do
them will always depend on
your product’s maturity, project
resources and constraints.

7. So…what is UX Design?
It’s not just graphic or UI design.
It’s not just “usability.”

8. UX Design is a combination of
research and design methods used to
understand user needs and design
products that people want to use.

9. It’s not just understanding what people do.
It’s understanding why people do what they do -
Their goals, motivations, behaviors
and expectations.

10. vs.

11. In Goal-Directed Design, focus is maintained on user goals
to provide rationale for design decisions and a benchmark
for evaluating them.
If your product helps people achieve their goals effectively
and happily, it’s more likely to be successful.

12. Discover
Research users to
understand why they
do what they do.
Validate Analyze
Test design solutions with Uncover key user goals
actual users. Do they and pain-points from
support user goals? research findings.
The UX Process
Design Conceptualize
Create and communicate Create design requirements
possible solutions for from user goals, business
requirements. goals and tech. requirements.

13. User =
The basic unit of
the process.

14. Discover
• Contextual studies
• Surveys
• Competitor analysis
Validate Analyze
• Prototypes • User personas
• Usability testing • User workflows
• Heuristics evaluation • Affinity diagrams
UX Activities
Design Conceptualize
• Information architecture • User scenarios
• Wireframes • Storyboards
• Mockups • Design principles

15. Discover
Learn about users
& their goals.
Validate Analyze
Make sure user goals Outline and
are met. understand goals.
User Goals
Design Conceptualize
Design for goals. Base principles and
priorities on goals.

16. So how do you first understand
who your users are?
Demographics are a starting
point. But a user is not just a
male user, age 46 – 59.
(Nor is a user anyone in your
family, a friend, or yourself).

17. The user is a model of the behaviours, needs, motivations,
and context of your target customer.
The user’s goals are inferred from observed behaviors,
responses to questions, how they respond to questions,
nonverbal cues, and other clues from their environment.

18. Once you understand your users, then
a good place to start finding User Goals
is to put yourself in your users’ shoes &
ask yourself questions like… What does this
product do for
me?
Where should
I start?
Is this the
right product
for me?
I’m just looking
for…
I just want to
quickly do…
Why should
I do this?

19. User Goals should be related to:
• How a user wants to feel
• What they want to do
• Who they want to be
They are not tasks or what you
want a user to do with your
product.
They’re also often not what a
user says they are, because it’s
hard for a person to articulate
his/her own goal.

20. TASKS GOALS!
I want to keep track of I want to make sure I get
my project’s milestones all my work done on time.
and progress.
I want to sign up for the I want to be conscientious
David Suzuki newsletter. of the environment.
vs.
I want to make playlists, I want to listen to music
rate my music, and let that I like.
my friends know what I’m
listening to.
I want to run 15k every I want to lost weight and
week. feel better about myself.

21. An example
User goal: “I want to
quickly sell some of the
clutter in my garage.”
If this user came across
UsedEverywhere.com,
they would have to skim
all the way to the bottom
of the page before finding
how this service might
help them clean up their
garage.

22. An example
User goal: “I want to
quickly sell some of the
clutter in my garage.”
In contrast, at
preloved.co.uk, users are
told upfront that they can
sell things with this service
and they are given a clear
action to do so.

23. Another example
User goal: “I need to
quickly find an audio
clip for my product
demo video.”
Is there help for users to
quickly browse & filter
through lots of tracks at
StockMusic.com?

24. User Goals
• Example of site that supports goals
well
But when you understand the tasks a user must do to accomplish
a goal, you can optimize your product for those tasks.
(Audiojungle provides features that make it easy for a user
browsing a large list of tracks to quickly find the right one).

25. An exercise
• Work in groups of 2 or 3.
• Find a website, product or service that
supports the user goal you’re given.
• Note down at least 2 reasons why you think
it supports the goal well.

26. When you understand your users’ goals and their context, you
can focus your product on satisfying those goals.

27. An example: Silverback provides the basic functionality needed to
easily record the computer screen and participant’s face during usability
testing.

28. An example: Other usability testing software is bloated with features,
complicating the interface and making for a slow learning curve.

29. Discovering Goals
• User Goals à Product
• But Product à User Goals?

30. An example: Who is Questrade for?

31. Who is Etrade for?
Once your understand your users and their goals, you can
still go back to make it clear who your product is for.

32. What you can do now
• Next workshop we will teach you how to
talk to and learn from users.
• Goals can help you focus/tweak your
product or prioritize your features.

33. Homework
Examining your own product / service, determine:
• Who your target user(s) are.
• Their 3 most important goals.
• How a user would go about completing their goal,
starting from the first touch-point with your product.

34. Questions?
info@periscopeux.com

35. Thanks!
…and thank you to all the awesome people who share their photos on
Flickr:
Stephen Bowler
Eva Ekeblad
Simon Law
"Baldiri"
Yagan Kiely
"The Mac Girl*"
Dipanker Dutta
"Kool_skatkat"
Courtney McGough
Devon Shaw
Andrea Hernandez
And also
Jesseedwards.net
"Juice Bits" blog