Attitude AdjustmentValuing Developers in UX and Usability

Attitude Adjustment
Valuing Developers in UX and Usability
Marcella Missirian
11/16/14
SoCalCodeCamp.com

Marcella Missirian
UX Director
President, UXPALA
Entrepreneur, visual designer, developer, user experience evangelist
and cook. Marcella grew up in the LA area and is the rare Los Angeles
native as well as worldwide traveler.
Marcella has a background in economics, business and political
science but spent most of her higher education years immersed in art,
visual and performance experiences and as well as being a
professional pastry chef.
Marcella's work has been seen and used globally and has inspired an
entire generation of designers and continues to set the standard for
usability and user experience that is not only functional but is rich in
emotional experience as well as delightful!
Marcella is a digital expert, entrepreneur, innovator and thinker and is
the Executive Director of UXPA (User Experience Professional
Association of Los Angeles) and active participant at many design, ux
and technology events throughout the world.
Everyone is welcome to UXPA of LA events. If you're in the
Technology, UX, design or the like field, join our meetup page to get
updates on events, forum discussion on issues and resources related
to your field.
UXPALA — http://www.meetup.com/UXPALA/
@Marcella_UX
www.linkedin.com/in/marcellamissirian/
11/18/20
14 Attitude Adjustment — Valuing Developers in UX and Usability — 2

Today we’ll talk about
you, the developer and
your valuable and integral
role working within a
UX/UI team and workflow.
11/18/20

You’re on a new project and the teams talking UX, persona's, testing, prototypes, iterations, and
research. Where do you fit in and become an invaluable part of the development process? What
IS the UX process?
11/18/20

LET’S START WITH – WHAT IS UX AND
USABILITY?
Wikipedia User Experience:
User Experience (UX) involves a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions
about using a particular product, system or service.
Marcella’s definition:
UX is the study of the human and everything that is not human and how we
relate and use those objects around us.
Wikipedia Usability:
Ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.
Marcella’s definition:
Usability means structuring things so you don't leave your users angry,
frustrated, and complaining about you on Facebook or Twitter.
11/18/20

UX WORKFLOW BASICS
• Idea – Let’s make a new widget
• Persona Development
• (testing)
• Prototyping
• (testing)
• User Journey
• (testing)
• Wire Framing
• (testing)
• Back/Front End Development
• (testing)
• User Interface
• (testing)
• Release
• (testing)
11/18/20

The cycle of development keeps turning around and if you’re doing it right,
you’re always improving.
11/18/20

THE IMPORTANT OF UX AND USABILITY
What is the first thing people will do when a site is
difficult to use?
11/18/20

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?
1. “It’s hard to use & ugly!”
2. “I just don’t understand
how to use this!”
3. “The performance of this
application sucks!”
4. “Was this application
designed for me or an
engineer?”
11/18/20

SO WHERE DO YOU START?
• Who are your users?
• What do you want them to do on your site?
• What do they want to do on your site?
• How tech-savvy are your users?
• Where will your users go if your site isn't
working for them?
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-REQUIREMENTS
AND IDEATION
• Requirements — Create a script/list of the
most common procedures or tasks on your
site.
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-PERSONA
DEVELOPMENT
• Create Personas — an aggregate user based
on common traits in a group of users. On
average there are at least 3 persona’s per
project/product.
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-STRATEGY
• Strategy — Identify success criteria.
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-TESTING
• Testing — Sit down with users individually and
give them one task at a time. Ask them neutral
questions and tasks. Record each session for
review.
• What to test?
 Old design
 Competitor's websites
 Sites popular with your users
 Proposed site
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-PROTOTYPING
• Mock-up the project or product.
• Use paper and pencil, clay, PowerPoint,
Word, use anything that quick and you feel
comfortable using.
• Test the prototype. Draw screens for each
swipe or tap or touch.
• Test on family and friends.
• Make adjustments.
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-USER JOURNEY
AND EXPERIENCE MAPPING
• Story board your product.
 Where does the user start?
 Do they login?
 Do they get to their home page?
 How do they find information?
 What’s the end result?
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-WIREFRAMING
• Create skeleton layouts that show function
and form but no graphics
• Test these layouts
with people that fit
your persona
development
• Adjust, tweek, test,
adjust, tweek, test
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-DEVELOPMENT
• Based on:
 Persona characteristics and behavior
 User Journey
 Experience Mapping
 Testing through each step
 Strategy
 Success indicators
 Back and front end coding begins
 User Interface Design begins
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-TESTING,
TESTING, TESTING
• When development is in process, do more
testing
11/18/20

BUILDING THE PROJECT-RELEASE
• Nothing will ever be perfect.
• MVP = Most Viable Product
• If you think you’re done, you would be wrong
• Iterative process means you keep going and
changing things based on user feedback and
testing
11/18/20

CASE STUDY-MOBILE APP
• Working with a developer, Jon, who didn’t
want to be involved.
• Very grouchy
• Just tell him what we wanted done
• Jon didn’t like meetings and thought they
were useless
• Jon didn’t understand all the post-its and
white boards and didn’t read any of the notes.
• Jon didn’t care what a persona was.
• BUT – he would have all changes completed
very quickly
11/18/20

• The team wanted Jon’s input
• When they showed him wireframes and
designs and explained to him function he
would sigh, grumble and respond with
“That can’t be done.”
“This language is limited and that stuff would
break so I don’t think you should build it.”
“I know what I’m doing and I know what
people like to use.”
• BUT – again, he would have all changes
completed very quickly regardless of the
complaining.
11/18/20

• Without Jon’s participation and input, the
project dragged on and he was doing more
work than necessary.
• The team was frustrated and felt the process
was not moving forward and they were getting
resentful of Jon.
• Jon was frustrated and felt like he wasn’t
being listened to.
• BUT Jon worked really fast.
• But now the costs were going up because of
re-work.
11/18/20

• The UX process at it’s fundamental core is
collaboration.
• It often involves stepping on each other’s
toes.
• Getting messy.
• Breaking things.
• This is all for the Identified User.
• Every thought, every post-it, every function is
to simplify and make delightful.
11/18/20

CASE STUDY-MOBILE APP-THE USER
• Know your user, and you are not that user.
• Don't overwhelm the user.
• Consistency, consistency, consistency.
• The user should control the system. The
system should not control the user. The user
is the boss and the system should show it.
• User should be able to do what they want.
• Strive to empower the user, not speed up the
system.
• Minimize the need for a mighty memory-don’t
make them think.
11/18/20

SOLUTION TO CASE STUDY
• I brought lunch into
the office.
• I picked up Jon’s
favorite – Bay Cities
Deli.
11/18/20

• I set up all the
sandwiches in the
conference room.
11/18/20

• With the TV on.
11/18/20

• To the moderated user testing we had
completed the week before.
11/18/20

• Jon watched, paused, rewound and fast-forwarded
all three tapes for hours.
11/18/20

• The next day, I brought coffee and bagels
into our “situation room.” (work area)
11/18/20

• Jon was told of the bagels and coffee and
didn’t just grab 3 and leave…
• He stayed.
11/18/20

• The grumpy, grouchy attitude came out full
throttle, even after 2 cups of coffee and
probably 2-3 bagels.
11/18/20

• So we set up some rules:
 Rule 1 — When giving feedback or commenting on
another’s work, start with 2 positives before any
constructive criticism.
11/18/20

 Rule 2 — Get over arguments quickly and move on. This
is not about you but about the work. Remove your ego.
11/18/20

 Rule 3 — Make the right time for each other and
recognize we are all a very crucial part of the team.
11/18/20

 Rule 4 — Get what you need from others and make sure
they get what they need from you. Listen. Listen. Listen.
11/18/20

 Rule 5 — Share the blame and the fame.
11/18/20

 Rule 6 — Learn from each other. Care for each other.
Stop the laziness and be kind.
11/18/20

 Rule 7 — Soft skills are the key. You’ll get more
accomplished.
11/18/20

WHAT MAKES A GREAT TEAM?
A desire to give control over something to a
colleague who can make it bigger, better, more
beautiful!
–Nic Ford, dConstruct
11/18/20

EXERCISE
• Say 2 nice things to the person on your right
then 1 piece of constructive criticism.
• Reverse Roles.
• Identify 2 of your strongest soft skills to the
person on your right.
Soft skills is a term often associated with a person's "EQ"
(Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits,
social graces, communication, language, personal habits,
friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with
other people.
11/18/20

QUESTIONS
Marcella Missirian
info@marcellacreative.com
@Marcella_UX
11/18/20

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