UX AT Work: Experience Design Principles for an Agency World

UXATWORKEXPERIENCE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
FOR AN AGENCY WORLD
by Colin Eagan for VCU Brandcenter | Ambidexterity Executive Education | July 2013

Colin Eagan | July 2013 | VCU Brandcenter Executive Education
GETTING TO KNOW YOU. I’m a user experience designer and information architect in Washington, D.C.
COLIN EAGANUSER EXPERIENCE DESIGNER | WASHINGTON, D.C.
@colineags
PLEASED TO MEET YOU.
#ambidexterity

THINKING WITH BOTH SIDES OF THE BRAIN. My background combines experiences in both the digital
agency and business consulting worlds -- a good paradigm for the creative / practical line that UX people walk.

EXHIBIT A.!Board game by Colin, circa 1989. Instructions indicate that every time a “six” is rolled the Dinosaur
moves ahead. Players may escape Dinosaur’s wrath by spending a turn in the Caveman House (cave?). The
game can be won presumably by obtaining a lot of gold and rubies, common currency of cave people.

AMBIDEXTERITY:IT’S A COMPLEX WORLD OUT THERE &
THE FITTEST SURVIVE AMIDST CHANGE
Change you say?

WEB STANDARDS
TABLETS
SMART PHONES
RESPONSIVE DESIGN
MOBILE FIRST
CONTENT FIRST
WEB EXPERIENCE MGMT.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MGMT.
PERSONALIZATION
BIG DATA
REALITY MINING
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
GOOGLE GLASS

KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. Readers browsing through the damaged library of
Holland House in West London, wrecked by a bomb on 22 October 1940.

BUILDINGYOUR
UXSURVIVALKIT
In a shifting world, UX provides an important foundation based on user-digital interactions.

WAIT, BUT HOW CAN ONE DESIGN
AN EXPERIENCE?
One can’t, but you can design the conditions that allow an experience to take place.

TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING MODEL. The idea will always be the most important asset in
marketing communications. But it use to be less complicated to translate that idea to the available
channels, and you could predict how the user would interact with them.
IDEA

DIGITAL WORLD = COMPLEXITY. It is now more difﬁcult to get your idea across, since digital media are inherently more
complex, more interactive, and more unpredictable. While the idea is still most important, the art of getting the idea out on
digital channels has given rise to a whole new ﬁeld of Experience Design.
IDEA

THE ELEMENTS OF USER EXPERIENCE. This now well known diagram by Jesse James Garrett (30 March 2000)
demonstrates the “basic duality of the web.” Originally conceived as a hypertextual information space, it have become a
remote software interface. User Experience work spans all of these levels.
JesseJamesGarrett(30March2000)

DEVELOPER =
STRATEGIST
ARCHITECT =
INFORMATION ARCHITECT
INTERIOR DESIGNER =
ART DIRECTOR
CONTRACTOR =
DEVELOPER
WHO DOES WHAT? Keeping track of all the different roles that touch UX is a challenge (and constantly changing). Here’s
an over-simpliﬁed view of the landscape.
IF UX WAS A STOCKPHOTO CONSTRUCTION BROCHURE...

YES, BUT WHAT DO
YOU DO EXACTLY?

ANNOTATED WIREFRAMES
PERSONAS
DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM
SITEMAPS
PRIORITIZATION WORKSHOP
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
VIDEO JOURNALS
USABILITY TESTING
VISUAL COMPOSITIONS (COMPS)
MOODBOARDS
HTML / CSS
REQUIREMENTS SPEC
FOCUS GROUPS
CARD SORTING
STRATEGIC
PLANNING OVERLAP
(DIGITAL ONLY)
THINGS UX PEOPLE DO
JesseJamesGarrett(30March2000)

USER EXPERIENCE OFFERINGS. How we present the landscape at ICF Interactive.

UX SURVIVAL SKILL #1
INTERFACE USABILITY
Humans are creatures of habit... even online (especially online). Understanding basic
usability heuristics is an essential skill for experience designers.

“Consistency is one of the most powerful usability
principles: when things always behave the same, users don’t
have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know
what will happen based on earlier experience.”
- Jakob Nielsen, NNG Group

Classic Example -- “F” Pattern

Myth of “3-Clicks” vs. “Information Scent”
A refrain frequently thrown around in web design has become “every piece of content should be three clicks away.” While
minimizing the number of clicks is generally a best practice, it is often unrealistic on content-heavy sites to adhere to this number.
Instead, research suggests that users follow an “information scent,” or a trail of clues that lead them to their goal. This scent is
highly impacted by how intuitive users ﬁnd the labels for navigation links and page links, as well as image links.
Follow the Rule of 7 + or - 2
A best practice to follow when generating a site map is to make sure the number of items in any given group are equal to seven
plus or minus two (ie 5-9). This should apply to the total number of items in the primary navigation, and secondary navigation (this
is less critical for tertiary navigation, but still applicable). The theory has its roots in cognitive psychology studies dating back to the
1950s, and argues that this is the average number of objects held in short- term memory. While recent research has shifted the
focus from memory to scanability, usability studies continue to suggest this is a useful threshold. Exceptions to this rule can be
achieved in certain situations, such as mega menus with super-categorization.
Thinking Beyond the Homepage
A site’s Homepage is no longer the one-stop-shop destination that many organizations continue to view it as. According to Nielsen
studies, when given a task without specifying a site on which to complete it, 89% of users will begin with a search engine
(comparable to 88% in 2004). As a result of that search, only 25% land on the homepage, while 75% land on an interior page (up
substantially from 40% / 60% in 2004). This suggests that lower level navigation, including local navigation and breadcrumbs, are
increasingly important in terms of ﬁndability.
MORE FUN ONES...

WIREFRAMES AND SITEMAPS. Backbone of information design.

USABILITY TESTING. Showing online and paper prototyping.

USER RESEARCH
Focus Groups, Heuristic Analysis, Contextual Inquiry, Video Journals, Surveys and more!

Chaz
“Social Media Lover”
Age: 30
Hometown: New York, NY
Hobbies: Volunteering at the animal shelter
Favorite Color: Dark Grey
Chaz is a potential customer for our home improvement
company. He has four dogs and really enjoys sushi. He
also likes cats, and will not rule out getting a fish. Chaz
can often be seen at the super market purchasing sushi,
since he enjoys it so much. He rents an apartment with
his roommate Jerry, although Jerry hasn’t paid rent in
over three months now. So its basically just Chaz paying
the rent.
Chaz is a Millenial who is interested in buying a house
someday so he is really into home improvement. His main
concerns are style and price. Chaz likes to go to home
improvement stores to look around. He likes to buy tools
as well as decorations. When it comes to his home, he is
particular about how things look. He likes to go online to
websites to see how much things costs before going to
the store. His favorite website is Google.
STUFF CHAZ DOES
-Because he is young, Chaz
really loves being on social
networks
- Because he is male, Chaz’s
favorite part of DIY is buying
tools
Really
Staged
Photo
Unhelpful
categorization
Irrelevant
background info
(aimed at appearing
‘personal.’)
Assumptions
Generalizations
Bad Persona?
God Awful. Personas sometimes get a bad rep because they are not properly executed. It is sometimes easy to
assume that, because they are ﬁctional, personas can just be “made up.” This results in documents that are at best
vague and at worst misleading.
HAVE YOU SUFFERED FROM BAD PERSONAS?
Really?

MENTAL MODELING. by Indi Young

DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS
Understanding the big, big picture.

Credit: ICF Ironworks

CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Open Source, Closed Source, Content, Search, Taxonomy, Requirements....

FRESH CONTENT. A Refrigerator of Penguin Classics.

Credit: ICF Ironworks for EDUCAUSE.edu

Speaking of Responsive Design... Some other trends that you
should be aware of but we don’t really have time to go into here.
-- Mobile is dead. Stop saying mobile.
-- The idea of a web “page” is also at risk. Instead Blobs? Chunks?
-- Adobe Flash is on its way out, replaced by techniques like HTML5.
-- For increasing number of world’s population mobile is ONLY access.
-- Flat design is now in... wait, actually now its long shadow design.

UX ADVANCED SKILLS
SERVICE DESIGN
Designing services is much different than designing products (hint: its about touchpoints).

SERVICE PROPOSITIONS Answer three main questions: Do people understand what the new service is or
does? Do people see the value of it in their life? Do people understand how to use it? -- Andy Polaine

A SERVICE BLUEPRINT AND JOURNEY SUMMARY describes a particular user’s journey through the main
service phases, or through a more detailed set of steps. It shows what is going on visually, and the text
describes the experiences and interactions with the chosen touchpoints.
Credit: Andy Polaine

SERVICE DIAGRAM. An example of the sort of visual audit that usually turns heads with executives. This map
provides a concrete picture of each step that is required to complete a simple task, in this case installing a home
router for an IP telephony company. Credit: Robert Fabricant 2013

Credit: Andy Polaine

UX ADVANCED SKILLS
COGNITIVE SCIENCE
We all want to build “enjoyable” experiences... but what does that really mean? And why is it so hard?

“Recent advances in the behavioral sciences have shed
unprecedented light on how people make decisions,
experience pain and pleasure, and recall their
experiences.”
-Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
- Design Enjoyable Experiences Now
by John Dalton, July 10, 2012
“Understanding the Timing and intensity of pain is
Critical. Reducing the overall agitation that customers
experience is obviously beneficial. But leading firms will
leverage new insights into human decision-making and
memory to refocus efforts on “finishing strong.”
DESIGNING ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCES

Why Is it so hard to build enjoyable experiences?
■ Businesses mistake offering abundant choices for creating enjoyment.
Research shows that too much choice creates stress, self-doubt, and even despair — the
polar opposites of pleasure.
■ Spreadsheets blind firms to understanding critical human factors.
Home Depot laid off its most experienced sales staff. The result: Sales plummeted as
customers struggled to find products and useful assistance
■ You don’t know what you don’t measure.
Most firms simply don’t measure emotional engagement.

“When Bob Nardelli took over Home Depot, in 2000, he reduced the
number of salespeople on the floor and turned many full-time jobs
into part-time ones. In the process, he turned Home Depot stores into
cavernous wastelands, with customers wandering around dejectedly
trying to find an aproned employee, only to discover that he had no
useful advice to offer. The company’s customer-service ratings
plummeted, and its sales growth stalled.”
Read more!http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2012/03/26/120326ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz230xzhkB6

If you’ve ever been to a movie and enjoyed 50 minutes of bliss only to have it
all ruined because a baby started crying near the end, then you’re well aware
of the fact that we are saddled with two conﬂicting selves
EXPERIENCING SELF
Automatic Mind:
REMEMBERING SELF
Reﬂective Mind:
TWO CONFLICTING SELVES...

Automatic Mind:
What we think customers use
Reﬂective Mind:
What they actually use

“The experiencing self does not have a voice. The
remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that
keeps score and governs what we learn from living.”
“The ‘peak-end’ rule shows that a person’s memory of a painful
experience can be reliably predicted by the average of the level of
pain reported at the worst moment of the experience and the
level of pain reported at the end. Remarkably, the research also
shows that the duration of the pain had no effect on the
individual’s evaluation of total pain.”
--Source: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011, p. 381.

EXAMPLE: USAA

1.Begin at the End. Firms should get out their ecosystem maps
immediately and start tagging endpoints in the customer’s
journey.
2.Reimagine the scope of what drives an interaction. consider
how customers’ goals may be inﬂuenced by their approach to an
interface or physical location.
3.Monitor. Sensing that its parking arrangements might be
damaging the overall client experience, Kaiser Permanente spent
30 days analyzing Twitter activity to gauge customer
impressions. Sure enough, there was a signiﬁcant amount of
evident displeasure.
WHAT TO DO...

UX ADVANCED SKILLS
UX ENLIGHTENMENT!
Ahh.

Credit: Colin Eagan

THE SYSTEM THE IDEA
Original Slide Image Credit: Devdutt Pattanaik

IN BUSINESS CULTURE,
UX IS THE NEW BLACK.
July 16, 2013
“Most executives, regardless of their industry, now promote UX as key to
their product strategy. That's a big change from only five years ago, when
UX wasn't on anyone's radar outside the tech world.”

LOOKING AHEAD:
CUSTOMER CENTRIC
TO UX-CENTRIC
July 16, 2013
“The gap is growing between traditional sales-and-marketing-driven
behemoths with their "customer-centric" approach and the new breed of
organizations like Square and Zipcar, who have a ‘UX-centric’ culture.”

THANKS. YOU ARE GREAT.
Read more...
colineagan.com
fitandfinish.ironworks.com
icfi.com
@colineags
#ambidexterity

UX AT Work: Experience Design Principles for an Agency World

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