Archive for the ‘thoughts’ Category
What is User Experience Design?
Posted on: August 21, 2009
- In: thoughts | ux
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I had a need yesterday for a quick definition of user experience and its subsequent value to business. I polled the twittersphere and scoured the web but didn’t find any resource that provided a “quick guide” to UX. Since I had an urgent need, I decided to write my own guide. The guide is a combination of my own ideas and resources (see reference list) I found on the web.
What is a user experience?
A “user experience” encompasses all aspects of the interactions an individual has with a company, its services, and its products. An exemplary user experience meets current customer needs and anticipates future needs, exceeds customer expectations, sends a clear and strategic message, and delights the customer with innovative solutions.
For example, when Henry Ford built his first car, he was quoted as saying “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” A company’s job is not to give users what they want, but to solve problems. The problems that companies are trying to solve are usually social, and so understanding people and how they interact with each other and their environment forms the key understanding and driving force of the product design and direction.
At the core, user experience advocates for the end-user and makes sure to bring the customer’s perspective into the decision making process. In order to achieve this user-centered approach, user experience designers engage in several activities:
- Observe customers in their natural environment to understand how they are currently interacting with existing systems, as well as get insight into how users view the world (their mental models).
- Build empathy and understanding of the customers within the entire product team
- Work with stakeholders to create unified product vision and a user experience strategy. Both the vision and the strategy aim to balance the user needs with business goals.
- Gather further customer data as needed to make educated design decisions
- Utilize sophisticated design methodologies for ideation and innovation of alternative solution to existing options, and constantly ask, “How will this help the customer kick ass?”
- Involve customers in the design process
- Create a structure and organizational system for information environments
- Ensure that the new solutions are useful, usable, desirable, findable, accessible, credible, valuable, memorable, and pleasing
- Continually listen to customer feedback and adapt to changing customer needs
- Keep in mind all the touch points of a user experience and ensure seamless integration between all components
What is the business value in user experience?
In order to be competitive in the current global market, companies are embracing consumers and realizing the power of design. A poorly designed product/service often frustrates customers, which ultimately affects the bottom line. A good customer experience correlates to loyalty. Loyalty corresponds to a customer’s willingness to buy another product from the firm, and a reluctance to switch business away from the firm. As any business knows, it is much more cost effective to keep existing customers than acquire new ones. Furthermore, the strong research aspect in user experience helps business understand why customers are behaving a certain way, and design can help influence behavior. Perhaps customers are dropping off during the checkout flow, not coming back to the site, or not renewing their license. User experience helps to find out why and provides solutions to the problem. For example, changing a single button on a site increased a site’s annual revenues by $300 million: http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button
Ultimately, user experience design places a strategic emphasis on the customer, providing value for both the business and the customer. Efficiency is no longer sufficient to be competitive in the current economic climate, a company needs to differentiate through user experience by allowing the customer’s to kick ass, while gaining revenue!
Some cool graphics:
Elements of User Experience Design by Jesse James Garrett: http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf
Facets of user experience: http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php
References
Nielson Norman Group definition of UX
UIE: The Difference between Usability and User Experience
Adaptive Path: Communicate the ROI for Design and Subject to Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World
Kathy Sierra: Subvert from Within: A User Focused Employee Guide
Forrester Research:
Culture and Process Drive Better Customer Experiences
Experience-Based Differentiation
The Business Impact of Customer Experience
Trust and Client Relationships
Posted on: July 9, 2009
I had an “ah-ha” moment recently. The moment was spurred by Josh’s talk at Refresh Boston in combination with my endless job search at the moment, and general self-reflection. I realized two things, which might be seem simple but have actually taken me 3 years to truly understand at an intuitive level, versus just a conceptual one.
1) Although any job will always have times when you might manage difficult conversations, many difficult conversations with clients can be avoided all together if there is a healthy amount of trust.
2) The UX field, either knowingly or not, sends a message that we are the experts. We know best because we talk to the user. This might have come about from the UX field struggling to get accepted as a profession, but has now proliferated so widely that it imbues a lot of work (and discussion lists) and gives newcomers to the field a false sense of righteousness. Theoretically, this might be true (and I would certainly like to believe it), but practically it just does not fly. Our job is not to dictate, but rather to listen, guide, communicate, and facilitate. We do not have all the answers, we are not always right, and we should not take this position when working with stakeholders. One gains much more trust in the service role than in the dictatorship role. I have personally made several huge mistakes by adopting the wrong attitude, which I thought was appropriate for my role as UX designer. I am now thoroughly humbled.
In order to re-educate myself a bit further, I reached out to some of my colleagues – Jeff Parks, Joshua Porter, Steve Baty, and Mark Sloan – and asked them for advice on gaining trust with a client. Here was some of the advice I was given. Most of the information below are quotes from emails.
- Listen. Listen for new insights, listen to understand the clients problem, listen much more than you talk. Ask questions to clarify and repeat back to the client what you have heard. You gain trust by assuring the client that you really care about their problem and are truly listening to them; rather than “pushing a square peg into a round hole”, that is trying to force your framework or mental model onto the client (Jeff Parks)
- Repeat and reiterate what you are working on. This allows clients to feel more confident that you are paying attention and listening (Josh Porter).
- Become a subject matter expert, build a good reputation locally and also within the UX community. Steve Baty suggests writing articles or giving presentations, answering questions in public forums and the like. Clients will cut you some slack when (inevitably) difficulties arise if you have a solid reputation. Also, you need to constantly deliver, so that when things do go wrong, clients know its the exception not the rule.
- Show insight early. Most clients show some misunderstanding, making assumptions about users and their behavior. The idea is to gently push back on that notion by providing insight into user behavior. This shows that you are a subject matter expert and that you can be trusted to make good decisions.
- Be honest. Learn to say “I don’t know” (Jeff Parks), and also be upfront about what you are delivering and when (Steve Baty).
- Plant seeds, and give them time to come to fruition. Know that it takes time for people to learn and make good decisions. What took you a week to decide cannot be related in 10 minutes in a meeting. Plant seeds of ideas and let the client mull it over (Mark Sloan).
- Use terms like “we” and “us”. Anything new will always get some pushback, sit back, take notes and don’t react right away. This will help curb some defensiveness that might come out (unintentionally). The pressure to come to a decision right away is usually the biggest trigger for anger and distrust. Say something like “we don’t seem convinced one way or the other, let’s capture this as an issue, think about it another
day or so and then resolve it”. Using “we” and “us” reinforces the idea that you are working together
and will help both you and them keep the right mind frame. (Mark Sloan).
Do you have more insights than what I listed above? Feel free to comment, I would love to know more tips and tricks!
ETA: I found some relevant articles which bring additional insights to this topic
Understanding Critical to Being Understood by Jeff Parks, Johnny Holland
8 Strategies for Successful Relations with Clients by Jeff Gardner, Smashing Magazine
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I just came back from a trip to Atlanta, and I flew Delta because they are the cheapest to that destination given that Atlanta is their hub. I thought it was really apropos when I read this blog post by Peter Merholz today that specifically talked about the airline industry, where he stated that “Customer experience refers to the totality of experience a customer has with a business, across all channels and touchpoints.”
I chose to fly Delta because of cost, but I looked at the routes that Soutwest, JetBlue, and Virgin flew before looking on Delta because I was willing to pay more for the better customer experience. Unfortunately, none of those airlines went to my destination, so I was forced to pay $15 for one bag, $8 for a sandwich, and $2 for headphones for the pleasure of watching a tiny screen in the middle of the aisle which kind of hurt my neck to look at after a while. I was REALLY unhappy about having to pay for my one bag given that I can’t get threw security with a little bag anymore because of all the liquid restrictions. I hate being nickle and dimed, and I don’t believe the price is even justified anymore given that gas prices have dropped significantly. I guess I would sum up by saying that my experience at all the touchpoints as horrible, and I hope that someone over there reads Peters article.
2008 Election
Posted on: November 4, 2008
I did research all the issues and candidates so here is how I voted:
President: Obama/Biden
Democrat for the local stuff
Prop 1A – Yes
Prop 2 -Yes
Prop 3 – Yes
Prop 4 – HELL NO
Prop 5 – Yes (was sort of back and forth on this one, but decided to go with it)
Prop 6 – No
Prop 7 – No
Prop 8 – HELL NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Prop 9 – No
Prop 10 – No
Prop 11 – No
Prop 12 – Yes
I got a “I Voted” sticker which I am wearing proudly at the moment. I also thought that the usability of the ballots in California was much better than in Indiana. I think Indiana had a form of butterfly ballots which were really confusing. Here they have a nice booklet where everything lines up (yes I am a total geek for noticing and proud of it).
Interaction 08: Concept Models
Posted on: February 26, 2008
Concept Models: A Tool for Planning Interaction by Dan Brown
My Notes:
You are trying to build a web application and you have scenarios or use cases, now what? You could do a flowchart and start thinking about steps and screens. However, this limits you to the screen approach when attempting to do interaction design. To break free of the screen, we can utilize concept models.
What is the process?
You take your requirements document and circle relevant nouns (concepts). Then you create relationships among concepts. The hardest part is selecting the right nouns and relationships. It is important to think about which concepts/relationships are important.
A concept model bridges the gap between requirements and design, especially if the requirements are not clear and you need to have a solid understanding of the design problem.
In the least, a concept model will allow you (and your team) to agree on a vocabulary, and at most you will learn something interesting or new.
So, a concept model is bunch of circles connected by lines. Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge (Novak, originally came up with concept models)
What are concept models for?
To Analyze and Understand
Synthesize and Design
Creating Concept Models…
Gather concepts through research
Make a list of nouns
Start with most important concepts
In the beginning, more is better
Ask questions
Start creating connections
Research and elaborate concepts
Validate concepts and connections
Economize connections
Eliminate redundancy
Sharing Concept Models…
Determine purpose and objectives
Set expectations and keep an eye on the crowd
Remember the purpose of the document – why are you creating it?
We are going to look at something abstract, but here is how it can help
Go into the meeting with a set of questions – trying to generate a conversation
Be transparent with client
Generate questions and explain implications
What’s missing?
Are these relationships correct?
Do these relationships matter?
Can we enforce the relationships?
If A has a relationship with B, A will always be in the context of B on the webpage
If we take away this node, users will lose X
Final Ideas
Use concept models to clarify underlying structure (when product or feature is unclear)
Use concept models to escape the “page” metaphor
To bridge the gab between understanding a problem and solving a problem
Technorati Tags: interaction08
new home
Posted on: February 26, 2008
I originally tried to host this blog on my home computer, but wacky DNS settings made it mostly inaccessible from anywhere outside of California. Thus, I moved my blog to a new home. Taaddaa!
With the move, I hope to pick up blogging again and catch up on that to-blog list that I made back in August. I am also going to try to blog about the most recent conferences and workshops that I attended, as well as progress on my dissertation.
So let’s get started …
upcoming posts …
Posted on: August 8, 2007
Although I have loads to post about, I have been crazy busy with moving house as well as starting a new job. I probably won’t get to clear out my backlog of posts until the end of the month. But here is a list of thoughts/possible upcoming posts (mainly a reminder for myself!):
- Wrap-up second week of OII (including my talk at IBM Research)
- Update C&T Conference post (with great insights I got from the workshop)
- Review David Weinberger’s book Everything is Miscellaneous
- Fall conferences and symposium
- Start thinking about social software from a critical cultural studies perspective
- Acquiring a new domain name, new website look, and (much more reliable) web hosting service
OII Day 5
Posted on: July 22, 2007
Copyright 2010: The Future of Copyright presented by Brian Fitzgerald, Wendy Seltzer, Bill McGeveran
This was an incredibly interactive session on copyright. It went really fast, and so the people that did not have previous knowledge of copyright/ip fundamentals might have been a bit lost. However, the discussion was fantasically recorded by Wendy Seltzer on the Wiki.
My favorite part of this discussion was when we broke up into three groups: the content industry, the company (ex Google), and the future. I was in the “future” section which was tasked with figuring out what the future of copyright ought to look like, in any terms including economic, social, or legal. My main contribution to this argument was that we should not erect barriers just to keep old business models. The content industry needs to adapt their business models to the changing world, not attempt to stifle and choke all channels of innovation and distribution. I wish the content industry would learn from its own history and thus try not to reproduce it. For example in 1984, Universal Studios sued Sony who created the Betamax machine (early version of the VCR) for copyright infringement. This became known as the Betamax Case. The Supreme Court found that the Betamax (and VCR) were not liable for infringement because many people were using the technology for non-infringing purposes such as time-shifting tv shows. According to Wikipedia,
“The case was a boon to the home video market as it created a legal safe haven for the technology, which also significantly benefited the entertainment industry through the sale of pre-recorded movies.”
During the 90s, the video market made up more than 70% of the entertainment industry’s profit. Unfortunately, the industry has not learned and are once again attempting to stifle technology, and potentially new sources of revenue, in order to hold on to old business models.
Obama Girl Confronts the Future: New Media Literacies, Civic Engagement, and Participatory Culture presented by Henry Jenkins, Carrie Lambert-Beatty
I introduced Henry Jenkins of this talk. I am a huge admirer of his work (Read Convergence Culture now!), so it was an incredible pleasure both to meet him and also to get the chance to introduce him. I also got him to sign my Convergence Culture book (and was giddy like a fannish girl). In my introduction, my main question of HJ was: How much of the participation and engagement with democracy through popular culture gets translated to action offline? Does engagement and play online invoke a soft activism, whereby people feel that their online participation/engagement is enough involvement in the democratic process?
Henry Jenkins talked very fast and his brilliant ideas shot out at me 100 mph, so I was not able to transcribe as much as I would have liked. Here is what I was able to accomplish:
What images of democracy do we have?
- Images of founding fathers/colonials
- In 1930’s, around FDR, citizen participation
- Same images recirculate today (uncle sam)
The infusion of popular cultural gives us the chance to reinvent images to move towards a democracy that looks to the future instead of in the past. The new images of democracy could look like avatars from video video games or second life.
What does is mean for a country to use massive multiple player games to have protests?
Henry mentioned a case where 10,000 people in China protested inside a video game. We can make an analogy to the masking of identity in history to enable political action. Games allow for the masking of identity in countries where bodily protests would be too dangerous.
What is the mechanism of democracy when we draw a comparison between American Idol votes and Presidential elections ?
Citizen activism with the power to negate – keeping bad singers on American Idol
Testbed for Chinese democracy with American-Idol like program
Henry Jenkins highly recommend Steven Duncombe’s book “Dream”, and said that it addresses many of the issues of participatory culture and how the language of popular culture can be used to manufacture dissent. Some quotes from the book which I was able to type out fast enough ..
“Our spectacles will be participatory: dreams that the public can mold and shape ourselves…”
“Spectacles will not cover over or replace reality but amplify it”
Henry then went on to talk about the ideals of progressive popular culture:
- Participatory
- Active
- Open-ended
- Transparent
- Transformative
He believes that skills are being learned from play that will later be applied towards more serious ends such as participatory democracy. He says that kids in a hunting society play with bows and arrows, kids in an information society play with information, that could be potentially be harnessed for political ends.
Additionally, much of the language we use to talk about politics shuts people out, its too cold, and well boring. What could we do to enable the same principles, skills, and social affiliation that people feel towards video games worlds towards politics? Perhaps we can develop new language to help engage young people in politics. There is also a question of the viability of long term engagement in our current “snack culture”. Guilds in video games provide different models of engagement, but we need to learn ways to move from guilds to real world. Henry Jenkins does not know how to accomplish this yet, but feels it is an important area of research.
He also mentions that in a hybrid media culture, there is a blur between top-down and bottom-up creation (ex: astroturf, top-down media that is producing fake bottom-up videos). Therefore, new literacies and competencies are required to be able to understand videos that mix up knowledge of both politics and popular culture.
Finally, the Internet is about spreadability, moving from sticky culture to a movable culture. The cultural object gains value from being moved, as from YouTube to being embedded in a blog. We can thus be informed by the locations to which do people move videos (blogs, journals, myspace, ect), what kind of discourse springs up around those videos.
At this point, Carrie chimed in with the loss of the sense of radically itself. Because of the quantity of material that is published there is a form of radicalism fatigue. In the pre-Internet days, underground groups would attempt to provide a big punch of resistance. Now resitance is less about disruption (Adbusters, Cultural jamming) but about participation.
Technorati Tags: sdp2007
Attention Consumption
Posted on: June 10, 2007
(I found that I had this post saved, wohoo I didn’t have to rewrite this one!)
So I am a bit late to the debate, but here is my critical analysis of Twitter. In case anyone is interested this is my Twitter link: http://twitter.com/azollers
Twitter is a very interesting application, especially due to its architecture/design because it doubles as a status updater and a broadcast text messenger.
Twitter Pros:
For some situations, I think Twitter is an excellent application. For example, Twitter is a great tool during conferences because you can find out the location of your Twitter friends and meet them at interesting panels, for dinner, drinks, parties, ect. You can also get a glimpse into what your friends are thinking, which at conferences might spark great insights.
I also noticed that news sites have like Reuters have also started to
utilize Twitter for quick little headline updates. I also think this is
a great use of Twitter. You can sign up for whatever news services you
want and stay up do date even when you are traveling or away from your
computer.
Twitter is also an excellent tool for political campaigns, because you can know what candidates are doing on a daily basis. This adds an extra layer of information that was never available about candidates previously. You can see what it really means to “campaign”.
I think it would also be a great tool for activism or protests. Much like the use of text messaging during the Seattle protests, Twitter can help organize and direct people in a very quick and efficient way. It can also be used as a communication tool between action events to keep members up to date on activities being organized or conducted by the activist group. I am not sure if any activists groups are currently utilizing Twitter, if anyone knows of any cases please share them with me.
Twitter Cons:
The majority of the activity that does go occur on Twitter is daily status updates. “I just uploaded this song”, “Getting on a plane”, “Going to class”, ect. If we look at Twitter from a critical perspective, it is easy to see that the service is perpetuating the constant consumption of attention. People post to Twitter in a cycle of attention production and consumption. In a way, it just another way to get your “fix” of attention from you “friends”. This fix is important to us because we want to feel connected to other people. These connections become part of our identity, as well as our sense of status within our networks. Certainly, Twitter would not function if you could not “follow” other updates and also have others follow you. Thus, Twitter is just another medium – separate from social network sites like Facebook and IM – that reinforces the constant always-on connectedness that is so prevalent in our culture today. I must admit to feeling unhappy about new technologies ever increasing demand on our time and attention, as well as our dependence on mediated technology for a constant sense of connectedness.
I think it is important to understand that our connections to other people have become commoditized by the social network sites, and in order to extract value from the users (aka us), the sites goal it to perpetuate the consumption of connections. So in a way, Twitter is reinforcing our consumption culture to the point that we are now consuming banalities. In fact, I think that social sites have created a fetishing of everyday banalities in order to keep the production-consumption machine going.
Allaland 