Master Digital Product Design - UX Research & UI Design Flashcards
How many digital products fail?
70-90%
this tells us
how important it is to take great care in desiging a product
senior UI, UX managers, etc. may be those who failed
we must be careful who we take advice from
bigger budgets, larger teams, more time still failed
Why is this failure rate important?
People will be anxious in your organization
70-90% of digital products fail
being a designer is hard
skills that make you a good designer…
managing expectations
seeing an argument from both views
come up with multiple solutions
What will facebook do today?
Buy an entire design company
because they can’t hire enough designers
there is a design shortage
What’s the problem today?
There is a design shortage
those with senior UI/UX design jobs
maybe didn’t study design, just have experience
companies don’t know what they’re looking for
“make it look like apple”
What are we going to be looking at throughout the course?
Design history
it started long before 2000
before computers
history of psychology, neuroscience, politics
behavior, aesthetics, etc.
What’s the problem with a senior UI, UX designer with 12 years experience?
They probably didn’t study design properly
they may not have studied politics or psychology
repeating mistakes
Why do we want to make sure we learn from a range of designers, not just digital product designers?
digital designer with experience giving advice
may not have studied design properly
we will study designers from other industries
can learn from them
What’s going to help us become better designers?
improving communication skills
creativity
perception
**allows us to conduct better interviews with users, etc.
Cannot follow Google, Facebook
reading blog posts about specific processes, not helpful
master the basic skills of design
90% of blog posts discuss their personal system
theories and quotes don’t actually make sense often
design advice worked for them
you have a unique design with unique resources
they’re 5 steps won’t work for you
What is a challenge for designers?
What user’s say they like and what they actually use are different
What users “like” and what users actually use are large
What did people think designers did for a website?
Made a website look pretty
web design made make website be pretty
initially websites had signifiers like shading on buttons
to simulate clickability, navigation
different fonts, gradients, round corners
then Apple started flattening things for aesthetics
decreases UX, etc.
Flat 2.0…
mostly flat, some shadows
lead to more usable website
Totally flat websites…
wrong!
learning about memory, using texture increase memory
learning about perception, see things differently
Problem?
senior UI, UX people without proper design understanding still promoting them
What is one of the most important activies I can do as a designer to excercise creativity and perception while being more aware of whats out there?
https://dribbble.com/
take different designs
re-create in different styles
should do this often, regularly
excercise muscles
incredibly valuable practice
do this as regularly as you have time
copy the inspiration, not the design
will improve your perception skills
use these sites to excercise design muscles
What’s the problem with design and designers today?
They are designing for looking pretty or impressing colleagues
rather than designing to solve real business challenges
- Too many designers are designing to impress their peers rather than address real business problems.*
- Things that look great but don’t work well. Perfect pixel executions of flat design, but work that doesn’t address real business goals, solve real problems people have every day, or take a full business ecosystem into consideration.*
- the best job applicants I’ve seen sent in their thought process. Sketches. Diagrams. Pros and cons. Real problems. Tradeoffs and solutions. Prototypes that illustrate interaction and animation. Things that move, change and animate. *
- If product design is about solving problems for people within the constraints of a specific business, then it simply feels that many people calling themselves product/UX designers are actually practicing digital art. They are Artists. They are Stylists. Executing beautiful looking things, certainly an important skill, but not practising product design.*
What should we do to work our perceptive, creative and design muscles?
great admiration of another artist can be an excellent starting point for creating something entirely new and unique.
Every designer in the world is working with roughly the same basic tools: the same range of colors, the same interfaces, the same alphabets, the same shapes.
- Consider what would happen if every UI or UX designer out there tried to come up with a completely original design. All the patterns that users are accustomed to, that make websites usable without an instruction manual, would be lost. Things like top navigation, links being underlined, headings creating a hierarchical structure to content, and so many other elements that are taken for granted by users, would disappear. Even things like browser compatibility would be impossible.*
- Without copying and building on the work of other designers, there would be no websites.*
Soln?
When looking for inspiration, designers should consider what they can add to the work of others. Where can they make it better? More useful? More elegant? More efficient?
Find inspiration in other designers, cultures, etc.
draw inspiration like color schemes, etc.
from religious or sacred items
elevate the sources of inspiration so that the end result is more than the sum of it’s parts
What is vital?
excercise design muscles
find inspiration and upload your own take of styles, etc.
Why is it better to learn about concepts than about processes?
We have unique situations
apply concepts
understand design
think for yourself
following someone else’s process won’t work
What is design?
solving problems
someone who takes time to understand a problem
clarify outcomes, create structures, outline interactions
NOT about making a website pretty
it’s about solving a problem with:
outcomes, structures, interactions, visuals
each layer builds upon the other
What does giving advice to someone make us?
A hero or a bully
robs them of opportunity to solve challenge on their own
Who were the first designers?
Qin Shi Huang
noticied a problem with military equipment
non-uniform, couldn’t be easily used by everyone
set of requirements or design for each item
how much tension for a bow?
how much each sword should weigh?
valued uniformity in design
Roman Empire
designs and specifications for armor and weapons
aesthetics was a value
uniforms needed to look the same for pride, unity, status, respect toward army
design specifications were about emotion vs. utility
about user experience vs. utility of item
What is the book of ingenious devices?
published 800 BC in modern day bagdad
engineering capital of work for hundreds of years
hydrolics, pumps, combustion engines
most mechanisms were created to make toys
designs were created for emotional reasons not utility
What drives innovation?
human experience
modern day inventions were created for play
roman armor was for emotion, pride, unity
most human innovation has come about for emotional reasons
What is a designer?
A planner
writes down or draws the requirements of a product
manufacturing happens elsewear
Why?
division of labor
How?
a division of labor was created between artisans and craftspeople
designer creates specifications, design, plan
someone else manufactures
Ex Fashion designer decides how clothing will look
garment is made elsewear
digital product designer plans digital product
it’s build elsewear
When did the designer job come about?
1850s
division of labor between artisan and craftsman
those that define specification
those that put something together
What is Atomic Design?
Brad Frost
start with smallest unit (button shadding, margin, button colors)
compose into a component
bring those together into a larger system
create a template
each page built using these re-usable components
What’s Jacob’s Law?
Build website as similar to other websites users are viewing
What is Bootstrap?
people working out how icons and navigations
guidelines for how an App should work, etc.
someone designing components
another drawing wireframes (composing)
division of labor:
UI designer - components, colors, margins
UX designer - screens, navigations, etc.
What is the difference between an UI designer and an UX designer?
UI designer
person who designs components
font sizes, button colors, margins
UX designer
person who designs wireframes
How should we approach decision making?
ask first, how important it is on a scale of 1-10
if it’s an 8, 9, 10
know to put a lot of effort into it
the more important the rules, the more important the decision
What do biases do for us?
help us save time making a decision
rely on previous decision
most decisions based on hard wired programming
subconscious
How can we design a menue?
innovation, creating something new
try some food posibilities
combine mixing new elements, test it, ask people for feedback if they would buy
write recipe down (design)
What is design?
an important plan (original) that doesn’t rely on existing solutions (biases)
involves creating the plan and documenting it so someone can build it
What do we want to continually do as designers?
look for reasons why we are wrong
arrogance is the enemy of design
What is happening that needs to stop?
wrong rules
took a rule that applied to one medium (newspapers) and assumed it applied everywhere else (websites)
why?
early digital designers brought ideas from other catagories and formalized them into rules
years later, after testing, it was found that these rules don’t work
Ex. Newspaper stands and cramming things above the “fold” in the website
What should we be careful of using when designing?
rules in design
only guidelines
must use your own thinking and understandings
How do user values drive user experience?
Why we don’t have same phones or cars?
Because….
we have different values
Different cars example:
Why do people have different cars?
Because of different values:
first person values fun
second person values safety
third person values reliability
They may all experience the cars simlularly but they each value a different thing
How should we view our user interface?
understanding different people will experience it differently based on their values and/or their environment
need to measure the right people in the right context
get actual people to the right context for testing
What is the first step in designing a product for people?
understanding their goals, motivations, needs, desires and values
Why?
Different people choose iPhone vs. Android
Sports car vs. Van
because of different values
Soln?
We must design our products for the specific values and context of our users using the product
Who is your user?
What is their desired end-state
What motivates them to get there?
What is user experience?
overall experience of a person using a product
based on their values and the context
must design a product and an experience
Quote:
- 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.*
- It’s important to distinguish the total user experience from the user interface (UI), even though the UI is obviously an extremely important part of the design. As an example, consider a website with movie reviews. Even if the UI for finding a film is perfect, the UX will be poor for a user who wants information about a small independent release if the underlying database only contains movies from the major studios.*
Where were designers born?
Out of the division of labor
breaking up production line from product design
you still need to report back to production line
need to be a rockstar innovator and a team player on production line
What do I think is good vs. bad design?
Intial (start of course)
Good:
a product that is safe, durable, easy to use, simple, has a positive aesthetic, portable
a website that is visually appealing, strong imagery, good color, easy navigation, simple call to actions, good user flow
a mobile app that is visually appealing, easy to navigate and use, offers content user is interested
a good designer someone who can sketch user story, user outcomes, UI elements, annimations, UX flow, prototype and test assumptions, aid engineering team in implementation
Bad:
a product that is unsafe, unreliable (breaks down), complex or challenging to use or learn, ugly or large
a website that is very ugly, links all over, no visual pictures, glitchy, doesn’t click or viewable
a mobile app that freezes, buttons don’t click or work, screens are weird
a bad designer, someone who can’t sketch out an idea, poor visuals in prototype, slow to produce UI/UX pdf, lacks understanding of colors or textures, doesn’t support testing and iteration
Where should we get our input?
as designers, should get inspiration daily
blogs, inspiring visuals, etc.
look at how other people solved challenges
Medium, 99u, adobe
be aware of authors motives
jnd.org
challenges perceptions, etc.
high quality shares
nngroup.com
really good for hard core user research testing
have idea of idea and how it’s done
compromised by bias
Why is it good to look at dribble?
looking at complicated designs
seeing visual representation to how problems solved
can analyze solutions deeply
maybe solving valuable problems
look at other than digital design
Why?
most digital product fail, advice is probably failing advice
Soln?
look at calendars, look at beer can designs, interior designs
What do I value vs. don’t value?
Values:
iphone
because it’s thought of as attractive, high class, wealthy
white people associated (middle class)
I value privacy and security of data
because I value not feeling ashamed
I value aesthetics
I value fitness
I value experts
I value customer experience
I value user empowerment and Apple’s value
screen resolution, camera quality
I value battery life
I value excitement
Don’t value:
android
it’s thought of as black people oriented
poor people use it
because I’m afraid of failing
not secure
I don’t value unkept look
I don’t value someone who isn’t the best (expert)
How do we conduct a values interview?
ask someone…
what is it about xyz (product) that you value?
Ex. Android
What is it that you value about android?
let them speak without guiding them…
battery life? camera quality? privacy of data?
**this will improve your interview skills
What do I want my future job role to include?
I want to be a media buyer, ad designer
design, run and test ads…
Facebook, Snap, Tik tok, retargetting, email
help design the UI and user experience
help lead the engineering team for milestones, developments, etc.
like a product owner
from marketing to digital experience
Who was Michael Thonet?
First man to introduce division of labor
designed a simple, six piece chair
unskilled labor were able to assemble it
after this point..
there was a designer who concieved it
and there was a factory worker who created it
How were products developed prior to Michael Thonet’s time?
A single person would concieve and create a product
Michael Thonet himself was a carpentor
he created the Number 14 chair design at an older age
after this point there was a division of labor
a designer who conceived of a product
and a factor worker who built it
What happened after Michael Thonet?
division of labor
a designer who decides how a product looks and fits together
a series of factory processes and laborers who will put it together
What does a designer do?
originated in 1850’s from a division of labor
a designer:
specifies the structural properties of an object
it’s created else wear
a designer is a planner
Ex.
Fashion designer plans how a garmet looks
the garment is made elsewear
a chair designer plans how the chair will fit together
the chair is made elsewear
a digital product designer, plans how the digital product works
the product is created by someone else
a user experience designer plans
When was the designer job created?
Division of labor
What used to be an artisan, craft person
now we had a person who conceived what product would be
design is synonymous with plan or strategize
What division of labor happened at General Electric?
a group of programmers built the component library
another group put them together into wireframesUX designers
division of labor in web design
UI designer
component designer
buttons, icons, padding
UX designer
wireframes and pages
take the predetermined component libraries
fit them together to make wireframes and pages
What is an artisan?
A person who designs (conceives) of the
product and makes it
What was his job?
Help a group of people get clarity on what it was they wanted
to reach an agreement
show them what it would look like
before he built it
digital design is more about collecting a shared understanding from a group of people, documenting it and getting everyone to agree on it
What did the author begin doing when projects got larger and more complex?
Atomic design
instead of designing whole page
start with tiniest bit of a page (heading text, font sizes on page, padding on button)
then start adding components (how do buttons work on a popup)
work your way up, having a template for a list page
create a blog list page know how it’ll look
button text always bold, action buttons always read
decisions made early on
built re-usable components
What aided individuals doing Atomic design for digital products?
Jacob’s Law
people spend most time on other websites
use other websites to inform how we design component libraries
make everything on your website work as similar to average website on internet
mobile phone navigation bar
uipatterns.com
average person
ux.stackexchange.com
good place to ask about specific design problem in an app
nothing innovative, defined rules for situation
What did General Electric do?
created a framework for how applications should work
shared this framework with other teams
now, each new application had consistent styles
menu and navigation bars were consistent
this was first Bootstrap like framework
What two jobs were web designer split into?
UI designer
the person who designers the parts
UX designer
the person who designs wireframes
When should we design carefully vs. plan casually?
ask how important is the decision?
what activities do you need to do to make the decision?
Ex. college is an 8 in important
a lot of research and thoughtful activities go into decision
How are most decisions made?
by hardwired programming and biasses
not a lot of research, planning and thought going into most decisions
design is different
requires research, fore-thought, planning
Ex. designing a menu for a new restaurant
lot more research
visit local restaurants
ask people how they enjoy food in area
go to local farms
*iterative design
What is iterative design?
designing a menu for a new restaurant
lot more research
visit local restaurants
ask people how they enjoy food in area
go to local farms to see what’s available
What is innovative design?
want something unique
try out food combinations
try things that haven’t been mixed before
ask people for their opinions
creating something new
right it down, documentation is design
What is the difference between planning and designing?
what research and activities do you have to do?
to check it’s good before you document the decision (design)
a decision that requires extra research
have to document design after
so someone else can create it
What is arrogant design?
someone tries to create something new
without understanding the industry
expecting their previous experience is better than others
arrogance is enemy of design
continually look for ways the design is wrong
to find areas where we are mistake
someone who hasn’t done research in the domain
come and apply ideas from other domains without consideration
iterations on best designs in domain by proven designers
What happened in digital design?
arrogant designers
started to create guidelines using ideas from other industries
ideas that didn’t work in this new medium
Ex. The Fold - newspaper company design, 1991
newspaper editors brought a technique to websites
the fold, makes no sense in websites
creates clutter in websites
they didn’t know how users used websites yet
in 1995, after testing, this design was proven ineffective
What do we need to understand about user experience?
every single web application or web product
has a potential 7 billion users
each user has unique set of values to understand
each person will experience it differently based on how they’re feeling and the time
must measure people in exact context and time
need actual people in actual context
test the actual experience with actual people in actual context
How would a design team work?
user experience researcher
job to understand values and experience of users
document in a way to help everyone in company
deliver experience to users
anyone in design department, documenting decisions largely
What does a larger corporation not want to have?
a variable output
wants consistent output
consitently make average burgers
larger corporation, higher up, more risk averse
justification and documentation vs. innovation
consistently deliver things of a consistant output
do you want to be an innovator?
or a MacDonald’s worker on a design production line?
What is user experience?
What is the job of a designer in a large corporation?
adminstration and documentation
less about innovation
more innovative designer?
more of a team player?
Why were designers born?
factory processes made manufacturing easier, simple
division of labor grew
designers made the plans
laborers and factories built the products based on the designs
designers must communicate to production line
How can we do values research?
Try to understand own values through product we own
Ex. Mobile phone
write all the things you value
write all the things you don’t value
think on values - battery life, videos at high resolution
what values made us choose our phone?
ask the why x 5 times of things you think you value about phone
How can I find out someone’s values?
ask them questions
ask open ended questions
“What is it that you value about having an iPhone?”
dig deeper with “why” questions later
say very little
ask question
let them finish their trail of thought before saying anything
try doing this with 2-3 friends
try this out, more interviews the better
get started practicing
How do we build a design career path?
answer the form
reach out to friends to ask about your current skills
what are we actively practicing now
what future skills must we begin practicing
Next..
look at job postings
reach out to job ad postings for clarification
Then…
find someone in job posiition (ideal)
reach out on linkedin
ask about previous experience
what skills practicing daily to make the jump?
What do I need to be doing actively on a daily basis to get the skills required?
actively practice tweeking visual designs?
actively practiced working with a technical team?
actively worked on presentation skills?
What are digital product designers missing in their design process?
crit or structured criticism
we need a group to give us criticism
a period where a senior designer gives feedback
Why?
belief that data and google analytics rules
feedback is given randomly and unstructured
How?
reach out to a company asking for a brief
find a lot of people who can be critics
find other students, giving regular feedback to you
Reach out to 5 companies
ask to give you requirements and feebdack at the end
go forth and find support group
What is a design brief?
pre-defined criteria
as a designer, we are writing it out
make sure you get it
once it’s filled out, can’t change a mind
when a design meets predefined criteria it’s done
final approver / other stakeholders
when a new stakeholder joins, starting from scratch
make sure these cannot be changed, written down
budget
put something inside
client
how does company work
specific team or skills
specific software
how team works together
Project goals
how do we know when this is complete?
how will we measure if this is a success?
get more signups?
make sure they’re describing a problem
you’re job is to find the solution
Target audience
where do they use the product?
how do they use the product?
anything they know about target
Deliverables
how would they accept deliverables?
svg files, what kind of files using
design software (match their used file)
Scheduled sessions
get feedback from actual people
get as many sessions as possible
meeting to present research (target research)
present some intermittent design (wireframes, sketches)
present the design (will give feedback)
multiple presentations up front (how many revisions, etc.)
2-3 stages of revisision
Design system
do they already have a component library to use?
does this match the brand’s personality? (5 adjectives)
Tone of Voice
brand has a masculine or feminine feel to it?
serious or playful way?
What is the design process?
have a process, document process
make it your own
there is no exact same design process
Who was the first UI designer?
Alphonse Champonis
WWI bombers was complex
people guessed what would be best
UI was so complex
levers look and feel the same
cost and damage to war efforts too great
hired Alphonso to design the UI
How did design errors come to be recognized?
previously,
if someone couldn’t use a product interface
called it a user or human error
but…
so many errors, became known as a design errors
Instead, designing better machines meant figuring how people acted without thinking, in the fog of everyday life, which might never be perfect. You couldn’t assume humans to be perfectly rational sponges for training. You had to take them as they were: distracted, confused, irrational under duress. Only by imagining them at their most limited could you design machines that wouldn’t fail them.
What steps must all designers do?
Research
gather redundant research, so much before we find out what is true
have an overwhelming pile of research before analyizing
drowning in research before analyzing
Analyze reserach
come up with ideas
generate one hundred solutions
try to find many solutions
drowning in ideas before starting to test
test ideas
What are key traits of a good designer?
put people first
communicate visually and inclusively
collaborate and co create
iterate, iterate, iterate
What problem does he see with designers?
not being aware of a design process
research, analyze, ideate, test
is a major problem
cannot design without doing
research, ideating, testing ideas
must also have ENOUGH ( A LOT ) of research before analyzing
must have a lot of ideas before testing
come up with hundreds of ideas to identify and test
What is another problem designers have?
not realizing each step requires different thinking
may require different environment for thinking
divergent vs. convergent
research
document all ideas, etc.
divergent thoughts
trying to find largest quantity
Analysis / test
convergence
eliminate information
best problem to solve
simplest thing to test
What is the difference between convergent and divergent thinking?
divergent
gathering tons of research and ideas
many sources and collaboration
lots of input
useful in research phase
convergent
eliminating ideas
useful in analysis phase
focusing down to key problems
key solutions
What should we do before a meeting?
let everyone know type of thinking
if it’s divergent thinking
generating lots of ideas
quantity is better than quality
open ideas to everyone
if its convergent thinking
eliminating ideas
prioritizing ideas
smaller team, keep focused
99% ideas killed off
everyone has an opinion, conflicting
where people might fight
manage expectations best as possible
people may not like you
What is unsollicited feedback?
bullying
only give feedback from someone who asked
What is a problem with people giving feedback?
seek first to understand
they assume they’re experts
if you studied a particular problem for 30 days
you are the expert on the problem
person isn’t an expert on thing
they’re an expert on design
someone who studied design is an design process expert
Soln?
seek to understand first
mechanism, budgets, motivations, research, rational
What is rationalism?
thinking logically and making an argument about it
instead of testing everything
using a bias or shortcut of rationalising it
thinking it through in a room vs. testing it
works as much as it doesn’t work
How do we overcoming rationalizing?
Stop trusting what people say (rationalize) and watch what people do
people are incapable of making decisions unless they feel something
all decisions have some emotion behind them
How can we use critical thinking?
Realize you’re never 100% correct, they’re never 100% wrong
what are consequences of being wrong
explore another point of view, move your point of view
if designing CS feature, work in customer service
if making a messaging app, look at teams who don’t use one
gather all information
from customers, team, etc.
what assumptions and motivations are present
assume people want things
people might want something
What is the experience economy?
old days
save people…
time, money, space
how designers designed products
Experience economy
people value experience
entertainment, drinks, food, etc.
improving speed, time, space is limited returns
improving the experience is far more valuable
Why is tinder a perfect example of the experience economy?
changed a painful experience (rejection feeling)
made it empowering
match.com
had to write long messages
put entire heart into profile, pictures, messages
most experiences were rejection
emotionally painful situation
tinder
no one sending personal messages
no feelings of rejection
made empowering feeling
can swipe a person into our out of life
Tinder helps people feel good about having a thousand choices
Tinder helps people feel empowered looking through opions
What are we looking for?
people are doing small tasks that give them pain
allow them to do the task and feel great
doesn’t have to how easy or challenging
looking for emotional responses of tasks they do
emotional responses to tasks people do
if we can design a product to improves the experience
gives a better feeling for those tasks
it’s a winner
What are two things in big conflict?
a lot of times, good experiences are not good for people
What’s a good experience and what’s good for people
every decision has tradeoffs
making technology more enjoyable, more addictive
Tinder is good short term, maybe not long term
gambling is good short term, not health long term
What do people talk about?
what’s easy, not what’s important
What should we care most about?
user’s perception of reality
not what is actually reality
people’s experience happen in head
they don’t map to reality
Why is uber successful experience?
it makes person feel like they’re in control
how pleasurable something is trumps ease
nothing trumps feeling in control
people use Uber to feel in control
informed by trafic, where is taxi, is great experience
it shows time and how long until taxi shows up
people would rather wait five minutes knowing
than 2 minutes not knowing
the map and the car icon showing when the food is coming
is a pleasurable experience
What trumps usability?
a great experience
Ex. Uber vs. Taxi
human centered design is about experience only
one thing people enjoy doing is feeling in control
Is software design all about usibility?
no
take things away
but must replace it with uniqueness
if it has a funky way of changing channel, good
creativity has a high value
What is innovation about now?
experience
users talk about what’s easy not important
hone interviews to get into deeper feelings
data is abotu real world
we need to understand perceptions
What problems do the best product solve today?
solve experience problems
people are emotionally biased online
Ex. Tinder makes empowering feeling vs. rejection
Uber gives control with updates / map vs. taxi
What can’t we use for innovation?
Data
we are creating something new, doesn’t exist
data is from past
like logic or bias, can use as a tool
Ex. Signup button
A/B test orange vs. blue after a week
this wasn’t design, this was evolution, iteration
iterative design not innovative design
How do we interview someone’s experience?
convergent thinking
try to understand feelings and emotions
people don’t give up emotions easily
get most important feelings
get quotes and pictures of person
give more empathy for the person
pains, obstacles, aspirations, gains
How do we create a persona?
archetype of person using product
summarizes archetypes of interviews (job title, etc)
different people have different emotional needs
Team leader vs. employee
help inform specific design decisions
Ex. designing project management software
What is a journey map?
different phases of customer journey
add thoughts / feelings
add satisfaction number
Ex. Taxi
finding a number
feelings not sure to trust them
can find lowest point in journey or experience
What is a storyboard?
drawing a story about life around a product
interviews to understand a person
draw it out like a commic book
show to user and to people in office
defining scenarios and problems
make sure everyone is on the same page
NOT a place to draw WIREFRAMES
more interested in person’s life
How?
interview, create a persona (average)
draw scenario that applies to persona’s life
What is creativity?
ability to come up with novel and creative solutions
how many solutions can someone come up with ?
how many different solutions (suspend judement)
every single solution to problem
1, 3, 10?
do this excercise everyday
number get’s better
excercising creative muscle
What is a creativity excercise?
think of a potatoe or inanimate object
think of how many uses for this product
door stop, hat, pin, etc.
What is usability?
about having safety nets for when people mess up
try to minimize errors people make
always trying to reduce cognitive load, unless you want them to think
people are going to make mistakes
no website is naturally intuitive
ensuring safety net will be there
or removing errors everyone makes
How do we do usability testing?
Hint: Test with someone to see their face, emotions
it’s about seeing real users
how they learn to navigate the website
if things go wrong, how they recover
their emotions in the process to accomplish the task
bad way to do it?
online click hub
get 30 people to do a task on design
can tell us where people click, not much more
people figure out how to do things
go back button
watching how someone uses website more valuable
only click data
doing a test with someone in office is 100,000x better than a click test
why?
can see frustration in face, etc.
get better at reading people’s emotions
empathizing with them
get to someone’s workplace, have them use there
could be expensive
do people know what they did wrong?
how do they recover?
What are recommendations for eliminating questions in a person’s head (usability)?
tricks essential to reduce cognitive load
Primary functions
color
unpoluted
Header
visually different show it’s functionality difference
containment lines or background
buttons
gradient or drop shadow
dragable card
shadow
text area
inner shadow looks into the page
How can we reduce cognitive load?
What is the most important part of your app’s experience?
how it looks
not being too visually complex
not having too complex a color pallete
slight subject differences
most important part of designing app
understand the visual world
What is a mood board?
understand users visual world
mood board created to inform user
when talking to user ask brands, location, etc.
collect images and ask users how much they like images
collect them on a board
check with users to make sure they like how it looks
does it fit the visual style the users like?
How?
speak to users
collect images they may enjoy
collect a few and have them vote
could print images on wall
make sure to create it
What is a grid system?
really important
good underlying grid is important
it’s easier for our brains if things are aligned
easier to percieve, trust more
working out a solid grid system is vital
bootstrap gives a grid built in
12 column grid system (usual)
most are responsive
align things to edges of columns
After we take the grid system away, items are aligned pleasingly.
like a song that is on beat
make most notes on beat
12 column grid not best
use an 8 column grid
What is a compound grid?
What’s the problem with iterative design?
Booking.com
had a fast iterative design process
designers and developers, tested hypothesis
look at data on UI
booking.com didn’t see AirBnB
all designers only know how to A/B test
don’t have expertise to innovate now
Why do designers get paid a lot?
top 10% of people
good at critical thinking
observing perception
using creative thinking
identifying when data or bias is used incorrectly
What’s the problem with data driven design?
cannot be innovative
data is about the past
innovative design is creating something not exists
can’t rely just on data
only a small percentage of people do data analysis well
What’s a challenge with designers?
making decisions based on some data and a social experiement
it’s totally rational, sounds smart
following data and social science isn’t great
people are focusing less on users
be equally skeptical of social psychology experiments
cannot make decisions for us, be skeptical
Ex. When someone says they care about user experience
they normally don’t care
everyday users also lie
How can we not make design decisions?
using social psychology or asking users
Why?
social science doesn’t fit our domain, may be wrong
users don’t tell us what they value, emotions
Do focus groups work?
Do not work
adults are not emotionally honest
prove time again they don’t work
behavior psychology
can’t tell you about past or what they will do in future
people are terrible about predicting future events
adults are not emotionally honest
Soln?
series of other techniques to try to find out what it is users want
What’s a significant problem?
people are not emotionally honest enough to tell us…
what they want
know what they want
What is dogfooding?
dogfooding refers to the practice of using your own products
Dogfooding is short for “Eating your own dog food,” which represents the practice of using your own product
user testing our products with our own employees / staff
must become an expert at
identify reactions, needs, etc. acurately
Apple became king of dogfood
How?
every single day designers would watch a different staff member use operating system
identify things that looked like issues or needs
evening, iterate new version of operating system
watch a new staff member use next day
“Software developers who use their own software are forced to see firsthand what the user experience of their application is like. Frequently, this is an eye-opening experience the first time it happens, with the developer wondering “why does the software work like this if you’re trying to do that?”
Ex. GoogleBuzz (not dogfooding)
20k google employees using before launched outside, failed
this was not dogfooding it was focus grouping
cannot observe 20k people
What is scandanavian cooperative design?
collaborative design
start by watching people working
use perceptual logic vs. rational logic
making prototypes together with users
meet functional needs
meet emotional needs
tradition of user involvement in development
Ex.
Worked with nurses to better understand whats invovled in their jobs
worked together to create prototypes
nurses helped to design it
What is design thinking?
moving away from “scientific approach”
less data use and rational analysis (science)
work with users, improve perception skills (design)
understand why users do things
fully understand user’s experience
requires honing perceptual skills
design is a way of thinking
improve perception
improve listening skills
improve creativity
What’s needed is not a process with a catchy name, or a creative environment running workshops with Post-Its and air hockey tables. What’s needed is a skilled leader of design working with a team of first-rate designers, all of whom fully embrace the principle of people-focused design
Why is IDEO successful?
designers work alongside engineers
all members of staff are encouraged to go to users home visits
IKEA starts design process in people’s houses
design is a way of thinking
improve perception
improve listening skills
improve creativity
What do we love to assume?
the world is full of logical consumers
using logical products
not true…
emotion is behind every decision
asking someone to rationalize why they did something or why they will do something is asking them to lie…
we make decisions based on emotion
adults are not honest about their emotions
What is asking someone to rationalize why they did something or will do something in the future?
is asking them to lie…
we make decisions based on emotion
adults are not honest about their emotions
they don’t things for rational reasons
coming up with rational of why a user would want something is childs play
we can easily come up with a rational reason why a feature would be wanted by a user
it stops us actually learning and creating
this should be avoided
soln?
work closely with user while designing a prodcut and develop perceptive skills
What is the best approach to design?
working closely with a user while designing a product
observing them and developing perceptual skills
users lie about rational
decisions are made for emotional reasons
develop perceptual ability
participatory design
disfunctional rationalizing in boardroom with designers who don’t meet customers is non sense
What opportunities don’t we got in a large corporation?
defer designs to customers
big shot CEO wants to be in control
work with customers is key to design
How do we test assumptions?
shows us how often we are wrong, when we think we are right
about 50% of assumptions, are false
writing out assumptions, seeing them on paper is a benefit
ex. primary thing people are concerned about is uptime
might want to challenge assumption
decide what metric to test about
take something you believe is true, test it to see if it’s not true
there are no facts in design
only 3 clicks is an assumption
check how long people stay on website
what are your assumptions about yourself?
What is a good excercise?
test our assumptions about ourselves
create an experiment to check
urges us to do this
helps us with professional life
assumptions about users, websites, etc.
half of our assumptions are completely wrong
What are logical fallacies?
Aphabet Soup
confusing people with technical skills
throw acronyms to sound smart
get them to explain what everything means
technical people do this all the time
simple concepts sound complex
designers use complex words
Ad Hominem
attack someone’s character
guilty by association
another company is doing it, it failed, let’s not try
Strawman
twist someone’s argument to make it easier to dismiss
good explanation for something, someone says “I know you like blue, but I like red”
twisted argument to make it simpler
Burden of Proof
tell seomeone else they have to prove something
people say I don’t like menu, hard to use, let’s change it
it’s their burden to prove it’s hard to use
if someone suggests there is a usability issue, it’s their job to go out and find out
Developing skills?
recommends a debating class
arguing affectively is important
look up books in logical fallacies
How to win every argument
Jordan Peterson (Youtube channel)
good at arguments, purely on logic
manipulates logic to be correct
What are data fallacies?
we can’t interpret data really well
understand how bad we are at understanding data
how data is interpretted poorly
when someone analyzes data makes it easier to mis-interpret
avoid data fallacies means you have to be an expert at data, hard to do
so avoid using data in innovative design
What will make us a better designer?
getting better at interviewing people
people lie quite a bit
can’t rely on people guessing about future or app idea
look for evidence about what they value
time, money or energy on something
How do we determine what someone values?
look for evidence
time, money, energy spent
cannot rely on what people say, look at what they do
How do we create better products for someone?
see how it fits into their life as a whole
try to find evidence
where do they spend most of their money?
What do they spend most of time doing?
what are they doing before hand?
what are they doing after?
create a whole picture of their values?
think about as many open ended questions as you can
look for evidence that they spend time, money or energy on accomplishing something
What is very important?
person we are interviewing is our actual customer
use exact target audience
everyone has different values
talk to actual customers, identify their values
can’t trust, even though they say it
don’t interview existing customers
from person who tried product and left are better
How?
try to identify their values
get real evidence that these are their values
pick a real world problem
interview a person who has the actual problem
try to identify their values
What is a good interview technique?
surveys
when people write it down, they’re less likely to lie
can lie more easily to your face
potentially anonymous
people lie less on forums
don’t ask them to predict future
ask about their past
get actual information on how they spend their money
“How many cinema tickets have you bought for transformers? “
“How much do you currently spend per month on excercise activities”
“How much time do you spend on your excercise routine”
ask about their behavior
not having time is a post rationalization, not a real answer
What is one strong technique for critical thinking?
Hint: competitive analysis
hones critical thinking
definetely see what works in real world
look at competition
anyone solving problem in a real world
study people with a non technical solution also
see real world examples of what people are doing that actually work
see what’s not working for them (ideas for our products later)
How?
20 hours of research on competitors
look at softare and non technical solutions
Look at reviews online (TrustPilot)
have people use competitor products
use perceptual skills to determine users values, usability and experiences
makes pages and pages of notes on reviews, competitor products, user interviews with competitor products
helps find gaps in the market
resesarch competition is divergent
documenting it is convergent
after pages of documenting
What is the best way to learn how a user wants to use a system?
Hint: Remove the UI
remove the UI
study how people do their job without a UI
a blank sheet of paper
Ex. Remove project management software
observe how team documents and works on paper
learn how they do their job without a UI
then learn how to interface between their job and the system
take that and put it back into a UI design
you become the UI, get data from them and input into a system
helps better understand how they want UI to exist
you are going to be the UI
interface between user and the system
