Slides from a session of the University of Edinburgh User Experience Interest Group 25 July 2012

1. Welcome!
User Experience (UX)
Interest Group
25 July 2012

2. Agenda
• Session 1
– An intro to User Experience (25 minutes)
• Session 2 (90 minutes)
– Group A: Webinar followed by discussion
– Group B: User testing
• Post session: Innis & Gunn Bar (Potterrow)

3. What is UX &
why does it matter?
An introduction to user experience
management & monitoring
Neil Allison
University Website Programme
25 July 2012

4. Overview
• What is UX?
• Why does UX matter?
• How can I communicate UX?
• How can I measure UX?

5. What is UX?
• UX = User eXperience
• It’s the sum of all experiences
a customer has with a business
• “A star to sail your ship by”
– Jesse James Garrett http://bit.ly/LwyoL8
• “A flag in the sand on the horizon”
– Jared Spool

6. Advertising and UX
“Advertising is about getting the customer
to love the company.
UX is about getting the company
to love the customer.”
Whitney Hess
http://bit.ly/Qkzxeu

7. Usability and UX – a scenario
“The customer, looking for a new digital camera, goes to the large
electronic retailer’s website. She quickly finds the camera she wants,
puts it in the cart, and without incident, pays for it using the option to
pick it up at the store that same day. Quick, easy — she is pleased and
excited to receive her camera.
Website usability
When she arrives at the store, she initially doesn’t know where to go,
as no visual clues present themselves. After a ten-minute wait at the
customer service desk, she’s told she’s in the wrong place and needs to
find another desk, this one labelled “Online Receiving”. Once she finds
that desk, the clerk, who obviously can’t wait for his shift to end, sighs
and says the camera she’s purchased is out of stock. She can buy a
different camera at this point, but to receive a credit for her original
online purchase, she needs to call an 0800 number. She ends up leaving
the store without a camera and a charge on her credit card she needs
to resolve.”
User experience
Jared Spool
http://bit.ly/QkzSxJ

8. http://bit.ly/QkzSxJ

9. • What is UX?
• Why does UX matter?
• How can I communicate UX?
• How can I measure UX?

10. Marketing has changed
In the golden age of mass communication
Image = Reality
In the new fragmented, aggregated age:
Reality = Reality
Foolproof.co.uk
http://bit.ly/QkAx2h

11. Econsultancy.com
http://bit.ly/QkApQm
• But what does this mean in the Higher Education environment?
• Applications? Conversions? Repeat study? Brand perception?

12. Why should UX matter to you?
• It lays the groundwork for subsequent
development decisions
• Your UX vision provides a way of gaining
collective agreement about strategic direction
• It provides an agreed baseline against which
you can appraise current performance

13. • What is UX?
• Why does UX matter?
• How can I communicate UX?
• How can I measure UX?

14. 3 steps to an effective UX vision
• Step 1: Focus on Research
– Must be grounded in reality
• Step 2: Focus on Experience
– Express for the user, not the product
• Step 3: Share the Vision
– Everyone needs to share and buy into it
Jared Spool
http://bit.ly/QkzJKL

15. How to share a UX vision
• Tell a story
• Draw a picture
• Create a video

16. Tell a story
• Easiest to do
• Easy to collaborate on
• Storytelling is an ancient
and universal activity
PG experience enhancement project:
http://bit.ly/oXX0FD

17. Cartoons move
storytelling on
• This example
expresses the UX
vision for a new
product
David Travis
Userfocus.co.uk
http://bit.ly/QkzNKt

18. Posters
• Some stakeholders
will need regular
reminders of the UX
vision they’ve
signed up to
Foodspotting.com
http://bit.ly/OoxYHd

19. Mood-time graphs
• Because everything
doesn’t happen at once
• We can lose and gain
uxmatters.com user goodwill
• We should look to
prioritise the biggest
pain points
http://bit.ly/QkA7J6
cxpartners.com http://bit.ly/QkzW0m

20. http://bit.ly/QkA2oL

21. Video
http://bit.ly/QkA8Nc

22. • What is UX?
• Why does UX matter?
• How can I communicate UX?
• How can I measure UX?

23. How can I measure UX?
• It depends on what you’re looking to find
• There is no silver bullet
– No single tool or approach can do everything
• Analytics + enquiry monitoring
+ market research + user research
= Greater than the sum of their parts

24. How many blind men are there
round your elephant?

25. Regular reporting is key
Lou Rosenfeld: http://bit.ly/qHOTad

26. Thank you
Questions?
Neil.Allison@ed.ac.uk
University Website Programme
@usabilityed

27. Session 2
• Group A
– Steve Krug webinar
– “The least you can do about usability”
– http://bit.ly/QkAfII
• Group B
– User testing session
– Grab a name label, pair up
– Quick overview of the logistics & timing