Mind the Gap by Peter Gevaerts (Information Architect, UX Designer, Scrum Master, Usability Consultant) A practical guide on what UX could mean to your business and how to get started with it
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A practical guide on what UX could mean to your business (Peter Gevaerts - ACA IT-Solutions)
1. A practical guide on what UX could
mean to your business
and
how to get started with it
Mind the UX gap!
ACA IT-SOLUTIONS | Peter Gevaerts | 14 Octobre 2015
Mind the gap … and meet the UX expectations that users have from using well-known brands:
Facebook, Gmail, Maps, Instagram, Pinterest, MS Office for Mobile, ….
Difference between the original clean design and the way people really walk and experience it.
So test it, before you produce it.
The old plain bottle versus the handy squeezable plastic bottle that makes you finish it all the way.
Look through the buzz and grap the real value behind it:
It is about easily finding and doing what you were looking for,
comprehensible wording,
the usability of interactions,
the context,
feeling reassured,
the aesthetical appreciation.
That asks for a variety of skills:
it’s on the crossing of usability, information architecture, visual design, copywriting and development.
So not just ‘the UX guy’, the whole team is part of the UX effort.
Don’t just implement feature requests from "user representatives" or "business analysts.”
But put the real user central in the design process.
Get out of the office and get to know your users
It’s the User analysis: workshops, observations, interviews
Watch what users actually do, what they need, what they expect.
It’s the Task analysis: specify the desired tasks and identify the top tasks.
Get to know the context, because it is not your context.
(Easy) user testing, preferably in the user’s context
Some tools
We are an Agile company, so let’s do it lean.
Focus on the priorities
Keep documentation to the essentials, instead of writing a full bible
Respond to evolving insights
User Validation Schedule is a continuous cycle of:
—> sprint planning meeting
—> sketching
—> testing usability/value
Regular user sessions, whatever is ready on testing day, instead of big studies
Work one sprint ahead of development, while assisting to the present development sprint
- Collaboration: the entire team must participate in all activities:
Standups, retrospectives, sprint planning meeting, brainstorming sessions … for an effective backlog prioritisation
- It’s a team effort: 'The UX' is not created in isolation.
What makes mobile so specific?
GPS, Flash light, 3G/4G data connection vs. Wifi vs. Offline
Messaging, Telephone, Motion Sensor
Portrait vs. Landscape, Camera’s
Interaction with native apps: maps, navigation, e-mail, photo gallery, calendar, music player, voice recording, bluetooth, document management ……
Touch screens: make it big finger proof
Limit the manual input, use auto-fill
Smaller screens
Use minimal chrome
Simple navigation
Layer the content, secondary stuff only after interaction
We want the same experience on all kind of different devices
Responsive design, mobile first?
Responsive content/features? / don’t bluntly copy everything from desktop to mobile
Device/platform specific
Simple navigation (2 level), easy to use menu’s, don’t just dump everything under the hamburger menu
Device specific: the better experience, the more native the app is: the right patterns, controls, gestures (content–to–chrome ratio): take into account the specifics and the strengths of each device and tweak our designs so they match the capacity of the communication channel with that device.
Mobile controls our lives
Multi tasking, but design for interruption
Chunking of layout: very clear structure in easy pieces: a single topic is chunked into units that are connected through simple navigation.
One focus per app
Mobile accompanies us everywhere, on all places.
Rough circumstances: outdoors, moving, interruption, bright light ….
if you do UX, you will
see a improvement of the satisfaction of your applications
have higher user retention
have a decrease of development, maintenance and training effort