Have you fallen in love with your solution and forgotten the original problem? Are you certain that your product actually makes people’s lives better? Not every company can hire someone like me to help you listen to your users, so you’re gonna have to learn how to do some of this stuff yourself. I’ll show you techniques to find out who your users are, what they really need and how to go about giving it to them in an easy to use and pleasurable way. And it doesn’t have to bankrupt you or kill your release date.
18. Design Research
Make it easy for customers to
reach you
Log their requests & use them to
prioritize new features
Dig deeper to discover the
underlying problems
Keep in touch
19. For more on design research...
Observing the
User Experience
Mike Kuniavsky
20. Web
analytics
What are our users actually doing?
21. “We don’t believe in
data-driven design,
but data doesn’t lie .”
*
– Iridesco
* Sometimes it does
22. One month of visits
Mon Mon Mon Mon
Highest usage at
beginning of week
Dropoffs on weekends
Somewhat lower
usage mid-month
25. Google Website Optimizer
Same exact page with three
different Free Trial buttons
Found green and blue buttons
performed much better than
muted gray button
10% improvement in trial
acquisition over two buttons
(Learn More and Free Trial)
31. 97 most frequent queries on House.gov
and top 10 results of each
32. 97 most frequent queries on House.gov
and top 10 results of each
33. Queries are, in fact, case-sensitive.
“Nancy Pelosi” and “nancy pelosi” produce
different quantities of results
ﬔe Pell Grant Underfunding PDF by the
Oversight Committee appears in the top-ten
results of most state searches; more relevant
than any member-generated page in Colorado,
Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas
ﬔere is no apparent weight given to the title of a
document. Untitled documents are not subdued
in the results
http://www.matthewtmarco.com/studies/2007/pathetic-to-absurd-to-disheartening-in-97-queries/
34. Sunday, September 28, 2008
1347 bailout
419 bailout bill
282 bail out
208 bailout plan
184 financial services
132 Search Other Sites
130 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
103 bail out bill
95 financial bailout
80 Bailout
78 tarp
68 email
68 700 billion
66 rescue plan
66 rescue bill
66 old AND eye AND 6
64 financial
62 rescue
62 financial markets bill
58 contact
35.
36.
37. “Stats let me refute the
client’s notion of how
their constituents were
behaving.”
– Matthew Marco, House.gov
38. Web Analytics
Understand your traffic cycles
Use analytics tools to uncover
usage patterns
Test design variations
Explore your search logs to see
what people are looking for
39. For more on web analytics...
Web Analytics:
An Hour a Day
Avinash Kaushik
40. Usability
testing
How well does our stuff actually work?
42. Usability Testing Light
Shows a build, a prototype, a comp, a
sketch, whatever
Doesn’t tell participant what she’s
supposed to be doing
Asks “What are your general feelings
about this?” and then lets participant talk
44. “You need to have
humility and listen.
Users aren’t always right,
but you need to
hear them.”
– Iridesco
45. Where to Find Participants
Friends and family
Folks in your office who don’t work on
the project: receptionist, HR, sales
Twitter followers
Starbucks
Craigslist
50. Drawbacks of Online Tools
Don’t see the participants’
expressions and body language
Can’t ask probing, follow-up questions
A lot harder to internalize the findings
It’s cowardly – you need to feel the
embarrassment of a sucky design
51. Usability Testing
Test your designs early and oen
Informal tests are just as valuable
Use people in your environment who
aren’t involved in the project
Choose participants of different
backgrounds & capabilities
Do it yourself & acknowledge your
poor design choices
52. For more on usability testing...
Handbook of
Usability Testing
Jeffrey Rubin and
Dana Chisnell
53. For more on remote usability testing...
Remote
Research
Nate Bolt and
Tony Tulathimutte
69. Experimentation & Iteration
Never stop improving your product
Make your working environment
a creative one
Encourage everyone on the team
to solve problems together
Soak up inspiration from
everywhere
70. For more on experimentation and iteration...
Sketching User
Experiences
Bill Buxton
72. IMPORTANT STUFF
Always be listening
Ask questions to get to underlying problems
Use data and anecdotes to inform the design
Test your designs and have the humility to
admit you’re wrong
Complete the feedback loop
Never stop trying to make things better
75. ﬔank you!
Whitney Hess
whitney@whitneyhess.com
@whitneyhess
http://whitneyhess.com
Special thanks to:
Danny Wen and Shawn Liu of Iridesco,
Matthew Marco, and Roz Duffy