Usability/User Experience Design - Theory

Author: Michelle McCausland

This page contains the notes taken from the UX training course “UX Foundation Online” provided by UXTraining.com

What is user experience:

• What it feels like to use a product or service
• The emotional response to using a product or service

3 Types of Design:

1. Functional -  What a product is built to do
2. Aesthetic - How does the product look?
3. Experience - What does it feel like?

Product Integrity - It is easy for the voice of the product or user to become lost amongst stakeholders, developers, PR, etc. - The user experience designer's role is to represent the user and the product

Product Desirability

• Viability - money - how viable is it to produce the product or service?
• Feasibility - technology/dev - how feasible is it to create this product using current tech/dev?
• Desirability - customer - how desirable is this product to the customer / end user?

How do I identify desirability? Ask the following questions:

1. Is there a problem to be solved with this product/service?
2. Is our product going to solve this problem?
3. Is the experience good

Product Design Process - continuous improvement cycle - Agile

• Research - define the problem
• Design - define the solution, sketch and wireframe
• Build - build the product
• Test

Essentially:

• Define the problem
• Solve the problem
• Build the problem
• Test

Benefits of this design process: + High fidelity output + A clear vision is defined from the start + Defined process structure + Ideas can be iterated cheaply with “throw away” prototypes

It may be tempting or pushed upon the team to skip phases such as research and design due to time / money constraints: - You would not build & design a building at the same time! - The goals are not clearly defined and may not be understood

UX Exists to solve a problem! If technology was easy to use then UX would not exist.

Consider Computers Vs Humans

• Computers are logical, humans are not

The danger of features

• Features are not always a good thing
• Simple interfaces are easier to understand
• Additional features involve trade-off as they increase complexity, cause clutter, become less intuitive

Ask the following questions when considering features:

1. Does anybody need it? Prove this with research
2. What is the trade off / impact of implementing this?
3. Is it worth it, in terms of cost / time / resources?

FACT - 80% users use 20% features

Features Vs Goals

   The number 1 reason why start ups fail is there is no market need for the product or service!

Can you guess the product?

• Four wheels with rubber tires
• Internal combustion engine
• Suspension system
• Transmission connecting engine to drive wheels
• Transmission and engine mounted on metal chassis
• Break mechanism
• Steering wheel
• Seat in line with steering wheel
• »»» Cuts grass quickly and easily. Consider the goals before you consider the features

Prioritize features based on main use cases over edge cases

• Not all use cases are equal (80 20 rule)
• Edge cases are seldom used features
• Adopt progressive disclosure - provide what the user wants as it is needed

Rules for prioritizing:

• Top priorities - Things most people do most often
• Medium priorities - Things some people do, somewhat often
• Edge cases - Things few people do, infrequently

List the features of the ems and prioritize features!

Design target:

• Goals - what the user is trying to do / the problem they are facing
• Behaviors - Things people will do
• Context - social, physical environment where the design is used

Paradox of specificity: the more specific your goals the better the product / the wider the audience

Mental model - how I think it works based on my previous experience e.g. driving in US vs in Europe

Design model - how it works