We design smart, usable digital products Laura Ballay & Meghan Deutscher

Periscope | www.periscopeux.com

User Experience Design Fundamentals 1: Users & Goals

Takeaways Understand UX fundamentals: •  Value & Process •  Goal-directed design •  Users and their goals Learn how to articulate the goals of your product’s users Learn how to use user goals to assess a website or product

Diagram from Kimmy Paluch at Montparnas.

User Experience Design User research Personas Heuristics analysis User scenarios Storyboarding Information architecture Interaction design Workflows Wireframes Prototyping Usability Testing Mockups Visual / UI Design

Good design is not magic! There are no cookie-cutter solutions that you pull out of a hat. Good design involves creativity, balance, and a solid foundation of guiding principles. Your activities and how you do them will always depend on your product’s maturity, project resources and constraints.

So…what is UX Design? It’s not just graphic or UI design. It’s not just “usability.”

UX Design is a combination of research and design methods used to understand user needs and design products that people want to use.

It’s not just understanding what people do. It’s understanding why people do what they do -

Their goals, motivations, behaviors and expectations.

vs.

In Goal-Directed Design, focus is maintained on user goals to provide rationale for design decisions and a benchmark for evaluating them.

If your product helps people achieve their goals effectively and happily, it’s more likely to be successful.

The UX Process

Analyze Uncover key user goals and pain-points from research findings.

Conceptualize Create design requirements from user goals, business goals and tech. requirements.

Design Create and communicate possible solutions for requirements.

Validate Test design solutions with actual users. Do they support user goals?

Discover Research users to understand why they do what they do.

User = The basic unit of the process.

UX Activities

Analyze • User personas • User workflows • Affinity diagrams

Conceptualize • User scenarios • Storyboards • Design principles

Design • Information architecture • Wireframes • Mockups

Validate • Prototypes • Usability testing • Heuristics evaluation

Discover • Contextual studies • Surveys • Competitor analysis

User Goals

Analyze Outline and understand goals.

Conceptualize Base principles and priorities on goals.

Design Design for goals.

Validate Make sure user goals are met.

Discover Learn about users & their goals.

So how do you first understand who your users are? Demographics are a starting point. But a user is not just a male user, age 46 – 59. (Nor is a user anyone in your family, a friend, or yourself).

The user is a model of the behaviours, needs, motivations, and context of your target customer.

The user’s goals are inferred from observed behaviors, responses to questions, how they respond to questions, nonverbal cues, and other clues from their environment.

Where should I start?

What does this product do for

me?

I’m just looking for…

Once you understand your users, then a good place to start finding User Goals is to put yourself in your users’ shoes & ask yourself questions like…

Why should I do this?

I just want to quickly do…

Is this the right product

for me?

User Goals should be related to: •  How a user wants to feel •  What they want to do •  Who they want to be They are not tasks or what you want a user to do with your product. They’re also often not what a user says they are, because it’s hard for a person to articulate his/her own goal.

I want to keep track of my project’s milestones and progress.

I want to sign up for the David Suzuki newsletter.

I want to make playlists, rate my music, and let my friends know what I’m listening to.

I want to run 15k every week.

I want to make sure I get all my work done on time.

I want to be conscientious of the environment.

I want to listen to music that I like.

I want to lost weight and feel better about myself.

vs.

GOALS! TASKS

An example User goal: “I want to quickly sell some of the clutter in my garage.” If this user came across UsedEverywhere.com, they would have to skim all the way to the bottom of the page before finding how this service might help them clean up their garage.

An example User goal: “I want to quickly sell some of the clutter in my garage.” In contrast, at preloved.co.uk, users are told upfront that they can sell things with this service and they are given a clear action to do so.

Another example User goal: “I need to quickly find an audio clip for my product demo video.” Is there help for users to quickly browse & filter through lots of tracks at StockMusic.com?

User Goals

•  Example of site that supports goals well

But when you understand the tasks a user must do to accomplish a goal, you can optimize your product for those tasks. (Audiojungle provides features that make it easy for a user browsing a large list of tracks to quickly find the right one).

An exercise •  Work in groups of 2 or 3. •  Find a website, product or service that

supports the user goal you’re given. •  Note down at least 2 reasons why you think

it supports the goal well.

When you understand your users’ goals and their context, you can focus your product on satisfying those goals.

An example: Silverback provides the basic functionality needed to easily record the computer screen and participant’s face during usability testing.

An example: Other usability testing software is bloated with features, complicating the interface and making for a slow learning curve.

Discovering Goals •  User Goals à Product •  But Product à User Goals?

An example: Who is Questrade for?

Who is Etrade for? Once your understand your users and their goals, you can still go back to make it clear who your product is for.

What you can do now •  Next workshop we will teach you how to

talk to and learn from users. •  Goals can help you focus/tweak your

product or prioritize your features.

Homework Examining your own product / service, determine: •  Who your target user(s) are. •  Their 3 most important goals. •  How a user would go about completing their goal,

starting from the first touch-point with your product.

Questions? info@periscopeux.com

Thanks! …and thank you to all the awesome people who share their photos on

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