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G|META How to think like a user Slide 2 G|META Slide 3 PEACE.... Slide 4 It should be obvious at a glance what each page does. P rimary purpose. Slide 5 G|META There should not be a puzzle to solve while users move through the information. E ffortless ease. Slide 6 G|META All information needs to be valid, accessible and usable via target technologies. A pproved accessibility. Slide 7 G|META The interface and its layout always need to look and behave the same way. C omplete consistency. Slide 8 G|META The interface should respond as a typical customer expects it to. E xpected execution. Slide 9 G|META P rimary purpose: It should be obvious at a glance what each web page does. E ffortless ease: Customers should not have a puzzle to solve while they move through the information. A pproved accessibility: All information needs to be valid, accessible and usable via target technologies. C omplete consistency: The interface and its layout always need to look and behave the same way. E xpected execution: The interface should respond as a typical customer expects it to. Slide 10 G|META...out PEACE Slide 11 G|META On being a consultant Slide 12 Slide 13 How do projects operate today? Slide 14 Slide 15 Project modules Slide 16 G|META Engagement Propose Contact Prospect assessment and qualification Proposal creation and sign-off Analyze User and System scenario clarification Users, Goals & Tasks identification Persona building Review Expert review and/or full Customer Experience Testing Brief, prioritized "findings & recommendations" report Deliver New Design Guide (wire-frames & blueprint) construction Design and implementation Seminars Slide 17 G|META What do (web) businesses today need? Slide 18 Architects Masterminds Communicators Ideologists Critical thinkers Evangelists Ambassadors... Slide 19 Mind Matter Slide 20 So, how do you think like a user ? Slide 21 Thinking like a user is a strategic and tactical approach to the design of an information space such as a website or an Intranet. Structure and content is driven by the users stated desires, expectations, goals and tasks to create a design that is oriented towards their tasks and not primarily towards the corporation's informational structure (e.g.. corporate divisions, functions or organization chart). The high demands of fresh, easy to find content (publish or perish) within this approach is often difficult for many corporate web owners to swallow. BUT the users are in charge! Recent years have proven that the corporations who do focus on designs that are simple, manage complexity well are clean and heavily reliant on user input (early and often) are the ones that achieve their goals time and time and again. Strategy Slide 22 G|META Thinking like a user Slide 23 G|META How do you design to align? Slide 24 Personas Information Architecture Usability Accessibility Internationalization Information Design Slide 25 G|META Personas Slide 26 A B E D C User community Common functionality Shared functionality Persona map Slide 27 G|META Persona elements Basics Age range Gender Educational level Socio-economic level Work Family membership/role Personality Style (e.g. passive/active, eager/bored, stressed/relaxed etc) Name in relation to behavior Picture Slide 28 G|META Persona elements Interactive components Behaviors What scenarios do the users get involved in? What are their expectations going into the scenarios? Expected level of valid usability? What are their activities in the scenarios? What are their roles, goals & tasks within the activities? Context What is their style/mode (and /or M.O.) Text vs. pictures? What are the reading levels of people in this social group? Urgent or relaxed visit: e.g. are they going to have many short or few longer visits? Tech barriers: slow PC, internet connection perhaps Cognitive barriers, e.g. can they read complex arguments or follow steps. Content (Taxonomy) Lexicon language level or register Cognitive abilities Vocabularies Structural/Informational concepts Slide 29 G|META Persona Profile Slide 30 G|META Always and often! We simply ask our Personas questions to find out what they would DO and that helps to direct our design decisions. How and when do we use these? Slide 31 G|META Information Architecture Slide 32 How to... Look at people and tasks : both top-down and bottom-up Top-down What do people need to do to be successful on the site? Create Personas (for those tasks, goals, behaviors) Organize persona tasks into a prioritized structure Bottom-up Categorize available functionality and content into user-centric chunks Categorize the content within those chunks down 2 or 3 levels Validate & Label (wash, rinse & repeat) Validate we have the correct information blocks, chunks, sub-chunks etc... Then... 1.Name global navigation elements using a task and brand-oriented vocabulary 2.Name sub-category elements Slide 33 G|META Slide 34 Usability Reporting Slide 35 Problem scenario Nobodys reading huge big reports with super-granular detail. Usability findings must be openly accepted by Executives. Usability folks produce reports for Executives (initially) Executives want to know what to fix NOW! Reports detail and prioritize every issue. Reports represent information overload. Report data is not that exciting. Reports often arrive too late to be effective. Executives create their own interpretations while waiting. Executive summaries are not comprehensive by nature. Executives miss the holistic picture. Ergo: Decreased usability report effectiveness (ultimately). Slide 36 G|META The way forward USABILITY Slide 37 G|META Mindsets during usability report presentations & Slide 38 G|META 2 Psychological drivers (for those Executives) Were on fire!Were not on fire...yet Slide 39 G|META Other driver: Ill be a hero! Slide 40 G|META Process (for each participant) 2. average, aggregate & sort data 3. visual executive summary 1. logging sheet Slide 41 G|META Sample logging sheet Slide 42 G|META Sample data The task data above is calculated by averaging the scores for all users per task. The baseline can come from a base-line task or from a previous test data or be based on data representing executives expectations. Slide 43 G|META Visual executive summary curr ent propo sed Usability study aggregated qualitative results sorted by: average proposed improvement opportunitiesachievements baselinenew Slide 44 G|META Lather, rinse, repeat curr ent propo sed Slide 45 G|META Accessibility Slide 46 Youll be old one day too design & code your own future. Accessible sites are more accessible to everybody, everywhere. Those sites are W3C standards compliant (XHTML, CSS...). Want 50 Million new customers? (people with disabilities in the US) An accessible site changes peoples lives in a fundamental way. You dont often get to radically change the world while sitting at your desk. Locally contact knowbility.org Slide 47 G|META Internationalization Slide 48 Slide 49 Wait theres (a bit) more Slide 50 If it works for the user then the project will be a success. Its the web. K.I.S.S. It just has to work, simply its not a moon-shot! Do intelligent research and the hard work so that the interface is easy. Get inside the users head via personas. Get inside the information space via Information Architecture. Understand all (future) audiences: mobile, disabilities, international. Test a lot and as simply as possible this gives you data ammunition. Plan, Plan, Plan your framework but do not tie yourself down. Be nice to your clients they have a tough life! Think like a user! Slide 51 G|META Staying in the loop Tom Peters Professional Service firms. Harriett Rubin going it alone (soloing). Lou Rosenfeld, Pete Morville IAs extraordinaire Edward Tufte data-to-ink ratios Steve Krug a guerilla approach to usability needs a strong background. Mike Kuniavsky observing users. Doug Hall eurekaranch.com, kick start your business brain Guy Kawasaki guykawasaki.com - evangelist Don Norman anything! Newsletters/Sites: UTASIST, SIG-IA, CHI-WEB, Useit/Alertbox, UXMatters, apogeehk.com, adaptivepath.com, STCUSESIG_L Digest, UsabilityNews.com, Internet.com (clickz), grokdotcom.com, informationdesign.org, TecAccess.net, Knowbility.org, BoxesandArrows.com, gerrrymcgovern.com, http://iawiki.net/PersonaDesign Conferences: IASummit.org, SXSW... Watch the Bricks: Brazil, Russia, India, China, Korea... Slide 52 G|META Thank you! Gordon Montgomery Information Designer gordon@gmeta.com http://gmeta.com