Design & User Experience

A high-level overview of design and user experience concepts. I express a (somewhat controversial) viewpoint on "UX Design" and "UX Designers", and posit that UX is actually the end-product of our efforts, not a new design philosophy nor a job description.

Originally presented to the IA/UX Rochester (@IAUXROC) group in Rochester, NY.

Links to the various references and books mentioned are available here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3444/ux_and_design_links.html

…and for the curious, here are my notes that I collected in WorkFlowy before building the Keynote presentation: https://workflowy.com/shared/d74466d7-a3bf-4667-37f2-2bef1ed6ce0c/

Transcript

1. & IA/UX Rochester - 7/18/2012 Nathan Henderson - @nathos Design User Experience
2. What is Design?
3. Design is functional
4. Design without purpose is Art
5. “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it’s this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” – STEVE JOBS
6. Design is too often wrongly taken for the indulgent frosting on a functional interface. Have you ever overheard a colleague declare, “It would be nice if we could have a sexy interface, but people care more about what the site does than how it looks”? – AARRON WALTER Designing for Emotion
7. Dieter Rams https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/about/good-design
8. Good design can be austere/minimalist
10. Something beautiful can be poorly designed
13. In our industries, we usually talk about designing for people
14. Lets call them Users
15. Who is a User?
16. Users =/= Clients
17. Users =/= Managers
18. Users are the people who actually interact with your product or service
19. Personas
20. Personas • Common concept in marketing & interaction design • Represents goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of people • Useful: Based on empirical data and research • Caution: Based on guesses & assumptions; can be limited by imagination, tinted by personal biases.
21. User Testing
22. User Testing • Can be an effective way to get feedback on a small scale • Designers can sometimes be too close to a project to think objectively • Not a panacea. Some successful companies don’t user-test new products • Design for yourself
23. Interactions
24. Users + User Interface
25. Experience
26. What is an Experience?
27. Your Product/Service User Time Extraneous Circumstances Experience + = + +
28. Your Product/Service User Time Extraneous Circumstances Experience + = + +
29. • can be observed • are unique • are emotional Experiences
30. Experiences are a unique combination of factors and the emotional response of your user
31. Can an experience be designed?
32. http://storify.com/nathos/louie-mantia-on-user-experience
33. http://storify.com/nathos/louie-mantia-on-user-experience
34. http://storify.com/nathos/louie-mantia-on-user-experience
35. http://storify.com/nathos/louie-mantia-on-user-experience
36. http://storify.com/nathos/louie-mantia-on-user-experience
37. Personal Example
40. Other Side of the World
41. This experience was not designed.
42. This experience was not designed. The user's possible behavior was anticipated, and the product's behaviors & user interface were designed (Interaction Design .
43. User Experience?
44. UX is more than Usability
45. UX is cross-discplinary
46. Information Architecture Content Creation Visual Design Interaction Design Human-Computer Interaction Human Factors Industrial Design Sound Design Customer Service Architecture Merchandising Film & Video Engineering
47. User Experience Design?
48. is it a thing?
49. can experiences be designed?
50. is this new label even necessary?
51. is UX Design simply Good Design?
52. User Experience Designer?
53. it’s trendy
55. it’s clearly overused
56. it’s ill-defined
65. most of the self-proclaimed “UX Designers” out there can’t explain what they do* * anecdotal
66. http://twitter.com/mantia
67. http://twitter.com/mantia
68. http://twitter.com/mantia
69. http://twitter.com/mantia
70. let’s take back the term
71. UX is the product. Not a person, not a role, not a job.
72. Final Thoughts
73. User Experience is Cultural
74. User Experience is Cultural • It can’t be bolted on • It must exist at all levels of an organization • It requires buy-in from all players • Team members must be empowered • UX is not one person’s job or role
75. Emotion is Important, but so are Fundamentals
76. Emotion is Important, but so are Fundamentals • Design “Laws”: Hick’s Law Fitts’s Law • Typography • Color Theory • Golden Ratio • Surprise & Delight heightens emotional response • Pattern Recognition • Skeuomorphism • Baby-face bias • Behavioral & Evolutionary Psychology
77. Disruptive products & services often aren’t designed from user feedback
83. iPhone
84. Build Something Great
85. Further Reading
86. Universal Principles of Design
87. Emotional Design
88. Don’t Make Me Think
89. Designing for Emotion
90. Guy Kawasaki
91. Q&A