An introduction to a better web-based user experience

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

An Introduction to Developing a Better Web-based User Experience Sarah Barrett, SLA Boston, June 2015 http://taxonomy.sla.org/eval

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

First, an anecdote.

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

“An introduction to developing a better web-based user experience.”

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

“An introduction to developing a better web-based user experience.”

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

“An introduction to developing a better web-based user experience.”

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

Some Assumptions: • You’re not hiring anyone • You need some ideas to integrate into your current work & process • You don’t think you’re a designer

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

UX and IA need you.

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

User Experience Information Architecture Taxonomy

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

Tools, resources, vocabulary How to know what to do, how to do it, and how to talk about it.

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

Resource: Christina Wodtke’s “Fundamentals of User Experience Design” presentations http://bit.ly/1QwN94Y

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

Resource: Abby Covert’s book, How to Make Sense of Any Mess. http://bit.ly/1ITELZm

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

How to ﬁgure out what to do

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

Vocabulary time: Heuristic - “A heuristic is just a fancy word for a measurement of something that can't readily be quantified.” - Smashing Magazine

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

Find the right heuristics Make them work for you.

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

Resource: Dan Brown’s “8 Principles of Information Architecture.” http://bit.ly/1dEtm1H http://bit.ly/1QX4bnO

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

Dan Brown’s 8 Principles of IA: 1. The principle of objects – Treat content as a living, breathing thing, with a lifecycle, behaviors and attributes. 2. The principle of choices – Create pages that offer meaningful choices to users, keeping the range of choices available focused on a particular task. 3. The principle of disclosure – Show only enough information to help people understand what kinds of information they’ll find as they dig deeper. 4. The principle of exemplars – Describe the contents of categories by showing examples of the contents. 5. The principle of front doors – Assume at least half of the website’s visitors will come through some page other than the home page. 6. The principle of multiple classification – Offer users several different classification schemes to browse the site’s content. 7. The principle of focused navigation – Don’t mix apples and oranges in your navigation scheme. 8. The principle of growth – Assume the content you have today is a small fraction of the content you will have tomorrow.

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

Resource: The heuristic evaluation sheet that I use. http://bit.ly/1QwMqkj

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

“Links should be diﬀerentiated from other interactive functions.”

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

“The system resembles the user’s real world.”

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

What do your users need? Do primary research! But make it count.

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

Resource: Indi Young’s Mental Models. http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models/

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

Guidelines for primary research: 1. You can get great information from four people.

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

Guidelines for primary research: 1. You can get great information from four people. 2. It’s a lot like a reference interview.

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

Guidelines for primary research: 1. You can get great information from four people. 2. It’s a lot like a reference interview. 3. Always identify research objectives.

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

Guidelines for primary research: 1. You can get great information from four people. 2. It’s a lot like a reference interview. 3. Always identify research objectives. 4. Listen for problems, ignore their solutions.

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

Taking it further: decide what “good” really means. Dan Klyn on Performance Continuums http://bit.ly/1Gm6pdH

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

How to do it

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

Translate your ideas into plans Stick to words, you can still do great design.

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

“Users need to navigate by state.”

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

For a vacation rental site What’s there? What’s important?

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

No content

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

Home Page About About Author Link to Pen Name page Series for New/Featured Book Title Summary Link to Series page On every page Top Navigation • Blog • Most recent/important series title • Pen Names • More by Author New/Featured Book Title Cover image Summary Buy on Amazon Buy on Smashwords Buy on other services Link to Book page Newsletter About Sign up for the newsletter Newest Blog Post Title Excerpt Read more link Author Website: Preliminary Site Model These diagrams are intended to deﬁne the templates and give an idea of what elements will be on each template, before we start designing what they should look like. In each case, when a box is nested, that element (like a book, series, etc.) can show up one time, or many times, depending on what is needed. A series will have many books show up, but probably only one pen name associated with it. For an author’s website What’s there? What’s important?

Slide 33

Slide 33 text

Slide 34

Slide 34 text

Exercise Time!

Slide 35

Slide 35 text

http://healthlibrary.uwmedicine.org/

Slide 36

Slide 36 text

http://healthlibrary.uwmedicine.org/

Slide 37

Slide 37 text

What’s on the page? Write down what you see on this page. What content, metadata, and links to types of pages are here?

Slide 38

Slide 38 text

How is it ranked? Based on how things are on this page, what’s most important? What is the page currently prioritizing?

Slide 39

Slide 39 text

Does that seem right? Re-rank the elements on the page, if needed. Write down questions that need answering.

Slide 40

Slide 40 text

What do we have? Testing and Evaluation What do we need? Research and Design thinking How should we do it? Planning and Specification

Slide 41

Slide 41 text

Taking it further: Plan how to get there Change is hard, it needs to be planned.