Getting better at this "usability" thing

A talk I gave to the Wellington Web Standards group .

1. Intro Getting better at this usability thing Justine Sanderson | Web Standards Group, Wellington 17 November 2005 © 2005 Justine Sanderson
2. The challenge
3. The desired outcome
5. Ethnographic Research
6. Ethnographic Research
7. Contextual Enquiry
8. Participatory Design
9. Prototyping
10. Usability Testing
11. Parallel track to ongoing development work Activities prior to development Ongoing user familiarisation (‘urban safaris’) User Research ‘Generic’ personas Personas for target audience Study of patterns Usability tests to uncover specific usability issues Conversation tool Artifacts
12. Set aside a day a month
13. 1. User Familiarisation Step out of your environment
14. 'I don't know who discovered water, but it wasn't a fish.' Step out of your environment
15. You are not the user you are not the user
16. hang out with people who don’t use a computer 8 hours a day
17. architect cleaner waitress policeman teacher gardener farmer midwife receptionist musician builder marine biologist nurse florist photographer sales assistant nanny plumber sharetrader banana ripener accountant journalist coach politician student machine operator truck driver manager secretary
18. Urban safaris
19. Observing in context How do people actually use and experience websites? How often do they use them? How satisfied are they? What are their wants and needs? What are their suggestions for improvement?
20. People do strange things on their computers
21. Passwords on post it notes
22. You do not have their undivided attention
23. Personas
24. Personas
25. Mood board
26. 2. Ideation thinking of alternatives
27. Brainstorming Rules Defer judgment Encourage wild ideas Build on the ideas of others Stay focused on topic One conversation at a time Be visual Go for quantity
28. Brainstorming session
29. Have a conversation with your team
30. Participatory Design: Card Sorting
31. Card Sorting Workshops “great exercise, I’d use this in my own work!” “chance to get involved at basic level” “good to interact & hear how others in team were thinking”
32. 3. Usability Evaluation …from the bottom up
33. Study Patterns
34. www.welie.com
35. Study Patterns
36. A C E G
37. 4. UCD artefacts start a conversation with your team
38. Examples Reading and discussing scenarios Identifying opportunities for design Producing a paper prototype Developing a picture use scenario Presenting design ideas Group discussions DIS Seminar – Melbourne – August 2004
39. Make the data real Walls – beyond whiteboards by Mark Rettig (www.marcrettig.com/writings/rettig.walls.72dpi.pdf )
40. Make things together
41. Collaboration
42. So can you start using these techniques tomorrow?
43. It’s easy and it’s fun
44. You are not the user
45. There are a lot of techniques out there
46. You can learn about patterns
47. Start tomorrow!
48. thank you justine@userfaction.com
49. Flickr
50. Flickr new