UX Designer’s ToolkitDesigning a better world
Rachel LiuApril 2014
Objective
• Understand how UX plays a fundamental part for designing a better world
• Become familiar with the Lean UX process
• How to develop your skills in UX everyday
Rachel Liu UX Designer
Why Digital Projects Fails
“I can’t find what I want”
“Why is it so hard to use?”
“I’m so confused, what does this error message
mean?”
“Oh crap, just made a mistake, how do I undo?”
First impressions
The first 10 seconds of the page visit are critical for users' decision to stay or leave
Case Study: Ryanair
Customer’s perceptions
“They have a famous (and intentional) unattractive and cluttered website that comes along with a frustrating user experience”
- Philip Joyce, Designer
Ryanair’s customer experience
What Ryanair could look like
Consumer Sentiment Comparison
Ryanair’s Design Strategy
• Nov 2013: New digital strategy for the ‘new Ryanair experience’, reducing booking process from 17 down to 5 clicks
• Feb 2014: Seat allocations, allowing a second bag, duty free bag rather than cramming everything into 1 hand luggage
• April 2014: New improved website, aim to be more intuitive and mobile passes
• June 2014: Mobile app for smartphone and tablets
"What’s always ‘in’ is good usability and giving consideration to what a consumer wants to achieve when they come to the website - that will never get old”.
-Simply Zesty's head of design Rick Monro
UX to the Rescue!
Every aspect of the user’s interaction with a product, service, or company that make up the user’s perceptions of the whole.
User experience design as a discipline is concerned with all the elements that together make up that interface, including layout, visual design, text, brand, sound, and interaction.
10 Principles of UX
1. Experience belongs to the user
2. UX is holistic
3. Great UX are invisible
4. UX is a lifecycle
5. Context is king
6. Great experience is about control
7. UX is social
8. Psychology is primary
9. UX is a conversation not a one-off product
10. Great experiences are simple
Case Study: TFL TFL new website
TFL: Putting Users First
• User-centred design approach - putting customers at the heart of design process
• Beta site launched mid 2013 in parallel to current site
• Using social media as a feedback forum
• Website officially launched on 25th March 2014
User’s Goals
“What people really wanted was a great Journey Planner, maps, live travel information, localised and personalised content – all on their device of choice.
We needed to be great at catering for mobiles, tablets, laptops and desktops”.
- Phil Young, Head of Online at TFL
TFL’s Success
• “New TFL Journey Planner Crowned Best User Experience of 2013 at UXUK Awards”
• “Award for best Mobile Solution at International Design for Experience Design”
• 6m pages in 1million visits from over 900,000 customers
UCD Definition
User Centred Design is the discipline of generating solutions to problems and opportunities through the act of making something ‘new’, where the activity is driven by the needs, desires and context of the people for whom we design.
1. Research 2. Define 3. Design 4. Evaluate
UCD Process
Why Lean UX?
• Evolution of product design, takes the best parts of designer’s toolkit with the ever rapid changing technology and demands of businesses today
• Not about features or documents, it’s about how it works: measure what works, learn and adjust
Lean UX Process
Lean UX = Design thinking + Agile software development + Lean startup
Eric Lies cyclical model Design’s cyclical model
Learn by Doing!
1. Learn
2.Build3. Measure
- Empathy map- User journey
- Concept poster- Show & tell
Goal: Understand the UCD/lean UX process
Brief: Design a service for group holidays
• Get into groups of 4/5
• Choose a customer segment
• Draw customer’s face in the centre
• Give customer a name, demographic characteristics
• Divide into 6 segments
• Post-its to answer questions
Exercise: Empathy Map
Goal: Understand how product/service will by used by target audience
Persona example Smart Socialite
Persona example Smart Traditionalist
Exercise: Journey Mapping
• Main steps for the group holiday service (beginning to end) as headings
• Feelings/emotion under each stage
• Service solution: Find opportunities to solve pain points and boost joy points
• Use your empathy mapping to guide you, relating to user’s needs
Goal: Understand all the touch-points across a product/service from a user’s perspective
Exercise: Visualise the vote
• Everyone has three votes each• Individually, choose your top three ideas in
your head• All together, place the dots next to the
solutions • Tally the dots to select best idea/s • Select best idea, discuss or re-vote again
Goal: Uncover the strongest ideas or patterns of interest, building consensus and priorities
Exercise: Concept poster
• Based on best idea, develop the solution more fully
• Design a concept poster• Use empathy map and journey map to aid
you
Goal: Create compelling poster that summarises your product/service idea
Exercise: Show & Tell
Goal: Cross-collaboration, exchanging ideas and learning from each other
• Each team pair up with another team from a different customer segment
• Walkthrough the empathy map, journey map and your poster pitch
• Other team provide feedback on three things to consider/improve on based on their customer segment
• Teams swap tasks
Key Takeaways
1. Re-ask the problem and solve the right problem
2. Design for emotion by adopting the attitude of:
You?
Humble
Empathetic
Imaginative
Collaborative
Iterative
Curious
3. Practice Lean UX - learn, build, measure, iterate and validate with real users
4. Designing great products is the responsibility of everyone - advocate cross-functional teams
5. A great designer isn’t a UX hero but a great facilitator who advocates collaboration and team cohesion
“As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life”.
-Amy Poehler
Recommended Reading
Goodreads - UX list