1. User Centered Design: How to please users and get the CEO off your back
Dan ArraSan Jose, CA
650-218-4444
darra@macadamian.com

2. Selective Attention Test, by Daniel Simons
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3. Agenda
Demystify User Centered Design (UCD)
Support your choices with data
Differentiate your product
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4. Demystify UCD
Users
Who are they? What do they care about?
How do they actually interact with your product?
How would they interact with a new version/feature?
Centered on value to actual users
Product Strategy Workshop
Key business objectives
User requirements
Design to illustrate value to users
Design, test, incorporate feedback
Rinse and repeat
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5. Demystify UCD
Users
Personas context, context, context
Centered on value to actual users
Usage Scenarios
Your business objectives their value
Still gotta have documented requirements
Design to illustrate value to users
Wireframes, models, mockups
Visual concepts
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6. Demystify UCD
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7. Demystify UCD
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8. Support your choices with data (and process)
Gain agreement thru metrics
Simplify your decisions
Justify your choices
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9. Gain agreement thru metrics
Define objective measurable targets
Express from the customers/users perspective
Both qualitative AND quantitative are good
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10. Simplify your decisions
With success metrics in hand
Obtained from actual users
You have confidence about what to include
And what to remove
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11. Justify your choices (aka defend yourself)
Charts, data During our first round of testing
time on task was x seconds
# of errors was reduced by y%
Narratives We watched the users actually smile and relax when then completed this task
Storyboards As you can see from this diagram, the new path to the reservation screen is
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12. Gain agreement thru metrics
Organizational Confidence
Success is often a matter of confidence
If Sales believes in the product (based on metrics), they will do a better job selling it.
If Management trusts youvemade the right decisions, youll get the resources you need
If Support understands the training issues, theyll be more effective
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13. Differentiate your product
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Features are important IF they are valuable to users
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14. Identify Goals & Tasks
Users dont approach with a feature in mind think goals and tasks
More isnt always better. More often leads to:
Clutter
Bloat
Complicated
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15. Differentiate based on those goals & tasks
Feature war Bad User Experience
Study real behavior needs, goals, workflow, workplace processes through:
Direct observation of users
Feedback from users
Organize tasks, sub-tasks by:
Order of importance
Frequency performed
Map relationships & dependencies between tasks:
Flowcharts
Mapping diagrams
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16. Information architecture & task relationships diagrams
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17. Differentiate your product and sell more of it
If it looks good, you will get more interest
Its a process
Good design can be measured
Removes opinion and conjecture
Requires expertise to test (Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell puppies, kitties and Aeron Chair)
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18. Who is Macadamian?
Software Products Consultancy
When the user experience is key
Full scope of software development life cycle
UX Design & User Research
Software Engineering
QA Testing
Increasing customer adoption
14 Year Track Record, over 150 staff
Hybrid Onshore/Offshore - Ottawa(HQ), Romania, Armenia
Experience across multiple markets and products
Wide range of skills and processes:
UX design + Software Engineering + Test/QA
Desktop (Win, Mac OS)
Mobile (iPhone/iPad, Blackberry, Android, WP7)
SaaS (.NET, LAMP, J2EE, RIA, Flash/Flex)
Strobe/Sproutcore Partner
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19. What have we done lately?
New Product Development, Extensions, Re-designs
Mobile client development iPad, iPhone, Android phone & tablet
Web development Web 2.0 apps with mobile companion products
Desktop Clients Windows and Mac
User Experience Design & Usability Testing
Product Families Desktop, Web, Mobile Clients
User Research including
Usability walk-throughs
Usability Testing
Ethnographic research or job shadowing
Examples
Cisco FlipShare Mobile, Umi home telepresence
Juniper Re-design of existing app to include web, mobile, desktop
BitTorrent Macintosh client & Android Tablet (both design & build)
Varian Medical Electronic Medical Record for iPad (proto-type)
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20. Our sweet spot
End-to-end: from napkin sketch to release (and anywhere along your software development life cycle)
Creativity: innovating in design and technology
User Research: Validate user needs, usability, market, etc.
Uncharted territory: dealing with technical uncertainty & potential for change
Intense deadlines need for rapid response times
Experience required theres no time for ramp-up
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