UXPost University

Todays Agenda

• Who we are, what we do

• What is User Experience Design?

• What it takes to be a UX Consultant

• Quick hands on practical

• Re-cap. UX/Uni Cheat Sheet, Questions

Steve Fenn@stevefenn

Richard Foggin@richardfoggin

2min

3min

• Bristol based digital agency working with local authorities, charities, government departments and commercial sector

• Small agile Ruby on Rails agency

• Steve’s role has developed into a front-end developer

Developer

3min

• Visual Designer

• UXD

• Information Architect

• User Experience Consultant

IA/UX CONSULTANT

You!5min

2min

I have no idea, what you’re talking about or what UX is?

5min

2minGreat things about working

in UX

3min Challenges

Warning:Clients can

cause lunacy!

Which Job are you?

Front End Developer

take 10

25 min Total

UX Research

understanding users5min

Conducting user interviews

2min

• Decide what you want to learn

• Find people to talk to

• Prepare you experiment

• Get out of the building

• Collect your evidence

• Debrief, share, draw conclusions

2min

Setting up for a good interview

• Setting research goals

• Who are you going to interview, what’s their relation to the organisation; get an even test

• Plan, plan, plan

Giving a good interview• Get people talking by getting examples, not just yes and no answers

• Echo what has just been said to you “Confusing?” and focus points you want to explore “can you tell me more?”

• Listen. Really Really...Really....LISTEN!

• Don’t think about what your going to say next, focus on what’s being said

Bad Questions• Leading questions e.g “do you use you macbook to study?” “how do you study”

• Closed questions e.g “do you get the bus to uni?”

• Spending too long asking a question that’s too specific

• You want the interviewee to talk, not you

• Try not to sound like your giving an interrogation

2min

Emotion

• Emotions can give real (true) insight into peoples thoughts and feelings

• Pick up on words like “annoying” and “frustrating” and get them to elaborate

• Ask them how they feel when they performed a task, or if they enjoyed it

5min

Let’s get busy• Get into groups of 3

• You will take it in turns to be the interviewer, interviewee and note taker

• Pick a topic to interview the other people in your group about

• Plan out the rough path you want to take in the interview and what you want to learn from the other person

40min

Practice• You can now take turns to interview each other

• Take 8 minutes an interview with 2 minutes at the end to critique the interview as a group

• Manage your own time and techniques using some of the hints we have given you

• Note takers try and take down important insights from the conversation, not everything being said

Re-cap• What did you find challenging about the interview?

• Did you find yourself as an interviewee talking in more depth than you would imagine?

• How would you improve your plan if you were starting again?

Cheat Sheet• UX is a craftsman job select the tool and use it properly

• Consider real world implications of your decisions

• Think about the worst way to do something in order to understand the best way

• Don’t expect to find a printer on hand-in day. HA!

It’s a wrap• Steve - Focus @stevefenn steve@thisisfocus.co.uk

• Rich - True @rafoggin richard.foggin@truedigital.co.uk

• Recommended books: Smashing UX Design, Universal Principles of Design, Communicating the user experience

• Please feel free to ask any questions!