So, what does the user experience

team do?

“you make ugly interfaces really pretty”

“you’re a usability group”

“you delay projects and extend deadlines”

“you introduce new methodologies”

(misconceptions)

A story,about a new, not-yet-released, product.

<- the iPhone

BUT...

“When you get right down to it, the device doesn’t even have that many new features—it’s not like Jobs invented voicemail, or text messaging, or conference calling, or mobile Web browsing....”

In terms of features, there’s really not much that is new.

Apple’s much-anticipated iPhone is

‘business as usual’ in a country where

mobile features already are so advanced.

Japan Yawning at iPhone

Psst. It’s not about more features.

“when technology delivers basic needs, user experience dominates”

-Don Norman

Joshua Porter (Bokardo) offers some relevant thoughts…

“The innovation in these applications is not that they let us do something new, but that they allow us to do what we already do better, more often, in more places, and more quickly. “

(commenting on Web 2.0 interfaces)

7 Lessons about UX...

L e s s o n 1 :

Place better ‘experiences’ ahead of more features.

L e s s o n 1 :

Place better ‘experiences’ ahead of more features.

When you get right down to it, the device doesn’t even have that many new features—it’s not like Jobs invented voicemail, or text messaging, or conference calling, or mobile Web browsing. He just noticed that they were broken, and he fixed them.

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 2 :

Start with actual experiences.

L e s s o n 2 :

Start with actual experiences.

Cell phones do all kinds of stuff—calling, text messaging, web browsing, contact management, music playback, photos and video—but they do it very badly, by forcing you to press lots of tiny buttons, navigate diverse heterogeneous interfaces and squint at a tiny screen. “Everybody hates their phone,” Jobs says, “and that’s not a good thing. And there’s an opportunity there.”

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 2 :

Start with actual experiences.

L e s s o n 3 :

Solve the real problems.

L e s s o n 3 :

Solve the real problems.

“Your phone’s got feet on,” he says, not unkindly. “Why would anybody put feet on a phone?” Ive has the answer, of course: “It raises the speaker on the back off the table. But the right solution is to put the speaker in the right place in the first place. That’s why our speaker isn’t on the bottom, so you can have it on the table, and you don’t need feet.” Sure enough, no feet toe the iPhone’s smooth lines.

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 4 :

Play to think.

L e s s o n 4 :

Play to think.The iPhone developed the way a lot of cool things do: with a false start. A few years ago Jobs noticed how many development dollars were being spent... on tablet PCs. ...so he had Apple engineers noodle around with a tablet PC. When they showed him the touchscreen they came up with, he got excited. So excited he forgot all about tablet computers.

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 5 :

Treat interfaces like conversations.

L e s s o n 5 :

Treat interfaces like conversations.

When you need to dial, it shows you a keypad; when you need other buttons, the screen serves them up. When you want to watch a video, the buttons disappear. Suddenly, the interface isn’t fixed and rigid, it’s fluid and molten. Software replaces hardware.

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 6 :

Lead with a vision.

L e s s o n 6 :

Lead with a vision.

Jobs demanded special treatment from his phone service partner, Cingular, and he got it. He even forced Cingular to re-engineer its infrastructure to handle the iPhone’s unique voicemail scheme. “They broke all their typical process rules to make it happen,” says Tony Fadell, who heads Apple’s iPod division. “They were infected by this product, and they were like, we’ve gotta do this!”

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 7 :

Obsess on the details.

L e s s o n 7 :

Obsess on the details.

Unlike most competitors, Apple also places an inordinate emphasis on interface design. It sweats the cosmetic details that don’t seem very important until you really sweat them. “I actually have a photographer’s loupe that I use to look to make sure every pixel is right,” says Scott Forstall, Apple’s head of Platform Experience (whatever that is). “We will argue over literally a single pixel.” As a result, when you swipe your finger across the screen to unlock the iPhone, you’re not just accessing a system of nested menus, you’re entering a tiny universe, where data exist as bouncy, gemlike, animated objects that behave according to consistent rules of virtual physics.

Quote from TIME Magazine article “The Apple Of Your Ear”

L e s s o n 7 :

Obsess on the details.

(This is from Kathy Sierra)

The introduction of the iPhone sets the bar high... these companies must innovate — particularly on the user experience — to compete with Apple.

Forrester Report, “Apple’s iPhone Changes The Stakes, Not The Game”

So, what does the user experience

team do?

We make things work for people.

- Start with an understanding of users.

- Imagine what could be.

- Experiment through rapid prototyping.

- Encourage participation.

This includes:

Visual Design

Information Design

Information Architecture

Web and Application Interface Design (Interaction Design)

Design Research

Rich Interface Development

Expert Usability Evaluations

To do this, we...

This includes big changes...

Some of these are high level (Cruises, Vacations); things like Trip Extras and Travel Protection should be offered in context of an actual booking...

(Before and after screenshots, showing a dramatically improved information architecture)

This slide has been deemed proprietary and can only be viewed by employees of Sabre Holdings.

Don’t be sad. You can always come work with us: www.sabreux.com/jobs

;-)

...careful attention to the little details...

from ‘qualifying this client’, we know they’re what type of travel they’re interested in, and can remove the travel type menu options

if the agent leaves the ‘flow’, information is saved...

(Sequence showing some nifty little AJAX behaviors)

This slide has been deemed proprietary and can only be viewed by employees of Sabre Holdings.

Don’t be sad. You can always come work with us: www.sabreux.com/jobs

;-)

...more careful attention to the little details...

(Before and after screenshot of flight search results)

This slide has been deemed proprietary and can only be viewed by employees of Sabre Holdings.

Don’t be sad. You can always come work with us: www.sabreux.com/jobs

;-)

Things we’ll do (that you might care about)•map‘stories’backtoActivities—

soproductreleasesmakesense!•contributetorealproduct

ownership(YEAH!)•createlessrework•developreusablecode.•makeourproductsmorevaluable

“We set about rethinking the UI from the user’s perspective, which is ‘results-oriented,’ rather than from the developer’s perspective, which tends to be ‘feature-oriented’ or ‘command-oriented’– thereby enabling people to focus on what they want to do rather than on how they do it.”(commenting on the new UI of Office 12)

User Experience Design Groupincludes...

Interaction Designerspassionate about...

Design Research (and Strategy)

Information Architecture

Web and Application Interface Design

Visual Communications

Information Graphics

Information Design

Brand Strategy (and Creation)

Web Standards / Web Development

New (Web2.0) Innovations

Usability

Front-End Developerspassionate about...

XHTML

CSS (1,2, and 3)

Cross-Browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility

DOM Scripting

AJAX

Flash / FLEX

Progressive Enhancement and Graceful Degradation

Web Standards / Accessibility

Presentation Logic (ASPX, Rails Views, etc.)

Business Rules & Logic

How the group is set up...

Questions?