uportal 3 user experience a designer’s perspective

uPortal 3 User Experience

A Designer’s Perspective

• Common understanding of design

• Design's role in the community

• Speak to uP3 work

• Action Items

Common understanding of design

• What is User Experience?

The sum experience of a user while interacting with the system or product

Common understanding of design

• What is Design?

The aim of design is to create good user experiences

Common understanding of design

• Designers think about:– People and their goals– How to adapt technology to people

• Attraction• Satisfaction• Representation• Adoption

Common understanding of design

• Art– Artificial– No Constraints– Expression

• Design– For use– Has Constraints– Science

Design, while exploratory and often visual, is a scientific process with a commercial goal where the end product is used.

Common understanding of design

• Design is science– Observation– Hypothesis– Test & Validate

Designers don't instinctively know the answer either - but we'll find out!

Design’s role in the community

• What should [a portal for Higher Ed] be?– Community

• How should it be used [by people]?– Designers

• How can it be done [with technology]?– Developers

Design’s role in the community

• Where is design in the uPortal community?

Design’s role in the community

• Until there is more designer involvement and emphasis on making the product desirable and usable, uPortal will not reach its full potential

• Significant barriers to entry for both product use and community contribution

Powerful, but unattractive functionality that is difficult to use

Design’s role in the community

Design’s role in the community

• Designers are not developers (usually)– Speak a different language– Have different goals– Follow a different core process– Use different tools– Produce different artifacts

Design’s role in the community

• Designers are scared away when:– Forced to learn and speak “tech talk”– Asked to design in a “dev environment”– Misunderstood as “skinners”– User Experience is not prioritized– Not given development support

Design’s role in the community

• It’s symbiotic– Developers need Designers to envision and

design a good user experience– Designers need Developers to build the

experience

uP3 User Experience

• A User-Centered Design (UCD) approach

The chief difference from other interface design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the system or function.

uP3 User Experience

• User Research• Analysis• Design Concepts• User/Usability Testing

Observation

Observation

Hypothesis

Test/Validate

• What does UCD do?

uP3 User Experience

• User Research

uP3 User Experience

• Personas

Fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. Personas are given characteristics and are assumed to be in particular environments based on known users’ requirements so that these elements can be taken into consideration when creating scenarios for conceptualizing a site.

uP3 User Experience

• Comparative/ Competitive Analysis

uP3 User Experience

• Heuristic Analysis

Usability Heuristics are a set of industry-defined principles that govern good design. Since common usability heuristics evolved over time they are generally considered to be a standard in best practices for high-level usability evaluation.

uP3 User Experience

• UE Goals– Modernize the User Experience– Layout Customization– Improve Usability

Powerful and attractive functionality that is easy to use

uP3 User Experience

• Design Concepts

uP3 User Experience

• User Testing– Effectiveness– Efficiency– Satisfaction

Action Items

• Support good design in the uPortal community – Prioritize work that results in UE

improvements– Support UE improvements on the backend– Review design activity and give feedback– Get Designers and UE people at your

institution to participate

Action Items

• Incorporate design in your projects – Get users involved (you have direct access)– Submit design ideas– Do "Brick Wall" user testing of designs with

users at your institution and post the feedback– Sponsor "Compliant" user testing at your

institution