attitude adjustmentvaluing developers in ux and usability

Marcella Missirian

11/16/14

SoCalCodeCamp.com

Attitude Adjustment

Valuing Developers in UX and Usability

Marcella Missirian

UX Director

President, UXPALA

Entrepreneur, visual designer, developer, user experience evangelist

and cook. Marcella grew up in the LA area and is the rare Los Angeles

native as well as worldwide traveler.

Marcella has a background in economics, business and political

science but spent most of her higher education years immersed in art,

visual and performance experiences and as well as being a

professional pastry chef.

Marcella's work has been seen and used globally and has inspired an

entire generation of designers and continues to set the standard for

usability and user experience that is not only functional but is rich in

emotional experience as well as delightful!

Marcella is a digital expert, entrepreneur, innovator and thinker and is

the Executive Director of UXPA (User Experience Professional

Association of Los Angeles) and active participant at many design, ux

and technology events throughout the world.

Everyone is welcome to UXPA of LA events. If you're in the

Technology, UX, design or the like field, join our meetup page to get

updates on events, forum discussion on issues and resources related

to your field.

UXPALA — http://www.meetup.com/UXPALA/

@Marcella_UX

www.linkedin.com/in/marcellamissirian/

11/18/20

14 Attitude Adjustment — Valuing Developers in UX and Usability — 2

http://www.meetup.com/UXPALA/

Today we’ll talk about

you, the developer and

your valuable and integral

role working within a

UX/UI team and workflow.

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You’re on a new project and the teams talking UX, persona's, testing, prototypes, iterations, and

research. Where do you fit in and become an invaluable part of the development process? What

IS the UX process?

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LET’S START WITH – WHAT IS UX AND USABILITY?

Wikipedia User Experience:

User Experience (UX) involves a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions

about using a particular product, system or service.

Marcella’s definition:

UX is the study of the human and everything that is not human and how we

relate and use those objects around us.

Wikipedia Usability:

Ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.

Marcella’s definition:

Usability means structuring things so you don't leave your users angry,

frustrated, and complaining about you on Facebook or Twitter.

UX WORKFLOW BASICS

• Idea – Let’s make a new widget

• Persona Development • (testing)

• Prototyping• (testing)

• User Journey• (testing)

• Wire Framing• (testing)

• Back/Front End Development• (testing)

• User Interface• (testing)

• Release• (testing)

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The cycle of development keeps turning around and if you’re doing it right,

you’re always improving.

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THE IMPORTANT OF UX AND USABILITY

What is the first thing people will do when a site is

difficult to use?

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DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

1. “It’s hard to use & ugly!”

2. “I just don’t understand

how to use this!”

3. “The performance of this

application sucks!”

4. “Was this application

designed for me or an

engineer?”

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SO WHERE DO YOU START?

• Who are your users?

• What do you want them to do on your site?

• What do they want to do on your site?

• How tech-savvy are your users?

• Where will your users go if your site isn't

working for them?

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-

REQUIREMENTS AND IDEATION• Requirements — Create a script/list of the

most common procedures or tasks on your

site.

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-PERSONA

DEVELOPMENT• Create Personas — an aggregate user based

on common traits in a group of users. On

average there are at least 3 persona’s per

project/product.

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-STRATEGY

• Strategy — Identify success criteria.

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-TESTING

• Testing — Sit down with users individually and

give them one task at a time. Ask them neutral

questions and tasks. Record each session for

review.

• What to test? Old design

Competitor's websites

Sites popular with your users

Proposed site

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-PROTOTYPING

• Mock-up the project or product.

• Use paper and pencil, clay, PowerPoint,

Word, use anything that quick and you feel

comfortable using.

• Test the prototype. Draw screens for each

swipe or tap or touch.

• Test on family and friends.

• Make adjustments.

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-USER JOURNEY

AND EXPERIENCE MAPPING• Story board your product.

Where does the user start?

Do they login?

Do they get to their home page?

How do they find information?

What’s the end result?

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-WIREFRAMING

• Create skeleton layouts that show function

and form but no graphics

• Test these layouts

with people that fit

your persona

development

• Adjust, tweek, test,

adjust, tweek, test

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-DEVELOPMENT

• Based on: Persona characteristics and behavior

User Journey

Experience Mapping

Testing through each step

Strategy

Success indicators

Back and front end coding begins

User Interface Design begins

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-TESTING,

TESTING, TESTING• When development is in process, do more

testing

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BUILDING THE PROJECT-RELEASE

• Nothing will ever be perfect.

• MVP = Most Viable Product

• If you think you’re done, you would be wrong

• Iterative process means you keep going and

changing things based on user feedback and

testing

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CASE STUDY-MOBILE APP

• Working with a developer, Jon, who didn’t

want to be involved.

• Very grouchy

• Just tell him what we wanted done

• Jon didn’t like meetings and thought they

were useless

• Jon didn’t understand all the post-its and

white boards and didn’t read any of the notes.

• Jon didn’t care what a persona was.

• BUT – he would have all changes completed

very quickly

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• The team wanted Jon’s input

• When they showed him wireframes and

designs and explained to him function he

would sigh, grumble and respond with

“That can’t be done.”

“This language is limited and that stuff would

break so I don’t think you should build it.”

“I know what I’m doing and I know what

people like to use.”

• BUT – again, he would have all changes

completed very quickly regardless of the

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• Without Jon’s participation and input, the

project dragged on and he was doing more

work than necessary.

• The team was frustrated and felt the process

was not moving forward and they were getting

resentful of Jon.

• Jon was frustrated and felt like he wasn’t

being listened to.

• BUT Jon worked really fast.

• But now the costs were going up because of

re-work.

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• The UX process at it’s fundamental core is

collaboration.

• It often involves stepping on each other’s

toes.

• Getting messy.

• Breaking things.

• This is all for the Identified User.

• Every thought, every post-it, every function is

to simplify and make delightful.

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CASE STUDY-MOBILE APP-THE USER

• Know your user, and you are not that user.

• Don't overwhelm the user.

• Consistency, consistency, consistency.

• The user should control the system. The

system should not control the user. The user

is the boss and the system should show it.

• User should be able to do what they want.

• Strive to empower the user, not speed up the

system.

• Minimize the need for a mighty memory-don’t

make them think.

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SOLUTION TO CASE STUDY

• I brought lunch into

the office.

• I picked up Jon’s

favorite – Bay Cities

Deli.

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• I set up all the

sandwiches in the

conference room.

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• With the TV on.

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• To the moderated user testing we had

completed the week before.

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• Jon watched, paused, rewound and fast-

forwarded all three tapes for hours.

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• The next day, I brought coffee and bagels

into our “situation room.” (work area)

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• Jon was told of the bagels and coffee and

didn’t just grab 3 and leave…

• He stayed.

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• The grumpy, grouchy attitude came out full

throttle, even after 2 cups of coffee and

probably 2-3 bagels.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 1 — When giving feedback or commenting on

another’s work, start with 2 positives before any

constructive criticism.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 2 — Get over arguments quickly and move on. This

is not about you but about the work. Remove your ego.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 3 — Make the right time for each other and

recognize we are all a very crucial part of the team.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 4 — Get what you need from others and make sure

they get what they need from you. Listen. Listen. Listen.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 5 — Share the blame and the fame.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 6 — Learn from each other. Care for each other.

Stop the laziness and be kind.

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• So we set up some rules: Rule 7 — Soft skills are the key. You’ll get more

accomplished.

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WHAT MAKES A GREAT TEAM?

A desire to give control over something to a

colleague who can make it bigger, better, more

beautiful!

–Nic Ford, dConstruct

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EXERCISE

• Say 2 nice things to the person on your right

then 1 piece of constructive criticism.

• Reverse Roles.

• Identify 2 of your strongest soft skills to the

person on your right. Soft skills is a term often associated with a person's "EQ"

(Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits,

social graces, communication, language, personal habits,

friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with

other people.

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QUESTIONS

Marcella Missirian

[email protected]

@Marcella_UX

11/18/20


mailto:[email protected]