making website experiences
DESCRIPTION
A presentation I made for my daughter's career day. I explained what I did to make good website user experiences. Then told them how to make one themselves.TRANSCRIPT
Making Awesome Website Experiences
By Stephen Morrissey
A little bit about me
• I was a communications officer in the US Air Force for 7 years
• I’m a 4th degree black belt
• I lived in Pittsburgh for 7 years, but have always liked the Steelers
What is a website experience?
• Website: “A connected group of pages on the World Wide
Web regarded as a single entity, usually maintained by one
person or organization and devoted to a single topic or
several closely related topics.”
• Experience: “A particular instance of personally encountering
or undergoing something”
What makesa good website good experience?
It is easy (and pleasurable) to accomplish your task
What tasks? Let’s look at some examples…
Planning a vacation
Looking at cute cat pictures
Video game tips
Help with math homework
How do I make a good website experience?
Don’t start building just yet
Interviews
Interviews
• Ask people what they do
• Dig deeper to find out what they really want to do
• Look around their desk / workspace
Audits
Audits
• Look for consistency in text• Electronic mail, Email, E-mail, e-mail, email, mail, etc.
• Re-use patterns• Navigation
• Button placement• OK/Cancel, or Cancel/OK
Experience(mistakes)
Professional Experience
• I’ve been making websites since 1996 (that’s 18 years, or half my life)• Many successes and many failures
• Re-use existing solutions• Checkout experience
How can you make website experiences?
Look for gaps & opportunities
• PayPal• Then: go to bank, withdraw money, give to person
• Now: Send email
• ZipCar• Go to desk, wait in line, reserve by the day, get keys, walk to lot, get car
• Go online, reserve by the hour, get car
Get educated
• Computer programming (build a website)
• Art (pretty website)
• Social Studies (connect to cultures)
• Psychology (understand our brains)
• Business (use the web to make money)
Be awesome
Go make something awesome
• Write your thoughts down
• Read more than you write
• Put words into action and build it
• Demonstrate your passion