User Experience Design for Learning: How UX Can Influence the Process and Practice

User Experience Design for Learning
Julie Dirksen – Usable Learning
ASTD ICE 2014

UsableLearning©2014
Outline
 What is User Experience (UX)
 How it can influence the process
 How it can influence our practice

How do you define User Experience Design?
What is UX Design?

Anybody have a Tivo?
Which one can you use on the couch, in the dark, without thinking about it?

The remote my mother needs…

Pyramid:
Stephen Anderson www.poetpainter.comFrom Stephen Anderson www.poetpainter.com
http://www.slideshare.net/s
tephenpa/creating-
pleasurable-interfaces-
getting-from-tasks-to-
experiences

Getting things done
Increase Motivation
Lower Friction
Image adapted from Joshua Porter

Also referred to as UCD…
 What do we mean when we say User-centered Design?
User!

Does this design decision-making process look familiar?
Stakeholder wants
training
SME provides
content/direction
Does
Stakeholder
approve?
Does SME
approve?
No
Yes
No
Yes

But Learning is in the intersection
Content Learner
Learning!

How do experts see the world?
An Expert Mental Model

A Novice Mental ModelAn Expert Mental Model
How do novices see the world?

Also, we design in a tunnel

And we fill in gaps

Only learners can build shelves
Content /
Information
Mental Model /
Framework

User Needs
How do you do
analysis right now?

Audience Analysis Results
Audience Demographics:
 Age – 18-64
 Gender 58% Male / 42% Female
 Prior Knowledge
 Existing procedures for Business Analysis reporting and documentation
 General Business Analysis Knowledge
 Basic computer literacy / skills
 Education – B.A. or above
 Experience Level – from new hire to 15 yrs

Analysis Methods from UX
 Contextual Inquiry (Job Shadowing)
 Persona Development
 User Journey Mapping

Contextual Inquiry / Job Shadowing
Follow them
around:

Contextual Inquiry / Job Shadowing
1
2
3
4
Things you
might learn:

Why is Context Important?
 Matching the real world
 People leave stuff out
 Memory Prompts
 Behavioral Triggers

 Matching the real world

Why is context important
 People leave stuff out

 Memory Prompts
Where would you like to study for a test?
a)Home
b)Quiet Library
c) Windowless classroom with noisy HVAC
system
d)Favorite Coffee Shop

 Behavioral Triggers

High vs Low Context
Your phone just
rang. Better pick
it up…

Persona Development
Persona: Alice
Age: 32
Job Function: Business
Analyst
Description: Alice has been with the company for 3 years, and
started as a tester in the quality assurance department.
She spends her work time requesting and reviewing research
reports, interviewing stakeholders and end users and creating
software specs.
She is focused, goal-oriented within a strong leadership role. One
of her concerns is maintaining quality across all output of
programs.
She is connected via a T1 connection at work and cable modem at
home. She also uses her smart phone extensively
.
She is most likely to be heard saying: “Can you be more specific?”
"Personas are a
way to give the
user a seat at the
table every time.“
- Kendra Shimmell, director of
training and education
services at Cooper

How you develop personas:
Interview A Data
Contextual Inquiry Data
Demographics

How you DON’T
develop
personas:
So, the first type of user I can think
of would be the “Soccer Mom”
user…

Recent Learners are your BFFs
So, the part I found
really confusing was…
Consider giving them an actual seat at
the table.
The way it finally made
sense to me was…

Getting a good problem statement
https://twitter.com/NathanaelB/status/345077151625781248

Learner Journey Mapping

Mapping Experiences
http://mappingexperiences.com/

Customer Journey Map – Adaptive Path
http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/the-anatomy-of-an-experience-map/

Card Sorting

Prototyping!
“Storyboarding about interactivity is
like dancing about architecture.”
- Shameless paraphrasing

Rapid Prototyping

Some Prototyping Tools
 PowerPoint
 Storyline
 Captivate
 Balsamiq Mockups
 Axure

Image by Gluemoon cc license http://www.flickr.com/photos/gluemoon/90804324/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Biggest Rule of All
Test your
designs

Who does Usability Testing?

What Usability Testing ISN’T:
 UAT – User Acceptance Testing
 Focus Groups
 Demos
 Sending the link out for feedback
 Quality Assurance Testing

Steps for User Testing
 Recruit users (5-6 testers /
1-1.5 hours each)

Steps for User Testing
 Write a script
 Let you know why you are here
 Testing the application – not you
 You can’t do anything wrong
 I probably won’t help you
because we want to see how
people use the course when
they are alone
 Talk aloud while you go through
it
Script:

Watch them use it
 Watch in Person
 Use a lab
 Remote Testing
 User testing software
(Morae, but screen share
works pretty well)

Document the Results
 User Testing Summary Report
 Design Recommendations
 Rinse and Repeat

How many of you are doing user testing?
Are you doing user
testing?
What have you found
out?

Case 1: The Close Button

xMore Information:
Text box that pops up at
certain points during the
training…
x
To close the box,
they clicked here.

Fitts’ Law:
The time to acquire a target
is a function of the distance
to and size of the target

xMore Information:
Text box that pops up at
certain points during the
training…
Close

Case 2: Invisible Text

Case 3: Active Learning

F-shaped Reading Pattern
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/

Enough about Process
 Here’s what I think is the real importance of UX for
Learning and Development…

Instead, let’s talk about this…
Knowledge in the Head
vs
Knowledge in the world

Let me tell you a story
A long time ago, I
had this job
training customer
service reps for a
financial services
company…

It was not a great job…
You know how the
stock art of for
customer service
always shows the
rep smiling?

It took a long time to learn…
 Amount of time to get
really proficient?
~ 6 months
 How long before they
were eligible to apply for
another job in the
company?
Exactly
6 months

This was a big part of the reason…
IBM AS/400
7 different systems
(accounting , credit, collections, etc)

Which should we fix?

You can either:
See Joshua Porter on increasing motivation vs reducing friction

Make it easy for people to succeed
Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

Play to strengths

Environment Matters

Design changes behavior

Where's the knowledge?
world head
Embedded

Fully Embedded Knowledge

world head
Embedded
Guidance

Guidance
Microcopy

world head
Embedded
Guidance
Performance
Support

Performance Support
Job Aids
EPSS
Electronic Performance
Support System

world head
Embedded
Guidance
Performance
Support
References /
Resources

References and Resources

world head
Embedded
Guidance
Performance
Support
References /
Resources
Training

My favorite job aid

Triggers in the environment

Guidance in the environment

More Guidance in the
Environment
The Freedom Trail, Boston

Change the environment
 Pick a design challenge and think about what you can do
with the environment instead of training.
What behavior is causing
problems?
Where is there an
opportunity?

Questions?
Julie Dirksen
julie@usablelearning.com
Twitter: usablelearning
Design For How People Learn
designforhowpeoplelearn.com

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