DIY UX Give Your Users
an Upgrade (Without Calling In a Pro) Whitney Hess whitney@whitneyhess.com @whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com

Hi, I’m Whitney Hess User
Experience Designer Consultant New Yorker @whitneyhess

You are a user experience
designer

ﬔisIsIndexed.com

Shawn Liu & Danny Wen
Founders Iridesco New York, NY

http://getharvest.com

Design research Web analytics Usability
testing Experimentation & iteration

Design research What do our
users actually need?

Footer

Iridesco’s Gmail labels

Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in
Japanese

Kaizen means “continuous improvement” in
Japanese

http://iridesco.wufoo.com/forms/harvest-survey/

“We don’t just want to
patch; we want to address the core problem.” – Iridesco

“Customers love to tell you
their workflow.” – Iridesco

Design Research Make it easy
for customers to reach you Log their requests & use them to prioritize new features Dig deeper to discover the underlying problems Keep in touch

For more on design research...
Observing the User Experience Mike Kuniavsky

Web analytics What are our
users actually doing?

“We don’t believe in data-driven
design, but data doesn’t lie .” * – Iridesco * Sometimes it does

One month of visits Mon
Mon Mon Mon Highest usage at beginning of week Dropoffs on weekends Somewhat lower usage mid-month

Crazyegg.com

Crazyegg.com

Google Website Optimizer Same exact
page with three different Free Trial buttons Found green and blue buttons performed much better than muted gray button 10% improvement in trial acquisition over two buttons (Learn More and Free Trial)

Matthew Marco Visual Designer House
of Representatives Washington, D.C.

Chief Administrative Officer -> House
Information Resources -> CAO Advanced Business Solutions -> Web Solutions Branch

House.gov

97 most frequent queries on
House.gov and top 10 results of each

97 most frequent queries on
House.gov and top 10 results of each

Queries are, in fact, case-sensitive.
“Nancy Pelosi” and “nancy pelosi” produce different quantities of results ﬔe Pell Grant Underfunding PDF by the Oversight Committee appears in the top-ten results of most state searches; more relevant than any member-generated page in Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina, and Texas ﬔere is no apparent weight given to the title of a document. Untitled documents are not subdued in the results http://www.matthewtmarco.com/studies/2007/pathetic-to-absurd-to-disheartening-in-97-queries/

Sunday, September 28, 2008 1347
bailout 419 bailout bill 282 bail out 208 bailout plan 184 financial services 132 Search Other Sites 130 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 103 bail out bill 95 financial bailout 80 Bailout 78 tarp 68 email 68 700 billion 66 rescue plan 66 rescue bill 66 old AND eye AND 6 64 financial 62 rescue 62 financial markets bill 58 contact

“Stats let me refute the
client’s notion of how their constituents were behaving.” – Matthew Marco, House.gov

Web Analytics Understand your traffic
cycles Use analytics tools to uncover usage patterns Test design variations Explore your search logs to see what people are looking for

For more on web analytics...
Web Analytics: An Hour a Day Avinash Kaushik

Usability testing How well does
our stuff actually work?

NOT Shawn & wife

Usability Testing Light Shows a
build, a prototype, a comp, a sketch, whatever Doesn’t tell her what she’s supposed to be doing Asks “What are your general feelings about this?” and then lets her talk

“‘It looks good’ is the
worst feedback we can get.” – Iridesco

“You need to have humility
and listen. Users aren’t always right, but you need to hear them.” – Iridesco

Where to Find Participants Friends
and family Folks in your office who don’t work on the project: receptionist, HR, sales Twitter followers Starbucks Craigslist

Usability Testing Test your designs
early and oen Informal tests are just as valuable Use people in your environment who aren’t involved in the project Choose participants of different backgrounds & capabilities Do it yourself & acknowledge your poor design choices

For more on usability testing...
Handbook of Usability Testing Jeffrey Rubin and Dana Chisnell

Experimentation & iteration How are
we always getting better?

Sketch Photoshop Test Static HTML
prototype Test again Working prototype Test again Tweak Launch quietly Get feedback Tweak

Evolution of the Manage Project
screen

1 2

3 4

Final design

Roz Duffy Web Developer Comcast
Interactive Media Philadelphia, PA

Comcast
Center

Refresh Philly - June 2009

“We aren’t always working on
the most interesting stuff, but we always want to work smarter.” – Roz Duffy, Comcast Interactive Media

Experimentation & Iteration Never stop
improving your product Make your working environment a creative one Encourage everyone on the team to solve problems together Soak up inspiration from everywhere

For more on experimentation and
iteration... Sketching User Experiences Bill Buxton

Design research Web analytics Usability
testing Experimentation & iteration

Takeaways Always be listening Ask
questions to get to underlying problems Use data and anecdotes to inform the design Test your designs and have the humility to admit you’re wrong Complete the feedback loop Never stop trying to make things better

Make your users happy and
they will thank you

“Having customers feel like they’re
being heard translates to word of mouth and more business.” – Iridesco

ﬔank you! Special thanks to:
Danny Wen and Shawn Liu of Iridesco, Matthew Marco, and Roz Duffy Whitney Hess whitney@whitneyhess.com @whitneyhess http://whitneyhess.com