UX Toolkit for Product Owners

UX Toolkit

About one week ago I did a talk at the Agile Tour Vienna called "UX Toolkit for Product Owners". As I'm working as a Usability Engineer in several agile projects I learned that the team and especially the product owner can benefit a lot from directly talking to the users.

Because I think that UX is no magical thing that only can be done by people studying several years, I created a small "UX Toolkit" explaining 10 UX methods that could help product owners and other team members to get a better understanding of the users and that should help to validate their designs. The methods are End-User Interview, Contextual Inquiry, Personas, Scenarios and Storyboards, Card Sorting, Wireframes, Paper Prototyping, End-User Testing, Think Aloud and Heuristic Evaluation.

We tried to describe the methods briefly and we visualized how much experience is needed and how much time/effort is necessary.

In addition to the printed UX-Toolkit we provided a tiny Website (in German) for providing additional links to blogs and videos: ux.techtalk.at.


ux.techtalk.at

In the talk I presented then five methods including some real-life examples ... the slides (in German) are provided on Slideshare.

If you want to get the printed version of the UX-Toolkit you can directly contact me: claudia.oster[at]techtalk.at.

Besides that I want to highlight that the videos of the keynotes of the Agile Tour are online - for all UX-Designers the talk by Jeff Patton is a must-see. Have fun!

Windows 8 App-a-thon in Vienna

Hi,

next weekend - August 25th and 26th - already the 2nd Windows 8 App-a-thon in Vienna will take place.

In the morning I will present 6 easy-to-use UX tools in 60 minutes, covering Interview Techniques, Personas, Wireframing, Paper Prototyping, Think aloud testing and heuristic evaluation.

Looking forward to see you there - free admission, but registration is necessary.
More information and registration you can find on the Microsoft website.

Br, Claudia 

Links - "Best of": Mobile Web Design, Integrate UX into Agile Development and Innovative Techniques to Simplify Log-Ins

Hi,

today again I want to share a few links you might be interested in:

Video: Mobile Web Design Interview
LukeW - April 5th, 2011
First I want to share with you an interview of Michael Slater with Luke Wroblewski. In my last post I have written about Lukes book "Web Form Design" and in Summer his new book will be out... "Mobile First". In the short interview he gives an insight in the new book... I'm already looking forward to it.

Integrating UX into Agile Development
UXmatters, Janet M. Six - April 18th, 2011
Ask UXmatters interviewed 6 usability engineers about how they integrate the UX methods into the agile development process. The articles covers topics like Success factors for Agile UX, Adapting User Research to an Agile Approach, Team Dynamics, ....

Innovative Techniques To Simplify SignUps and and Log-Ins
Smashing Magazine, Anthony T - May 5th, 2011
Everybody see it several times every day .... the log-in Screen. Anthony T summarized a lot of techniques how the signups and log-in screens can be improved to help the user. Some of  them are more or less common sense like "Auto-complete the country field" but a few of them are not very often used like "Require users to type their password only once" and "Allow users to  unmask their password".


I'm already looking forward to the UXLX conference next week in Lisbon with a lot of interesting workshops and talks... I will try to share my experiences with you over this blog and my twitter account.

Have a nice day,
Claudia

Links - "Best of": Wireframes to Code, Best Podcasts 2010 & Crappy Surveys

Hi,

perhaps you have at the moment - between Christmas and New Year - more time, so I want to share with you again some interesting articles from the last weeks.

From Wireframe to Code (Part1)

UX matters, Bill Schmidt - 20th of December 2010

How can the workflow be optimized? Is it more useful to have a integrated code approach (use the same artefacts for design and code) or separate code approach (artefacts to communicate design are separate from the final code)?

***

Lauren Cramer, User Interface Engineering, provided an article about the most interesting podcast of 2011 (part 1/part 2) and I want to provide you two I find most interesting:

Design Lessons from Facebook’s 350 Million with Julie Zhuo
2nd of March 2010
A few years ago we heard the following wishes from the customer ... "It should work like google.." "It should work like amazon.." Since a few months (in Europe) we hear "It should work like Facebook"... This is an indicator that this are the trendsetters - Brian Christiansen talks with Julie Zhuo, the Product Design Manager at Facebook, about the balance between the need to launch new features and the necessary user research.

Moving Beyond Static Forms with Luke Wroblewski
11th of February 2010
Last time I already shared a link about Better Form Design... and in this podcast Luke Wroblewski (authour of the popular book "Web Form Design") talks about the changes in the last years reagarding Form Design.

***
User Experience For Developers
UX Magazine - Pek Pongpaet, 23rd of December 2010
Quote: "UX shouldn't be the purview solely of UX specialists; a well-rounded developer can become a UX professional, too." Interesting links and what interested developers should focus on.

***
19 Lessons from United Airlines on How To Build A Crappy Survey
User Interface Engineering - Jared Spool, 26th of December 2010
A funny and interesting to read article about Jared Spools experience with a crappy survey from United Airlines.

 

I wish you all a happy New Year 2011 :-)

Claudia

Get information! Interviews with stakeholders and endusers

Hi!

One of the basics you need to create a user-friendly interface is that you should know the user. You should know what are his goals, tasks, abilities, workflows, the environment, etc.

So one of the first step in the user-centered design process is to collect the information. One possibility to do so is to interview endusers as well as stakeholders.

A the beginning the usability expert should collect the questions he wants to ask and should always have in mind the general purpose of the interview. The perfect place to interview the enduser is the environment in which the application will be used, so for example in his/her workplace. The usability expert shouldn't ask question after question but rather let the user talk about their experiences and the expert should observe the behaviour of the user.

Several websites provide lists of questions that can be asked during an enduser or stakeholder interview. One website that provides a lot of information about each step in the usability process is usability.gov. They also provide a list of questions (.doc) that can be asked to the team at the kick-off.

Another good resource is the list of questions by Jared Spool and also the article "Putting context into context".

If you have any other interesting sources/links you're welcome to leave a comment.

Br, Claudia