10 lessons of UXLondon 2010

From the mouths of…

And falling neatly into 10 categories…

UX is…

UX is ephemeral
UX only comes alive when someone interacts with your work. Only exists because of users. Doesn’t exist independent of use.
UX is human experience = outcome, human engagement = goal
UX is Perception, Cognition, Emotion, Action
UX is about synthesis – how you draw all the pieces together

Search is…

Search is among the most disruptive innovations of our time
The moment where users don’t search successfully is a teachable moment, if we design it well
Search is not an IT challenge, it’s a knowledge management challenge
Search should be giving answers not results (helping decision making)
Search: we can’t accept slow as an answer
Search is a hard but a satisfying problem (an unsolvable problem – never ending data expansion = more problems)

Metrics in Design is…

Never design in reaction to competition
Understand business objectives: don’t accept what you are told
Design: balance between intuition and evidence
No data is important but your own. If metrics aren’t actionable, they aren’t useful
Optimise in small steps, innovate with daring leaps
Careful who you copy from (as they may have copied it from elsewhere)

Improvisation is…

How can we create meaning and value for people we design for when they also contribute to the meaning? Frames. Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – the Ultimate Frame
Designers need to help people make sense of the world as the present is in motion
Improvisation is the space in which the creator and the consumer overlap
Improvisation Patterns: Present – involves the audience. Detectable – requires no pre-knowledge. Additive – accepts all offers
Improvisation is relevant today because users are shifting from pure consumers/spectators to active creator/producer
Focus more on the use of design rather than the process of design
‘Music is the pleasurable overflow of information’ – Jonah Lehre

Seduction in design is…..

Show me suggestions don’t just ask me to fill a white space
Usability reduces friction, psychology increases motivation
Need to tap into our knowledge of how people think when we design
Brains pay attention to what brains care about not necessarily what the concious mind cares about
Dopplr: Design to respond to users
We’re afraid of change, we’re intensely self-centred, we respond to our name, we like to organise things
Scarcity is motivating

Story Telling is….

The space between the comic panels is where the story is told
We have to find ourselves in everything. We recognise facial expressions, we respond to them. Not taught.
The user is the author of its own experiences
The rhythm of give and take between artist and reader is unique
Filling the field of vision creates the world of an experience. Drop the vertical page metaphor
A story well told is a hard thing to do
Animation = art as a team sport
“Storyboarding is the art of story” reboarding John Lasseter
Making a movie in 3 easy steps: design the world, design the characters, create the story (Story is by far the hardest)
Great story writers always have another idea

Making people visibly better at their jobs is…

Quality is the best business plan John Lasseter
Pain is temporary, suck is forever Jay Shuster
Peer relationship between creative and technical is integral to success
When you encounter a problem, refer to previous step and repeat until done.
I want to fail as quickly as possible Andrew Stanton
Pixar: extreme prototyping at work. Essentially making the movie before making the movie
Get something up there as quick as possible so I can critique it (rather than critique you)
Timely doesn’t have to be early
Giving a good note. Give your feedback helpfully, constructively, and when there’s still time to fix it
‘When most people say ship it, Pixar disassemble it & rebuild the prototype’
Be the users hero. Save their day.
Beautiful well-crafted UIs and workflows make people happy and productive
You need to convince the top and bottom folks: the middle will follow.
The most important thing you can do is take tension out of a room
You need to be someone who is willing to take criticism as well as give criticism
Often, the best learning is done whilst playing with the tools
Technology serves the Art, and the Art inspires the Technology

Interviewing is…

Everyone has a story – effort for interviewee is to unlock them
Think before you ask a question (don’t think while asking a question)
“Let people speak in paragraphs” Steve Portigal
Interview people in context – allows interviewers to question in real time
When interviewing – be confident enough to pause (and allow interviewees to pause) (Learn by listening back to your pauses – be aware of how much noise you are making)
Keep questions open ended – curb conjectures, kill the trailling ellipses
Find the right amount of small talk
Build rapport, not establish friendships
Avoid talking about yourself
Your first interviews inform the rest of the interviews you conduct
Adopt the language of your interviewee
Stop interview if it’s not going well

Agile UX is…

Job is to build software RIGHT, not practice agile RIGHT
Process is a placebo – it doesn’t fix anything
Agile is not a process, it is a value system, a set of principles
Own your process, own the product outcome (not the design output), facilitate effective design practice
Process is a thin veneer over organisational culture
Products are hypothoses until shippable
One product owner is a disability, should be a multi function team (At scale it takes teams of teams to build products)
Processes are like haircuts, copying someone else’s rarely works
UX in agile are the Glube (keeping it together but lubricated)
User Stories are boundary objects: a concept to describe information used in different ways by different communities
User Stories: weakly structured in common use, but strongly structured in individual site use
Design and prototype in the lowest fidelity possible until the record becomes photographs
“Design by community is not design by committee” Leisa Reichelt

Good design faster is…

Artificial constraints can be an advantage to design process
Sketching allows ideas to become legible to others
Don’t hold back from writing notes on sketches
Sketchboards: a new buzzword for a blatantly obvious technique
Sketchboards: don’t be frightened to alter the flow if it doesn’t fit. Doesn’t have to be linear
Sketchboards: to keep a group together working on a sketchboard ensure that whoever is the leader draws in stragglers, drop backs. Important to include everyone
Sketchboard Week: MONDAY AM: Brain dump PM: Start Sketches TUESDAY AM: Assemble sketchboard PM: Share & review WEDNESDAY: Create higher fidelity designs THURSDAY AM: feedback PM: Refine FRIDAY AM: More refine PM: Complete