Introducing User Experience Design to MIT Students

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Guest-lecture for MIT class 21W785, "Communicating With Web-Based Media."

Transcript of Introducing User Experience Design to MIT Students

Designing the user experience

Deborah A. Levinson

Discovery process – defining the problem

• What are your goals?

• Who will benefit from what you build?

• What does your site/application need to do?

What are your goals?

Sell productsCorporate/educational info

Aggregate info(portal, calendar)Build community

$$$ ?

MIT Housing website

MIT Division of Student Life website

old

new!

Who will benefit from what you build?

primary audience

secondary audience

Who will benefit from what you build?

• Adults

• Children

• Teenagers

• Students

• Faculty

• Employees

• Customers

• Investors

• All of the above?

Also consider …

• Age

• Gender

• Education level

• Profession or business sector

• Computer/web literacy

• Locale

What does your site/application need to do?

Talk to your audience! Find out what they need.

“Tell us about a time you used the site.”

“If you don’t use the site, where do you

find this information instead?”

“What brings you here the most?”

“Can you tell us about a time when …”

Audience needs/patterns of use drive the site design and features

What shouldn’t drive your design and feature set?

Technology (yours or someone else’s)

Fear and/or unwillingness to say “no”

cville.ownyourc.com

www.dpgraph.com

www.defense.gov

Uncovering what users want and need

surveysfocus groups

one-on-oneinterviews

competitive analysisobservation

anecdotal data

A B C

• Define key messages – elevator speech

Communicating with your audience – content and its organization

• Identify categories/subcategories of information

• Inventory available content

• Map content and categories into site structure

Information architecture examples

old undergraduatehousing page

csail.mit.edu www.apple.com

Good visual design isn't just decoration – it's a core element of yourorganization's brand.

• Describe your organization's key qualities and what makes you unique.

• Understand your audience's perception of you and whether it matches your vision of yourself. If it doesn't, why not?

Communicating with your audience – visual design

ExcellentConvenientAccessibleCaringfriendly

Faculty/staff perceptionof MIT Medical

AdequateInconvenientFar awaySlow

Student perceptionof MIT Medical

Translate your most important qualities into design and features.

Communicating with your audience – visual design

Tools & techniques – site maps

Tools & techniques – interviews with card-sorts and storytelling

5-12 participants < 30 cards ~ 4 questions

Interview results

quotes

stories

Specific issues

the current site is failing toprovide contact information formaking an appointment, which isthe number one reason peoplevisit the site

as soon as the “barrier” isbroken, students arehappy with the services

Perception gap: studentsperceive MIT Medical asslow, but it is fast andeffective

Content and UI: contactinformation must be readilyapparent – especially how tomake an appointment

Different audiences havedifferent perceptions:Medical needs to work toovercome studentperceptions, but faculty andstaff are content

students perceiveMIT Medical as slowto respond

Tools & techniques – usability testing, with or without user interviews

Tools & techniques – scenarios of use

Tools & techniques – schematics/wireframes and clickable prototypes

Tools & techniques – flowcharts

Downloadable resources at http://web.mit.edu/debby/www/21w785/

Thank you!

www.nimblepartners.com

debby@nimblepartners.com

Special thank-yous to Tania Schlatter for the hand-drawn illustrations, and to Leah Buley atAdaptive Path, who inspired parts of the presentation format.