2014 Industry Implementation Trends User Experience 2014 Industry Implementation Trends UX Guy - Mark Swaine Web: www.uxguy.com Twitter: @UX_UI_Guy Behance: www.behance.net/markswaine

What is (UX) User Experience? “User experience is the net sum of every interaction a person has with an organization, be it marketing material, a customer service call, or the product or service itself. A user’s impressions are shaped by an organizations beliefs and practices as much as by the purpose and the value it’s products hold in his or her life”. Robert Hoekman Jnr

State of Industry

Client Education & Acceptance (is Key) Speed of Industry Emphasis on User Internet of Things Brand Context Unlimited Options Time Apocalypse Ongoing Work / Maintenance

Client Education & Acceptance (is Key) Needs to be acceptance of time and budget Industry is moving too fast for clients to maintain best practice knowledge New work produced will constantly need maintenance, ownership, updates, new features and technical support. Clients need to be much more tentative to industry pace and their brand context. Clients need to be accepting of pace of industry and technological change for implementation of their brand.

Client Education & Acceptance (is Key) Clients need to be more understanding of labor intensive industry – (man hours, time, cost, constant technical issues, discovery, maintenance, testing, iteration, code updates, mobile agnostics etc.) – it is ongoing and always will be. If a client asks to come down in price on small or large projects – walk away – (client has no respect or understanding for the industry, your time, hard work, technical time consuming issues and expertise required)

UX Implementation Trends

Lean – Agile - Iteration “Create a prototype, then use it as a user would. You’ll see what’s missing. You’ll see what’s wrong. Repeat.” Robert Hoekman Jnr

Deliverables, Requirements, Assumptions, Hypothesis… The client may have set deliverables, requirements and outcomes to work from… You may need to start with assumptions about the product / project – (what you believe to be true) Lean Approach - create & validate Hypothesis - including, experimental assumptions, outcomes, personas and product features. Test and learn what creates Value…

Participatory Sketching Opportunity to collaborate with key project stakeholders Explore, Create & Invent Identify, create and prove key use cases Identify Pain Points Help Build the Brief with Client Research & Analysis

Rapid Prototyping Low Fidelity Prototypes – Paper / Sort Cards Create Rapid Interactive Wireframe Prototypes Iterate and develop in Lean Agile Mode Receive and monitor real time feedback from key user demographics

Discovery We don’t know in any meaningful way whether a product feature is effective until it is in the marketplace. Engage the customer during the ux, design and development process. Find out what the users are doing with your product and why? The most difficult answers about your product will be answered by customers in the marketplace.

Identifying Contextual Differentiators Smartphone Tablet Desktop Action / Task Oriented Agnostic Paradigms Context of Content Simplified Navigation What the user wants. Key User Tasks Agnostic Paradigms Context of Content Tablet = Browsing / Couch Commerce Site speed, CSS, Retina Images and Resolutions Key User Tasks Context of Content Calls to Action Content Scale and Stack

Kill Documentation (time waste) Time wasting on documentation creation Prototype instead – more beneficial Learn more by prototyping the user experience

Test & Iterate Quickly “You can Achieve a big vision – but in small increments. It requires a commitment to iteration” Eric Ries

The User

What is (UX) User Experience Design? “User experience design as a discipline is concerned with all the elements that together make up that interface, including layout, visual design, text, brand, sound and interaction. It works to coordinate these elements to allow for the best possible interaction by users”. Don Norman

(UX) Key Questions Why is the product being made? Who is it being made for? What are the stakeholders goals for the project? How do the requirements fit within the wider business objectives of the organization? Who are the competitors? How is success going to be measured?

Know Thy User Users can be, ‘Experienced’, ‘Expert’, ‘Novice’ or ‘Power Users’ The more fluid and responsive the experience is the more emotionally, invested users will become Ask only for limited input from users Users are not stupid Create emotional connections Users want novelty

Know Thy User Build healthy long-term relationships with users User’s will ask why doesn't my brand / site / app know me? Build users trust incrementally and look for soft commitments along the way Reduce input forms, user fatigue Hide technology from the user

Simplicity Make it feel snappier – always go back to engineering Reduce chances for users to make mistakes Stop making people passengers and more partners of the user experience Stop commanding users what to do Reduce everything thoughtfully

Tell a Story - User Research Contextual research In-depth interviews Social analytics Online interviews Analytics / tracking Street interviews Usability Review Competitor Analysis Visual Style Focus Groups Talk to Existing Users On Location Third Party Studies Use Eye Tracking Labs

Create Personas User Background: Age range, native language, physical and or cognitive limitations Experience: How familiar are your users with similar systems? Will they need to learn? Behavior: What motivates users. Do they share any behavioral traits? Desires and Concerns: What do they want to achieve, what concerns do they have?

Focus on Outcomes Not Deliverables Real people use your products and services, real people with different wants, needs, abilities, environments and a million other possible variables that need to be factored in… “Businesses cannot treat their customers as passive consumers any longer, every company is in the user experience business” “If you take the time to understand how people think, then design solutions around their true needs and behavior – your design will be far more likely to perform better with them.” http://alistapart.com/column/explaining-water-to-fish

“Users will never forget how you made them feel” Remember “Users will never forget how you made them feel” Maya Angelou

Design

“Design without constraints is decoration”. Robert Hoekman Jnr

Design Trends – Flat UI Design No drop shadows, bevels, gradients and no depth Every element is clean, crisp including buttons and navigation menus Flat interfaces are easy for users to understand and interact with Use simple interface elements such as icons Simple, easy to click and tap Simple shapes – rectangle and circles Use of bold simple Colors Color of the Year in Web Pantone Emerald 17-5641

Design Trends – Flat Design – Color Palette flatuicolors.com

Typography Considerations Look and Feel of type used should suit the overall tone and message Use simple font pairings Flat design uses no more than two font pairings (novelty font for headings) Use sharp, crisp, bold clear typefaces San Serif Typefaces are typically used in flat design Flat design focuses on simplicity – so should your text (content) Reduce use of drop shadows, gradients – strong color contrast, (black & white) Give type / paragraphs plenty of room to breathe – lots of white space Good starting place – Google Fonts: http://www.google.com/fonts

Flat UI Design Flat UI Design Trends

Flat UI Design Flat UI Design Trends

Square: http://www.square.com Flat UI Website Design Square: http://www.square.com

United Pixel Workers: http://www.unitedpixelworkers.com/ Flat UI Website Design United Pixel Workers: http://www.unitedpixelworkers.com/

Get Cellar App: http://www.getcellarapp.com/ Flat UI Website Design Get Cellar App: http://www.getcellarapp.com/

Mobile First

Mobile First (Project Depending) No longer an afterthought Prepares brand thinking for the explosive growth in mobile apocalypse Forces brand focus and prioritization – under mobile constraints Allows for new and innovative brand experiences built on capabilities and paradigms of devices Start with presumptions of connectivity, context interaction, and location

Mobile First (Project Depending) “The simple guideline is whatever you are doing – do Mobile First” Eric Schmidt, http://bkaprt.com/mf/1 “We’re just now starting to get into Mobile first. What we are finding is that the designers on mobile are really embracing the constraints and that it is actually teaching us a lot about how to design back to the desktop” Kate Aronowitz, Facebook Director of Design, http://bkaprt.com/mf/2

Responsive Design (RWD)

Responsive Design Is responsive design needed? Still in it’s infancy Content Dictates It is ‘Future Friendly’ More Time = More Cost Can be content Managed Across All Devices Use Best Practice in HTML5 & CSS3 Media Queries Many frameworks, templates and solutions…

Responsive Design Not always applicable to use – learn and know your context, content and mobile considerations first. Be conscious of user connectivity capabilities – when using heavy content, retina images, video. Test, iterate and test again - take into account of site speed load times in low connectivity Be concisions of agnostic paradigms for different hardware and OS’s.

Responsive Design (Sample 1) boldandnoble.com

Responsive Design (Sample 1) boldandnoble.com

Responsive Design (Sample 2) skinnyties.com

Responsive Design (Sample 2) skinnyties.com

Responsive Design (Mobile Samples) thisiszone.com starbucks.com cibc.com

Tool Trends

Tools Worth Looking At… Traditional Paper and Pen Post it Notes UI Stencils (uistencils.com) Desktop Sketch App Balsamiq Visio Omnigraffle Axure Just in Mind Easel Divshot Briefs Skeleton (HTML Prototyping) Mind Node Proto.io UXPin App Sketcher (HTML Prototyping) Adobe Brackets (Coding) Mobile Pop App Cooker Blueprint Interface HD Adobe Proto iMockups SketchyPad Livewires Launch Briefscase

Summary

Summary We need to figure out what we’re making before we start production Collaborate more with Key Stakeholders (The Client) Work as collaborative product teams – daily engagement Agile workflows - continuous development, continuous deployment, continuous integration and continuous iteration. Release early and often – receive market feedback All that matters is the quality of the product, as measured by the market’s reaction to it.

Glossary

Glossary User Experience Design (UXd) How the user thinks and feels Information Architecture (IA) How the system is organized User Interface Design (UI) How the content is organized Interaction Design (IX) How the user and device act and react Responsive Website Design (RWD) Optimal fluid grid based website design that will flow and stack on any screen size / resolution / device. Adaptive Website Design (AWD) Web design to scale to predetermined set of screens and devices. Customer Experience (CX)

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2014 Industry Implementation Trends User Experience 2014 Industry Implementation Trends UX Guy - Mark Swaine Web: www.uxguy.com Twitter: @UX_UI_Guy Behance: www.behance.net/markswaine