Talk UX with the Experts – How It All Went Down

I’m HAWK, Community Manager for SitePoint and I’ll be moderating this session.

Our experts today are Jodie Moule, the author of our soon to be released book ‘Killer UX Design’
Along with Luke Chambers and Matt Magain of UXMastery.com

I’m Matthew Magain. I’m a freelance UX designer and as @HAWK mentioned, I run uxmastery.com along with @luke_uxmastery. I was the reviewer on Jodie’s book. I’m almost as excited as her about it being nearly available (almost!!)

If anyone has a question, jump in at any time

just checked out uxmastery.com

Thanks, nicksh! What do you reckon?

@luke_uxmastery well. why isn’t there any search form?

Well, good point! The site’s only been up a week or two, so it’s a default WordPress theme. We’re working on the new site now.

good

Well guys, I was wondering if you could give a “potted summary” of what UX design involves …

@matt_uxmastery it is a great site – I love the interviews and references – a handy site to bookmark everyone

@ralph.m that is a great question – UX Design to me involves being focused on involving users in your design process – at every step of the way. it also involves thinking broadly about the users interactions than just one ‘channel’ (e.g., like only website)).

UX is essentially designing with the user at the centre of the design process – a process of objectively working through both business requirements and the user’s needs

(snap!)

:D

Hi everyone, I’m just starting out in UX and wanted to know if anyone has any great resources they would recommend to start with learning more about the topic?

Do those definitions raise anything more for you @ralph.m?

two good summaries

Thanks guys. So can it really be done properly without testing designs on “test” users? Is that how you normally work, or do you just work from experience of how most people use the web?

@zee Smashing Magazine

I have a question to… “How do you stop UX becoming what you want/think is best, not what a client or the audience wants?”

Ok, let’s start with @zee’s question about resources. Anyone know of some good ones aside from UXmastery.com?

@zee without any bias whatsoever – i recommend ‘Killer UX Design’ – you can get a pre-order now – a great intro resource to UX Design

@ralph.m It doesn’t have to be just user testing – many other ways of working things out. A big part of it is user research – interviews, observations, etc

@zee https://www.usabilitybok.org

Hi @zee. There are some great sites out there. I like uxbooth.com and uxmag.com. We also recently started uxmastery.com and are in the process of putting up tutorials and reference material there.

I also like JohnnyHolland – a great online site resource

@Luke_uxmastery Maybe you could take on @ChrisChinchilla’s ” “How do you stop UX becoming what you want/think is best, not what a client or the audience wants?””

Hi @ralph.m — I’m not sure what a “test” user is. The best way I’ve found to test your app/site is to get *real* people to test it. Ideally they are people who weren’t involved in the creation of it, and who are in the target demographic. But as a fallback, you’re always going to get useful feedback from your mum, your neighbour and a random guy at the pub.

@ChrisChinchilla That’s a good question – usually ‘triangulating’ the research, and balancing the many user needs with the business goals gets most of the way there. It’s a lot about prioritising and focusing attention to get there though

@Ralph.m how we normally work is to explore the business problem, understand what questions you are trying to answer with your project / initiative – then we define what the segments of interest might look like and go to the spaces they will potentially be using the product, system or service and watch them to understand their current ways of doing things – so we can design a better solution

What projects would you give to a noob wanting to break into the jobs market? What artifacts or process have the most value?

processes*

@ChrisChinchilla We try and remove as much bias and subjectivity from the process as we can – lots of small steps justified along the way

hi @kwayzi – not sure what you mean by ‘projects’…?

Great question @Kwayzi

portfolio pieces

@kwayzi Do you mean what type of tasks are best to get exposure to when dipping your feet into the UX world?

I think the proesses that have the most value are to explore first hand how people are using products (your product? a competitors products?) and then understand what their needs are.

Thanks Matt and Jodie. That makes sense. Of course, by “test” users I meant testing on real people. Do you tend to work with clients on a big budget, or is there a place for this on small sites? I guess you can always test on your mom and friends … :)

yes that was the second part. The first part was …with no experience..my projects will be academic

It seems like UX is very much a project management type of job–how do you see yourselves coming in between project managers and designers/developers and how has that actually realised?

@dudboi That’s a good question! One we have trouble with, theory and realisation don’t always match

what projects would you give to someone at an interview…. and one for them to do in their own time..

so @kwayzi I think interviewing users and watching them do things is the most useful thing you can do to improve yyour designs.

@ralph.m You can certainly do UX on small projects, although the scope is more limited. We wrote a good post on it here: https://uxmastery.com/a-time-poor-small-budget-approach-to-ux/

*your* crazy iPad keyboard!

Do you guys use google analytics or a similar program in your US design process?

UX*

@kwayzi I agree with Jodie, especially with regards to “watching them” aka user testing. Seeing somebody get frustrated at trying to complete a task with your site/app is incredibly humbling! :D

yeah found in 10 mins age..bookmarked!

Thanks Luke. I’ve bookmarked that for later. :)

Even on small projects @ralph.m you should always consider engaging with users.

Hi @dudboi – the project process is a big part of UX, certainly. There’s a mix of Agile with a User Centred Design approach – research upfront that feeds into iterations. UXers work pretty closely with both designers and developers

I guess it comes back to what your goals are too – why are you embarking on a project and what method or approach from the UX tool box will give best outcomes

@dudboi I am an unashamed lover of data, so have been guilty of losing HOURS in Google Analytics, slicing and dicing the data to learn interesting things :D

@keller we use analytics to help us formulate a hypothesis on what might be going wrong with a site – but you then need to explore in more depth the ‘why’. that is – ‘why are people stuck on this page?’. You have to watch people use a product to understand the answer to that.

@keller – For sure – there are two basic types of data we consider during user research – and Analytics is one a good quantitative source of data. The other type is more ‘qualitative’ and gives us a rich insight to the behaviours and motivations of users. We usually get this with interviews. The qualitative data can be used to make sense of the qualitative.

@luke_uxmastery mentioned triangulating data earlier. @dudboi, this could include taking analytics data, comparing it to interview data and survey data, and then spotting patterns across it all

What is the one biggest point of UX design? If you guys wanted everyone to take away one thing today what would it be?

When hiring, what projects could you give to applicants to test their level of knowledge and process?

THE USER RULES!!

@kwayzi that’s a good question

@keller – Nice question =) Talk to the users and keep them in mind throughout the process.

My first experience of UX was showing a relative a new site I’d done. On the contact page was a prominent (and quite standard) contact form, saying something like, “To get in contact, please fill in the form below.” I was waiting for my relative to try out the form (as there was little else on the page) but she did nothing except stare at the screen. When I finally asked if she was going to try the form, she said “I can’t see a form anywhere”. (Turns out she was looking for a PDF form or something.) I was shocked, but it was very interesting. Our concepts of a “form” were quite different!

@luke I like that

Welcome to anyone that has just joined us. I’m moderating the session and will make sure you questions don’t get missed, so feel free to just jump in at any time – no need to wait for a gap in the chat.

@kwayzi If I was interviewing for a UX designer, I’d be keen on asking the candidate to describe the process they follow. It’s one thing to understand a process in theory, but being forced to articulate it is another thing again. At the end of the day, UX design is a process, and there are some largely scientific steps you can take to get a good result.

@kwayzi when hiring we get candidates to do a quick evaluation of a site and then present the findings to us. We tend to look for how they think about the design problem and also discuss it to a group – what they pick up on as the most important issues.

@dudboi – To answer your earlier question about UXers and project management – there is an implied process, so working with the PM to make the most of that while working within the constraints of the schedule and budget. That looks something like prioritising where you spend your research and analysis time to get the biggest bang for buck. With designers it’s a lot about making the interface usable AND delightful, and that carries through to devs when we consider the functionality too.

@matt_uxmastery that is a great point – you need to be able to articulate how you’d solve the problem and what UX processes you’d use to do that.

@kwayzi In the situation @jodiemoule described, it’s also interesting to see how many times the candidate asks “Why” about an issue, or if they just accept the information given.

awesome thanks guys!!! heuristic evaluations is what I shall practice!!

@jodiemoule talks about the “Five Whys” in her book a lot.

Is there a program you guys specifically use to watch users on a site? I’ve seen a custom CMS that has the ability to record a user’s session so you can watch how he/she navigates the site.

There is another great site called uxforthemasses.com which has a downloadable usability evaluation spreadsheet which is excellent

… but I have no idea what program they were using.

I use silverbackapp.com on my Mac.

Some good UX tools involve things like heatmaps – seeing where users hover their mouse on the screen. Jodie also has an eye-tracking system at Symplicit that does a much better job of this during user testing!

It’s a simple app that records mouse movement/screen capture and audio through my laptop’s microphone, plus the user’s face from the iSight camera. A portable usability testing lab!

Hi Jodie, what mobile web apps have the best ux in your opinion?

And yep +1 for silverbackapp.com – a fantastic way of seeing the user while recording their use of the site screen.

@kwayzi I think besides heuristic evaluations, practice sitting next to someone while they use a website (or mobile site) and watch them complete the top 2 or 3 tasks the site is created to achieve. Thhe thing you have to practice is not butting in and telling them how to do things, the thing you have to practice is watching, listening and asking…’what did you expect’, ‘did that behave how you thought it would?’…and of course ‘why?’ :-)

any suggestions for PC users??

@keller Camtasia for Windows is a screencasting tool, but would do the job just fine

@keller Capturing the user’s face isn’t as important as the audio, so you can hear what they are saying as they explain to you what is going through their head as they use your app/site

Do you guys have a top 5 plugins for wordpress?

If someone is planning a career change to UX, do you recommend they go to school, or is it in a sense like web design and can be learned at your own pace?

Great answers all–It seems to me that UXers are pretty much consultants with a tool/skillset that somewhat mimics the scientific method then! From (my little) experience, this requires a certain amount of trust on the designers/developers side that you know what you’re doing. How deep do you all go in terms of suggesting new features/design elements? Or is it a case of “here is the data, here are some suggestions, make your own conclusions”?

(sorry for my questions, I’m studying cognitive science and have a been a front-end designer/developer for small/personal projects for a while. I recently did an internship where I did some usability testing and am wondering if and how I should enter this field)

@JENKS good question

hi @markbrown4 I like a lot of mobile apps for different reasons – i can only tell you the ones i use a lot. for practical reasons i love mobile banking, as it has meant i don’t need to go online to check my accounts anymore and make basic payments. I also love ‘clear’, as it is a lovely simple UI that cuts to the core of the task – a list.

Hey @JENKS – there are a few tertiary courses starting to appear – usually interaction design courses. But yes, check out the blogs and various online resources – it’s certainly something that you can start integrating into your web design process today.

But yes, @JENKS question is great too

@dudboi I studied some cognitive studies at Uni and found it very useful for UX, but it’s not essential… But fascinating

@JENKS My advice would be: 1) go for it! UX design is an in-demand skillset to have, and it’s fun. 2) there is plenty that can be learned, but it can be overwhelming, so 3) I’d advise finding a mentor, if possible. I get a lot of benefit from my mentor, who is a very experienced interaction designer and I can bounce ideas off when I get stuck

Thanks! I work in VFX/compositing but we’ve been doing lots of flash/web lately and it seems fun

@JENKS I think the best way to learn is to go intern somewhere that specialises in UX and get as much experience working with people that have been doing this for a long time.

@matt this is the site that has the custom CMS that can record users sessions on their site. Are you familiar with this technology at at all?https://www.newfangled.com/conversion_management_system

So how to get a mentor?

@dudboi I’ve found that both designers and devs really enjoy a UXer being involved – for designers they like the objective approach to design and the clear answers they can use, and devs appreciate the help getting the functional requirements set

something you can use longterm to fine tune your site

@nicksh I assume interning would be a great way if you can afford it / have the time, …. no one turns down free work ha

Since there’s a gap, I’ll jump in to ask if anyone feels their question has been missed.

@nicksh There are a bunch of ways to go about it. There are lots of “ux bookclub” and “ux movie night” events popping up, so maybe have a look on meetup.com and see if any are happening near you. You might meet someone at one of these events who you can get to know and after a while float the idea of establishing a more formal mentor/mentee relationship with them. Also if there is someone in your workplace who might be a good fit, take them out for coffee and chat!

We are also hoping to add a mentor matching program to uxmastery.com, but we’re not there yet! Watch this space!

@keller “Do you guys have a top 5 plugins for wordpress?” – yes and no. I personally don’t use WP much, but @matt_uxmastery does. Any plugin that gives you data about the users could be useful, but be wary about focussing on impersonal data – you can get a lot out of just going and talking to users and letting them speak through what they’re thinking when they use the site

@jENKS and @nicksh if you are serious about a career in UX, I think approach a place you would like to work and show you are keen to learn and want to get into the field. we take on some people that have had little or no UX experience and train them up in the processes we follow.

I wouldn’t have thought you would have liked clear, because you have to play with it to figure it out. So you would encourage us to try innovative ui’s as opposed to picking the obvious identifiable ui patterns?

@matt_uxmastery I’m pretty sure there won’t be any meetups, so I’ll find someone at my workplace

@luke if you don’t use wordpress, what do you use? and why?

@markbrown4 Creating a delightful interface is pretty important, but there are conventions to bear in mind – to keep the right balance of allowing people to achieve their site goals as quickly and easily as possible without having to ‘learn’ the interface too much

I work in marketing agency and sometime very have extremely short deadlines for websites (4 weeks from concept to making it live). How would you go about adding UX to the process as it is often something that gets left out due to the time constraint?

@jodie great idea about the meetups. met a lot of folks in web dev via meetup.

@keller With regard to WordPress plugins, I don’t have a list of plugins that come to mind that are UX-related. The beauty of the UX skill set is that it is quite portable, across web, across mobile, and across desktop software. The principles of user research, user testing, and user involvement throughout the design process mean that UXers often tend to become less hands on and start thinking about users more than the technology

If anyone is interested in running a community based meetup in their area, get in touch with me. We’re always happy to provide merchandise etc for prizes and things. hawk@sitepoint.com

@matt more skills that can be used on and off the computer

Hi @zee! I wrote a blog post on exactly that! See: https://uxmastery.com/a-time-poor-small-budget-approach-to-ux/

Thanks so much. Looking forward to reading it

@hawk I might take you up on that.

a mentor is a great idea if you can find them – and @matt_uxmastery the matching program sounds great; besides that, the best way to learn this stuff in my humble experience is to do the stuff. So every chance you get – think about how you can show your designs to other people, get their feedback (at a minimum). I have used Facebook to ask key questions to a broad audience previously, and you can even recruit interested users via social media channels like Twitter…so there are many ways to start thinking about users and getting them involved.

@keller – WP is fantastic, but sometimes the way themes are integrated makes it a bit harder to tweak the site than other CMSs, such ashttps://expressionengine.com/

Coming back to an earlier question from @keller, “what is the one biggest point” I think it’s important to remember that, yes, users are important. But the business goals are also key. No point building a product that users love if it doesn’t meet the business’s goals. UXers aim for that sweet spot where user needs and business needs overlap. That’s where the magic happens :D

@keller Cool :)

@luke is that your favorite CMS, expressionengine ?

@dudboi I feel like i missed a great question from you earlier – that was about how deep we go with recommending designs…

@keller Lol, no I’m pretty technology agnostic. =)

do pro UXers find themselves using a lot of wireframing programs like Fireworks? Or are they mostly coding?

@luke haha

@JENKS – I do a lot of hand sketching as its easy to get bogged down by pixel perfection when using computer, after that there are some great wireframing tools (like Fireworks, Balsamiq, Mockflow, etc). I’ve also mocked up clickable prototypes in HTML – so HTML and CSS are great skills for a UXer too.

Also @keller no I hadn’t seen that newfangled CMS, but from my perspective the minor incremental conversion stuff is less important than the major fundamental questions like “is this something users want?” It’s all very well that a CMS helps you tweak your sales funnel from 5% to 6%. But if you were to apply some of the stuff that @jodiemoule talks about in her book, you’re more likely to build a different site that helps you get inside the head of the people using your site and gives them exactly what they want.

@dudboi coming back to that question, we evaluate design and also *actually design* the solution – or make clear suggestions around design – so that there is no grey area for people to have to join the dots on.

@matt I read an article awhile ago that said web designers number one duty is UX design. I agree. What is a site if it’s less than fully functional?

What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve worked on, what are you most proud of?

@keller I agree that your time is better spent finding out what people want and building that than tweaking something people are indifferent about.

@JenKS I think the prototype tool you use is the one you are quickest and most familiar with. I have used fireworks in the past and like it for creating a ‘near live’ website experience; but before you get to that stage, sketching ideas, then getting them to be slightly more interactive (in something like keynote or Powerpoint) are a great way to help you solve problems that come up as you start to think about your design in a more interactive manner.

@markbrown4 I used to work at SitePoint a few years back, and designing the learnable.com instructor interface was one of the most rewarding projects to be involved with! Also recently I was lucky enough to work on the Australia Post Postcards iPhone app, which one a Mobie (Australian Mobile Awards). Awards are not how I measure success, but it does feel nice when something you’ve created is acknowledged in a public forum like that :D

@luke I’m liking expression engine, the intro video is winning me over.

*one = won

@Keller i think that a UX Philosophy is to be user led (understand their needs, wants and desires) first; then focus on technology (can it be done) and does it make good business sense. Stats and data are a big part of the puzzle, but they are not the complete picture and should not be treated as such.

@markbrown4 – that’s a hard one. Generally the projects where you’ve been able to solve a design problem after a lot of work are pretty satisfying. I do some work with Penguin Books where there are some fantastic and well-skilled designers and devs which makes it fun. But small projects give me the buzz too.

Ah yes good point @jodiemoule, technical feasability is also key :-)

Hey all, we have 10 mins left in the session so if you’re lurking with a question, now would be the time to jump in and ask :)

Or if we missed anyone’s question, please pipe up!

Wow, 1 hour is going quickly!

I would like to revisit the UX desires vs realisation, would you step in at the end of a project and say “that isn’t right”

@markbrown4 we recently worked with an ambulance service througout Australia to bbetter understand how they work so we could design a patient data capture system they could use on-the-go. that was hugely rewarding and mission critical too.

I’m also going to remind you of a few links. This one is to sign up for the early-bird pre-order deal for Jodie’s UX bookhttps://www.facebook.com/sitepoint/app_137541772984354

And lastly, this one is where you can sign up for email reminders of future chat sessions like thishttps://www.facebook.com/sitepoint/app_115462065200508

on a personal level – the iPad app we created for the book is probably the most exciting project we have done – as it had a lot of personal meaning attached to it.

@ChrisChinchilla_2 When is a site really ever ‘finished’? Sometimes it’s great to keep going after launch with further iterations, but I know that isn’t always possible. Either way, I think putting your hand up and identifying potential issues is an important responsibility, as long as it’s done tactfully.

Next up I’m planning a WordPress one – prob late Oct

expression engine is closed-source, so I’m starting to dislike it

@luke_uxmastery

@nicksh There are plenty of other CMSs – don’t get too hooked on one in particular!

this uxforthemasses.com site is great by the way …. ;)

@luke_uxmastery True, the problem we’ve had in the past is that the UX person was brought in to begin with and is gone by the end of the project. the problem with smaller teams

@chrisChinchilla_2 It’s quite common that the findings of your user research can be uncomfortable for clients to hear, especially if they are delivered late in a project. One skill of a good UXer is learning to manage stakeholders, including how to communicate your findings. Certainly the earlier that a UX mindset is adopted, the better the result

@nick you get what you pay for

I’d better write my own CMS :D

@chrisChinchilla_2 we prefer to be working with a client way before having to tell them something isn’t working. And if there is a problem – then it is great to know that and then also have a solution to resolve it. No one likes ‘that is bad’ conversations with no useful ‘and this is how you fix it’ discussions.

@JENKS Yeah Neil has some terrific articles on there. He seems to have let it gather dust a bit though, which is a shame

I’m already writing one CMS for current project because my designer partner demanded it

@nick what CMS do you use mainly?

@ChrisChinchilla_2 Hopefully the UXer can give you some tools and techniques to leave you with after they’ve gone? It doesn’t need to be a specialist job for the whole team to apply some principles, although having one person drive the priority certainly does help.

@keller I use WordPress but I don’t like it

me too

@luke_uxmastery Sadly, it’s usually the case for small teams, not everyone has the resources for large people on staff and towards the end of a project, reality hits and things get overlooked. Getting better at checking as we go though.

@nicksh yay! Me neither :)

Without wanting to sound all hippy, UX is a state of mind as much as anything :D If you’re constantly thinking about putting the user at the centre of your design decisions, you’re less likely to base a site on the technology that powers it, or on your own gut feel or that of the client

@luke_uxmastery ++ amazing much stuff to read, bookmarked and copied. Thanks so much guys! =)

@ChrisChinchilla_2 that’s a good approach I think. Jump in and apply some user-centred design principles to your existing process. I’ve done a lot of work with small businesses and I understand what you’re saying.

@chrisChinchilla_2 I think that one of the hardest things to learn as a desiger is that no matter what stage of a project you are – if you learn something is not working, that is not a personal reflection on your ability – it just reflects the fact that design is hard, and to get it right you have to involve users in the process.

+1 to that, @Jodiemoule

Yes I agree with @jodiemoule. Learning to remove your ego and have your own designs be evaluated objectively can be difficult, but empowering once you accept it

Couple more minutes people, then I’m cutting our experts free so they can get on with their day.

@jodiemoule Indeed, this opens up a good question to (maybe a bit late in the discussion) about the advantages of AGile, as you get things in front of users quicker and identify problems, something we’re just coming round to

Hey this has been fun everyone – thanks for the questions – hope that we offered some useful insights :-)

@nick express engine is anywhere from 99$ to 300$ depending on freelance/ commercial. Might want to try it out with a big fish client.

Thanks for the advice guys!!

thank you

I’d agree @chrisChinchilla_2 that there are lots of parallels and philosophies that overlap between Agile dev processes and UX design

Thanks very much for your time @jodiemoule – much appreciated (Jodie is on holiday right now)

@gooeybit for UX related tweets

Thanks for all the great questions guys

@ChrisChinchilla_2 That’s a meaty question – watch out on https://uxmastery.com in the next few weeks. I’ll try and write a post about Agile and user-centred design.

@chrisChinchilla_2 we follow an agile approach – but the trick is not to forget users in an agile process…!

Very illuminating chat, guys. Thanks to the experts for giving your time. :)