Communicating the User Experience E-Book

Richard Caddick

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 263

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

A clear and focused guide to creating useful user experience documentation As web sites and applications become richer and more complex, the user experience (UX) becomes critical to their success. This indispensible and full-color book provides practical guidance on this growing field and shares valuable UX advice that you can put into practice immediately on your own projects. The authors examine why UX is gaining so much interest from web designers, graduates, and career changers and looks at the new UX tools and ideas that can help you do your job better. In addition, you'll benefit from the unique insight the authors provide from their experiences of working with some of the world's best-known companies, learning how to take ideas from business requirements, user research, and documentation to create and develop your UX vision. * Explains how to create documentation that clearly communicates the vision for the UX design and the blueprint for how it's going to be developed * Provides practical guidance that you can put to work right away on their own projects * Looks at the new UX tools and ideas that are born every day, aimed at helping you do your job better and more efficiently * Covers a variety of topics including user journeys, task models, funnel diagrams, content audits, sitemaps, wireframes, interactive prototypes, and more Communicating the User Experience is an ideal resource for getting started with creating UX documentation.

Leseprobe

Communicating the User Experience

Table of Contents

Introduction

A summary of the documents

Putting the documents into context

Enjoy yourselves!

Chapter 1: Personas

What makes a good persona?

When to create a persona

What are you communicating?

Anatomy of a persona

Who is the audience?

How to validate personas

Start with a theory

Creating and setting up the slide presentation

Adding persona images and titles

Adding icons, subheadings, and bulleted lists

Creating and setting up the presentation

Adding persona images and titles

Adding subheadings and bulleted lists

Chapter 2: Task Models

What makes a good task model?

When to create a task model

What are you communicating?

The anatomy of a task model

Who is the audience?

How to validate

Setting up the template

Creating the model

Setting up the template

Creating the model

Chapter 3: User Journeys

What makes a good user journey?

When to create a user journey

What are you communicating?

The anatomy of a user journey

Who is the audience?

How to validate the user journey

Setting up the template

Creating the journey

Setting up the template

Creating the journey

Chapter 4: Content Requirements

What makes a good content requirements document?

When to create a content requirements document?

What are you communicating?

What makes the perfect content requirements document?

Who is the audience?

Validating the content

Setting up the template

Creating the audit

Chapter 5: Sitemaps

What makes a good sitemap?

When to create a sitemap

What are you communicating?

Who is the audience?

Different styles of sitemaps

The anatomy of a spreadsheet sitemap

The anatomy of a visual sitemap

Setting page orientation

Creating and shading boxes

Adding connecting lines

Signifying page groups

Showing cross-links

Setting up the template

Creating boxes with magnetic points

Using connecting lines

De-magnetizing lines

Writing labels and wrapping text

Shading cells

Adding new rows and columns

Chapter 6: Wireframes

What makes a good wireframe?

When to create a wireframe?

What are you communicating?

Who is the audience?

Anatomy of a wireframe

Other pages to include

Design principles for wireframes

Validating wireframes

Setting up the template

Creating the wireframes

An overview of Axure

Creating wireframes

Setting up the template

Creating wireframes

Chapter 7: Usability Test Reports

What makes a good test report?

When to create a test report

What are you communicating?

Anatomy of the perfect test report

Additional slides to include in your test report

Who is the audience?

Note-taking and research tips

Taking notes for exploratory tests

Taking notes for design validation tests

Setting up the template

Creating the report

Chapter 8: Funnel Diagrams

What makes a good funnel diagram?

When to create a funnel diagram

What are you communicating?

Anatomy of a funnel diagram

Who is the audience?

Setting up the template

Creating the diagram

Setting up the template

Creating the diagram

Communicating the User Experience

A Practical Guide for Creating Useful UX Documentation

Richard Caddick and Steve Cable

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 Richard Caddick and Steve Cable

Registered office

John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book, please see our Web site at www.wiley.com.

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Photography © James Chudley

978-1-119-97110-8

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 10/14 Chaparral Pro Light by Wiley Composition Services

Printed in the U.S. by Krehbiel

About the Authors

Richard Caddick set up cxpartners, a user-centered design agency, with Giles Colborne in 2004 with the aim of creating measurable differences for clients they love to work with. Richard has worked as a consultant for several well-known global brands, including Expedia, Jaguar, HSBC, and Nokia. Richard's most at home in workshops surrounded by pens, paper and whiteboards trying to refine and improve designs for users.

Steve Cable, a user experience consultant for cxpartners, spends every day wireframing, testing, and crafting documents that communicate the needs of users. He's consulted for global hotel chains, car manufacturers, eCommerce websites, music management applications, mobile sites, and too many more to mention. As an illustrator and a lover of infographics, Steve feels it's important to produce documents that not only communicate clearly but are as visually interesting as the data that sits behind them.

Richard Caddick (left) and Steve Cable deliver user experience solutions for cxpartners.

Credits

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Editorial and Production

VP Consumer and Technology Publishing Director: Michelle Leete

Associate Director, Book Content Management: Martin Tribe

Associate Publisher: Chris Webb

Assistant Editor: Ellie Scott

Senior Project Editor: Sara Shlaer

Editorial Manager: Jodi Jensen

Editorial Assistant: Leslie Saxman

Development Editor: Box Twelve Communications, Inc.

Project Editor: Box Twelve Communications, Inc.

Technical Editor: Anthony Mace

Copy Editor: Maryann Steinhart

Photography: James Chudley

Marketing

Associate Marketing Director: Louise Breinholt

Marketing Executive: Kate Parrett

Composition Services

Compositor: Wiley Composition Services

Proof Reader: Susan Hobbs

Indexer: Potomac Indexing, LLC

Dedications

For Katharine, Emilia, and Elise

—Richard Caddick

For Hannah and Freddie

—Steve Cable

Authors' Acknowledgments

This book couldn't have been written without the support of our colleagues at cxpartners: Jesmond Allen, Chris Berridge, Walt Buchan, James Chudley, Giles Colborne, Chloe Holbrook, Nik Lazell, Joe Leech, Rob Matthews, Amy McGuinness, James Rosenberg, Neil Schwarz, Jay Spanton, Chui Chui Tan, Anna Thompson, Verity Whitmore, and Fiz Yazdi. You've all helped to shape and transform the contents of this book.

We are hugely grateful to the support we've received from Wiley. In particular, Chris Webb for spotting the opportunity and chasing us down, Sara Shlaer for pointing us in the right direction, Jeff Riley for his unflappable patience with a couple of amateurs, and Jennifer Mayberry for her design talents.

Thanks to James Chudley: the photos you've taken make the book special and unique. We love them!

Anthony Mace, thank you for taking the time to make sure the text is clear and useful to practitioners.

Piers Alder and Jennie Blythe: thank you for reading through drafts and making improvements.

We are hugely grateful to our clients. Over the past seven years you have trusted us with your products and allowed us to collaborate with you in understanding your users and your business.

A personal thanks from Richard: Katharine, you will always be the best thing ever to happen to me. Emilia and Elise, you make every day brilliant. I love you all so much. Mum and Dad, you never pressured me into being someone that I wasn't, but you inspired and encouraged me to be who I am. Thank you.

A personal thanks from Steve: Hannah, thank you for supporting me through this and everything else in my life. You are amazing. Freddie, thank you for being the happiest, most fun (and craziest) son ever.

Introduction

THE ROLE OF a user experience consultant, and specifically the user-centered design process, is to help guide and shape the development of products and services based on what the user understands and requires. To do this, the consultant needs to be a facilitator and communicator, ensuring that the right user information is uncovered and conveyed to the project stakeholders.

The purpose of the book is to help you communicate the user experience more effectively by producing insightful documents that successfully communicate the needs of the user to the business. It shows you what needs to go into the documents; what research needs to be done; ideas for facilitating practical workshops. These workshops are designed for the project team and stakeholders to help them understand user goals and behavior, enabling the team to collaborate on process, content and design solutions. This book also shows you how to work with PowerPoint, OmniGraffle, Axure, Word, or Excel to produce these documents (though the theory can be applied to many more applications beyond these, such as HTML prototyping).

The ultimate goal is for you to create better products and services that have a transformational, measurable, and lasting impact to their users.

We're mindful of the real-world constraints of time, budget, and resource availability, so throughout the book we've included straightforward ways to conduct research and produce documents (call center listening and rapid sketching can transform decision-making in minutes and hours rather than days and weeks). The fidelity of the output is less important than the message—although conversely, well-presented documents are often better received because they show care and rigor.

Each chapter is focused on key user experience documents and breaks down into:

> The purpose of the documentation.

> The information and emotional needs you are communicating.

> The project team you are communicating to.

> Ideas for research and workshops.

> The simplest and most effective ways to rapidly share outputs and ideas.

> Step-by-step instruction for how to develop documentation using common software programs (such as PowerPoint, OmniGraffle, Axure, and Excel).

We've spent thousands of hours running workshops, sketching ideas, and creating documents across hundreds of projects. We want to share the knowledge that we've found to be important so that you can improve what you are doing now (or get a head start in your career), and hope that in turn you help influence what we do in the future.

A summary of the documents

Figures 1 through 8 show each document and the specific user experience insights they provide for the project team.

Figure 1: Personas. Focusing the team on the users and their needs.

Figure 2: Task Models. Understanding user behavior.

Figure 3: User Journeys. Showing how the system needs to match the user behavior.

Figure 4: Content requirements. Ensuring your content aligns with the user requirements.

Figure 5: Sitemaps. Sorting out the structure, navigation, and labeling.

Figure 6: Wireframes. Prototyping, visualizing, and validating.

Figure 7: User testing reports. Seeing the world through your users' eyes and deciding what to focus on.

Figure 8: Funnel diagrams. Analyzing and optimizing the user journey.

Putting the documents into context

The documents in this book can be used on their own or in tandem to inform a specific area of the user experience.

For example, let's say that you're working on maintaining an existing site but the team has lost focus of who the users are and what they need. Decisions are being made based on what the project team thinks the users want (this is not and never will be a user centered design process). Developing personas and task models would take the focus away from the project team and put it back on the user, helping to inform the short-term tactical projects and long-term strategic aims.

Alternatively you may be creating a product from scratch and able to put together a plan that incorporates several or all of the elements described in this book. To provide context, Figure 9 shows a typical project process, user experience activities, and documents produced. You'll notice the repetition of validation and benchmark testing throughout.

Figure 9: A typical project process.

NOTE

All of the templates, stencils, and icons used in this book are available to download and use freely at http://cxpartners.com/resources.

Enjoy yourselves!

Facilitating and engaging in user-centered design projects is rewarding for you and the project team. You'll help people love the products and services you produce, and, in turn, those products and services will become more successful.

So, have fun with the techniques and Tweet us to let us know how you get on.

—Richard (@richardcaddick) and Steve (@steve_cable).

Chapter 1: Personas

A persona isa document that describes the ways in which certain types of people will use your website. Usually one persona is created for each type of user. Personas are used to show you the goals that users will be trying to achieve on your website. See Figure 1-1.

In this chapter, you will learn exactly what information is needed to create a truly useful persona. You will learn the best time in which to produce your personas, what information needs to be communicated, and how to lay it out in a clear and concise way. You will also get some ideas on how to generate the information that is needed to create a solid persona that is based on real people.