ENGL 8122  ※  User-Experience Research & Writitng

Resrouces

  Book support (2021 - 04 - 15)

This blog post provides a really good overview of usability testing, including when and how to do it. I like that it includes several examples and engaging memes and jokes.

  Usability (2021 - 04 - 15)

This article looks at applied usability testing. I don't know if it will typically be of great use in this class, since we didn't exactly do lab-environment usability testing, but the material is interesting. I think, in non-Covid times, when we start doing things face-to-face and have more controlled access to users, this information may be useful.

  Usability (2021 - 04 - 15)

I wish I had found this source before I started. While the textbooks I read were useful and got me on (I think) the right track, this is a simplified overview that is more novice-friendly. Its infographics are useful and it's breakdown of information into bite-sized pieces is especially appealing. I highly recommend this source for someone who is starting from zero or almost zero.

  Software (2021 - 04 - 15)

I had no idea this existed until 8125 encouraged us to download Nvivo. This site has a bunch of useful software, but Nvivo would be of particular use to this class. I wish I had known of it before doing all of my coding by hand.

  Concept (2021 - 04 - 15)

This post offers some helpful information about designing questions and interview protocol for UX projects.

  Book support (2021 - 04 - 15)

A quite brief background of User Experience Design, from ancient Greece to Don Norman.

  Concept (2021 - 04 - 15)

Gives an outline of a research plan. May be helpful if you are trying to design your own project and are unsure about where to begin.

  Concept (2021 - 04 - 15)

The author argues for ways that we can better design compassionately and with individuals in mind.

  Usability (2021 - 04 - 14)

Ever since we started our UX research projects, I had been curious about how COVID-19 had altered the best practices of UX researchers and designers. This article, which is written by a UX researcher, offers some insight into the impact COVID-19 has had upon most businesses as well as some advice on how UX researchers and designers have the power to alleviate the problems those businesses have experienced.

  Case Study (2021 - 04 - 14)

Maintaining the theme of examining COVID-19's impact on user experience research and design, this article analyzes the initial handling of COVID-19 using design principles and design thinking, which the author defines as "a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It combines what’s desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable."

  Concept (2021 - 03 - 30)

I really enjoyed this description and analysis of spacial memory and its impact on UX. It resonated with my own personal experiences with spatial memory as well as its application in UX and how best to utilize it (as well as examples of how not to utilize it.

  Concept (2021 - 03 - 30)

From the article:
There are 3 different aspects of learnability, each of which is important to different kinds of users:
First-use learnability: How easy is it to use the design the first time you try? This aspect of learnability is of interest to those users who will only perform the task once. These users won’t progress up the learning curve, so they don’t care how it looks.
Steepness of the learning curve: How quickly do people get better with repeated use of the design? This facet of learnability is particularly important for users who will use the design multiple times, even though they won’t use it excessively. If people feel that they are progressing and getting better and better at using your system, they’ll be motivated to stick with it. (And conversely, if people feel that it’s hardly getting better, no matter how hard they try, they’ll start looking for a better solution.)
Efficiency of the ultimate plateau: How high is the productivity that users can reach with this interface, once they have fully learned how to use it? This aspect is particularly important for people with a frequent and long-lasting need to use the system — for example, when it’s the main tool for important everyday tasks.

  Concept (2021 - 03 - 30)

This is an article that I found to be personally and professionally relevant. This definitely gave me some food for thought, so I wanted to pass it along in case it may help one of you.


From the article:

Three thinking styles caused by learned helplessness
Seligman’s research on learned helplessness shows that without intervention, it can create three kinds of thinking that people use to explain adverse events that happen to them and why they “can’t do anything” about it.

Personal thinking

When an event led to a negative outcome, we would blame it on ourselves rather than looking at the facts objectively. Let’s assume that a designer has to present a prototype to some important clients. The presentation doesn’t go well. In fact, they didn’t like the prototype and ask her to start over. With personal thinking, the designer would explain the rejection in relation to herself — “I am such a terrible designer”, “I lack talent so no wonder why they didn’t like it”

Pervasive thinking

This kind of thinking would lead us to generalise the negative outcomes to “everything” that relates to us. Using the same example of a designer presenting a prototype, the rejection would now be blamed on the whole picture rather than the self and everything begins to look negative — “The whole industry is rotten”, “I don’t believe in creativity anymore”

Permanent thinking

Now instead of seeing a negative event as a single point in time, we see it as permanent. The same issue will continue to happen and nothing is going to change — “it will always be the same”, “This is the way it is and the way it will always be”. In short, there is no hope and no reasons to hope. This thinking is extremely common in organizations nowadays and usually creeps up when status quo reigns or when employees don’t feel as though they can contribute to positive changes.

  Usability (2021 - 03 - 30)

As a dyslexic ADHD-er, I definitely have my own...issues with usability. Whether jumping ahead when I oughtn't or getting sidetracked--or worse, bored--and wind up forgetting what I was doing entirely until something utterly random jogs my memory, the usability (or lack thereof) of a website or program can have, shall we say, atypical results at times.


To pull from the website:

We believe that every UX designer should learn how dyslexic and ADHD mind works, especially if they design products for young people or meant for teaching. Because ADHD and dyslexia come with a number of difficulties that most users experience, to a much smaller extent. Those problems make them lose motivation to use your website or app. Good design needs to overcome problems like:

  • difficulty in focusing, decision-making and taking action
  • difficulty in engaging with content
  • difficulty in processing information
  • memory problems
  • tendency to make errors

And especially if your product is meant for education, the user experience should be effortless, so the user can put all their energy into learning. There is no downside to designing with learning disability in mind. We learned that from one of our first clients, Explain Everything - a collaborative whiteboard recommended by the International Dyslexia Association. The app is widely used by students, teachers, as well as professionals who appreciate how easy it is to use, despite its advanced and powerful features.


  Book support (2021 - 03 - 04)

From the publisher

This best-selling text pioneered the comparison of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research design. For all three approaches, John W. Creswell and new co-author J. David Creswell include a preliminary consideration of philosophical assumptions, key elements of the research process, a review of the literature, an assessment of the use of theory in research applications, and reflections about the importance of writing and ethics in scholarly inquiry.

The Fifth Edition includes more coverage of: epistemological and ontological positioning in relation to the research question and chosen methodology; case study, PAR, visual and online methods in qualitative research; qualitative and quantitative data analysis software; and in quantitative methods more on power analysis to determine sample size, and more coverage of experimental and survey designs; and updated with the latest thinking and research in mixed methods.


  Community (2021 - 03 - 04)

Course details

User experience (UX) design is more than just pushing pixels and adding interactivity. It's a people-centric practice that involves many stakeholders—not all of them professional designers. This course teaches the principles of user experience design from the perspective of a non-designer who needs to work with UX teams, studios, and projects. Instructor Tom Green explains the four-stage process of UX design, starting with user research—the stage where you build out personas, user scenarios, and user flows. Next, learn about UX conceptualization, where initial ideas are translated into sketches, wireframes, and paper prototypes. Tom then tackles the actual design process. In this phase, you can see how functional prototypes are generated, complete with imagery, copy, and basic interactivity. Plus, learn about the importance of testing your designs at multiple points in the process and incorporating feedback before handoff to developers.


  Community (2021 - 03 - 04)

About this Course
The focus of this course is to introduce the learner to User Experience (UX) Design
User Experience design is design that is user centered. The goal is to design artifacts that allow the users to meet their needs in the most effective efficient and satisfying manner. The course introduces the novice to a cycle of discovery and evaluation and a set of techniques that meet the user's needs.
This course is geared toward the novice. It is for learners that have heard about "user experience" or "user interface" design but don't really know much about these disciplines.
The course mantra is that “Design is a systematic and data driven process.” Design is systematic because it is based on a set of techniques and also on a cycle of discovery.
In this course the learner is introduced to the four step user interface design cycle. Along the way learners are exposed to a set of techniques to gather information about a) what the user needs b)how to design and model interfaces based on these and then how to evaluate the design to ascertain that the user's goals are met. These techniques are tools that are used in a standardized manner and give us the data we use in our design.
This means that anyone (regardless of their current training) that is willing to learn these techniques and follow the proposed cycle can be a UX designer!

  Community (2021 - 03 - 04)

UX Data Analysis
Become a UX data scientist! From qualitative data analysis to big data Web analytics, you will be able to leverage insights from data to make empirically-based recommendations.

About this Course
Do big data and UX speak to you? This MOOC will give you the methods and tools to analyze the whole spectrum of data we handle in UX, from qualitative user research and quantitative user testing data analysis to big data Web analytics.
You will be able to leverage insights from this data to make empirically-based recommendations towards frictionless, optimal user experiences.
Taught by award-winning faculty members, this course is an introduction to the statistical methods and tools useful to UX data analysis. No need to be a math whiz, this course was designed to be accessible to everyone.
No previous knowledge needed. Join us in the journey to unlock the insights of UX data, through the UX Design and Evaluation MicroMasters, or as an individual course.

  Community (2021 - 03 - 02)

UX Booth is an online publication written "by and for the user experience community" (About UX Booth). Articles are dedicated to "best practices and trending topics" within subjects such as Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Content Strategy, etc.

  Concept (2021 - 03 - 02)

On their website, Qualtrics provides an overview of user experience research as a concept, including its benefits and techniques. Anyone who needs a brief review of what we're learning can take a look at this.

  Community (2021 - 02 - 12)

"Is a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays."

  Book support (2021 - 02 - 11)

A plug for the book but also a link to template resources in return for your name and email address. Scroll to the middle of the page and click "Get the UX Strategy Toolkit" for the useful stuff. The toolkit includes useful templates for conducting usability research.

  Concept (2021 - 01 - 30)

As a novice, I navigate to articles that speak to the basic concepts, principles, theory, and user experience components. I found this article that delivers on its promise to give a subject overview, tools, and resources -- that "aims to familiarize you with the professional discipline of UX design in the context of Web-based systems such as websites and applications." The following are some excellent quotes that help beginners understand this field of study: "But regardless of how much has changed in the production process, a website's success still hinges on just one thing: how users perceive it. "Does this website give me value? Is it easy to use? Is it pleasant to use?" These are the questions that run through the minds of visitors as they interact with our products, and they form the basis of their decisions on whether to become regular users.” "User experience (abbreviated as UX) is how a person feels when interfacing with a system. The system could be a website, a web application or desktop software and, in modern contexts, is generally denoted by some form of human-computer interaction (HCI). Those who work on UX (called UX designers) study and evaluate how users feel about a system, looking at such things as ease of use, perception of the value of the system, utility, efficiency in performing tasks and so forth. User experience design is all about striving to make them answer "Yes" to all of those questions." "UX addresses how a user feels when using a system, while usability is about the user-friendliness and efficiency of the interface. Usability is a big part of the user experience. It plays a significant role in experiences that are effective and pleasant, but then human factors science, psychology, information architecture, and user-centered design principles also play major roles."

  Book support (2021 - 01 - 30)

This is a great article that fosters a different “user experience” – because it engages perception (activates senses), action (activates body), cognition (activates mind), and emotion (activates heart). Constructs needed to engender human engagement. A tenet of this article is “User Experience design is the design of anything (independent of medium or across media) with human experience as an explicit outcome and human engagement as explicit goal.” Summary/Quote: “Jesse James Garett, founder of Adaptive Path and author of the book The Elements of User Experience, speaks on what UX and UX design is, what UX looked like before and what are some of the challenges people are encountering now. He cites engagement as the main goal of UX design and, through some fantastic examples, shows that engagement is an universal quality achieved through visuality, sound, touch, smell, taste, body and mind. One of the most impressive moments from the session is when Jesse compares Beethoven to an experience designer, accompanied by the Ninth Symphony.”

  Company (2021 - 01 - 30)

This website covers topics related to "the process of designing for real people." Quote: “You cannot not communicate. Every behaviour is a kind of communication. Because behaviour does not have a counterpart (there is no anti-behaviour), it is not possible not to communicate.”—Paul Watzlawick’s First Axiom of Communication “This is the first rule of UX. Everything a designer does affects the user experience. From the purposeful addition of a design element to the negligent omission of crucial messaging, every decision is molding the future of the people we design for.”

  Company (2021 - 01 - 30)

A website to engage a professional team to build a corporate UX Strategy and register for UX courses. Quotes: “Lead your organization to deliver better-designed products and services through a custom UX strategy” “Beyond the UX Tipping Point: For the longest time, making a great experience for the user was a business-strategy luxury item. A great product only had to work and ship. A great experience was a nice-to-have, not a requirement. Times have changed. The cost of delivering a product is no longer a barrier to entry. Quality is no longer a differentiator. What’s left? The user’s experience. Every part of the organization must be infused with an understanding of great design. Your organization has to cross the UX Tipping Point. You must increase everyone’s exposure to users, communicate a solid experience vision, and install a culture of continual learning. With that, design will become your organization’s competitive advantage.”

  Company (2021 - 01 - 29)

"Maze empowers everyone to source and access invaluable user insights—putting data in the hands of the many."

  Usability (2021 - 01 - 29)

"Usability testing is a proven method to evaluate your product with real people. In this complete guide to usability testing, we share everything you need to know to run usability tests and get actionable insights to create better user experiences."

  Company (2021 - 01 - 29)

"UserReport is based on two simple widgets – a survey and a feedback widget. Running as an integrated part of your website or app, it enables you to have direct interaction with your users and learn who your users are, what they are looking for – and how they think you can improve."

  Ethnography (2021 - 01 - 29)

From a company called MindTools, "24,000,000* people each year use this site to learn the management, leadership and personal excellence skills they need for a happy, successful career. Join them!"

  Software (2021 - 01 - 29)

This post is date 2018 but the list seems pretty useful.

  Usability (2021 - 01 - 19)

A great place to get started.

  Concept (2021 - 01 - 14)

A detailed definition of what UX is with linkable resources for further key word and concept understanding.

  Company (2021 - 01 - 14)

According to the site, UXmatters "provides a platform for our columnists and authors—who include many leading experts in User Experience—to share their insights on important UX topics, disseminate leading UX practices, and influence the future direction of the profession" (About UXmatters)

  Book support (2020 -12 - 07)

A plug for the book but also a link to template resources in return for your name and email address.

  Company (2020 - 12 - 29)

According to the website, "Real-time feedback. From real customers. Wherever you work." A usability testing solution for companies that don't have the resources in house.

  Usability (2020 - 12 - 29)

Nice overview of the practice. Also an interesting example of content marketing since the site the article appears on promotes freelance UX consultants.

  Software (2020 - 12 - 29)

Important tools of the trade when it comes to knowing how people interact with websites, screen recording is also very important for creating instructional videos.

  Company (2020 - 12 - 21)

For a monthly fee, this company offers five tools you can use to develop customer insights. As they say, "Understand what matters most with our user research platform — transform insights into action, and make decisions with confidence"

  Company (2020 - 12 - 21)

Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen are arguably the two founders of user-centered design research. This link is to their company blog and store front. In addition to be a good source of information it is a nice example of content marketing.

  Community (2020 - 12 - 20)

A community of UX researchers

  Concept (2020 - 12 - 19)

A brief crib on how visual metaphors convey and enhance meaning.

  Company (2020 - 12 - 18)

The tag line says it all. Excellent example of content marketing as well as a source of information.

  Case Study (2020 - 12 - 18)

This case study come from the UX Collective, which is an industry publication that provides independent UX researchers a place to show their stuff.

  Usability (2020 - 11 - 16)

Interesting example of a suitcase designed with usability in mind.

  Usability (2020 - 11 - 16)

Nov 12 is apparently World Usability day.

  Ethnography (2019 - 08 - 17)


  Usability (2018 - 08 - 19)

Title says it, pretty much.