It finally happened: you’ve been given a meaty design problem to solve, and miraculously, you have some time to research the best approach. You’ve begged for this opportunity for years, and here it is. Only now, you find out no one’s talked to the people using this system since 1998. Oh, and by the way: there are at least five different user roles! Now your stakeholders are asking you to cram this on a smartphone, too?
You begin to realize that somehow, there is both too much to do, and nothing defined well enough to start on. After a week of blankly staring at project documentation, you are committed to an asylum for burned-out designers. The project stalls. Thousands of miles away, Dieter Rams senses your failure and sheds a single tear.
This is common. There are many resources devoted to design research methods, but few that discuss a) how to know what type of information you need, and b) what to do with that information when you have it. This workshop has been designed to help you overcome the daunting task of kicking off a research project. We’re going to talk about ways to make these big murky problem spaces easier to identify and understand. Leaving this session, participants should feel more confident attacking large and ambiguous design problems with the set of tools now at their disposal.
We’ll talk about how pick a research direction early, identify important questions, create hypotheses to test, and plan research to get answers. We’ll discuss various models and exercises intended to make sense of the information you find. We’ll work in groups to identify questions, form hypotheses, and create research plans.
Attendee Skill Level: This workshop provides value for designers with various levels of experience. The structure of the session will provide introductory material for beginners, but will also provide opportunities for more experienced designers deep dive into interesting problem spaces.
David Rosen has worked in user experience at the University of Minnesota as either analyst or manager for 11 years. Rosen’s experience in both front-line work and management has uniquely connected him to an understanding of end-users, design teams, and the strategic thinking of leadership at the University. Rosen’s role is to assist teams on campus with their efforts to understand and serve the University of Minnesota community. He develops and leads the execution of formal and informal projects between these teams and their end users. Rosen co-teaches a half-day user experience training course at the University on a semesterly basis to help those working in web design to involve users in their work. He is also responsible for the maintenance, scheduling, and use of a world-class usability lab.
You’ve probably heard someone mention “User Experience” in the process of product development. Do you have the expertise, time, or money to include it in your process? Yes! We’ll show you the basics and then you’ll conduct your very own usability study. If you’ve never observed a usability study in the past, watching this video is recommended to get the basics of what this workshop will cover.
Upon completion of this workshop, you’ll be able to:
- Explain the basics of usability and user experience to others
- Establish clear research goals
- Make changes quickly using paper prototypes
- Ask neutral questions
- Identify issues based on direct observation
Content strategy and user experience are a perfect pairing. Usability issues are often the result of vague context, poor word choices, or the right message but at the wrong time. All too often the disciplines are separated. It’s time to join forces and get out of your seat for a real-life usability study.
All seasoned conference attendees know that every venue faces usability issues, whether in signage, access, crazy elevators, etc. We’ll track down those examples in our own venue and using tactics from user experience and content strategy such as cardsorts, user journey maps, audits, models, and more, we’ll create a strategy to fix the grouped issues.
Learning Outcomes:
- How to identify usability issues and complete basic usability techniques such as cardsorting.
- How to advocate for cross-team collaboration in your organization for better solutions.
- Different ways content strategy can solve many user experience problems.
- Understanding of basic user experiences techniques and terminology.
Attendee skill level: Attendees should have a basic understanding of content strategy concepts. Mid-level practitioners are most ideal, but attendees will be working in groups and experience levels will be balanced.
Bootstrap, an open source front-end framework, is one of the most popular for building responsive websites. In this workshop, Jen Kramer will demonstrate how to use Bootstrap 3 as a foundation in your next web design project. In this hands-on workshop, she will lead you in:
- Downloading Bootstrap and incorporating it into an HTML document
- Working with the Bootstrap responsive grid system
- Exploring Bootstrap’s core CSS, overriding this CSS using standard CSS techniques
- Incorporating Bootstrap’s image formatting elements and icons
- Creating and styling fully responsive interactive menus with Bootstrap, including dropdown menus
- Incorporating jQuery plugins with Bootstrap, including thumbnails, modal windows, and tabs
At the conclusion of this workshops, attendees will be able to build a working Bootstrap website with some of the basic functionality.
Attendee skill level: Basic working knowledge of HTML. CSS background is very helpful, but not required.
When you begin work on a new project, there are so many unknowns, so many moving parts to get your head around, so many questions you haven’t even thought to ask yet, that it can be hard to know where to start.
In this workshop we’ll explore a range of discovery techniques, from stakeholder and user interviews, to discovery workshops, content analysis, and more. We’ll also look at what comes after you’ve made reams of rough notes, and just before you create deliverables: the part where you start to recognise patterns, clarify ambiguities, and put the pieces together.
This workshop will give participants:
A toolbox full of discovery techniques and tips, as well as recommendations for further learning.
Clarity about which tools to use when and for what purpose, and a basic discovery process that they can use as a starting point when planning out a new project or initiative, or writing a proposal for a new client.
An opportunity to try their hand at several of these techniques. Often the feeling that we haven’t done this before and we’re making it up as we go along is the thing that holds us back from doing our best work, so participants will have a chance to get comfortable with some discovery techniques and gain confidence in their abilities.
Kerry-Anne Gilowey lives in Cape Town, South Africa, where she has been working as a content strategist since 2009, first as the owner of a small content development agency, and for the last three years as an independent consultant. She is increasingly drawn to work that allows her to facilitate content-related efforts and help teams develop their own tactics and processes, rather than imposing these from the outside.
Kerry-Anne has spoken at UX and content strategy conferences around the world, including SXSW, Confab, CS Forum, IA Summit, Midwest UX, and the online Content Strategy Summit. In October 2012, she hosted the international Content Strategy Forum conference in her hometown. When she’s not thinking about content strategy, you might find her listening to Pearl Jam, watching Doctor Who, eating embarrassing quantities of cheese, or planning her next American road trip.
For more than fifteen years, Jen Kramer has been educating clients, colleagues, friends and graduate students about the meaning of a “quality website.” Since 2000, she has built websites that are supportive of business and marketing goals in a freelance capacity and as part of an agency.
Jen is an O’Reilly Media staff author, creating new video training, mentoring other authors, and testing new video training technologies. Jen previously recorded video for lynda.com. She currently offers in-person and online courses through Harvard University Extension School. She is also available for individual private tutoring, customized classroom training, and consulting.
Jen earned a BS in biology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MS in Internet Strategy Management at the Marlboro College Graduate School.
Amy Grace Wells is the content strategist at University of South Carolina, where she works in both digital and brand strategy. With a decade of experience in higher ed, publishing and nonprofit, Amy Grace knows a thing or two about “making rainbows and herding cats.” She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in User Experience Design from Kent State University.
Her previous experiences include Texas A&M AgriLife, where she directed content strategy, online content and information architecture for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and five state agencies and director of communications for the College of Fine Arts at Ohio University. She served as an expert reviewer for “Content Strategy for WordPress” published in 2015. Bragging rights include holding a sensei rank in karate and singing happy birthday to Muhammad Ali.
Nick Rosencrans is a user experience analyst at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Today, Nick helps people across the university gather end-user feedback on projects big and small. His experience as an IT professional has given him the ability to uncover issues that hold leaders back from their goals. He helps them meet their users, confront assumptions, and apply feedback to make changes. Along the way he’s learned that some issues can’t be solved with changing the product itself. So he’s learning to explore team dynamics, and assess how organizational problems affect people. Outside of work, Nick is always on the lookout for a nice day to ride a bicycle. He also enjoys a nice cup of tea.
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