Based on The Joy of UX by David S. Platt

This workshop jump-starts your UX projects, while upgrading your team’s UX skills This isn’t an academic exercise. We tailor the work to your team’s current level, and we directly attack your specific UX problems. We provide a vertical slice through your UX. The Jumpstart works especially well with an interdisciplinary team. Bring your developers, architects, business analysts, managers, tech support people, marketing; they all have insights to share.

What attendees learn:
• How to model their user population with a persona, an artificial person, which makes it easier to grasp who their users actually are.
• How to interview users to understand their needs and wants, and to express these in the form of stories.
• How to make low-fidelity mockups layouts of apps and websites using sketching tools.
• How to test low-fidelity mockups on users, and incorporate their feedback into better designs.
• How to choose and configure telemetry to collect information on actual user behavior, and to analyze that behavior to improve your app.

Topics covered

Day 1

Introduction:
Scope and goals of the course. End-to-end case study of a successful user-centered design, examining and explaining all parts of the process.

Who
Lecture:
The fundamental principle of all user experience design is understanding WHO the users really are – not who you wish they were or hope they’ll somehow morph into. Understanding your user population works best with an artificial person called a persona. We will study the elements of personas and how they work together.

Lab:
Develop personas representing your user population. Present them to the class for critique.

What

Lecture:
We now work on interviewing users to determine their needs, and expressing these needs in the form of stories. We’ll study the concept of stories, the hallmarks of good ones. Even if you already use stories for development, the ones that we will generate and refine today are more detailed and user-oriented.

Lab:
Quickly interview actual users or role-playing students. Select the two most important needs. Generate a story for each. Present them to the class for critique.

Day 2

How

Lecture:
We will discuss the principles of UX sketches and prototypes, and the need for fast, cheap iteration in the early stages of the project. We’ll learn how to use the Balsamiq mock-up editor to quickly produce screens and storyboards.

Lab:
Produce mock-ups sketches for the stories we did in the previous lesson. Present them to the class for critique.

Try It Out

Lecture:
We’d discuss the principles of usability testing, and the items that contribute to its success or failure. We’ll cover the selection of test users and the writing of test scripts, the actual test runs, and the debriefing afterwards.

Lab:
We’ll set up an in-house lab and actually run a usability test on a quick prototype. Class will then critique the operation.

Day 3

Telemetry

Lecture:
We’ll discuss the needs to monitor user’s actual behavior, rather than what they can remember or are willing to admit to. We’ll cover the selection of a telemetry framework, the types of actions to monitor, and the design decisions we can make based on them.

Lab:
Produce telemetry place for our own applications. Present them to the class for critique. Implement in simples example if there is time.

Students’ Choice
Lecture and Lab: Topics requested by the students based on their experiences in the class

Who should enrol:
This class is aimed primarily at UX developers, architects, and their managers. It also works extremely well with inter-disciplinary teams, including marketing and operations, each function providing its own perspective on the UX process.

Teacher:
David S. Platt teaches user experience engineering at Harvard University Extension School, and at companies all over the world. He is the author of 12 books, and of MSDN Magazine’s monthly back-page column “Don’t Get Me Started” (link). Microsoft designated him a Software Legend in 2002. He lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Read more about David here (link).

Other information:
Students should bring their individual laptops, with Balsamiq wireframes desktop app installed. www.balsamiq.com (link). The free trial version is sufficient.

An electronic copy of David Platt's book, The Joy of UX, is included in the registration fee.