User-Centered Design

Comfort Zone

You

Develop Empathy

  • NOT Sympathy
  • Consistently spending time with people unlike you
  • Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone
  • Speaking directly with a wide range of users
  • Auditing your social media - whose voices and perspectives are you exposed to?

User Personas

Where did they come from?

Alan Cooper, the author of The Inmates are Running the Asylum, came up with User Personas in 1998.  He felt that without them, a product designer's conception of a user was too elastic, and it was too easy to think of oneself as the user.

What are they?

Cooper defined them as a one-page portrayal of a user archetype, describing the persona’s goals, motivations, and behaviors.

 

An archetype is a very typical example of a certain person or thing.

User Personas generally include

  • Demographic presentation of the character (age, gender etc.)
  • General traits (occupation, interests, hobbies etc.)
  • Psychological traits (needs, motivations, aspirations etc.)

User Personas also include

  • The major needs and expectations of the most important user groups
  • A clear picture of the user's expectations and how they're likely to use the product

What makes a good User Persona?

and bad?

Done poorly, User Personas...

  • Are made up and/or based on faulty assumptions
  • Are composites of two separate users into a single, non-existent user
  • Demonstrate the design team member's internal biases and prejudices
  • When your archetypes are really just stereotypes

Done well, User Personas...

  • Are the result of extensive field research
  • Are based on real, precise data
  • Still let you see the big picture of common user behaviors and needs
  • Are continually looked at it with a critical eye and updated when necessary through frequent contact with users
  • Are not taken to be fully representative of all users

User Personas pictures

  • Thoughtful illustrations are always preferable to stock photos
  • Even thoughtful illustrations fall prey to stereotypes
  • The best illustrations illuminate the user and challenge misconceptions and assumptions

How would you evaluate these sample User Personas?

What do any of these tell you about user behavior?

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Location
  • Name

Do any of these actually tell you about user behavior?

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Location
  • Name

often cause assumptions

User Personas that include....

USER - 1A

Further Reading

http://www.aegis-project.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=53

https://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/are-personas-past-their-prime.html

https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/personas.html

Existing Product Research

What is Nest?

  1. Thermostats
  2. Cameras
  3. Doorbell
  4. Alarm System
  5. Smoke + CO Alarm

A home automation system built by Nest Labs (which was acquired by Google in 2014).

How much does it cost?

  1. Thermostats - $249 each
  2. Cameras - $349 each
  3. Doorbell - $229
  4. Alarm System - from $499
  5. Smoke + CO Alarm - $119/each

Total System $1.7k +

Who is Nest for?

Market Research

  • Forrester - worldwide market research and advisor firms that publishes articles such as Smart Home Devices market forecasts
  • PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) - business consulting and market insights

What ethical concerns may exist with Nest?

  • Privacy?
  • Security?
  • Sustainability?
  • Safety?

Nest parody by Peng Collective

  • "Hug" because Google products monitor all your behaviors and emotions.
  • "Google Bee" is a personal drone that "watches over your house and family"
  • "Bye" collects information about you throughout your life and automatically shares all that data with your contacts when you pass away.

Nest parody

  • Despite being forced to take down the parody site, Peng Collective kept the domain https://google-nest.org/
  • Other sites, such as http://google-nest.crowdapp.de mirrored it
  • You can read the Electronic Frontier Foundation's response here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/dear-google-parody-not-trademark-infringement

"Bricking" devices

The unintentional or intentional disabling of hardware

IOT devices...

often comes with a default username and password such as admin/password.

 

This is frequently exploited by individuals who install malware on internet-connected devices.

Is Google Nest a success?

Homework

Refine 1 or 2-sided User Persona Card

 

Existing Product Case Study presentation

  1. Choose an existing tech product
  2. Create ~ 10 slides
  3. Answers the following questions
    1. What is the product? Who makes it?
    2. Who is the product for? Would you or anyone you know who it? Why or why not?
    3. What ethical concerns, if any, do you have with this product?
    4. Is the product a success?  Why or why not?

https://www.producthunt.com/golden-kitty-awards-2017

User Testing

What should you test?

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Subtitle

Expect to be surprised by your users

You are there to observe and gather as much information as you can; resist the urge to guide them.

 

You won't be there when real users are using your product!

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