Presented to MCC Technology class

1. User Experience Professionals
The Emerging Value Proposition
Presented to Manchester Community College - Technology Seminar
April, 2012
Michael Rawlins, User Experience Strategist

2. About me...
Michael Rawlins
eBusiness Product Manager at Cigna
•Certified Usability Analyst since 2003
•Certified User Experience Analyst (late 2012)
•Early adopter of Social Networking
•Instructor of:
•Usability Testing Methods
•Interaction Design Techniques
•Persuasive Design Techniques (PET)
•Social Networking Strategy
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3. Why compelling?
Shifting Technology Focus...
Big Hardware Smaller Hardware Software People!
60’s - mid 70’s mid-70’s - 80’s 90’s Now
User Experience...
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4. What is Usability?
Navigation Decision Making
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5. More definitions...
Effectiveness - can users achieve their goals
Ease of learning - how fast do they learn the interface or system construct
Efficiency of use - how fast users complete tasks
Memorability - short & long term memory leveraged
Error prevention - is there forgiveness
User satisfaction - do users like the application
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6. User Experience...
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7. What’s a usability test?
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8. Where’s the USB port?
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9. People respond to software & hardware that is easy to use.
Cool, but not
intuitively
obvious...
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10. Mental models?
“Things should work the way we think they should work...
... if you break the user’s mental model - they respond
negatively.”
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11. UX Tools: Persuasion...
Life = making choices
More information = more difficult to choose
More choices available = more difficult to choose
People have developed semi-automatic reactions
to help make choices.
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12. Prefrontal Cortex @ logic (no!)
Controls reasoning and logic
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13. Amygdala @ emotions (yes!)
Semi-automatic reactions
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14. Influencing people...
Reciprocation
Commitment & Consistency
Social Proof
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
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15. Leveraging persuasion...
Use reciprocity to give things away for free and
people will return
People are inclined to return favors you have done for
them
Chances are you’re already giving something
away for free
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16. “Freemium” strategies...
Free newsletters and RSS Feeds
Free Tips
Free webinars/podcast
Free trial software...
Goal: Ask users/visitors to promote your content in
return for what they get.
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17. The sub-conscious mind...
When something is scarce, people automatically perceive it
more valuable
Scarcity in time is extremely effective (example:
limited access to content, previews, etc.)
Scarcity in amount is equally effective in gaining
users/visitors attention
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18. Designing for trust...
Authority figures can trigger behaviors... Establishing
authority makes it easy for people to choose you, your
product or service offering over the next distraction
Social Proof “People are like sheep!”. The more
information we put in front of our users/visitors, the more
they rely on other people’s choices to make
their own
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19. Changing behaviors...
Commitment/Consistency - the moment people
decide on something, they start convincing
themselves it’s the right choice
Goal: Leveraging all of these elements as part of a
Persuasive Architecture enables smart companies to
rationalize social media initiatives.
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20. Create, Test, Adjust...
http://patternry.com/patterns/
http://www.verifyapp.com
http://www.patterntap.com
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21. Applied Persuasion...
Piano stairs - TheFunTheory.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw
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22. Suggested Reading...
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23. Getting Started in UX...
http://www.ctupa.org
http://www.upassoc.org/
http://uxmag.com/articles/why-persuasive-design-should-
be-your-next-skill-set
http://uxmag.com/articles/user-experience-for-developers
http://aneventapart.com/alasurvey2010/01.html
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24. Questions?
michael.rawlins@gmail.com
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25. Thank you!
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