Opening preso from the MIT Inter-Activities Period (winter term) course I taught with Nadya Direkova on Experience Design.

1. Experience Design
MIT IAP Term
January 12-14, 2009
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2. What is Experience
Design?
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3. The Definition
From Wikipedia:
Experience design is the practice of designing
products, processes, services, events, and
environments with a focus placed on the
quality of the user experience and
culturally relevant solutions, with less
emphasis placed on increasing and improving
functionality of the design.
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4. The Definition
More to the point:
Experience design is the practice of
designing something with quality and
cultural relevance.
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5. The Definition
How do you do that?
To design something that a user perceives to
be culturally relevant and of high quality, the
end product needs to make their life better –
needs to solve their problems (even ones
they didn’t know they had.)
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6. The Definition
Ultimately:
Experience design is the practice of
solving problems.
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7. How does it work and
what will we learn about
it in the next few days?
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8. There is an Established, Evolving Approach
1. Problem Definition 2. Primary User Research 3. Secondary User Research 4. Competitive Research 5. Persona Definition
6. Flows + Storyboards 7. Site + Taxonomy Maps 8. Wireframes + Comps 9. Usage Testing
8

9. From Designing Products to Solving Problems
Course Overview:
Day 1 – The Tools Day 2 – Users’ World Day 3 – What’s Next
Playing games to learn Touring the social world Exploring the future to
the tools we use to to find context for our practice designing
design: designs: without a net:
- Wireframes - “Social” discussions - Digital Trends
- Sitemaps - Competitive and presentations
- Engagement Maps Audience Research - Solving Your Problems
- Storyboards - Hands-on Business Exercises and
- Research Workshop with Discussion
ByKids.org
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10. Wireframes
Are a visual representation of a web page’s key
content elements and how they are displayed to
the user. Elements may include navigation,
content placement and interface controls. The
wireframe is not intended to capture every item
on a page or represent the creative design.
Rather, it is a skeletal depiction of what the page
will ultimately contain and how those pieces will
be laid out.
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11. Sitemaps
Sitemaps provide an overview of website content
in a manner similar to the table of contents page
in a book. Sections and pages are typically listed
according to narrative flow, alphabetically or by
chronology. The home page appears at the top,
with secondary and tertiary-level pages below.
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12. Storyboards
Storyboards are simple, illustrative descriptions
of the key interaction points that occur during a
specific process or flow and between a user and
the product or UI. They provide a quick, sketch-
based way to explore what’s important about a
product’s design and what elements will enable
and create flow within it, without distracting the
team with the overwhelming details of individual
page design.
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13. Research
Methodologies
Any good design process requires research to
understand a subject and to test hypothesis
about an approach to a subject. It’s important to
know and employ a wide range of methods to
find the right answers or know where to keep on
searching.
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14. Two Sides of the Research Methodology Coin:
Qualitative Quantitative
Good at: • Context, human texture, semantics, • Definitive conclusions, clear
subjectivity measures, objectivity
Typical set-up: • Often in person, observation and • Often remote, test plan structured
discussion-oriented, even with task around clear objective responses
completion without ambiguity (yes/no, multiple
choice, success/failure)
Provides: • The why, why not, where not, when not • The what, how much, when, where
Downfall: • Directionality can be skewed by • Can be looking at the wrong
sample size, personalities measures.
Sample Size • 8-12 provide directionality/patterns • 100+ (technically 30, but numbers
normalize better above 100)
Examples • Ethnographic studies • Mouse-and-click-path tracking
• One-on-one interviews • Multivariate testing
• Lab-style usability tests • Self-directed remote usability testing
• Focus groups • Analytics + search log tracking
• Card sorting (in person) • Surveys
• Card sorting (remote)
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15. Wrap-Up
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16. Course Greatest Hits
Dig into the tools . . .
Sitemaps, wireframes, engagement maps, storyboards, research
Delve into the context . . .
Social phenomenon in an online context, competitive and audience
research, dealing with clients
Explore the big picture . . .
Intelligent data, visualization (tension between complexity and
simplification), physical devices, participation, democratization
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17. Typical Experience Design Careers (today)
Established Evolving
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18. For Further Exploration
Razorfish Resources Industry Resources
Razorfish Digital Design Blog TED Conference:
http://www.digitaldesignblog.com/ http://www.ted.com/
Razorfish Going Social Now Favourite Website Awards:
Blog http://www.favouritewebsiteawards.com/
http://www.goingsocialnow.com/
Ad Age Creativity Online:
Our Twitters/Profiles http://creativity-online.com/
http://twitter.com/marisagallagher
http://twitter.com/ Under the Radar Blog:
http://www.undertheradarblog.com/
Mashable:
http://mashable.com/
TV:
http://newteevee.com/
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19. Thank You
Nadya Direkova, Senior Information Architect
nadya.direkova@razorfish.com
Marisa Gallagher, Vice President of User Experience
marisa.gallagher@razorfish.com
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