User-Focused Design

Introductions

•Ashley Molloy, Director of Strategy

•Josh Murack, Director of Client Services

Agenda

•What is User-Focused Design?

•Benefits

•Understanding the User

•Process

•Tips

•Takeaways

•Questions

What is User-Focused Design?

User-focused design is an iterative process of analyzing and determining the needs of the people who buy and use your product in order to meet their expectations, throughout the entire project.

“It is only in the software and drug industries, that we refer to our customers as users"

Benefits

•Identifying business and user needs from the start

•Organizations that do not practice user-centered design:

• Dissatisfied customers • Additional development schedules and costs

Research Define target

Identify goals

Explore use cases Test

Understanding the User

Process - Research •Intake

• Client information session • Review of available data

•Validation • Primary research • Secondary research

•http://www.comscore.com/ •http://www.ibisworld.com/ •http://www.mintel.com/ •http://www.forrester.com/

Process – Define and Identify

•Define the target audience, competition and the core user

•Identify and understand the users’ goals and tasks

•Develop personas around motivations, attitudes and behaviors

Meet Julia “The Fashionista”

Meet Dima “The Gift Giver”

Process – Use Cases

•Evaluate the users needs, learn behaviors •Create proposed solutions

•Solutions are tested by the users

•Julia and Dima have different needs

Process – Test •This understanding should drive the features

and experience with your site

•As your site evolves, you should continue to assume these personas and test the experience is still solving their needs

Process - Note

•It is essential to involve the whole team in this process

•The best developers don't just make things work - they are actively involved in understanding the audience to build something fit for them

Overview of Tips

1: Present clear and logical navigation 2: Aid in product discovery 3: Be accessible on all devices 4: Continually test and optimize

1- Present Clear and Logical Navigation

Goal

•Allow users to travel easily through a website and accomplish their goals quickly

• Shoppers: I know what I want

• Lookers: I am exploring products I might want

Best Practices

•Categorize products simply

•Ensure your navigation is for lookers and shoppers

• “I'm Just Looking” • Collections - Shop By Style • New arrivals - Sale

• “I Know What I Want” • Search • Primary categories

Example

Tools

•Information Architecture: Optimal Workshop – Optimal Sort

Tools

•In-Page Analytics recently launched by Google Analytics to help businesses understand clickstreams

2 – Aid in Product Discovery

Goal

•Provide various methods of shopping that users are familiar with; written, visual and product-specific

Best Practices

•Replicate the traditional buying experience

•Use imagery to help classify and describe products

•Use hero and CTA space to present products and promotions

•Guide shoppers to desired products

Example

Example

• Kiosked, www.kiosked.com

• Aheadworks Product Labels, http://ecommerce.aheadworks.com/magento-extensions/on-sale.html

Tools

3 – Be Accessible on all Devices

Goal

•Ensure your website is flexible enough to present a rich browser-based experience, as well as a simple mobile experience.

Best Practices •Incorporate responsive design

• Existing: Starting with a desktop experience and working backwards

• New: Mobile first - Simplicity is key

•Have a defined process • What are users likely to be doing on each device?

What feature set makes sense? • Define and prioritize the most important user

actions per device

Example

Example

Tool

•UX Pin - http://uxpin.com/

4 – Continually Test and Optimize

Goal

•Present the best experience to users through iteration and view every feature as a hypothesis to be proved by the users

Best Practices •Keep an open channel for users to give you feedback

•Actively reach out to them for improvements

Example

Tool

•Foresee http://www.foreseeresults.com/ •Morae http://www.techsmith.com/morae.html

Challenges

•User and business needs sometimes conflict

•Varied user needs can cause complexity

•Fast-paced nature of ecommerce creates new best practices continually

Takeaways

1: Present clear and logical navigation 2: Aid in product discovery 3: Be accessible on all devices 4: Continually test and optimize

Questions?

•Ashley Molloy - amolloy@onepica.com

•Josh Murack - j.murack@digitalfactors.com