User research

This full-day workshop teaches a set of fundamental principles about humans, useful for all types of design work – information architecture, interaction design, visual design and even industrial design.

In the workshop we’ll look at:

• How our visual system works
• Visual and cognitive attention, and how to grab them
• Limitations of memory and how it affects our designs
• Types of errors that people will make, why they make them, and how we can design for them
• How people make decisions, and how we can design for more informed decisions
• Socialness and how to design social interfaces
• Learning about people via user research
• Checking what we’ve designed to make sure it works (usability testing)

This will be a very practical workshop. To learn about the human attributes we’ll play games, look at fun examples of human behaviour, discuss the implications for design and sketch example interfaces. For user research and usability testing, we’ll discuss the principles and run a mini research session and usability test. You’ll leave with tons of practical skills to use on your next project.

You’ll also leave with a detailed workshop booklet, containing slides, additional explanation and follow-up reading.

This half-day workshop teaches a set of fundamental principles that are useful for all types of design work – information architecture, interaction design, visual design and even industrial design.

In the workshop we’ll look at:

• How our visual system works.
• Visual and cognitive attention, and how to grab them.
• The limitations of memory and how that affects our design.
• The types of errors that our users are always going to make.
• How to design intuitive interfaces.

For each of these aspects, we’ll talk about the principles, demonstrate how they work, and discuss the implications for design. You’ll go away with a better understanding of people which will help you make better design decisions.

Why is user involvement in projects the exception rather than the rule, despite the fact we know it is the ‘right’ thing to do? Taking a practical standpoint and without the boring and irrelevant theory, this presentation discusses the role of user involvement in web projects covering:

• What types of projects need (and do not need) to involve users
• Determine the value of involving users or the risks of not involving them
• Methods and techniques appropriate for different situations
• Low-contact, quick methods you can use to learn about users with little effort
• Tips to help other people understand the value of user involvement

This is a talk I gave at Murdoch Uni. I wasn’t sure what to call it, but it basically covers principles of good website work – user research, good IA, great content, setting priorities and maintaining good work.

Over the past few years I have been slowly developing and refining a spreadsheet I use for analysis of card sorts. I have used it on many projects and find it invaluable for helping me manage the data and spot patterns.

I use it to analyse results from open card sorts. I have refined it to the point where I’m happy with it, and have prepared instructions for it. The instructions and spreadsheet are completely free for you to use however you wish.

Files

There are four files available:

• Card sort analysis spreadsheet instructions (PDF, 715KB)
• Empty card sort analysis spreadsheet template for 20 participants (XLS, 4.1MB)
• Example spreadsheet with content (XLS, 2.0MB): based on papers from the IA Summit
• Empty card sort analysis spreadsheet template for 40 participants (ZIP, 1MB)

Notes

Some other random notes:

• I have done everything I know to make the PDF screen-reader friendly, but please let me know if it isn’t
• I use a PC and know it works on a PC. I have had mixed response from friends with Macs – for some it works, some it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, please let me know and I’ll explore further

Screenshots

Entering the card names:

Summary of all cards and standardised categories:

Analysis of categories:

Visualisation of results:

Card sorting book

I am currently writing a book on card sorting – check out the card sorting book website.

Why is user involvement in projects the exception rather than the rule, despite the fact we know it is the ‘right’ thing to do? Taking a practical standpoint and without the boring and irrelevant theory, this presentation discusses the role of user involvement in web projects covering:

• What types of projects need (and do not need) to involve users
• Determine the value of involving users or the risks of not involving them
• Methods and techniques appropriate for different situations
• Low-contact, quick methods you can use to learn about users with little effort
• Tips to help other people understand the value of user involvement

Would you like your design team to collaborate better? Are you looking to gather more valuable insights from your focus groups and interviews?

Design games are a fun, technology-neutral way of gathering design insights for your projects. In this presentation, Donna (Maurer) Spencer, an expert information architect, will show you how to take advantage of design games in many situations, with all types of people, including:

• Design Your Ideal Page and Role Playing: Facilitates the brainstorming of design concepts and ideas
• Divide-the Dollar: Prioritizes your site’s features
• Modified Card Sorting: Helps you create content categories and terminology

This two-day interactive workshop will provide a thorough overview and understanding about how to effectively use information architecture to make your intranet or website as effective as possible. It will cover a wide range of information architecture issues such as the following:

• What information architecture is and how it can facilitate user experience
• Analysing and sorting content
• Carrying out user research: surveys, focus groups and card sorting
• Classifying, sorting and labelling within your information system
• Using wireframes and site maps: the ‘bread and butter’ tools of IA
• Navigating, indexing and designing page layouts
• Effectively carrying out your IA project: tips, tools, techniques and processes

This workshop is run with Russ Weakley from MaxDesign.

Workshop description

A hands-on workshop with user experience expert, Donna Maurer, and CSSexpert, Russ Weakley.Over two full days you will build detailed websites layouts from the ground up – starting with page layout, navigation and form design; and ending with clean markup and elegant styling using XHTML/CSS.

Day 1: Planning and designing the user experience – Donna Maurer

On day one you will plan and design a website – focusing on the user experience: designing the navigation, page layout and forms.You will:

• learn techniques to understand your users, and prepare user scenarios
• understand your content with content analysis methods
• create an effective and usable site structure (information architecture)
• design a range of navigation methods
• create page layouts for content, home, index and special pages
• design simple forms

For each step, Donna will outline the fundamentals and show examples from small and large website projects. But most of the time will be hands-on -you work on your own project, ask questions and discuss with the group.

Day 2: Building beautiful sites using CSS – Russ Weakley

On day two you will build your website from the ground up – starting with structural markup, adding accessible markup and then styling your layout using CSS.You will learn:

• how to create well structured, accessible markup
• the basics of CSS including rule sets, selectors, shorthand rules, inheritance and the cascade.
• how to structure efficient CSS files
• how to create a full CSS layout from a flat graphic mockup
• how to deal with browser issues including specific browsers such as IE5,IE6 and IE7.
• how to create a resolution dependent layout
• how to create CSS for printing and hand held devices

Testimonials

Feedback from participants from these workshops included:

• “Great examples of how I can apply techniques”
• “The comprehensive workbook with further references/books, examples and pictures was great”
• “It was thorough, delivered with regular visual examples, solid knowledge, humour, functional activities”

Description

There are 2 aspects to making IA work in a project – an understanding of the key principles of information architecture and a knowledge of activities to put them into practice. This presentation will examine the “how to’s” of information architecture. We’ll look at how to take a content inventory, analyse content, conduct card sorting, analyse user research, choose the right structure, create an information architecture and test it. These activities drive an informed design process so you can be confident in your decisions and communicate them to other people.

Presentation slides

Audio: Audio for IA: A how-to