The UX Book

Book description

The UX Book: Process and Guidelines for Ensuring a Quality User Experience aims to help readers learn how to create and refine interaction designs that ensure a quality user experience (UX). The book seeks to expand the concept of traditional usability to a broader notion of user experience; to provide a hands-on, practical guide to best practices and established principles in a UX lifecycle; and to describe a pragmatic process for managing the overall development effort. The book provides an iterative and evaluation-centered UX lifecycle template, called the Wheel, for interaction design. Key concepts discussed include contextual inquiry and analysis; extracting interaction design requirements; constructing design-informing models; design production; UX goals, metrics, and targets; prototyping; UX evaluation; the interaction cycle and the user action framework; and UX design guidelines. This book will be useful to anyone interested in learning more about creating interaction designs to ensure a quality user experience. These include interaction designers, graphic designers, usability analysts, software engineers, programmers, systems analysts, software quality-assurance specialists, human factors engineers, cognitive psychologists, cosmic psychics, trainers, technical writers, documentation specialists, marketing personnel, and project managers.
  • A very broad approach to user experience through its components—usability, usefulness, and emotional impact with special attention to lightweight methods such as rapid UX evaluation techniques and an agile UX development process
  • Universal applicability of processes, principles, and guidelines—not just for GUIs and the Web, but for all kinds of interaction and devices: embodied interaction, mobile devices, ATMs, refrigerators, and elevator controls, and even highway signage
  • Extensive design guidelines applied in the context of the various kinds of affordances necessary to support all aspects of interaction
  • Real-world stories and contributions from accomplished UX practitioners
  • A practical guide to best practices and established principles in UX
  • A lifecycle template that can be instantiated and tailored to a given project, for a given type of system development, on a given budget

Table of contents

  1. Cover image
  2. Title page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Endorsement
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Preface
    1. Goals for this book
    2. Usability is still important
    3. But user experience is more than usability
    4. A practical approach
    5. Order of the material
    6. Our audience
    7. Increasing maturity of the discipline and audience
    8. What we do not cover
    9. About the exercises
    10. Projects
    11. Origins of the book
    12. Arousing the design “stickler” in you
    13. Further information on our website
    14. About the authors
  8. Acknowledgments
  9. Guiding Principles for the UX Practitioner
  10. Chapter 1. Introduction
    1. Objectives
    2. 1.1 Ubiquitous interaction
    3. 1.2 Emerging desire for usability
    4. 1.3 From usability to user experience
    5. 1.4 Emotional impact as part of the user experience
    6. 1.5 User experience needs a business case
    7. 1.6 Roots of usability
  11. Chapter 2. The Wheel: A Lifecycle Template
    1. Objectives
    2. 2.1 Introduction
    3. 2.2 A UX process lifecycle template
    4. 2.3 Choosing a process instance for your project
    5. 2.4 The system complexity space
    6. 2.5 Meet the user interface team
    7. 2.6 Scope of UX presence within the team
    8. 2.7 More about UX lifecycles
    9. The Pre-Design Part of the UX Lifecycle
  12. Chapter 3. Contextual Inquiry: Eliciting Work Activity Data
    1. Objectives
    2. 3.1 Introduction
    3. 3.2 The system concept statement
    4. 3.3 User work activity data gathering
    5. 3.4 Look for emotional aspects of work practice
    6. 3.5 Abridged contextual inquiry process
    7. 3.6 Data-driven vs. model-driven inquiry
    8. 3.7 History
  13. Chapter 4. Contextual Analysis: Consolidating and Interpreting Work Activity Data
    1. Objectives
    2. 4.1 Introduction
    3. 4.2 Organizing concepts: work roles and flow model
    4. 4.3 Creating and managing work activity notes
    5. 4.4 Constructing your work activity affinity diagram (WAAD)
    6. 4.5 Abridged contextual analysis process
    7. 4.6 History of affinity diagrams
  14. Chapter 5. Extracting Interaction Design Requirements
    1. Objectives
    2. 5.1 Introduction
    3. 5.2 Needs and requirements: first span of the bridge
    4. 5.3 Formal requirements extraction
    5. 5.4 Abridged methods for requirements extraction
  15. Chapter 6. Constructing Design-Informing Models
    1. Objectives
    2. 6.1 Introduction
    3. 6.2 Design-informing models: second span of the bridge
    4. 6.3 Some general “how to” suggestions
    5. 6.4 A New example domain: slideshow presentations
    6. 6.5 User models
    7. 6.6 Usage models
    8. 6.7 Work environment models
    9. 6.8 Barrier summaries
    10. 6.9 Model consolidation
    11. 6.10 Protecting your sources
    12. 6.11 Abridged methods for design-informing models extraction
    13. 6.12 Roots of essential use cases in software use cases
  16. Chapter 7. Design Thinking, Ideation, and Sketching
    1. Objectives
    2. 7.1 Introduction
    3. 7.2 Design paradigms
    4. 7.3 Design thinking
    5. 7.4 Design perspectives
    6. 7.5 User personas
    7. 7.6 Ideation
    8. 7.7 Sketching
    9. 7.8 More about phenomenology
  17. Chapter 8. Mental Models and Conceptual Design
    1. Objectives
    2. 8.1 Introduction
    3. 8.2 Mental models
    4. 8.3 Conceptual design
    5. 8.4 Storyboards
    6. 8.5 Design influencing user behavior
    7. 8.6 Design for embodied interaction
    8. 8.7 Ubiquitous and situated interaction
  18. Chapter 9. Design Production
    1. Objectives
    2. 9.1 Introduction
    3. 9.2 Macro view of lifecycle iterations for design
    4. 9.3 Intermediate design
    5. 9.4 Detailed design
    6. 9.5 Wireframes
    7. 9.6 Maintain a custom style guide
    8. 9.7 Interaction design specifications
    9. 9.8 More about participatory design
    10. Summary of the Flow of Actitives in Chapters 3 through 9
  19. Chapter 10. UX Goals, Metrics, and Targets
    1. Objectives
    2. 10.1 Introduction
    3. 10.2 UX goals
    4. 10.3 UX target tables
    5. 10.4 Work roles, user classes, and ux goals
    6. 10.5 UX measures
    7. 10.6 Measuring instruments
    8. 10.7 UX metrics
    9. 10.8 Baseline level
    10. 10.9 Target level
    11. 10.10 Setting levels
    12. 10.11 Observed results
    13. 10.12 Practical tips and cautions for creating ux targets
    14. 10.13 How UX targets help manage the user experience engineering process
    15. 10.14 An abridged approach to UX goals, metrics, and targets
  20. Chapter 11. Prototyping
    1. Objectives
    2. 11.1 Introduction
    3. 11.2 Depth and breadth of a prototype
    4. 11.3 Fidelity of prototypes
    5. 11.4 Interactivity of prototypes
    6. 11.5 Choosing the right breadth, depth, level of fidelity, and amount of interactivity
    7. 11.6 Paper prototypes
    8. 11.7 Advantages of and cautions about using prototypes
    9. 11.8 Prototypes in transition to the product
    10. 11.9 Software tools for prototyping
  21. Chapter 12. UX Evaluation Introduction
    1. Objectives
    2. 12.1 Introduction
    3. 12.2 Formative vs. summative evaluation
    4. 12.3 Types of formative and informal summative evaluation methods
    5. 12.4 Types of evaluation data
    6. 12.5 Some data collection techniques
    7. 12.6 Variations in formative evaluation results
  22. Chapter 13. Rapid Evaluation Methods
    1. Objectives
    2. 13.1 Introduction
    3. 13.2 Design walkthroughs and reviews
    4. 13.3 UX Inspection
    5. 13.4 Heuristic evaluation, a UX inspection method
    6. 13.5 Our practical approach to UX Inspection
    7. 13.6 Do UX Evaluation rite
    8. 13.7 Quasi-empirical UX evaluation
    9. 13.8 Questionnaires
    10. 13.9 Specialized rapid UX evaluation methods
    11. 13.10 More about “discount” UX engineering methods
  23. Chapter 14. Rigorous Empirical Evaluation: Preparation
    1. Objectives
    2. 14.1 Introduction
    3. 14.2 Plan for rigorous empirical UX evaluation
    4. 14.3 Team roles for rigorous evaluation
    5. 14.4 Prepare an effective range of tasks
    6. 14.5 Select and adapt evaluation method and data collection techniques
    7. 14.6 Select participants
    8. 14.7 Recruit participants
    9. 14.8 Prepare for participants
    10. 14.9 Do final pilot testing: fix your wobbly wheels
    11. 14.10 More about determining the right number of participants
  24. Chapter 15. Rigorous Empirical Evaluation: Running the Session
    1. Objectives
    2. 15.1 Introduction
    3. 15.2 Preliminaries with participants
    4. 15.3 Protocol issues
    5. 15.4 Generating and collecting quantitative UX data
    6. 15.5 Generating and collecting qualitative UX data
    7. 15.6 Generating and collecting emotional impact data
    8. 15.7 Generating and collecting phenomenological evaluation data
    9. 15.8 Wrapping up an evaluation session
    10. 15.9 The humaine project
  25. Chapter 16. Rigorous Empirical Evaluation: Analysis
    1. Objectives
    2. 16.1 Introduction
    3. 16.2 Informal summative (quantitative) data analysis
    4. 16.3 Analysis of subjective questionnaire data
    5. 16.4 Formative (qualitative) data analysis
    6. 16.5 Cost-importance analysis: prioritizing problems to fix
    7. 16.6 Feedback to process
    8. 16.7 Lessons from the field
  26. Chapter 17. Evaluation Reporting
    1. Objectives
    2. 17.1 Introduction
    3. 17.2 Reporting informal summative results
    4. 17.3 Reporting qualitative formative results
    5. 17.4 Formative reporting content
    6. 17.5 Formative reporting audience, needs, goals, and context of use
  27. Chapter 18. Wrapping up UX Evaluation
    1. Objectives
    2. 18.1 Goal-directed UX evaluation
    3. 18.2 Choose your UX evaluation methods
    4. 18.3 Focus on the essentials
    5. 18.4 Parting thoughts: be flexible and avoid dogma during UX evaluation
    6. 18.5 Connecting back to the lifecycle
  28. Chapter 19. UX Methods for Agile Development
    1. Objectives
    2. 19.1 Introduction
    3. 19.2 Basics of agile se methods
    4. 19.3 Drawbacks of agile se methods from the UX perspective
    5. 19.4 What is needed on the UX side
    6. 19.5 Problems to anticipate
    7. 19.6 A synthesized approach to integrating UX
  29. Chapter 20. Affordances Demystified
    1. Objectives
    2. 20.1 What are affordances?
    3. 20.2 A little background
    4. 20.3 Four kinds of affordances in UX design
    5. 20.4 Affordances in interaction design
    6. 20.5 False cognitive affordances misinform and mislead
    7. 20.6 User-created affordances as a wake-up call to designers
    8. 20.7 Emotional affordances
  30. Chapter 21. The Interaction Cycle and the User Action Framework
    1. Objectives
    2. 21.1 Introduction
    3. 21.2 The interaction cycle
    4. 21.3 The user action framework—adding a structured knowledge base to the interaction cycle
    5. 21.4 Interaction cycle and user action framework content categories
    6. 21.5 Role of affordances within the uaf
    7. 21.6 Practical value of uaf
  31. Chapter 22. UX Design Guidelines
    1. Objectives
    2. 22.1 Introduction
    3. 22.2 Using and interpreting design guidelines
    4. 22.3 Human memory limitations
    5. 22.4 Selected ux design guidelines and examples
    6. 22.5 Planning
    7. 22.6 Translation
    8. 22.7 Physical actions
    9. 22.8 Outcomes
    10. 22.9 Assessment
    11. 22.10 Overall
    12. 22.11 Conclusions
  32. Chapter 23. Connections with Software Engineering
    1. Objectives
    2. 23.1 Introduction
    3. 23.2 Locus of influence in an organization
    4. 23.3 Which scenario is right for you?
    5. 23.4 Foundations for success in SE–UX development
    6. 23.5 The challenge of connecting SE and UX
    7. 23.6 The ripple model to connect SE and UX
    8. 23.7 Conclusions
  33. Chapter 24. Making It Work in the Real World
    1. Objectives
    2. 24.1 Putting it to work as a new practitioner
    3. 24.2 Be a smart ux practitioner
    4. 24.3 UX professionalism
    5. 24.4 Cost-justifying UX
    6. 24.5 UX within your organization
    7. 24.6 Parting words
  34. References
  35. Exercises
    1. Introduction to exercises
    2. Chapter 3 exercises
    3. Chapter 4 exercises
    4. Chapter 5 exercises
    5. Chapter 6 exercises
    6. Chapter 7 exercises
    7. Chapter 8 exercises
    8. Chapter 9 exercises
    9. Chapter 10 exercises
    10. Chapter 11 exercises
    11. Chapter 13 exercises
    12. Chapter 14 exercises
    13. Chapter 15 exercises
    14. Chapter 16 exercises
    15. Chapter 17 exercises
  36. Index

Product information

  • Title: The UX Book
  • Author(s): Rex Hartson, Pardha S. Pyla
  • Release date: January 2012
  • Publisher(s): Morgan Kaufmann
  • ISBN: 9780123852427