1. uPortal 3 User Experience
A Designer’s Perspective

2. Common understanding of design Design's role in the community
Speak to uP3 work
Action Items
Introduce self (if needed) and couch the presentation. Collier's - The Real Reason Designers Don't Contribute To Open Source

3. Common understanding of design
What is User Experience?
The sum experience of a user while interacting with the system or product

4. Common understanding of design
What is Design?
The aim of design is to create good user experiences

5. Common understanding of design
Designers think about:
People and their goals
How to adapt technology to people
Attraction
Satisfaction
Representation
Adoption
Attraction - trends toward and current experiences of rich user experience; instantly compelling
Satisfaction - meeting needs and goals; useful, efficient
Representation - brand; can this thing successfully represent me? Do I want it to?
Adoption - forced to or choose to; ownership and personal investment
All leading to Community - wanting to belong to something worthwhile, meaningful, and valuable

6. Common understanding of design
Art
Artificial
No Constraints
Expression
Design
For use
Has Constraints
Science
Design, while exploratory and often visual, is a scientific process with a commercial goal where the end product is used.

7. Common understanding of design
Design is science
Observation
Hypothesis
Test & Validate
Designers don't instinctively know the answer either - but we'll find out!

8. Design’s role in the community
What should [a portal for Higher Ed] be?
Community
How should it be used [by people]?
Designers
How can it be done [with technology]?
Developers

9. Design’s role in the community
Where is design in the uPortal community?

10. Design’s role in the community
Until there is more designer involvement and emphasis on making the product desirable and usable, uPortal will not reach its full potential
Significant barriers to entry for both product use and community contribution
Powerful, but unattractive functionality that is difficult to use

11. Design’s role in the community

12. Design’s role in the community
Designers are not developers (usually)
Speak a different language
Have different goals
Follow a different core process
Use different tools
Produce different artifacts

13. Design’s role in the community
Designers are scared away when:
Forced to learn and speak “tech talk”
Asked to design in a “dev environment”
Misunderstood as “skinners”
User Experience is not prioritized
Not given development support

14. Design’s role in the community
It’s symbiotic
Developers need Designers to envision and design a good user experience
Designers need Developers to build the experience

15. uP3 User Experience A User-Centered Design (UCD) approach
The chief difference from other interface design philosophies is that user-centered design tries to optimize the user interface around how people can, want, or need to work, rather than forcing the users to change how they work to accommodate the system or function.

16. uP3 User Experience What does UCD do? User Research Analysis
Design Concepts
User/Usability Testing
Observation
Hypothesis
Test/Validate

17. uP3 User Experience
User Research

18. uP3 User Experience Personas
Fictitious characters that are created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic that might use a site or product. Personas are given characteristics and are assumed to be in particular environments based on known users’ requirements so that these elements can be taken into consideration when creating scenarios for conceptualizing a site.

19. uP3 User Experience
Comparative/ Competitive Analysis

20. uP3 User Experience Heuristic Analysis
Usability Heuristics are a set of industry-defined principles that govern good design. Since common usability heuristics evolved over time they are generally considered to be a standard in best practices for high-level usability evaluation.

21. uP3 User Experience UE Goals Modernize the User Experience
Layout Customization
Improve Usability
Powerful and attractive functionality that is easy to use

22. uP3 User Experience
Design Concepts

23. uP3 User Experience
User Testing
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Satisfaction

24. Action Items Support good design in the uPortal community
Prioritize work that results in UE improvements
Support UE improvements on the backend
Review design activity and give feedback
Get Designers and UE people at your institution to participate

25. Action Items Incorporate design in your projects
Get users involved (you have direct access)
Submit design ideas
Do "Brick Wall" user testing of designs with users at your institution and post the feedback
Sponsor "Compliant" user testing at your institution