Chapter 7 Summary (March 28, 2020)

(I read the final two chapters of the class textbook over spring break. For all intent and purpose, I will add these dot my journal sometime during the respected weeks that the teacher assigns the material)

Chapter seven is still in the conceptual phase of UX design process. The chapter’s title is to “Test, Learn, Tweak, and Iterate”, which basically says to take what didn’t work in your first couple of attempts and improve on it. Maybe adding a touch of something to your wireframe in hopes of having it work the way one expects to.

The chapter brings up the processes of prototyping and user-testing, and suggests that doing this will always save you time and money if you do it early enough, otherwise it will fail. The authors wants the people that were involved in the earlier research to help in this stage as they test the prototype designs and lets the person know what they have going for them in their design; a sort of knowing what key things work for them and the things that do not work.

It also brings up iterative, which is the act of repeating a process with the aim of achieving a desired result. Each repletion of the process is called iteration.

Your main focus at this stage should be to learn how to improve the product you have designed. This is done by including users in the process, and although users often feel they’re under scrutiny, it is really the design that is being evaluated here.

It also mentions that you need to record your research sessions so that one can go back over their footage and extract new insights from the data, and wants the session to be a dialogue-driven oneA session should run as though it’s a conversation with your user. It will put your user at ease and encourage them to open up about the design, making them feel less like they’re undergoing an examination. You are definitely there to lead and keep conversation on track, so focus your discussion; however, following your script to the letter or being inflexible about improvising can lead to session outcomes of limited value. Depending on the type of testing you’re doing, your session script may vary. Nevertheless, it is important you create one so that you stick to a consistent approach across sessions and address important questions. Overall, consider it a guide — not gospel.

The author mentions how continuous testing and refining an interactive prototype fast-tracks the traditional approach of market release, feedback, changes, and subsequent releases, but does so in a controlled environment where there’s less to lose. User-testing your design as it progresses allows for continuous feedback ahead of coding. The other method is known as a pilot session, or a mock user-testing session, using anyone on hand (a team member, a colleague) to act as the participant. It allows you to run through the session script and decide if the wording of scenarios and the flow between tasks feels right.

They also talk about bringing forth the user scenarios hat were talked about in previous chapters and applying them to a process known as Behavior Driven Development (BDD), which draws on agile methods and ensures scenarios are written before any code. These scenarios then drive the design effort, and, in turn, development process.

The end of the section uses the material and applies it to the author’s approach on working on her own app.