Joy of UX, The
Description
"For years now, I've been running around preaching to anyone who'll listen that UX is something that everybody (not just UX people) needs to be doing. Dave has done an excellent job of explaining what developers need to know about UX, in a complete but compact, easy-to-absorb, and implementable form. Developers, come and get it!"
-Steve Krug, author of Don't Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Master User Experience and Interaction Design from the Developer's Perspective
For modern developers, UX expertise is indispensable: Without outstanding user experience, your software will fail. Now, David Platt has written the first and only comprehensive developer's guide to achieving a world-class user experience.
Quality user experience isn't hard, but it does require developers to think in new ways. The Joy of UX shows you how, with plenty of concrete examples. Firmly grounded in reality, this guide will help you optimize usability and engagement while also coping with difficult technical, schedule, and budget constraints.
Platt's technology-agnostic approach illuminates all the principles, techniques, and best practices you need to build great user experiences for the web, mobile devices, and desktop environments. He covers the entire process, from user personas and stories through wireframes, layouts, and execution. He also addresses key issues-such as telemetry and security-that many other UX guides ignore. You'll find all the resources and artifacts you need: complete case studies, sample design documents, testing plans, and more.
This guide shows you how to
- Recognize and avoid pitfalls that lead to poor user experiences
- Learn the crucial difference between design and mere decoration
- Put yourself in your users' shoes-understand what they want (and where, when, and why)
- Quickly sketch and prototype user interfaces for easy refinement
- Test your sketches on real users or appropriate surrogates
- Integrate telemetry to capture the best possible usage information
- Use analytics to accurately interpret the data you've captured
- Solve unique experience problems presented by mobile environments
- Secure your app without compromising usability any more than necessary
- "Polish" your UX to eliminate user effort everywhere you can
Register your product at informit.com/register for convenient access to downloads, updates, and corrections as they become available.
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Content
Foreword xiii
About the Author xv
Introduction: UX Rules the Roost 1
Your Biggest Advantage 2
UX Is Not Fonts and Colors 2
Fundamental Example 4
The Three Fundamental Corollaries 7
Example: Save Me? 8
Bake UX In from the Beginning 10
Why Developers Don't Consider UX 11
Where to Get the Skills 12
You Can Do This 13
This Book's Web Site 15
And Here We Go . . . 15
Chapter 1: Personas 17
Putting a Face on the User 18
Creating the Simplest Persona 18
Adding Detail 22
Using Personas 27
Succeeding with Personas 28
Chapter 2: What Do Users Want? (and Where, and When, and Why?) 31
We're Not Programming Yet 32
But Users Don't Know What They Want! 32
Finding Users to Examine 34
Interviewing Users 35
Observing Users 37
Explaining It to the Geeks 39
Storytelling 41
Chapter 3: Sketching and Prototyping 47
Prototyping: The Wrong Way to Start 48
Starting with a Good Sketch 49
Mockup Tool Example: Balsamiq 51
Showing Interaction through a Storyboard 61
Demonstrating through Live Action 64
Chapter 4: Testing on Live Users 67
Testing Constantly, Testing Throughout 68
Why Isn't Testing Done? 69
Start Testing Early 72
What We Learn from UX Testing 72
Finding Test Users 73
Compensating Test Users 75
Test Area Design and Setup 75
Using a Moderator 76
Task Design and Description 77
Watching and Debriefing 78
User Testing Example 79
The Last Word in Usability Testing 87
Chapter 5: Telemetry and Analytics 89
The Guessing Game Era 90
Telemetry as a Solution 91
Evolution of Telemetry 93
Permission and Privacy 96
Selecting a Telemetry Provider 98
What to Track 99
Telemetry Example 100
Suggestions for Telemetry Today 104
Getting Telemetry Wrong 105
Chapter 6: Security and Privacy 107
Everything's a Trade-off 108
Users Are Human 108
What Users Really Care About 109
The Hassle Budget 110
Case Study: Amazon.com 116
Securing Our Applications 121
The Last Word on Security 129
Chapter 7: Making It Just Work 131
The Key to Everything 132
Start with Good Defaults 132
Remember Everything That You Should 136
Speak Your Users' Language 137
Don't Make Users Do Your Work 139
Don't Let Edge Cases Dictate the Mainstream 141
Don't Make the User Think 142
Don't Confirm 144
Do Undo 146
Have the Correct Configurability 152
Lead the Witness 154
Chapter 8: Case Study: Commuter Rail Mobile App 157
Pity the Poor Commuter 158
Current State of the Art 158
Step 1: Who? 162
Step 2: What (and When, and Where, and Why)? 166
Step 3: How? 170
Step 4: Try It Out 173
Step 5: Telemetry Plan 179
Step 6: Security and Privacy Plan 180
Step 7: Make It Just Work 181
Chapter 9: Case Study: Medical Patient Portal 183
A Good First Try 184
Current State of the Art 184
Step 1: Who? 193
Step 2: What (and When, and Where, and Why)? 196
Step 3: How? 198
Step 4: Try It Out 202
Step 5: Telemetry Plan 207
Step 6: Security and Privacy Plan 209
Step 7: Make It Just Work 211
Index
