User experience is everything when it comes to web design. What are the first impressions about your website? Is it easy to navigate? Is there something for your user to do next? Is the pathway clear? User experience affects your bottom line in that if users don’t want to use your site, will they want to use your services or buy your product? Whatever your business does–from marketing to legal to to eCommerce and more–you’ll need to consider user experience overall. Here are 10 UX videos from 2018 to help you grow.
We’ve taken a leaf from Nielson Norman’s book and collated some user experience videos that will be helpful to you this year. These videos are short and perfect for the busy professional on the go.
1. Don Norman, The principles of human-centered design (2 minutes 55 seconds)
Norman notes that the principles of human-centered design is focusing on people. From product to service to warehouse stocking, consider the people coming into contact with that product or service–the people in front and behind the scenes. Every element should be considered to solve the fundamental problems. Consider how everything is interconnected. Optimize things globally, bigger picture results over simple small fixes over time.
2. Kara Pernice, When to use which UX research method (4 minutes 39 seconds)
Pernice discusses which research method is best to use. Research is either behavioral, which is observed by professionals, or reported by the user, which is attitudinal such as surveys and focus groups. She also discusses qualitative and quantitative data as well as A/B and multivariate testing. The video shows how many target users are needed at each stage.
3. Jakob Nielsen, 10 UX challenges for the next 25 years (29 minutes 59 seconds)
This video is the longest in the list, but it contains some of the multitude of wisdom from Jakob Nielsen, Danish web usability consultant with a Ph.D. in human and computer interaction. He discusses the challenges that will happen in this computer age, nothing that the word ‘user experience’ is a word that’s only 24 years old, but user experience existed as a broad concept prior to this coining. The talk is worth checking out.
4. Katie Sherwin, 5-second usability test (2 minutes 30 seconds)
Sherwin discusses how the 5-second test gauges the gut-reaction people have when visiting your website. She also advises that for testing site and design preference, the 5-second test wouldn’t really work; for those kind of tests you’d use A/B testing and multivariate testing.
5. Jakob Nielsen, User testing: why and how (3 minutes 13 seconds)
Neilson explains that you cannot look at your own website with a fresh pair of eyes–because you have too much expertise and you understand your website–so you have to use ‘real users’ in your target audience to determine if your design is useful and solves people’s needs by asking them to do specific tasks. He notes that user testing is generally really cheap with a short timeframe. Finally, he notes that if the developers see users struggle with elements, it’s a great motivator to change things on the site.
6. Don Norman, Focus on results not on perfect UX (1 minute 33 seconds)
Norman notes that ‘user experience is not the most important part of a product.’ He says that all factors need to be taken into account as part of whole system. He says that when designing you need to think of the end result: what’s the user trying to accomplish? He says the design itself doesn’t matter if you get the end result. It’s all about the bigger picture.
7. Sarah Gibbons, UX mapping methods: when to use which (2 minutes 48 seconds)
Gibbons notes that it’s often confusing to know which mapping method to use and when. She discusses four commonly used maps, when to use them, and what they are used for. The three types are the empathy map, the customer journey, and the experience map. She defines an empathy map as determining who the users are and finding out what drives them. Next, the customer journey map creates a narrative of what the user is going through as they interact with your site. It can highlight pain points and moments of joy for the user. She notes that the third type, the experience map, is often confused with the customer journey, but the primary distinction is that they are not associated with a product or service.
She discusses service blueprinting and the importance of three decisions before you begin mapping.
- Mapping your current state or what you want to happen in the future?
- Deciding what you’re basing assumptions on and are you going to validate them with research from field studies or surveys?
- Deciding what fidelity you’re working with–high-fidelity or low-fidelity
8. Sarah Gibbons, Service design 101 (2 minutes 27 seconds)
There’s no clear distinction of tangible/in-tangible between goods and services anymore, Gibbons explains. Service design is understanding what employees need to do to produce a customer journey. Service design is comprised of people, users or employees; props, the things that have to exist for employees to create the experience like tools; workflows or procedures that occur between employees and users. All of these elements are there to improve the employee experience and indirectly the customer experience. Watch the video to see how she explains the concept with a metaphor about going to the theater.
9. Hoa Loranger, Describing UX to family and friends (3 minutes 22 seconds)
If you are a ‘User experience expert’ how do you explain what you do? Listen to some people explain their jobs. One wise expert notes that UX expertise is ‘looking at how people interact with systems’ and another explains it has something to do with ‘psychology’ of understanding the intersection between people and technology. One articulate person explains US by remarking, ‘through design I help companies produce more compelling products for their prospective and current customers.’
10. Kara Pernice, Why is UX so difficult? (3 minutes 7 seconds)
Development processes do not always include UX methods. She also notes that UX is everyone’s responsibility. Who is supposed to do UX design, she asks? Developers, marketing, products, a UX specialist? She says the UX isn’t always assigned, which can be problematic.
Overall, all of the experts in these videos agree that UX is incredibly important for your business overall. It’s one of the key factors to focus on this year.
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Elaine Frieman holds a Master’s Degree and is a UK-based professional editor, educational writer, and former marketing agency content writer where she wrote articles for disparate clients using SEO best practice. She enjoys reading, writing, walking in the countryside, traveling, spending time with other people’s cats, and going for afternoon tea.
