So one of the brilliant things designers do is produce designs.
They can also help you with one of the other more important parts
of the process, which is choosing between those designs.
So, Jonathan, what are some best practices for
making decisions between designs using user feedback?
>> Sure, I like to think of it as three sort of different general areas of your
designs, when you're thinking about how to structure your app or your website.
So we have information architecture,
which is sort of the way that things are structured, and the sort of the flow.
There's also interaction design, which is whether or
not it's easy to find a button on your page or your app.
And then there's also the design element or the visual design.
The visual design allows a user to give feedback on the appeal,
or the color scheme, or other elements within your design.
So thinking a bit within these three general areas
gives you sort of the ability to sort of ask the questions that you want to
get good feedback from your design.
<< Okay, so as an example we had
feedback in our original paper prototype that our structure was confusing, you
just couldn't actually check things off in that from information architecture.
And then we also had feedback that the frequent action button was good size,
and so that would be like interaction design.
>> Exactly. >> And
then we also had feedback that our check boxes were hard to find, or
not visually appealing.
And so that would be visual design.
>> Correct.
Yeah.
All those elements combined together I think are essentially
the concept or some experts call the conceptual design.
But all those aspects are fundamental to the design of your app.
And you want to be thinking about all three as you are developing your app.
>> Okay.
So let's say we've got a designer who's given us
two different visual designs for an element.
Let's say they've given us a button that is designed one way and
a button that is designed another way.
How would we go about using user research to choose between those?
>> Sure.
So you can do two types of studies.
One, you can run through a group of users, like two or
three users where you show button A then you show button B and you ask for
them to provide feedback on that set.
Then in a separate study, you can do it for
a separate group of users showing button D, then button A.
You can compare your notes from both of those studies to find out which
is the best button to use.
>> And do users tend to prefer the one they see first generally, or
the one they see last generally?
Or is it not as clear as all that?
>> It's not always that clear and simple.
Oftentimes you want to get a user's initial reactions.
But showing them close together really helps give them
a visual cue to telling you whether or not it's something they really enjoy.
>> Okay.
One of the things we just used as an example was there's button
A and there's button B.
What happens if the designer gives you five or ten button designs?
Do you still test all of those at once or do you test just two at a time?
>> Yeah, that's a great question.
I think it's really important to be thinking about can the user achieve
what you're intending them to achieve with your design.
So, it can be ten buttons or it can be 15 buttons, but
can they achieve what the intended task or objective is with your designs?
So, if the designer presents you with many different buttons,
it may be helpful just to kind of trim it down a little bit.
But, if you have that many buttons in order to achieve the intended task,
you may still need to test on all of those buttons being available there.
>> So it sounds like it's best to
compare these buttons in separate studies.
It also sounds likes it's best to think about all three levels of design,
when you're thinking about alternate designs for your app.
>> Yeah. That's right.
And I think you sort of hit the nail on the head when you say,
thinking about all three levels.
Thinking about all three levels really encompasses the heart or
the concept or the conceptual design aspect of your app.
You should really be doing something
that enables a user to do something that they love to do.
And that's really the heart aspect of your app.
Something that I always really enjoy talking about too.
>> Awesome, thank you again for coming in.
I appreciate it.
>> Thank you.