[HN Gopher] UX Challenges based in the real world
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UX Challenges based in the real world
Author : jrdnbwmn
Score : 81 points
Date : 2021-04-06 11:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (uxtools.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (uxtools.co)
| taylorpalmer wrote:
| One of the makers here. Front page with no comments? Come say hi
| :)
|
| I wish this had existed long before now to help the designers
| I've mentored who are trying to grow their portfolio. While case
| studies are the primary format for UX portfolios, there's nothing
| stopping someone from showcasing other skills with engaging
| exercises like these.
|
| Maybe you're at a job where you're can't frequently be in touch
| with customers. Maybe you're stuck in a role but trying to make
| the switch the UX. Maybe you're studying UX but would like to
| gain a competitive edge. Maybe you're a team lead trying to help
| your team learn new skills. UX Challenges are an invaluable tool
| in any of these situations.
|
| Jordan and I put a ton of time into this--hope you find it
| valuable!
| ttroyr wrote:
| Really helpful projects! Thank you for sharing. The set of
| skills you've highlighted resonate with my UX experience. I
| could see this becoming part of a course in the school system
| where I do UX/UI work and software development.
| [deleted]
| a_c wrote:
| Asking from an engineer perspective, how do we define
| meaningful metrics for designers?
| taylorpalmer wrote:
| This seems like an important question but I admit I'm not
| sure what you mean--are you asking how to measure a
| designer's performance?
| Pazzaz wrote:
| I'm getting annoying flashes on the website every time I switch
| to a new page with the error message
|
| > "Layout was forced before the page was fully loaded. If
| stylesheets are not yet loaded this may cause a flash of
| unstyled content. content.js:84:32"
|
| Seems like a weird thing to happen on a static website. Happens
| on Firefox 87.0, not on Chrome.
| onli wrote:
| There is (at least ;) ) one really good challenge listed: The
| usability test. First, it's surprisingly fun. And second you
| usually get great results. A while back I studied HCI and did a
| usability test of a web project of mine. Testing it with an user
| test was just a small part of the project, but it was a great
| practice. I learned that a lot of the things I considered to be
| easy weren't easy, and the other way around, stuff I thought
| complicated actually worked fine. All while already being aware
| of a lot of design principles, usability knowledge and
| heuristics. But really testing it still uncovered a lot.
|
| Example: That site used browserid as a login. Back when I tested
| that initially it was completely easy. But in the meantime it had
| become persona, and each and every of my testers failed to log in
| with their email address because they did not get directed
| towards my site, but towards the persona account management.
|
| Definitely fun and worth the time investment!
|
| The challenge site for that is listing conflicting views on how
| to do a usability test though. That's not surprising, because
| it's such a broad field with many conflicting views. And it
| shouldn't be surprising that an UX site is not that clear about
| usability (it's not close to the same thing after all). But maybe
| it could be a bit clearer? The site should convey:
|
| 1. The target of an usability test is to collect critical
| incidents, blockers that occur while the user is using an
| app/site.
|
| 2. For those to occur the user has to have a task to finish.
| Usability is about effectiveness and efficiency in a given
| context while achieving a given task. So the user has to have a
| clear task. Don't let him just browse.
|
| 3. Contrary to what some of the linked resources claim, do not
| ask questions like "what would you prefer." That's participiatory
| design or part of user requirement research. Do that in the
| design phase, however yours looks like, not while evaluating
| usability. Instead, observe the critical incidents, ask what he
| thinks when he is blocked/confused, and guide him through
| subtasks if he can't continue on its own. All while keeping notes
| on what happens.
|
| The end result of an usability test is a list of criticial
| incidents: The description of what went wrong ("The user is
| confused; He wants to do X, but the button is not recognised as a
| button, making the task X impossible"), which dialog principle
| was not followed, and optionally a suggestion on how to fix the
| problem ("do not use flat design for buttons").
|
| Would be great if the site would link to exactly one resource
| that correctly describes this. The nielsen article might be the
| best option there, but it's a bit broad and theoretical.
| taylorpalmer wrote:
| Great notes on usability testing. Also one my favorite research
| methods (second to just open interviews, I love broad open
| discussions).
|
| We're always open to new resources if you have any to recommend
| (but we read through a lot and picked a few we thought were
| most useful). We'll take a look at some of the issues you
| mentioned.
| itsdsmurrell wrote:
| Hi :D
| taylorpalmer wrote:
| Hey there!
| ttroyr wrote:
| Very relevant and well laid out! Ideally, in-person, human
| interaction is best for user testing although would be awesome to
| see these projects become immediately accessible for UX-
| interested users to practice with, via e.g. an artificial
| intelligence bot set up to respond to UX-related questions. Or
| even better, users get paired up with another UX-interested site
| visitor over video chat and they are each given a different,
| e.g., card sorting scenario to take the other person through.
| wallwarp wrote:
| Looks like a great resource!
|
| Would love to subscribe to the newsletter but I get redirected to
| app.convertkit...... which asks me to make an account which
| shouldn't be necessary for a newsletter?
| jrdnbwmn wrote:
| That's strange... I don't get that when I test it out (and this
| is the first we've heard of it). Could you email
| team@uxtools.co with more info?
| wallwarp wrote:
| Will do!
|
| Edit: It seems like uBlockOrigin prevented the subscription
| flow from working.
| preommr wrote:
| Somewhat unrelated: Why are so many people are using Zoom for
| user testing? WTF?! What is the point of things like live
| collaboration if people are just going to screen share.
|
| Are people having problems with sharing their projects with
| clients or something?
|
| ------
|
| More on topic/ (original comment):
|
| I'll say something since one of the worst things is putting a ton
| of work into something and getting crickets.
|
| There's clearly a lot of effort put into this. Really like things
| like clearly outlining a scenario, and external links. Not enough
| people remember that the web is supposed to be interconnected and
| build on other resources. I especially like that it's not just
| one site, but a variety of sources like videos as well as
| articles.
|
| But I don't understand why this is presented as a series of
| "challenges". It works much better as a reference that I can use
| to stay up-to-date with the industry. I am not actually going to
| sit down and do "exercises" to make mock survey questions. That
| kind of stuff is useless without context of a real job with real
| parameters, real requirements, real people you can ask to clarify
| their goals.
|
| The website as a whole is an excellent resource for ui/ux.
| Definitely bookmarking. And I hope you continue to push out good
| content like this because it'll make a central authority in a
| pretty big field.
|
| Also, I am really curious what the other countries were in your
| survey. Because that was the largest group of people. Is it
| mostly from asia or something?
| jrdnbwmn wrote:
| Hey Jordan here, one of the creators. Thanks for the feedback
| and questions!
|
| On using Zoom for user testing, I think that's down to having
| to do remote research. I actually just did some tests over Zoom
| last week: had a call, had the user run through certain tasks
| while they screen shared, and chatted with them. It worked
| decently well for not being able to be there in person with
| them.
|
| Totally agree that the web should be an interconnected place
| that builds off of itself!
|
| These can definitely be used as a reference, but our aim is to
| also make them useful (for mostly younger designers) as a way
| to practice skills/methods. Project-based learning is very
| effective and this gives people a way to do that. It's not as
| good as learning on a real job with real data/requirements/etc,
| but the idea is that you can at least get some exposure to
| practicing some crucial skills.
|
| There are LOTS of other countries represented in the survey,
| I'd suggest downloading the raw data to check it out (it's
| free).
| taylorpalmer wrote:
| > Also, I am really curious what the other countries were in
| your survey. Because that was the largest group of people. Is
| it mostly from asia or something?
|
| Good question--it's low numbers spread across like 100+
| countries that we grouped into an "Other" category (but maybe
| that's not clear). You can see those countries in the raw data
| here: https://gumroad.com/l/2020-design-tools-survey
| onli wrote:
| Why is screen sharing a problem? All you want is to observe the
| user using your application or web site while trying to achieve
| a task. When there are critical incidents, you want to notice
| that. So it's important to see the screen and to record it.
| Screen sharing achieves that.
|
| Before covid you could sit yourself next to the user. Now
| that's impossible, so we use remote tools and screen share.
| Either the user using the app on his device. Or, I think you
| describe the scenario where the user controls the testers
| device via shared controls while screen sharing? That's clever,
| that way you can have a testing environment set up without the
| user having to download anything but the screen sharing
| software.
|
| What's your concern there?
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(page generated 2021-04-07 23:02 UTC)