INP 153: Intro to User Experience I

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INP 153 Intro to User Experience I
Lecture 3 Client Needs Competitive Analysis
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Homework

• Remember homework assignments are worth 5 points
  of the final grade each!

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Review homework

• Please take a few minutes to review your first
  assignment, reading the comments I gave you.
• What questions do you have about your grades and
  the comments?

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Review of Important Terms 1 of 2

• Memory systems sensory buffer, long-term memory,
  short-term memory
• Associative learning, muddling, berry-picking
  model
• Visual scan, chunks/chunking
• Top-down vs. Bottom-up Information Architecture
  a good architecture balances the two not one or
  the other!

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Review of Important Terms 2 of 2

• Identifiers (breadcrumbs, icons), feedback
• Organization system
• Labeling system
• Navigation system
• Search system

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Writing effective reports 1 of 5

• When writing an effective report, keep in mind
  that the reader will probably not read most of
  it.
• The report should look professional and be easily
  scanned. The information should be chunked and
  easily referenced!
• Be direct, instructive.

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Writing effective reports 2 of 5

• Use paragraphs to explain, portray, convey a
  story
• Use bullet points when listing points.
• Use bold font when indicating a summary or an
  important piece of advise.
• And underline headers so that it is clear where
  one section ends and another begins.
• Use white space to your advantage!

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Writing effective reports 3 of 5

• Bryan Smith
• How to write better reports
• Introduction
• We write reports to convey information. As such,
  it is important for the report to not get in the
  way of the information! Appropriate use of fonts,
  font size
• Techniques
• There are many ways to improve the quality of
  your reports
• Use bullet points to display lists!
• Use bold and underline to display important
  points or headers
• Use white space, indentation, and paragraph
  returns!

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Writing effective reports 4 of 5

• Not only should you hone your writing skills for
  your professional life, but I expect you to write
  the remainder of your assignments as reports!
• Writing assignments as a report will help you
  focus your ideas and help you discover what you
  know and dont really know by alleviating the
  ambiguity from your writing.

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Writing effective reports 5 of 5

• Use pictures to make points!
• Avoid clip art unless it adds value. Value is
  anything the makes your report more useful. Most
  clip art doesnt do this.

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Why assess client needs?

• You need a context within which you can
  understand how your suggestions will effect your
  client and its customers.
• People are sensitive.
• They also dont like having their routines
  changed.
• They want to know what an outsider can offer that
  will change something they have felt defines
  their organization, their daily life.

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A good start

• If you want learn more about designing in a
  context for other businesses, check out
• Contextual Design
• by Beyer and Holtzblatt

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Understanding the Client 1 of 4

• Become an amateur ethnographer
• Explore the organization. How many employees does
  it have? What is the organizations structure?
• What about the culture of the organization? Who
  shares what with who? Where do people eat/get
  water? What do different groups of co-workers
  talk about?

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Understanding the Client 2 of 4

• Learn about the companies products services?
  How do the users learn about and use these
  products/services?
• Whats the business plan? Strategy plan?
  Handbooks? Quality control systems? Maintenance
  systems? What do the employees actually think
  about these? Do they use these? How/why do they
  use them?

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Understanding the Client 3 of 4

• Who are the companies main customers?
  Competitors?
• What are the companys competitive advantages?
  Weaknesses?
• What artifacts do the employees use? What
  artifacts do the users use to supplement the
  companys products services? Can you build
  on/with them?

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Understanding the Client 4 of 4

• How does innovation work within the organization?

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Make a checklist

• Make a checklist to use while investigating user
  needs.
• Buy a small notebook to take notes in. It should
  be small so that you can carry it everywhere you
  go.

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Class exercise Shipping to Asia!

• What do you need to know to ship to Asia?
• We were hired to create an integrated package
  handling system for a business that ships
  internationally. First thing we will need to do
  is discover more about our client, the companies
  they ship to, and the products they are sending.
• As a class, make a checklist to use while you
  assess the client needs.

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Competitive analysis

• A competitive analysis offers an organization a
  view of its current position and potential
  solutions to improve its future competitive
  position.
• No industry standard, so experience is the best
  teacher

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Conducting a Competitive AnalysisAccording to
SBA 1 of 2

• From the United States Small Business
  Administration (SBA) website. Page titled
  Competitive Analysis
• Who are your five nearest direct competitors?
• Who are your indirect competitors?
• Is your business growing, steady, or declining?

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Conducting a Competitive AnalysisAccording to
SBA 2 of 2

• What can you learn from their operations or from
  their advertising?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses?
• How does their product or service differ from
  yours?

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Myers Competitive Analysis 1 of 3

• From How to conduct a web site competitive
  analysis by Thomas Myer. On the IBM website.
• Home page How informative? How fast does it
  load?
• Navigation Is the global navigation consistent
  from page to page? How consistent are the local
  navigation bars?

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Myers Competitive Analysis 2 of 3

• Site organization Is the sites organization
  intuitive and easy to understand?
• Links and labels Easy to understand? Easy to
  find?
• Search/search results Easy to use? Basic and
  advanced features? Are the results easy to
  understand? Weighted by relevance? Do the results
  provide context? Do the results remind you about
  what you searched for?

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Myers Competitive Analysis 3 of 3

• Readability Is the font easy to read? Are
  sentences/lines too long? Is information
  appropriately chunked?
• Performance Do pages load quickly/slowly? Are
  graphics/content optimized?
• Content Sufficient depth and breadth? Match
  mission of organization and needs of audience?

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Make your own checklist!

• When conducting an analysis, you need to create a
  list of criteria. The two previous sections were
  example lists what else can you add.
• You should procure your list to your client if
  asked. Also, always include your checklist in
  your report! You may need to change the
  formatting to be consistent with your report.

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Competitive analysis the report

• Include an executive summary! One page or less
• Include your criteria methodology.
• Report your findings and recommendations
  separately.
• Include your raw data in appendixes.

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Class exercise WccNet

• You are consulting for WCC. Before delving into
  redesign issues for the school website, we need
  to complete a competitive analysis.
• As a class, lets develop a list of criteria.
  Then, well conduct a brief analysis.

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Good job!

• Competitive analyses are very useful techniques
  to help an organization understand its current
  position.
• You are beginning to pick up professional skill
  sets that will help you in the business world.

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Next time

• No homework due next week!
• You will probably find next weeks readings
  easier.