This is the first course in a two-course workshop, in which you will deeply explore and practice every phase of the user experience process. While the concepts covered will translate to many kinds of interactive media (apps, digital kiosks, games), our primary focus will be on designing contemporary, responsive websites. This course is focused on the early UX challenges of research, planning, setting goals, understanding the user, structuring content, and developing interactive sequences. In this course you will complete the first half of a large scale project—developing a comprehensive plan for a complex website—by defining the strategy and scope of the site, as well as developing its information architecture and overall structure. Along the way we will also discuss: - Different job descriptions in the web design industry and where UX and UI skills fall within this spectrum - The difference between native apps and websites - The difference of agile vs. waterfall approaches - User personas and site personas - User testing The work and knowledge in this course continues in the last course in the UI/UX Design Specialization, Web Design: Wireframes to Prototypes, where you will tackle—finally—wireframes, visual mockups, and clickable prototypes.
Strategy: Alyson and Bradley
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來自 California Institute of the Arts 的課程
Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture
1 個評分
從本節課中
Asking Good Questions: Determining Strategy
This week is all about strategy. We will talk about how to conduct research in the beginning of a project. And I will tell you about the importance of defining a target audience for your website. We’ll also discuss how to determine user needs and client needs. The strategy that you develop in this first step in the UX process will influence all decisions you make further down the line. That’s why it’s so important to take the time and think about what you want to accomplish, what the goals are, and how they might be measured when the project launches.
與講師見面
Roman JasterVisiting Faculty, Program in Graphic Design
School of Art
We're back talking about strategy this week.
So, we'll talk about target audience,
personas, client needs, and user needs.
Alison, let's start with you.
You're doing an upscale Italian food catering business,
catering for businesses too in suburban Santa Clarita.
Tell us a little bit more about your target audience.
So, for the roles that I was thinking of that would encounter
with my catering business were office assistants who would place the order,
executive positions that would be the decision maker and would see the website,
and business owners, who might be doing both of those things.
Placing the order directly..
Placing the order directly.
But also being able to make the decision.
Yes. Sourcing for demographics,
it might be somewhat more women than men.
Education would probably be college education or higher.
Occupations would be office managers,
secretaries, administrators, and small business owners.
I was thinking that the target age range would be somewhere from early 30s to upper 60s.
The people that are working.
Maybe not like right out of college,
but someone that's gotten up the ranks a little bit.
A little more seasoned in their careers.
The location was suburban Santa Clarita area.
In terms of your psychographics?
So, in terms of psychographics,
for personality and attitudes,
I was thinking professional,
classy, and attention to detail.
Their values will probably be moderately conservative.
Why's that?
Just based on the political demographics of this area.
I think also possibly the age range.
They probably value safety, and also team-building.
In terms of lifestyles, probably very family-oriented.
Probably the type of people that would want to take their family on vacations,
and go to Dodgers games in LA.
So, some of this, you're assuming.
Yeah.
They'll probably be people that are liberal and you know maybe really young,
and they don't have a family but it doesn't mean
that your core audience can't be described in those terms.
Cool. Let's go onto the user personas.
We have them here.
So, in terms of user personas,
I tried to match it up with the roles that I set in my target audience.
So, Rachel Hernandez is
an office manager and she loves throwing holiday parties for the office,
and treats her coworkers like a second family.
Then I had Ethan Pang who was a business owner for a small marketing startup here in
Santa Clarita so the office would probably be around like 20ish workers.
I imagine that he would like to impress the bigger clients during meetings and accounts,
and to do grand project wrap ups,
just to impress his clients.
Then my third person was Michelle Sage who is a nonprofit communications director
and she organizes and plans events to raise money and
donations for nonprofits in Santa Clarita during the holiday season.
And again, these people don't exist, do they?
No, these are all-
You made them up.
- people that I made up, but based around research that I did about Santa Clarita.
The area and stuff.
Yeah.
You went into some of them quite in detail.
So Bachelor in Communications from CSUN, very specific.
But you just kind of gave them a life of their own so that they're believable.
Yeah, I wanted to flesh them out so I could imagine seeing them
actually clicking through the website and how they would maybe react.
Who are these people in the pictures?
These are people that I found online on Unsplash.
Let's look at that a little bit because that might be a question for many pictures,
for students on Coursera.
How do I get pictures that I'm able to use?
So, there's a website called Unsplash.
Tell us a little bit about that.
So, Unsplash is all copyright-free images that you can use on projects,
and you can just search up any keywords or terms so I
looked up office manager or business.
It's also good quality photos too.
Yeah.
It's curated.
Yeah, they're all curated.
So, here's some office managers or I don't know,
images that are tagged as such, he's having fun.
They're all free to use.
They're oftentimes not, I mean,
granted for office managers you get some stocky photography,
but some of them is actually quite,
it doesn't feel like so stock photography.
Yeah, pretty good quality.
Cool.
Good site, good site.
Let's move on to your user needs and client needs. Yeah, go ahead.
So, for my user needs the website needs
to enable users to find out if the restaurant delivers to their area,
order online, if they can customize the catering for the event,
schedule their event weeks in advance,
estimate how much it will cost for the event.
And I thought it'd be helpful for them to see
past order histories in order to help them plan for
future events and also be able to
contact someone with questions or issues about the order.
Because it's not a business model
that you have for your website where you do one order and it's just for lunch,
it comes in half an hour, and that's it.
It's like something that you're planning for and the stakes are pretty high.
Yeah.
So, asking someone these questions,
that's pretty important for something that you're throwing for your entire office.
Also, this scheduling orders weeks in advance.
I guess you're never going to schedule a catering order for this afternoon.
So, it's always some lead time.
In terms of client needs?
In terms of client needs,
it should be able to sell food online that'll be delivered,
provide a system for order customization,
appear professional and sophisticated,
communicate reliability, and upscale.
Sophistication, reliability, upscale.
Let's move on to you.
So, back to 'Pokefresh' the Hawaiian Poke restaurant in Westwood, California.
So, for target audience,
again, late-night partiers and late-night studiers.
Because it's only open at night. That's your twist?
Yeah, the twist, and also it's kind of a tension between
partier and the studious, people on campus.
Also, poke lovers who are looking for affordable poke in the city,
and also people who've never even eaten it before that are
open to trying new foods. I would say those are kind of the roles.
Because not everyone has eaten raw fish or poke before.
It's like an intro to it.
The source demographics go 18 to 30 year olds,
pretty young crowd, young area.
College students, also single people,
just like anyone who's living in the city in an urban environment.
They might be married but most of them aren't
because they're still in college so we kind of know that.
Yeah. Limited income, it's on the cheaper side and in the city, basically.
As far as psychographics go,
probably adventurous, youthful, snarky, college.
What do you mean by snarky?
I don't know. Just college added some 'tude', possibly.
Tude?
As far as values go,
liberal, more open-minded people.
Yeah.
I guess, like an open-minded people,
it's going to, maybe not exactly like.
Yeah, I think there's a yin and yang going on.
It's like young people, old people.
Yeah.
Okay.
As far as interests go and lifestyle, active people,
people like to hang out with friends and the studious and the partiers.
Which can be on opposite sides of the spectrum. But sometimes-
They don't have to be.
Sometimes, they're both.
Yeah. Not everyone's always,
there's not that attention all the time, yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
Do you have some fun with your personas?
I did, yeah.
I Was thinking about who would go to UCLA,
who are the two examples students as far as the studios and the partier goes.
So, thinking of like, Chad Glover,
18-year-old guy, who likes to party,
came to UCLA because it's in California,
by the beach versus Jenna Sawyer who's more studious,
stays up late studying versus Chad.
He likes to party, has perfect GPA,
likes to work hard,
and then Arshia Zadeh,
who's a foreign student,
who's at UCLA for Aerospace Engineering,
who's open to trying new things.
Because he's never had poke?
He's ever had poke before versus Chad and Jenna, who may have.
So, a wide range of students.
Yeah. So, in general,
looking at your personas,
they exemplify your main target audiences.
So, for you, it made sense you have these two stud- well, anyway three, right?
Someone who's never tried it than someone who's the partier and someone
who's the serious student?
So, those are the ones you picked?
Yeah. Yeah.
Makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Now, going forward, you can say, "Well, what will Jenna say?"
Yeah exactly.
Studious person. If it ever comes up a decision that needs to be made,
you can go back to these personas that are fake,
but enable you to talk about your target audience in
a specific way rather than a nebulous?
Yeah. I also feel like I know these people too.
Yeah.
By knowing the demographic.
Yeah, I definitely know couple of Chads.
Yeah, also going on to strategy, user needs.
I think that website will have to enable the user to find out
if the restaurant delivers to their area, definitely super important.
Ordering food online also pretty integral.
Finding out if the restaurant is open,
customize the order or pick out from a list of favorite bowls.
Be functional for the inebriated,
so big buttons, easy to navigate.
Because they might have been partying too hard?
Because who knows? Provide a solid mobile experience
to those people who access the site for mobile device,
so that's also really important. You're on your phone.
Because this is not something you plan.
Yeah.
It's two O'clock in the morning,
I'm hungry, I want my food now.
Right, yeah.
Different from Alison, where it's like,"Oh,
in two months, it's Christmas.
You need to get some pasta for our crew."
Yeah. Super like on time.
Following the order after it's been in placed,
you can watch your order.
Since it's local, because this is coming from Westwood Village to UCLA.
You want to know how much longer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You want to know where to pick it up and stuff too.
But as far as the client's needs goes, I think really,
the website needs to enable the client to sell the food online to be delivered.
But also to provide a system for order
customization since that's such an important aspect.
Communicate fast service, definitely also important.
Affordability and also to communicate freshness since we're
talking raw fish that needs to be pretty fresh.
But also like cool fresh too.
Yeah.
It also you got to explain what poke is to
people whose never eaten it since people might not be familiar.
I think, all of those are pretty important things, so.
Some of them are different from Alison's's concerns?
Yours, like the question,
is the restaurant open?
The user need is the restaurant open,
you scheduling it two months in advance, weeks in advance.
For you, it's like is it open right now.
Yeah.
Right, it's not open all the time.
It's only open at night.
At night, yeah.
Then, the mobile experience,
it could be said that maybe not that many people are going to
do a catering order online or on a mobile device.
Not that it shouldn't work but it's not the target technology.
Yes.
Or somebody computered.
They'll be at their office on an actual desktop computer. Cool.
Yeah, where as yours will be out and about.
Yeah.
Or, like have an essay on their laptop and they need to order on their phone.
Yeah.
So, question.
How do you come up with this information?
These user needs, these clients needs,
what's the strategy that you employ to get to this list? Can you talk about that?
Yeah. I mean, you have to think in the shoes
of the client but also as a person who might be using it.
I think being familiar with the area is
also important like knowing the psychographics and stuff.
Yeah.
To know the kind of people that would use it.
Yeah, exactly. Like being familiar with the personas that you created and to think how
they would probably think and break it down into very specific steps.
It's a lot of common sense and everyone has.
It's like, "Oh, these are students.
What are students like?"
"Oh, students study, students party.
That makes sense for my-" Then,
you go down the road and you then create, "Oh,
if a student parties,
then maybe they drink alcohol so my website should
probably work really about even though you might be drunk?"
Yeah.
There's like a cause and effects.
Yeah. There's certain challenges with certain people, I guess.
So, on this question about how do you create this strategy,
properties, looking at your target audience there's
certain properties that will directly translate into a need.
So Bradley for you,
we were just talking about that they like
party or might be drunk and then you have the need of we
have to have a very clear simple navigation for people that might have drunk too much,
but there are other things here on your list that say, they're single also.
Does that translate into a specific needs?
Yeah.
Maybe, maybe not, and that's okay.
So, I guess something to mention,
for the Coursera students is that
not every piece that you write down for your target audience will
necessarily translate into a user or a client need but they might come
in into play later down in the process.
It might influence something visual or
they might influence the way the language works on the website.
What language to employ?
Yours is actually snarky and youthful,
your personality and attitude that you comes in-
That informs.
Yeah. That informs some of the graphic language later on in the project.
Then lastly, there were a few client needs and user needs that you had,
Bradley, that you took out?
Right.
There was one, you said to provide a clean and easy access to website
content and we took that out or you took that out because?
Yeah. It just seems like the inversion of that.
It's like why would you even choose to do that? Like a messy-
Right. The inversion would be,
"We want it to be messy and hard."
Yeah, which doesn't make sense for the prompt. Yeah.
Then, a user need you had,
have an easily viewable menu?
It's the same thing, yeah.
Why would you make it not easily viewable?
So, in a way,
some things go without saying
Without saying, yeah.
Although, when you're working with real clients, sometimes,
they keep talking about like, "I want it to be easy.
I want it to be easy." So, maybe you put it on the list-
Yeah.
So that they're happy and they're like, "Oh."
But most, I mean,
there are not many examples of websites where people go like,
"Oh, I wanted to make it really hard for the viewers."
Like an esoteric menu or something like that.
Yeah. Don't come across projects that much because,
I mean, that's what user experience design is about.
It's taking out the friction and making it easy for the user.
It's at the heart of the discipline.
Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
