Contents

Foreword

About the Author

Introduction: UX Rules the Roost

Your Biggest Advantage

UX Is Not Fonts and Colors

Fundamental Example

The Three Fundamental Corollaries

Example: Save Me?

Bake UX In from the Beginning

Why Developers Don’t Consider UX

Our Projects Are Low-Level, So UX Doesn’t Matter

Marketing Decides Our UX

We Have a UX Group That Does That Stuff

UX Is for the Beret-Heads

Where to Get the Skills

You Can Do This

This Book’s Web Site

And Here We Go . . .

1 Personas

Putting a Face on the User

Creating the Simplest Persona

Adding Detail

The Big Three Details

Business Interaction

Hardware and Software

Grokkability Items

Personality Cues

Personal Essay

Using Personas

Succeeding with Personas

2 What Do Users Want? (and Where, and When, and Why?)

We’re Not Programming Yet

But Users Don’t Know What They Want!

Finding Users to Examine

Interviewing Users

Observing Users

Explaining It to the Geeks

Storytelling

Writing Stories

Interview and Story Example

3 Sketching and Prototyping

Prototyping: The Wrong Way to Start

Starting with a Good Sketch

Mockup Tool Example: Balsamiq

Showing Interaction through a Storyboard

Demonstrating through Live Action

4 Testing on Live Users

Testing Constantly, Testing Throughout

Why Isn’t Testing Done?

Start Testing Early

What We Learn from UX Testing

Finding Test Users

Compensating Test Users

Test Area Design and Setup

Using a Moderator

Task Design and Description

Watching and Debriefing

User Testing Example

The Last Word in Usability Testing

5 Telemetry and Analytics

The Guessing Game Era

Telemetry as a Solution

Evolution of Telemetry

Permission and Privacy

Selecting a Telemetry Provider

What to Track

Telemetry Example

Suggestions for Telemetry Today

Getting Telemetry Wrong

6 Security and Privacy

Everything’s a Trade-off

Users Are Human

What Users Really Care About

The Hassle Budget

Respect Your Users’ Hassle Budget

A Widespread, Real-Life, Hassle Budget Workaround

Case Study: Amazon.com

Securing Our Applications

Understand Our Users’ Hassle Budget

Start with Good Defaults

Decide, Don’t Ask

Use Your Persona and Story Skills to Communicate

Strengthen Your Stories with Data

Cooperate with Other Security Layers

Read a Good Book

Bury the Hatchet

The Last Word on Security

7 Making It Just Work

The Key to Everything

Start with Good Defaults

Remember Everything That You Should

Speak Your Users’ Language

Don’t Make Users Do Your Work

Don’t Let Edge Cases Dictate the Mainstream

Don’t Make the User Think

Don’t Confirm

Do Undo

Non-Undoable Operations

Have the Correct Configurability

Lead the Witness

8 Case Study: Commuter Rail Mobile App

Pity the Poor Commuter

Current State of the Art

Step 1: Who?

Step 2: What (and When, and Where, and Why)?

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Story 4

Step 3: How?

Step 4: Try It Out

Step 5: Telemetry Plan

Step 6: Security and Privacy Plan

Step 7: Make It Just Work

Start with Good Defaults

Remember Everything That You Should

Speak Your Users’ Language

Don’t Make Users Do Your Work

Don’t Let Edge Cases Dictate the Mainstream

Don’t Make the User Think

Don’t Confirm

Do Undo

Have the Correct Configurability

Lead the Witness

9 Case Study: Medical Patient Portal

A Good First Try

Current State of the Art

Step 1: Who?

Step 2: What (and When, and Where, and Why)?

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Step 3: How?

Step 4: Try It Out

A Quick Speculation: Health Coach Mobile App

Step 5: Telemetry Plan

Step 6: Security and Privacy Plan

Step 7: Make It Just Work

Start with Good Defaults

Remember Everything That You Should

Speak Your Users’ Language

Don’t Make Users Do Your Work

Don’t Let Edge Cases Dictate the Mainstream

Don’t Make the User Think

Don’t Confirm

Do Undo

Have the Correct Configurability

Lead the Witness

Index