Ah, The Happy Path
When it comes to good user experience, we always design around the happy path. After all, it's the closest to ideal way of traversing through our product. It's what we envision the users want, need, and will use. In reality, the happy path is elusive and doesn't predict the users' behavior. In recent years, I've learned to take a holistic approach to user experience design. Not just listening to users, it also means observing their behavior and understanding that they don't use the product as a final destination. It's taking into account what they do before, during, and after to understand where the design might fit in a truly meaningful experience. Only then may the happy path possibly be stumbled upon.
About Me
I'm a User Experience Architect currently working at Cars.com on a dedicated mobile apps team. I hold a Master's in Information Architecture from Illinois Institute of Technology and design and facilitate online web design online courses. I have recently completed a contributing chapter to a forthcoming intercultural communications textbook. And, after dabbling with amateur photography for years, I've finally taken a first course.
What inspires me daily, even if it has little to do with IA:
The Selby
Sartorialist
The Happiness Project
Design Milk
Zen Habits
Information is Beautiful
HBR.org
Where Do I Fit In?
With a background in computer science and information architecture, I have forayed into mobile interaction design and quickly learned that user experience is distilled into the essential when the screen is small. I now regard interaction design in a new light and appreciate the complexity in minimalism.
User Research and Testing
As part of working on an Agile core team, I've been experimenting with continual user research within and outside the product discovery. Techniques include:
- Contextual inquiry
- Remote usability testing
- Participatory design
- Surveying and prioritization exercises
- Mobile user testing (Android, iPhone, and iPad devices)
I've also been particularly interested in synthesizing the results in a quick but meaningful way. Some of techniques include: old-fashioned note taking and debriefing, KJ-Technique, and using mind-mapping for note taking. I'm in the process of comparing and contrasting.
What's Next?
I'm hoping to take what I learned in user testing and note taking techniques and socialize it within the larger UX community, either in publication or presentation format. I'm also working on measuring user experience more scientifically in the form of key performance indicators and metrics.