Communicating User Research Findings

“No one reads reports!”
“PowerPoint must die!”
“Conveying user research findings so people can understand them, believe them, and know how to act on your recommendations can be challenging.”
We’ve all read monotonous reports and struggled to remain awake during boring presentations, but must all deliverables be interminably dull? Conveying user research findings so people can understand them, believe them, and know how to act on your recommendations can be challenging. And providing enough detail without boring your audience is a difficult balance. But there are some best practices in communicating user research findings that can make them more effective—and even entertaining.

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/02/communicating-user-research-findings.php

TED BLOG

10 tips on how to make slides that communicate your idea

—From TED’s in-house expert

Aaron Weyenberg is the master of slide decks. Our UX Lead creates Keynote presentations that are both slick and charming—the kind that pull you in and keep you captivated, but in an understated way that helps you focus on what’s actually being said. He does this for his own presentations and for lots of other folks in the office. Yes, his coworkers ask him to design their slides, because he’s just that good.

http://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better-slide-decks/

Line25

Inspirational Showcase of UI/UX Design Presentations

Taking the time to present your work to clients or to simply display the project in your portfolio can drastically increase its value and really show off the hard work and expertise you’ve put into it. Today’s post showcases a bunch of designers who have produced some wonderful presentations for their UI/UX projects. These inspirational case studies give you a detailed insight into the project development and give a walkthrough on how the app works. Be sure to click through each one to see the full picture!

http://line25.com/articles/inspirational-showcase-of-uiux-design-presentations

Presentations

Group Project

We will begin with the group presentations. Each group will have up to 25 minutes to present the results of their Client | Competitor | User research.

Individual Projects

After the Group Project presentations we will move on to the individual project presentations.Each group will have approximately 25 minutes to present the results of their Client | Competitor | User research.

Keep in mind you are creating presentation decks not writing research papers. Images and text should be combined in a visually appealing way to create an interest in the viewers. You are also being judged based on how you present not only on the deck you create. You are trying to sell your ideas to the attendees.

Presenting Your Work to Executives: 8 Tips for UX Designers

by Stef Miller

https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/07/28/presenting-your-work-to-executives-8-tips-for-ux-designers/

Get your next UX job—Create a killer sample deck

For those of you who are interested in getting a job or an internship in UX

http://vitamintalent.com/vitabites/get-your-next-ux-job-create-a-killer-sample-deck

Personas

This is another article that offers clarification on the use of personas.

The persona method has developed from being a method for IT system development to being used in many other contexts, including development of products, marketing, planning of communication, and service design. Despite the fact that the method has existed since the late 1990s, there is still no clear definition of what the method encompasses. Common understanding is that the persona is a description of a fictitious person, but whether this description is based on assumptions or data is not clear, and opinions also differ on what the persona description should cover. Furthermore, there is no agreement on the benefits of the method in the design process; the benefits are seen as ranging from increasing the focus on users and their needs, to being an effective communication tool, to having direct design influence, such as leading to better design decisions and defining the product’s feature set (Cooper, 1999; Cooper et al, 2007; Grudin & Pruitt, 2002; Long, 2009; Ma & LeRouge, 2007; Miaskiewicz & Kozar, 2011; Pruitt & Adlin, 2006).

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/personas

Most Common Deliverables in UX Design

UX work happens in many different contexts, from very lean startups that employ Agile methodologies and embrace little documentation, to consulting engagements for third-party clients, all the way to large corporate or government environments with strict process and documentation requirements. What unites these very different work environments is the need for UX professionals to communicate design ideas, research findings, and the context of projects to a range of audiences. Though we often communicate our work in conversation with others, deliverables help us document work for discussion, presentation, implementation, and later reference.

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/common-ux-deliverables/

Based on some of the feedback I have received the number of assignments that are responsible for may not have been clear.

Group Assignment:

Create two (2) Personas and two (2) Scenarios (this would be one scenario for each persona).

Individual Assignment:

Create two (2) Personas and two (2) Scenarios (this would be one scenario for each persona).

UX Deck Examples

These are examples of some of the decks created in last semester’s UX/UI Design class.

Steve Asfall

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7618538/COMD3562%E2%80%94UX%20Design/CUNY-COMD3562-Final_Presentation_Steve_Asfall.pdf

John Bhatia

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7618538/COMD3562%E2%80%94UX%20Design/CUNY-COMD3562-Final-Presentation-john-bhatia.pdf

Thomas Ma

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7618538/COMD3562%E2%80%94UX%20Design/CUNY-COMD3562-Final-Presentation-ThomasMa.pdf