50 Shades of UX Design

The starting point for any design is availability, so how do you leverage AWS foundational capabilities to get a base level of design.

   •  Review regions and basic networking, subnets/zones, load balancers, and direct connect

   •  Explore advanced network with global accelerators and transit gateways

   •  Review basic AWS SLA structure

In the ecommerce world, it is vital to recognize the opportunities for optimization. Do not settle for one website launch, instead focus on the tweaks that positively impact your conversions.

   •  Establish the primary purpose of your experience

   •  Measure performance through tools

   •  Create a culture of continually optimize

Building trust is fundamentally important for the experiences you create. This video looks at how removing checkout options can build trust and increase sales.

   •  Recognize that guest checkout must be clearly available

   •  Payment providers speed up the user’s buying experience

   •  There are many websites that deliver a quality experience by bypassing the traditional checkout

Redesigning should not be made an option as it damages user’s expectations and loses the existing analytics of customer behavior.

   •  Understand of the user is a competitive advantage

   •  Amazon have only redesigned twice

   •  Use optimization tools

In this video, we are going to look at the values that ease-of-use can bring to an organization.

   •  Explore ease-of-use

   •  See where ease-of- use is used

In this video, we are going to be looking at how we can validate and how we can get a strategy in place to make sure that we are regularly testing and improving our design with our end users.

   •  See what validation is

   •  See who the users are

In this video, we are going to deep dive into how we set up a moderated usability test.

   •  Explore usability test

   •  Check the different moderated testing platforms

   •  See the process for usability test

In this video, we are going to be thinking about how we can use and setup this software to allow users to test our products so that we can grab the research and gain insight from it.

   •  See the right questions to ask

   •  See the different unmoderated testing platforms

   •  Analyze the data

In this video, we going to look at the difference between unmoderated and moderated tests.

   •  Choose the right usability testing method

   •  See why it is important

This section provides real-world examples where companies demonstrate the value of creating loyalty. Loyalty is costly not to have.

   •  See how loyalty is a must

   •  Explore the value of loyalty

   •  Learn more about this topic

Displaying trust-building information upfront is critically important, whether you are a website or a restaurant. This practical lesson demonstrates how to list trust-building elements to a web page.

   •  See examples of a real-world trust building

   •  Learn what are things that build trust

   •  Add trust factors into a website

Customers are biased, and they are social people. Leveraging user generated content boosts your conversions.

   •  Discover the power of user research

   •  Understand quantitative research methods

   •  Understand qualitative research methods

For your product, platform, or service to succeed, it must have desirability. This lesson also looks at how psychological principles can be used to build trust.

   •  By adding personalized experiences, users are more likely to trust the platform

   •  Nudge theory allows us architect choices for our users

   •  Desirability in your design always builds trust

This summary lesson explores all the various elements of trust making, and the practical demo finishes by creating a booking form.

   •  Create the steps in a booking form

   •  Add in trust factors

   •  Understand the core concepts of credibility

This lesson introduces the importance of design, and how it cannot be a final consideration in a project.

   •  First impressions count

   •  Design can never be last-minute dressing up

   •  Design is often more critical than content

A user’s first impression to your site can be a deal breaker within seconds. It is therefore important to validate and test the designs to ensure they employ best practice design principles.

   •  Users make a first impression very quickly

   •  It is important to test and ensure that design is appealing

   •  No matter how effective the design, if it loads slow, it will leave a bad impression

This video dives deep into the industry standards for design principles.

   •  Understand the six graphic design principles

   •  Examine different examples of principles in the real world

   •  Grasp the guiding principles of design

A style is an excellent resource your teams can have to organize, standardize, and guide how design should be done in your organization.

   •  Understand what a style guide is

   •  See examples of style guides in the industry

   •  View a demonstration of creating a style guide using Sketch and InVision

These critical ends the section with looking at forms and CTAs for software. These principles are proven to decrease user error and boost form completion rates. By following best practice design, the user experience will improve.

   •  Understand principles of form design

   •  See examples of best practice forms

   •  Learn about designing for mobile screens

Understand what accessibility is and why it cannot be an optional step in your product development life cycle.

   •  Understand the difference between usability, accessibility, and inclusive design

   •  Learn the importance of designing for all users

   •  Know the value of accessibility for your organization

It is important you can become an evangelist and advocate for inclusive design. This lesson looks at examples across the board for how to implement user-centered design thinking into your organization.

   •  Understand how inclusive design is embraced in the public sector

   •  Understand how inclusive design is embraced in the private sector

   •  Examine legislation which highlights

Color is often overlooked in design; however, readability and legibility are important considerations.

   •  Understand the WCAG requirements for color

   •  View a practical example of how to ensure the color contrast is appropriate

   •  Understand basic principles for color accessibility

These two areas play an important role in design.

   •  Select the right typeface

   •  Understand the importance of accessibility

   •  Apply these principles to your work

Assistive technology should never be an after-thought in a digital project. Ensuring that the website, service, or application is accessible is not just important for end-users, but also it benefits the technology.

   •  Understand system-level accessibility for devices

   •  Understand how users navigate

   •  Understand the accessibility holistically

Gain the benefits of regularly testing your website using an array of methods and tools. Continuous improvements lead to an increase in sales and a decrease in support costs.

   •  Understand the benefits of testing your website

   •  Implement methods of testing

   •  Get familiar with the tools best suited for testing

To keep your users, it is important that they can find what they are looking for. Do not cut corners, This lesson introduces information architecture.

   •  Understand why Information Architecture is important to get right

   •  Understand that Information Architecture (IA) involves labels and information.

   •  Good IA combines context, users, and content

This case study is an example of why it is important to have a navigable website.

   •  Learn that innovation is only possible when the users can be leading the process

   •  Understand reasons to invest in good UX for navigation

   •  Best practice for creating a good IA

This lesson explores how findable content must be different from the traditional bricks & mortar experiences we are used to. It then covers a suggested process for doing an IA project.

   •  Understand how to encourage users to self-serve digitally

   •  Understanding the right method to test and validate your IA

   •  More resources for more about IA

Optimal sort’s treejacker is a great platform to test and validate the effectiveness of an IA.

   •  Add your sitemap to the platform

   •  Create test questions and share with your audience

   •  Analyze the results and modify any low-scoring features

Card sorting is a method of logically grouping content with your users. This lesson explores two styles: in-person or using software

   •  Show the groups (open or closed) to the users

   •  Collect all the groups and labels (if provided)

   •  Analyze the results and combine common groups from your users

This section introduces the practical advice for working within project teams. The first stage is to understand stakeholders.

   •  Get the scope and requirements

   •  Get political buy-in, support and make allies

   •  Get a better holistic perspective on the project/ organization

It is very important that UX research and design gets filtered downstream for the developers. These practical steps increase collaboration within multi-disciplinary teams.

   •  Be integrated with your developers

   •  Avoid silos

   •  Let your design be influenced by users and technical teams

It is very important that UX research and design gets filtered downstream for the developers. These practical steps increase collaboration within multi-disciplinary teams.

   •  Share research fully as you go

   •  Work together to optimize the design

   •  Advise your team on how to do usability

When working on your projects, it is important to do them well, and get the problem solved first time. By changing process, you can quickly get the answer right, save money and be more efficient. Lean UX is an excellent methodology to consider for your projects.

   •  Recognize when a project is not being lean

   •  Understand the principles of Lean UX

   •  Appreciate the benefits of Lean UX

As a professional, it is important that you expand your network and tell the story of your projects.

   •  Use the STAR(L) formula to tell the story of your work and projects for potential employers and recruiters

   •  Create effective case studies

   •  Use social media platforms like LinkedIn to be recognized in the UX community

Never be static as a professional, and always do what you can to learn, develop and improve.

   •  Achieve professional qualifications

   •  Listen to podcasts

   •  Read best practice and thought leadership from top blogs