
2015

In this week's UX Power Up, Frank covers the not so widely discussed topic of personas as roles. Using personas for UX design goals requires you to think of your users by their role, not their demographic data. Frank provides some tips for how to work with your personas so they are more functional in your user advocacy process.
Transcript below...
Hi Frank Spillers here founder of Experience Dynamics and it's time for this week's UX Power Up! So, today's topic is Empathy Mapping...
Empathy mapping is one of the design research techniques that you can do very easily and its purpose is to help you gain that 'walk in the user's shoes', to gain that perspective from their eyes and it achieves this by having you map out in sensory language- so what the user is thinking, feeling, hearing, saying and things they are doing. It's about bringing that experience in concrete terms with their statements or their thoughts and feelings- remembering their pain points, things that motivate them as well- their gains are good to have on that empathy map.

Many of our user experience consulting clients often ask us if they can or should moderate usability tests sitting next to the user. The most common questions include:
1. Can I sit next to the user during usability testing? Yes, absolutely. Though there is no methodology rule for sitting next to the user during the test. The reason you would sit next to them is to provide more intimacy, or "hands on" moderation. In other words to make the user feel more comfortable.
2. Do I have to sit next to the user during the usability test? Not necessarily. Our usability labs are designed so that you do not have to sit next the user if you choose not to. This is really a moderator preference. We find it is easier to use our intercom system to communicate with the user, leaving them to work alone on their tasks. There is less chance of moderator stress or participant bias this way.
In this week's UX Power Up, Frank discusses a Lean UX tactic for developing rapid wireframe ideas...the Design Studio. Design Studios help teams cross-pollinate, but they have a downside too...
Transcript below...
Hi Frank Spillers here, Founder of Experience Dynamics and its time for this week's UX Power Up. In today's UX Power Up, I'd like to talk about Design Studios. So Design Studios are not places where you go to design in a UX studio or something, they are actually just a term that's come from Lean UX- an efficiency methodology and approach to developing better user experiences.
The Design Studio is basically a collaborative workshop. What we do in Design Studios is a collaborative workshop with stakeholders and so you might include developers, designers, you might include Directors and in smaller companies more senior management roles.

Here's a new infographic hot off the Experience Dynamics press, highlighting the importance of Mobile UX, user switching behavior, the cross-channel experience, mobile shopping, video, mobile search, content (blogs, email), app performance and UX measurement. We created this to kick-off the launch of a new service aimed at helping you take the ROI of UX to the bank. Learn more here: www.uxmeasure.com
Source links are the bottom, for your convenience. There are some exciting and powerful stats here! Feel free to share (please share this original link: https://www.experiencedynamics.com/blog/2015/03/30-ux-statistics-you-sho...