Fireside Chat with Kira from Transpire

It’s general knowledge that over 50% of web activity is now on mobile, meaning mobile design has never been so important. A clear user experience journey is something every company needs when they have a mobile presence. We caught up with Kira from Transpire to get her thoughts, insights and experiences in her career as a user experience consultant in a mobile environment.

‍

First, it’s important to understand the whole context of the project or problem. UXers and Product Designers do this by applying a set of techniques and methodologies to get a complete understanding – it’s about understanding it from all angles – from users’ perspectives, the business/client perspective as well as where that sits within the market. It’s pivotal for any UXer to check desirability, feasibility, and viability. Some user research favourites are, field research, behavioural observations and quantifiable surveys. Once the research has been synthesised and everyone understands the state of play, Kira and her team jump into a collaborative design session to solve a particular problem.

‍

“Once you really understand what the business seeks to achieve it’s about crafting a solution or at times sanity checking an existing solution. This can involve prototyping concepts and testing them with users, face to face with a company like Askable- who have been great to work with by the way!”

‍

With the next financial year in full swing, planning your company’s user experience processes should be in your top priorities. Not only will it help you make better products and services for your users, but customer retainment increases exponentially.

‍

“The companies with established UX departments still have many UX priorities which goes to show that every business and product should be looking at what their user experience is and how they can continue to improve it.”

‍

Validating your designs and doing research isn’t a question for companies anymore. To stay ahead of the game you need to be informed of what said game actually is, and the only way to do that; test, test, test.

‍

Top tips from Kira on running your user test

‍

Knowing your brief

It’s important that everyone included in the process understands what the goal is. What do you want to see as the end result? What’s your hypothesis? What plan do you have and what needs to be tested? It’s valuable to get different opinions on what team members want to get out of this.

‍

Stick to the plan and have a script

Countless times you hear about people going into a user test without some form of a script. Once you’ve created and outlined your goals and hypotheses, creating a script will help keep the user test going in the right direction.

‍

Record your interviews and have a notetaker

Note-taking is essential and it’s important that you have proof of the experience. However, I can’t tell you how valuable it is to have your user test recorded. You can only write notes down at a certain speed, but recording your test means you can visit it at any time – remember to ask permission and have consent forms!

‍

Make sure your products are accessible for disabled users

I can’t explain how important it is for UX designers to make sure that their designs are accessible for all users. We speak about diversity in user tests, but so rarely does that span into accessibility user testing, 1 in 5 people in Australia have some kind of temporary or permanent disability – your sample should reflect this as well. It’s important to keep digital inclusive.

‍