Up next in 10
Discover if UX is Worth it for Your Career & Company || C# Corner
33K views
Oct 30, 2023
We are LIVE ? - Join us as Randy Bapst takes us on a UX journey to discover if you or your company ought to focus more on UX. Agenda: 1. What is UX 2. The ROI of UX 3. UX traps 4. The diversity of the UX field 5. How they can progress in UX ? Event URL : https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/events/discover-if-ux-is-worth-it-for-your-career-company C# Corner - Global Community for Software Developers and IT Professionals ? https://www.c-sharpcorner.com #design #csharpcorner #askmeanything #ux #ui
View Video Transcript
0:00
of doing UX in the right way and the approaches that are out there so that you can support the
0:05
people who are the practitioners of doing the UX and trying to make things better for the
0:10
customers, right? Because they'll need your support, right? If they're trying to tell you
0:14
about these usability heuristics that they're trying to improve the KPIs, key performance
0:20
indicators and whatnot, I'm trying to sort of open your mind to say, oh, that's right
0:26
Randy talked about the ROI. You know, these things can actually bring us value
0:30
They can help us keep customers. They can increase our profits, all right? And so, you know, to me, the customer is king
0:36
I fight for the user, all right? And as long as I'm in an organization
0:40
where the whole company sort of feels that way, that the users are paramount, we're good
0:47
So, Randy, why are you showing two people in a factory? Okay, you're supposed to go out
0:54
and actually see users in the real environment. We're behind our desks
0:57
Actually, a lot of us are at home right now at our desks
1:02
But in times when we can go out, it is good, as a UX research practice, to actually go
1:07
out and see our users in their natural environments. What is the context of everything that they're doing
1:15
Is it a noisy environment? Is it a dangerous environment? Are there bright lights
1:19
Is it dark? When you actually go and see where they are, where they're trying to use your software
1:25
and see the actual interactions, you might notice that people are doing certain workarounds
1:29
or there's certain things that you say, oh, in my application, I could have done this
1:33
So in the UX research realm, it's important to actually go out and see your users
1:39
Now, of course, there's constraints today. People are coming up with all kind of tips
1:43
for if you have to do certain things remotely because we can have limited mobility at the moment
1:48
But the key is not to just be behind your desk. You can't just be an island, right
1:53
You have to go out and make sure I'm seeing how people really do stuff, how they really use my thing, the world they really live in
1:59
And that's not just like how you think it is. Assumptions and getting rid of the assumptions are such a major part of UX
2:07
UX traps. Now, I want to leave enough time for questions. I won't read everything here
2:12
But ego is one of them, right? It's being self-centered, not just like, I don't mean like a greedy form of self-centered
2:18
but like thinking, this is what I like. This is how I like to do it
2:21
I like the color red, so I'll make my website red and I'll make the buttons red
2:27
Okay, you have to think, how will other people perceive that? Not just, you know, everyone who you think of is like you
2:33
but yesterday was a global accessibility day, right? You also have to factor in how people can do if their vision is bad
2:41
their hearing is bad, you know, or other various disabilities, all right
2:46
So that is a whole nother thing that lots of folks are trying to learn
2:50
and specialize in right now. Accessibility, right? Where to start, Randy? It's a whole big world that
2:59
you just presented us. Well, the Interactive Design Foundation has some of the titles here
3:05
There's a lot more titles that people are coming up with. Sometimes, you know, same thing happens
3:10
everywhere, but there's a whole bunch of flavors of titles. Here are some of the branches. So even
3:14
Even if you don't take courses from the IDF, I suggest you take a look at the career paths
3:20
that they have there because it'll help you think ahead. What appeals to you
3:25
Where you want to end up? And if you say, I want to be a UX or user researcher, click on that, you'll see what
3:33
kind of courses they're going to take, right? And you'll say, that's me or that's not me
3:38
That's valued where I am or it's not valued where I am. And that will sort of help get you to be like, okay, so my end goal is that I want to be this
3:46
thing. These are the kind of things I want to learn. And whether or not you take one of their
3:50
courses there, it will sort of help you understand what you need to learn to be that
3:57
Biggest thing I think about UX is ego. You know, you want to try to get rid of
4:02
this is all about me. Even with the survey that I did here, I thought it looked pretty darn good
4:09
And then I showed it to a couple of people and I made some modifications because they said, oh, Randy, you shouldn't just give people a choice of, you know, agree or disagree
4:19
You should add a not sure option. So Meet said, hey, Randy, they're new to UX
4:24
You shouldn't force them into a yes or no. And I was like, fine. All right. Thank you for your feedback
4:28
So a huge part of UX is getting feedback and learning how to take it and provide it without like hurting everybody's feelings
4:35
Because it's just like, we all sort of can sometimes, you know, see our own zone, see things a certain way with our own biases
4:44
And a huge part of UX is just trying to be like, well, what do you think when you see this
4:48
Like, how do you react to it, right? So I did show you a definition by Don Norman of UX
4:57
And I just want to give you a heads up that when you delve into the world of UX, there are going to be some people who are referred to as gatekeepers
5:08
They are meaning to be helping out with UX, but they may have very strict interpretations of how UX is to be done
5:16
And Joe Natoli is a UX leader. And here, you might be surprised by this
5:21
He is saying that nobody owns the definition of what UX is
5:25
no one, including, and especially me. That might seem odd at first for a expert in the field of UX
5:32
to be saying. He's got tons of courses where he's teaching you what to do, but yet he is humbling
5:36
himself to say, do what makes sense for you. Yes, learn a lot. Don't think that you know everything
5:44
Take the courses. Explore things. Try things out where you are. But, you know, don't let yourself
5:50
get defeated if somebody says, oh, what you're doing is not real UX, all right? It's a spectrum
5:57
all right? It's not just an on or an off. There are lots of different heuristics that you can go
6:02
by, tests and best practices, and you'll find what works for you. You'll find folks that resonate with
6:08
you and where you are and what you're doing, and that's great, all right? I just don't want you to
6:13
be turned away from UX if somebody says, oh, that's not UX. You're not doing it right. You know
6:19
the users are the ones who decide whether or not the UX we're doing is right, and the results we
6:24
get there. All right, so like I said, this hasn't really been a UX 101 per se, right? My website was
6:32
created for very talks like this. I said, okay, if I'm going to talk with somebody at a coding
6:37
conference, and I'm going to say, hey, here's this thing called UX, I can't explain everything in an
6:43
two hours or whatever but you know what I want to open the door and say you know
6:49
I've made a source out here and I try to humble myself as well and a lot of the
6:55
stuff here isn't content that I've created I'm linking you out to like
6:59
wonderful sources out there and you know you got your gurus that you can look up to maybe you in a different field right now for career transitions There so many global events right now where you
7:10
can get for free. Like I could have never gone to some of these conferences far away from me
7:14
but right now there's a lot of things online for free or inexpensive. You can attend anywheres in
7:19
the world, right? And after our talk, I'm going to put a section into the Randy's Corner section
7:25
there where I'll try to list out some references based on the questions that people might have
7:31
asked. Because when you're asking me the questions, we'll have limited time. And I do want to make
7:36
sure that I answer them, but I'll stick things into the arranger's corner as far as saying
7:41
okay, people ask this, you know, here's what you need to know about that, or here's the link
7:45
All right. Tons of online learnings, you know, capabilities and whatnot. And so, you know
7:52
I encourage you to check out uxtars.com, you know, and just take a look around, see what suits you, see what you'd like to know and go from there
8:02
And that concludes my presentation. I mean, we have questions now, but that includes Randy, you know, going on and on about his slides
8:13
Indeed, I think there's a lot to be taken away from the first half and 40 minutes of this live broadcast
8:19
You started talking about how your user experience can affect your revenue
8:24
You also talked about user experiences, also sometimes UI, but also it can be a car dashboard or any of the things that you're moving
8:32
A lot involves through the user experience. I think some of the people are really going to love that manager slide
8:38
I think that is something. I almost wanted to say managers, close your eyes
8:43
Don't look. You know, there's a reason when I did the survey, I didn't want personally identifiable information
8:52
So I think that that's a really nice presentation. One thing that, Randy, we would surely like to know is whenever we update any of the product, how do you actually decide which features to add
9:06
I mean, how do you actually validate or reject a hypothesis in order to create a new solution
9:13
How do you actually decide it? All right. How do you actually decide
9:19
Well, that's going to be a big, you know, a lot of people are UX researchers, researchers
9:26
All right. They're trying to say, OK, what are the unmet needs right now? I mean, if you have a live system already, you probably are sitting on a whole bunch of things that you can dig into
9:35
You can see what problems people are having. Right. You can see what calls people are calling in with, needing help with
9:42
And so you're going to want to see what the biggest pain points are and where you can make the biggest impact by making some changes
9:49
So, you know, there's the whole ROI slide, right? And I just had sort of a snippet of that article
9:55
But when you look at that, it will give you a lot of feeling for I will get a benefit for actually doing this
10:02
And, you know, like I said, we all have constraints. I understand that. It's when people try to do any kind of perfection, you know, you may have heard the term ysis paralysis
10:12
And it's like when you're just like, but what would be perfect? Right. And, you know, I think there's somebody says a quote of like perfection is the enemy of good
10:22
All right. So you want to make these things good. You want to know what's good. But, you know, you'll say, OK, what problems are my real, you know, my main users having
10:32
right and so you'll not want to just ask them questions you'll want to do certain usability
10:36
tests so if you're if you're not sure where people are struggling with your website
10:40
you know i almost had a slide in here that said if you're doing ux right it's going to feel like
10:46
you're doing an open book test all right it's going to almost feel like cheating because you
10:51
could just go to your users and watch them right if you're like oh i wonder where people are having
10:55
trouble with the website like just like recruit some users ask give them a job say okay i want
11:01
you to sign up on this website. Okay. I want you to buy a product on this website. Okay. I want you
11:06
to take this action or that. Watch them. See where people are struggling. All right
11:11
That's perfectly makes sense, Randy. One question from YouTube, Bhaskadar goes and asks is
11:18
how to measure that my UX is good? Is there any way to yze it
11:23
Oh, yeah. There's tons of ways to yze it. And the links that I'm going to put into the
11:29
Randy's coffee cup, Randy's UX corner on my website. Later today, I will be putting more
11:35
things in there. The qualitative side of UX research, you know, has tons of different
11:43
ways that you can yze that data. And I could try to summarize everything here now
11:50
but it's like, you know, what kind of mistakes are people making on your websites? Are they not
11:55
using features that you put all this effort into. How do you measure that things are good
12:01
There's another interesting, there's a book called The Lean Startup. The Lean Startup, I love that book
12:10
It talks about all these neat ways where you can measure things. Some websites even do this interesting technique
12:16
which I've never done before, where they put out two versions of the website simultaneously
12:22
And then they just sort of see which ones they get more of the conversion that they want
12:28
Like, so for example, like say they're trying to increase sales of a certain type of product
12:34
They'll make it so that half the users get sent to like one website and half the users get sent to another website
12:39
And then they'll see which one makes the sales increase, right? That is one way to do it
12:43
I've never, I haven't launched two separate versions of my website, but there are companies that go to that extent, right
12:49
And when you're running a test like that, see what they bring up in that book
12:53
is it's good to have it simultaneous because if you were to do it like in January of this year
12:59
versus now, well, yeah, it's really hard to tell. It's like any kind of experiment, right
13:04
A lot of it is the scientific process to an extent, right
13:08
You're trying to have your control variables and trying to make sure that the conclusions
13:13
you're making are accurate. So yes, there is very much a science to that
13:17
It's not all opinion. You're going to have certain goals for the UX things that you're doing
13:22
and then there's lots of ways you can measure them. And on my website, in the Randy's Corner part
13:28
I will be putting some more information regarding that. That totally makes sense, Randy
13:33
I think when you said people do have two versions of the same website
13:38
I think, to add to it, I think Facebook does have it. The way I use Facebook is totally different than my friends use it
13:46
They still do not have those features. Yeah, you know what? and and well what i'll also say there too is like it's interesting because yeah sometimes they'll
13:55
want to test the feature with a smaller audience it's not always just like a true like a b test
13:59
right sometimes they're like hey try this part but we're only gonna like we're only gonna make
14:04
a few of you suffer from it if it bad it like i i mixed in how i feel about that because if okay so here the thing some people are all about like it okay to fail these days and I like well it
14:17
depends on what you mean there right because you're affecting people's real lives with some
14:23
of this technology and if you roll stuff out to production right you know you can have real serious
14:29
impacts on somebody like right if you do something that crashes their phone and they can't make a call
14:33
during an emergency because you just wanted to throw the feature out there and like fail and
14:37
just see how it worked out that's not cool all right so you are going to want to take
14:41
certain test audiences in certain cases and make sure that you do try to make sure those things
14:48
you know are good ahead of time now if you have something less consequential like a post on
14:52
facebook you know it should be a little less life or death and you know maybe that's the way to go
14:57
right because then you're really seeing how things are working in a real live environment
15:00
and the adoption rate. Yeah, I think many people will be able to relate
15:06
with many of this Skype preview option coming and Facebook new version coming
15:10
Facebook new version sometimes doesn't support video broadcasting. And when you can go and actually watch the videos
15:16
Skype preview does not allow you to do group calling in some cases. So I think Skype preview will get us in trouble sometime, right
15:24
Yeah, you raise a very interesting point there. And it has to go back with the expectations
15:29
in the Four Horsemen slide, where if you raise the expectation that software should work a certain way, but somehow you have a
15:35
different version of it, that's kind of funky. Because back when we were so focused on desktop
15:40
applications, we had a situation where people, oh, well, which version of the desktop application
15:45
are you on? Are you on 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4? And the magic of the web was supposed to be like
15:52
everybody's on the same version all the time. There's no worrying about, of course, they have
15:58
different browsers and stuff like that. It's like a whole nother headache. But at least you knew they were on the same version of the website
16:05
But so you're right. You run the risk in a certain case of if making people expect a website will do something
16:11
you tell somebody else, oh, click on that button. They're like, there's no button that does that. So, yeah, no, I think that's, you know, I didn't even pick that up from the Lean Startup book
16:19
but I think you have an excellent observation there. Yeah. So adding to it, Randy, you know, there's a lot of change happening in the field of UI
16:27
and UX. People sometimes work on material UI. And there's a lot of the stuff and different libraries available out there that helps you develop your user experience using different libraries and packages
16:40
So what do you think, Randy, as we go ahead in 2020 and we are looking at an entire new decade
16:46
For some reason, it didn't go well. It didn't start well. What do you think is going to be the next big trend coming forward
16:55
You understate things like I do. It's great. it didn't start as well as it might have oh gosh so what do i think is sort of next for
17:06
for ux and some things to keep in mind one thing that draws does draw me to ux is that like the
17:12
world changes right but people change less i mean people do change right but you're still working
17:17
with certain psychology um that goes there so it appeals to me to learn more about how the human
17:22
mind works. And I know that situations will change, but I can apply some of that to what has changed
17:29
right? I think another thing, you know, I think there's the whole low code, no code movement
17:35
right? And so beyond just that buzzword, it's just possible for people to create certain technologies
17:44
in certain cases where they don't have to know as much about coding, right? But the things that
17:49
that you know about psychology are still going to apply, right? Because, you know, even if you don't have to do some of that coding
17:55
you'll still need that. So there are going to be times where things get blurry, right
17:59
You know, do we need a coder or a designer to do this now that this tool does all these things for us, right
18:04
That'll be interesting to watch. So there will be some blur there in some cases
18:08
but, you know, I always believe, you know, there's that quote. Hopefully I don't get in trouble with Disney
18:14
but they say only the Sith deal in absolutes. I believe that that was the saying
18:20
I think Yoda said it. I'm very much a spectrum type of person
18:25
It's like, it depends, okay? And that frustrates people. Sometimes they want, you know, yes or no, Randy
18:32
And more often than not, I'm like, it depends. Sometimes you want a specialist
18:37
Sometimes you want to do more testing. Sometimes, you know, I think you're going to be fine with somebody who's well-rounded and can do lots of stuff
18:45
So I hope I answered that question for you there. Yeah, that totally makes sense, Randy. And I think taking one of your feedback that you gave during your slides is that you always like to take feedbacks for whatever things that you do
18:59
You even took feedbacks for the forms that you did. You asked a couple of your friends and they asked to approve
19:05
I think we'll take a feedback from it. And I have a small test for you, baby
19:11
Why not? So I'm going to pull the test C sharp corner
19:18
If you can see, if you can see. Can you see my screen
19:22
Oh, you're sharing. Hold on. My screen is still maximized here. I'm in like full presentation mode
19:27
Can you see my screen clearly? It's really blurry. It's so blurry
19:32
I mean, like I can't see anything. Let me go ahead. And in fact, actually, I'll tell you why you have it blurred like this
19:39
Sometimes people have a technique where they blur a screen on purpose. And in usability, they want to see what the eyes are drawn to, right
19:47
Because that's another psychological trick. So you just brought up another example of it is a technique people use to be like, what are the eyes going to be drawn to
19:56
But as far as looking at the site more clearly, was there something that you wanted to dig into
20:02
Yeah, yeah. I'm just going to pull it once again. So that is the new test site that we have built
20:09
I don't see it at the moment. Is it supposed to be up? Yeah, just hang on
20:14
Let me share it now. Maybe we can see now. Okay, yes, I can see that
20:25
And yes, I have given C Sharp Corner some of my feedback in the past. I love to go through websites
20:30
I want to be able to help out developers. I want to be able to help out UX people all around the globe
20:35
Maybe UX isn't for them, but maybe they see the value of UX. And I want to help them meet them where they are, either give them some advice or go through the website, give them a review and help them add value
20:45
And I have done some of that for C Sharp Corner in the past. But what is your question
20:49
How do you want to go about this? OK, so my question is very simple, Ryan
20:54
Yeah, I want to take your feedback. It's what you think is, I mean, you can, of course, you can go ahead and say, hey, it's a good design
21:00
It's being developed. Very good. What do you think is not good in this design
21:04
And how do you think it should be improved? What is one thing that really strikes you if you have your eyes or it stresses you Okay Well what stressing me right now is that the text is going in and out of focus and I sure that not how the website looks to you I trying to see it
21:20
I don't know what is going on with the lens. Well, there's a lot of groups at the top, right
21:26
There's kind of like, it's not a strict rule, but like often you want to sort of see if
21:30
you can keep things around the five mark. I think it goes back to how many fingers we have, which is, you know, about 10, right
21:37
But the five or six is kind of like a magic sort of zone
21:41
So the menu at the top, I would try to categorize things a bit more
21:45
Okay, so you've got the latest videos, right? Latest is good, right? But you will realize that some people want to consume videos in different ways
21:52
They might want to consume it by topic, right? Social media, so much
21:56
You want your website to feel fresh, like, oh, I came to it yesterday, but I came to it today, and something has changed
22:03
You want to keep drawing people back. But at the same time, that's one case, right
22:08
Some people might want to dive into it by topic. So you're going to want to make sure that you give people options for doing things differently
22:15
Now, I see that you have a calendar of events there. And it's great that you have that
22:20
Now, I would hope that somewhere in here you also do have a calendar view, right
22:24
Because why reinvent the calendar? It's not wrong to put it in a list, but some people may want to do it
22:29
And not only that, but you have your calendar of events here. Now, is there a quick way where somebody can put this as a reminder on their calendar when they click on that thing
22:37
You don't have to go there right now. But that's important. Like, I have seen things where it's not easy to add the event to my calendar
22:45
And then I have to add this manual calendar event when I could. It just clicked a button
22:49
All right. So, you know, it's blurring out on me again there
22:54
Okay. Oh, my God. I don't know what's going on. The what
22:59
So, indeed, there is an option, Randy. All right. Great. If you click on that event, you can actually go and save it in your Google Calendar
23:06
I'm not sure if we still have Outlook Calendar, but yes, that's a good, great feedback
23:11
So just to let you know, our team is actually watching this, right
23:14
The developers team is watching it. Oh, yeah. I use Google Calendar all the time. I just happen to say one or the other
23:20
It's like usually there's a button you can click on, and then it gives you an option to add it to your calendar
23:24
And that helps people keep things straight. Now, when you go into the whole time zone thing, that's a big confusion for the world right now
23:32
And on my website, I have a calendar events too. And I'm trying to sort of help solve the whole time zone issue, right
23:38
Because people have missed events because they thought it was in their time zone for stuff
23:43
And that's number one way to get users, tell them when the thing actually is so that they know when it is
23:51
So our viewers, right? So if you have some considerations for showing it in at least a couple of different time zones, that can help
23:59
But that is something that I've struggled with, not here per se, but with all this online stuff
24:04
You don't want to have people pull out their time zone converter and be like, if I add five and subtract
24:11
And I've even seen cases, too, where people don't even put a time zone, right
24:14
And you're like, you know, it's not like we're all in our own little cafe in our own little city right now
24:20
yeah so indeed that are the features that we do have when we click that event maybe that can be
24:27
brought even on the first page so indeed that those feedback does make sense i think the developers
24:33
team is watching and telling me simon you gave us some good feedbacks of the live show
24:37
yeah i give you more feedback but honestly on my side i don't know what's going on it blurs
24:42
it's like the compression keeps changing it's bizarre it may be because of the broadcast yeah
24:47
Yeah, it's playing with my eyes and I think I might need an eye exam after this
24:52
All right. So, Randy, we are moving to, we have almost like 55 minutes done with the live show
24:59
I'll have a couple of more questions and we'll try to wrap it, right? One question that people would like to know is what is your best skill as a UX designer
25:10
and what advice you would like to give someone who's trying to learn the skills
25:14
You have shared different resources in your presentation from where they can go and learn it
25:19
But what are the things that they should learn at the very first place
25:23
Okay. So, of course, I've got my website and I've got a group called UX Stars on LinkedIn
25:28
The world is welcome to join us there. It's always changing. It's good to learn and network from what people are really saying today
25:34
These things can change. People can have new observations having to do with new technologies
25:40
If somebody is going to learn UX, there's free courses out there
25:46
I have a whole e-learning section where you can take a UX course for free. I'm not saying it'll teach you every single thing you need to know
25:53
One of my favorite books that will help you at least realize if UX is for you or not is there's a book called Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug
26:01
It's one of my favorites. It's very informal. It just very much speaks to you, and it'll give you a good sense of, you know, if you're the type of person to dive into this
26:11
And it's not going to teach you everything you need to know about what book is, right
26:15
But it is a great first taste of sort of looking at the world in a different way
26:20
And so, like, read a book like that. I have a whole book section, but that one is a really great sort of eye-opener to everything
26:26
The best skill as a UX designer. I would say the best skill as a UX designer is learning to sort of humble yourself and realize that you have to look, you know, it's important what you think, right
26:41
But it is also important to look outside of yourself for the truth
26:45
I would say that UX is a quest for the truth about how the things that you create will really affect people, right
26:51
It's not just about completing, you know, the project, checking off the box
26:55
You know, if you are going to be doing this and you're going to be a user advocate, you are going to want the truth and you're going to want to find all kinds of ways to investigate and find that out
27:07
That's well said, Randy, that indeed tells the years of experience that you're bringing in this live show
27:14
So that's great to learn, Randy. I think it's time to wrap now
27:19
Any last words that you would say we had in the last 55 minutes
27:23
No, just thank you for having me on. I appreciate working with your website and you guys and Mahesh
27:30
and trying to help make everything better for everyone as things evolve
27:36
Yes, even I tried aligning with you. See you online, folks. Yeah, no, I know
27:40
I almost said something, but all right. I've already had an influence. Great. So just to make sure that the user experience remains same
27:48
from both the host and the guest. It's going to be like that
27:55
All right. I'll see you guys online. All right, Randy. Thank you
28:01
Thank you so much for your time. It was a really incredible session for all the time you have given me
28:07
So from entire C Sharp Corner and its millions of users, I want to thank you for your time and the knowledge you have shared
28:13
We would love to have you back once again on our C Sharp Corner show. Thank you so much
28:17
All right. Have a good day. Bye-bye. Bye-bye
#Business Education
#Education
#Jobs
#Virtual Worlds