Nielsen Full day training course offered at Usability Week Las Vegas
Complex Applications and Websites: Day 3
Day 3 of this course covers how to deal with special challenges that complex systems bring to information architecture, navigation, content and terminology, and visual design. The course also explores additional interaction design patterns, data analysis and research techniques for testing patterns, how to create effective style guides, and ways to communicate designs in lieu of traditional specifications (which don’t work here). An end-to-end case study demonstrates how to apply this course’s processes and techniques throughout a project’s lifecycle.
Course Topics
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Information Architecture and Navigation: Common Challenges and Solutions
- Scaling navigation: How deep should the rabbit hole go?
- Moving between multiple software modules or websites
- Getting started
- Adaptive dashboards
- Accessing metadata
- When wizards aren’t enough
- Supporting incremental learning
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Content and Terminology
- Guidelines for content in complex applications and websites
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The importance of all those little words
- Labels
- Titles and headings
- Button names
- Link style
- Help
- Applying domain-expert terminology
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How to test content and terminology
- Which techniques are best
- Key questions to ask
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Online repositories for design and development (aka Keeping your patterns, personas and design research data handy)
- “Living Specifications”
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Style guides
- Business value for complex systems: Why style guides are critical
- Incorporating patterns into Interaction Style Guides
- Content Style Guides
- How to create and implement style guides
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Testing Tools and Techniques:
- Testing considerations with patterns
- Identifying new patterns in user testing
- Keeping track of your user testing results and potential patterns
- User testing findings driving pattern development
- Testing the appeal of your user experience
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Visual Design
- Role of brand in complex situations
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Applying brand elements to data-rich environments and avoiding usability problems
- The squint test
- Color, affordances and visual cues for data tables and complex displays
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Interaction design patterns for complex situations:
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Social Web for business and consumers
- Promoting and managing content on social platforms
- Communicating non-typical user status and profile details
- Streaming content and activity displays
- Software as a Service (SaaS) considerations
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Social Web for business and consumers
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Communicating designs
- Why traditional specifications don’t work
- “Living Specifications” and alternative approaches
- Why and how to make friends with your developers
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Project lifecycle for designing complex applications and websites
- Case study: End-to-end lifecycle of applying processes and techniques
- Considerations for Agile
- Considerations for Waterfall
Format
The course is mainly in lecture format with a couple group exercises to reinforce the learned principles and guidelines.
The course also includes:
- Dozens of interaction patterns for your pattern library
- Real-world examples and case studies
- Opportunities to ask questions and get answers
Companion course
This course is a companion to Complex Applications and Websites 1 and Complex Applications and Websites 2. To learn the topic in depth, we recommend that you attend all days, but each is structured to offer a valuable single-day experience.
Instructors
John Morkes
John Morkes is Co-Founder and Principal at Expero Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the definition, design and usability of user experiences for complex applications and websites. Morkes leads the User Research and Usability group at Expero. Morkes has worked as a usability engineer for Sun and HP and as a journalist for Wired and R&D Magazine. He received a Ph.D. from Stanford University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University. He has presented tutorials at Nielsen Norman Group conferences since 2000.
John Morkes is Co-Founder and Principal at Expero Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the definition, design and usability of user experiences for complex applications and websites. Morkes leads the User Research and Usability group at Expero. Morkes has worked as a usability engineer for Sun and HP and as a journalist for Wired and R&D Magazine. He received a Ph.D. from Stanford University and master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University. He has presented tutorials at Nielsen Norman Group conferences since 2000.
Lynn Pausic
Lynn Pausic is Co-Founder and Principal at Expero Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the definition, design and usability of user experiences for complex applications and websites. Lynn leads the User Experience Design practice at Expero. Lynn has worked with companies of all sizes from many industries to design hundreds of successful user experiences. Lynn holds a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University. Lynn has presented tutorials at Nielsen Norman Group conferences since 2006.
Lynn Pausic is Co-Founder and Principal at Expero Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the definition, design and usability of user experiences for complex applications and websites. Lynn leads the User Experience Design practice at Expero. Lynn has worked with companies of all sizes from many industries to design hundreds of successful user experiences. Lynn holds a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University. Lynn has presented tutorials at Nielsen Norman Group conferences since 2006.