Information Architecture & User Experience Bootcamp

Description

Information Architecture & User Experience Bootcamp is a one-day course that teaches basic User Experience skills and techniques for developers.  Topics covered are Interaction Design, Web Issues, Usability Testing, User Research and major benefits of User Experience design. 

Examples and exercises are drawn from web sites, web, desktop and mobile applications.  However, the skills taught are commonly utilized in design of products for all software platforms, from mobile and phone applications through kiosks and larger interactive spaces.

Upon completion of this course, you should: 

  • Understand approaches and techniques used by Information Architects and interaction Designers.
  • Understand both the advantages and the main pitfalls of each technique.
  • Have completed exercises in wire framing, personas and other User Experience and Usability procedures.
  • Know approaches and solutions to specific situations that User Experience professionals and developers may face.  For instance, we will examine a way to make pagination easier to use and discuss the use of the back button in a rich internet application model such as AJAX.
  • Know usability and accessibility considerations for situations such as page layout and choosing the proper interactive object.
  • Know specific methods to find additional research in these areas.

Target Audience:

Business Analysts, Developers, Managers, Product Owners, Junior User Experience Professionals; anyone who wishes to learn basic User Experience skills. 

Course Objectives:

To introduce students to the goals and benefits of User Experience Design and techniques to achieve them.
To provide students with a toolset of techniques to draw on when creating or evaluating software.
To provide students with recommendations and solutions to specific problems faced by Interaction Designers, Usability Engineers and Developers.
Provide clear references and the skills to gather additional information.

Course Length

5-hour course
This is a lecture-lab course in which topics are presented by the instructor.  Practice techniques are completed by students during the class.

Course Outline

Unit 1: Benefits of Information Architecture and User Experience

Unit 2: Communicating Design: Wire Frames

  • Purpose
  • How to read and create wire frames
  • Wire framing exercise
  • Shortcomings and alternatives
  • Creating Complex wire frames: How does Amazon do it?

Unit 3: Communicating Interactivity: Storyboards and Prototypes

Unit 4: Requirements and Specifications

Unit 5: What should we learn about our Users? User Research

Unit 6: Personas: Creating Convincing Personas from User Research

  • Exercise: Translating personas into design

Unit 7: Usability Testing:

  • What to look for in a usability test
  • Guidelines and tips for effective testing

Unit 8: Finding Usability Research

Unit 9 Interaction Design: Item Placement, Techniques and Standards

Unit 10: Interaction Design: Common Web Issues

Unit 11: Conducting Expert Reviews: Heuristic Evaluations

  • Heuristic evaluation exercise

Unit 12: Using Card Sorts to build User-Directed Navigation

Unit 13: Don't Lead the User: Interview Techniques

About The Instructor:

Mark Richman has made software products and web sites easy to use for clients such as AT&T, The Woodruff Arts Center, and Georgia Power.  He earned an MS in Human-Computer Interaction from Georgia Tech, has been published in the Journal of Human Factors and has been a featured speaker at CHI-Atlanta and the Atlanta IA Society.