Internet User Experience 2010

JULY 24 - 28

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Program > Schedule > Presentations

10:30 a.m., July 27, 2010

Imitation: Sincerest Form of Flattery or Bad Move? (P19)

John Yesko, Roundarch

For UX consultants, the primary goal is to design engaging online experiences. Arguably, the most important part of this effort is understanding the needs of the users--the ultimate consumers of the site.

But user needs are only one piece of the puzzle--we also need to consider the client perspective (they're paying for it, after all). We rely on our client stakeholders to communicate their business goals--the problems they're trying to solve, the messages they want to communicate, and or the behaviors they hope to influence.

Something else often happens too, though. Our clients start talking about characteristics of the site that they feel will make for the best user experience. Being sophisticated consumers of the Web themselves, they see and hear plenty of cool stuff as they move around online. And they want to emulate them.

This kind of feedback is generally a good thing. We're always happy to have clients who are engaged enough in the process to bring ideas to the table. But, not every cool feature is right for every site. It doesn't really work to collect interesting features from various sites and shoehorn them into your own. That social network idea, user-generated content, or even the slick drag-and-drop interface may not accomplish the user needs or business goals.

In this presentation, I'll work through a number of real project examples where our clients--or even our own team members--have suggested ideas inspired by some of the Web's groundbreaking sites. In context of our clients' sites, sometimes these ideas fit, and sometimes they don't.

Our challenge then becomes exploring each proposed option and breaking it down to its core, to understand what makes it resonate with our stakeholders. When we do that, we can design an experience that reflects the best of the Web today--but also fits for our clients and their customers.

AUDIENCE

This presentation is geared toward user experience professionals of all stripes--strategists, designers, project managers, and technologists. It would also be valuable for our friends in the corporate world who are responsible for making user experience decisions.

I hope that the audience will be able to appreciate the subtleties of "2.0" experience design, and thereby be able to better analyze their own goals and their clients.

About the Speaker

John Yesko is a Director in the User Experience practice at Roundarch, a consulting firm that designs and builds websites for some of the world's largest organizations. In this capacity, he leads the user research, information architecture, and interaction design efforts for large-scale website projects.

He is a 17-year veteran of interactive media, having started on the CD-ROM based programs of the early nineties...and evolving with the Web to today's Web 2.0 and RIA sites. John's clients have included Aon, Eddie Bauer, Kodak, Motorola, and Sears. John has spoken at a number of industry conferences, including the Web 2.0 Expo, Society for Technical Communications, and Usability Professionals' Association.

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