Presentation: TweetUX in an Agile Process – When the Real World Comes Knocking

Originally, the field of usability and interaction design was slow, cumbersome and costly. These were some of the reasons that it was not adopted very fast among practitioners. However, recent years a lot of the methods and techniques have been adapted to better fit the fast moving development processes that are predominant in software companies today. But what do you do when you can't include users because of NDAs? How do you handle the fierce security demands, that are part of your project? Does your customer really know their users, or do they only think they do? And when you have a deadline, how do you avoid UI slowing your progress? This talk is a case story of how UX was included in the agile development process that resulted in the first Danish mobile bank app: Danske Banks mobile banking app.

Workshop: The Psychological and Cognitive Mechanisms behind Good User Experience Tweet

The focus in user experience is often on guidelines, do's and dont's etc., because if these guidelines are broken, the user has difficulties using the system. But usually the explanation stops there and it is rarely discussed, WHY breaking these guidelines makes it hard for the user. Why are some things just so darn hard for the user? What exactly is it, that makes it so hard?

This training will go into the psychological theories and explanations, that lie behind the difficulties, the user experiences, when guidelines are broken. By understanding these psychological explanations, we in turn become better at understanding what to strive for and what to avoid, when designing interfaces, because we understand why.

The training will include learning about the following theories:

• Usability definitions
• Usability guidelines
• Miller's Law
• Fitts's Law
• Gestalt Principles
• Affordance
• Short term memory

The training does not hold any requirements from the participants, apart from fluent English and an interest in the topic of usability.