Session page: http://webexsf2008.crowdvine.com/talk/view/147
Sticky Eyeballs: How UX Wins Market Share

Dave Wolf
Date: Wednesday, April 23
Time: 9:40 - 10:30AM

Presented by Dave Wolf (Cynergy). You have the next great idea. Now it’s time to build it. Great ideas don’t sell themselves. How do you create passionate users? With rich, interactive, and sticky User Experiences that engage your users and keep them. Join us to see incredible User Experiences designed for both startups and market leaders and learn how incredible experiences have won markets.

-------------- NOTES --------------

Next step on User experience beyond staying longer

Create passionate users who tell others

Theory that everything web 2.0 was started by Google Suggest ... nobody had seen anything like that on the Web.

Passionate users create social epidemics

People don't go to twitter because it was built in Ruby on Rails... people are complicated because they are emotional.

Focus on user experience FIRST

Just because the data is in rows and columns doesn't mean the users want to see it that way.

All of your users are not the same .. build your apps based on who is using it.

Ask the questions "Who is using your app? What is their day like?"

"The network is not everywhere"
We need to focus on where people are and what devices they use.

If they hardware vendors invested so much in rich media, there's no way they're going let Web 2.0 be a fad, so we need to act accordingly.

Fallacy: The jack of all trade developer can do all of this.
These new, richer apps "take a village" to make.

UX developers are fundamentally different than API developers. ... But you still need enterprise developers. ... You need true UX designers they are not graphic designers.

Not only do you need a lot of people, you need a good process.

Putting a designer and a developer in the same room is like putting a humidifier and dehumidifier in the same room and letting them duke it out.

This workflow is not one way. There is much more give and take.

Static comps don't tell the story.

Developers usually have the worst taste ever (gaudy choices) but they make good muses for the designers.

Exercise: Build coca-cola. So what does coca-cola taste like? That's while design sessions are like.

Reversing the process and showing people what you're going to build is the key.

Process starts with one tech person hired as CTO and then they hire 10 developers they know, and Design and UX is not pulled into the mix at the beginning.

Startups are coming in an trying to improve an existing business by aping their biz model and putting a better user experience on top of it and carve away their business.

The big guys are looking into their rear-view mirrors and determined not to let this happen to them.

iPhone great example of a functionally limited phone that has a great UX and is disrupting the market.

Apps (they are located in booth 721)

Microsoft did a project runway-like experience for RIA developers
Solve the scenario that matches the personas
Winners went on to SXSW

Reinvent a 21st century citizen in the political process

they created Ben, an homage to Ben Franklin
Visualizing data is a key component
Hooking up blogs and comments and connections between comments.

Ex.: Read a news story, and see where it fell on the political spectrum, as scored by other readers. ... also a desktop experience ... and an iphone version ... also had a "call your rep" function w/in the iphone.

Target the user with the device they're using on the network they're on.
Similar app on Facebook. At SXSW they had 1000 people call Barak Obama's phone.

*** Make menus more obvious to people ****

MuseWorx example: Went from traditional menu, to resembling a desktop app.
With the new technologies, (AIR Silverlight etc.) If you can envision it, it can be built.

Focus on "Broad strokes of reality" Make it seem like an everyday encounter. Make them resemble real-life products experience... Bright school / Gradebook is an example. People know how that experience is/works.

Make a student, teacher, and parent experience. Have a peel-back experience to show an ad, without it being obnoxious.

Focus on the environment they're in. Not just online, but on the desktop, iPhone etc. Those things get people "stuck" on your site and create viral experiences.

twitter.com/davewolf