{"id":3527,"date":"2014-04-21T07:21:15","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T14:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/?p=3527"},"modified":"2016-02-19T14:41:31","modified_gmt":"2016-02-19T06:41:31","slug":"uxim-2014-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/2014\/04\/uxim-2014-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"UXIM 2014 Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two weeks ago, I attended <a title=\"UXIM website\" href=\"http:\/\/uxim14.uie.com\/\">User Experience Immersion Mobile(UXIM)<\/a> for the first time in Denver, CO. This is a conference organized by <a title=\"UIE website\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uie.com\/\">UIE (User Interface Engineering)<\/a>. Unlike other popular UX conferences, for example <a title=\"IxDA conference\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ixda.org\/conference\">IxDA<\/a> and <a title=\"UX week website\" href=\"http:\/\/uxweek.com\/\">UX week<\/a>, UXIM has a strong and practical focus on tools and techniques to create great mobile experience, which I found to be quite useful and relevant to my daily practice.<\/p>\n<p>My colleague Ian Barlow has put together <a title=\"Notes from Ian Barlow\" href=\"http:\/\/ianbarlow.wordpress.com\/2014\/04\/13\/notes-from-ux-immersion-mobile-conference-2014\/\">a well summarized note<\/a> of a majority of the talks. In this post, I will focus on a few that he has not covered.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Cyd Harrell, Conducting Usability Research for Mobile Apps<\/h2>\n<p>In this full-day workshop,<a title=\"Cyd Harrell's twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cydharrell\"> Cyd Harrell<\/a> introduced many latest mobile research techniques for intreviewing, gathering data, and involving the entire team.<\/p>\n<h4>Mobile Research Tools<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Prototyping: <a title=\"POP app\" href=\"https:\/\/popapp.in\/\">POP<\/a>, <a title=\"Flinto iOS prototyping\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flinto.com\/\">Flinto<\/a>, <a title=\"Solidify app\" href=\"http:\/\/www.solidifyapp.com\/\">Solidify<\/a>, <a title=\"Proto.io\" href=\"http:\/\/Proto.io\">Proto.io<\/a>, <a title=\"Justinmind prototyping\" href=\"http:\/\/www.justinmind.com\/\">Justinmind<\/a>, <a title=\"Fluid UI\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fluidui.com\/\">Fluid<\/a>, <a title=\"Invision website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.invisionapp.com\/\">InVision<\/a>, <a title=\"Marvel app\" href=\"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/\">Marvel<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mobile app gesture tracking: <a title=\"Lookback app\" href=\"https:\/\/lookback.io\/\">Lookback<\/a> +<a title=\"Testflight app\" href=\"http:\/\/testflightapp.com\/\"> TestFlight<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mobile client website testing: <a title=\"Ghostlab\" href=\"http:\/\/ghostlab.vanamco.com\/\">Ghostlab<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Task-driven experience sampling: <a title=\"dscout\" href=\"https:\/\/dscout.com\/\">dscout<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Storytelling: <a title=\"Blurb mobile app\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blurb.com\/mobile\">Blurb Mobile<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And more importantly: Remember be graceful when all your technology breaks.<\/p>\n<h4>Designing a mobile-specific research plan<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Come up with a script that is flexible for customization, for example &#8220;Please look for a gift you would like to buy for one of your family member&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>New recruiting channel: Use Twitter and edit your profile to mention &#8220;UX Researcher&#8221; and &#8220;Current study: ______&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Use SMS to send out a mobile surveys. Keep it short(5 questions). Ask a pithy open-ended question.<\/li>\n<li>Filling in the gaps: Test on <a title=\"Mob4hire\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mob4hire.com\/\">mob4hire.com<\/a>, <a title=\"Mobtest\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mobtest.com\/\">mobtest<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usertesting.com\/\">usertesting.com<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Collecting user data with mobile devices<\/h4>\n<p>To gather user data, usually there are two approaches: use a lab device, or use the user&#8217;s own device. Using the user&#8217;s mobile device can provide a better context and make the user feel comfortable. In comparison, use a lab device will lose the personal context, but it will reduce installation time and enable more control for the researcher.<\/p>\n<p>Tips for working with users&#8217; own mobile devices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have a backup iPhone and Android device on hand<\/li>\n<li>Make a power strip part of your testing station<\/li>\n<li>Have chargers for all the phones you are expecting<\/li>\n<li>Instruct participants to install necessary apps in advance, but leave time in case they don&#8217;t<\/li>\n<li>Adjust the screen brightness before you start each session<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Tips for offering lab devices:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Have a backup iPhone and Android device on hand<\/li>\n<li>Charge devices between every session<\/li>\n<li>Remove passwords, lock screens, etc<\/li>\n<li>Dry-run every aspect of the test<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For physical lab setup, Cyd mentioned this &#8220;Hug your laptop&#8221; approach for remote mobile testing. This was first adopted by firstly <a title=\"Mailchimp UX team blog\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.mailchimp.com\/remote-usability-testing-on-mobile-devices\/\">Mailchimp UX<\/a> and then <a title=\"Blog post about tablet remote testing\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/2012\/04\/tablet-remote-usability-testing-at-mozilla\/\">Mozilla UX team<\/a>. I&#8217;ve personally participated in the testing session by our former researcher <a title=\"Diane's profile on Mozilla UX\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/author\/dlovigliomozilla-com\/\">Diane<\/a>, and it worked extremely smoothly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-2.34.15-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3535\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-2.34.15-PM-600x333.png\" alt=\"Cyd's slide 1\" width=\"600\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-2.34.15-PM-600x333.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-2.34.15-PM-252x140.png 252w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-2.34.15-PM.png 1222w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cyd also mentioned using Sleds to help observe and gather testing data. One example product is <a title=\"Mr. Tappy product page\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mrtappy.com\/product.htm\">Mr. Tappy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Screensharing tools: <a title=\"Reflector app\" href=\"http:\/\/www.airsquirrels.com\/reflector\/\">Reflector(iOS)<\/a>, <a title=\"Optia android app\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=jp.co.optim.optiasmsng\">Optia(Android)<\/a>, <a title=\"Airdroid\" href=\"http:\/\/www.airdroid.com\/\">AirDroid(Android)<\/a>, <a title=\"Blackberry Native 10\" href=\"http:\/\/us.blackberry.com\/smartphones\/blackberry-z10\/overview\/highlights\/bbm-video-with-screen-share.html\">Blackberry 10 native<\/a>, <a title=\"GoToMeeting\" href=\"https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.citrixonline.android.gotomeeting\">GoToMeeting (tablet)<\/a>, <a title=\"Livestream\" href=\"http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/\">LiveStream<\/a>, <a title=\"Ustream\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/\">UStream<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Mobile screen recording tools: <a title=\"Recorder app\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uxrecorder.com\/\">Recorder(iOS)<\/a>, <a title=\"Magitest\" href=\"http:\/\/magitest.com\/\">Magitest<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Cyd also mentioned a great community movement\u00a0<a title=\"Open Device Lab website\" href=\"http:\/\/opendevicelab.com\">Open Device Lab<\/a>, which is created to establish shared community pools of digital devices for testing products. Besides, she also mentioned some in-house practice on building a device lab, for example <a title=\"Etsy's device lab\" href=\"http:\/\/codeascraft.com\/2013\/08\/09\/mobile-device-lab\/\">Etsy&#8217;s case study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Conducting user interviews on-the-go<\/h4>\n<p>Through an interactive activity, Cyd demonstrated reaching to your participants via mobile can help you collect in-context and real-time results. She mentioned a great mobile case study: <a href=\"http:\/\/trackyourhappiness.org\">Trackyourhappiness.org<\/a>. The study is completely conducted on the go via SMS and mobile survey forms. Besides, Blurb, dscout, and Usabilia are also effective tools to gain a contextual understanding without shadowing the users in person. This contextual technique could be particularly helpful in settings like public transit, food habits, shopping, exercise, etc.<\/p>\n<p>As a designer who has experiences on usability study and research on mobile, I found Cyd&#8217;s workshop extremely informative and practical. I&#8217;m looking forward to exploring these tools and applying the techniques to my next research practice.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Jason Grigsby, Adapting to Different Types of Input<\/h2>\n<p>Nowadays people have touch screens, cameras, voice control, and sensors on their digital devices. How do we design for the explosion of these dynamic inputs?\u00a0 <a title=\"Jason Grigsby's twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/grigs\">Jason Grigsby<\/a> shared some interesting facts about input and his forward-thinking strategies.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.22.02-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3529\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.22.02-PM-600x451.png\" alt=\"Jason Grigsby's slide 1\" width=\"600\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.22.02-PM-600x451.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.22.02-PM-252x189.png 252w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.22.02-PM.png 1394w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Web never had a fixed canvas. Knowing the screen sizes doesn&#8217;t matter as much, since lines are blurred in between phones, tablets, and laptops. Resolution doesn&#8217;t define the optimal experience.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.31.40-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3532\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.31.40-PM-600x448.png\" alt=\"Jason Grigsby's slide 2\" width=\"600\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.31.40-PM-600x448.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.31.40-PM-252x188.png 252w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.31.40-PM.png 1388w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>How to handle this challenge? Jason showed us several futuristic input technology and products that could potentially change the game.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Voice Input: <a title=\"Apple Siri\" href=\"http:\/\/www.apple.com\/ios\/siri\/?cid=wwa-us-kwg-features-com\">Siri<\/a>, <a title=\"Google Voice Search\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/insidesearch\/features\/voicesearch\/\">Google Voice Search<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Gestural Input: <a title=\"Kinect technology by Microsoft\" href=\"http:\/\/www.xbox.com\/en-US\/kinect\">Kinect<\/a>, <a title=\"Leap Motion's site\" href=\"https:\/\/www.leapmotion.com\/\">Leap Motion<\/a>, <a title=\"Ring - Kickstarter\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1761670738\/ring-shortcut-everything\">Ring<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Circling back, Jason dived deep into explaining what this input challenge means for the Web:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For TV remote controls, input patterns are difficult to detect.<\/li>\n<li>There is still a gap in between touch input and desktop input(mouse and keyboard).<\/li>\n<li>For many people in the emerging countries, mobile is their first smart device, not desktop.<\/li>\n<li>People use laptops with mouse, keyboard, touch all together. Switching modes won&#8217;t solve the problem<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.53.31-PM.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-3533\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.53.31-PM-600x448.png\" alt=\"Jason Grigsby slide 3\" width=\"600\" height=\"448\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.53.31-PM-600x448.png 600w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.53.31-PM-252x188.png 252w, https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/files\/2014\/04\/Screen-Shot-2014-04-19-at-12.53.31-PM.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What if the product has lots of legacy and the users won&#8217;t let go? Some example Jason listed below demonstrated good product strategies in giving the users a choice.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Gmail density setting\" href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/mail\/answer\/1670219?hl=en\">Gmail display density setting<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Vimeo couch mode\" href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/help\/faq\/watching-videos\/couch-mode\">Vimeo couch mode<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The key benefit of giving this approach is: You are designing for user need not for a specific form factor or input.<\/p>\n<p>Having been working on design UI for hybrid and convertible devices, I found Jason&#8217;s viewpoints about dynamic inputs quite valuable and relevant. The web is a continuous canvas, adaptive interface should not just belong to website. It&#8217;s time to break the boundaries in between desktop, mobile, and web, and rethink about the experience as a union.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned, these two above are the talks that my colleague didn&#8217;t cover. I&#8217;ve also enjoyed brilliant talks by <a href=\"http:\/\/bencallahan.com\/\">Ben Callahan<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/bradfrostweb.com\/\">Brad Frost<\/a>, and learned a lot from a hands-on jQuery workshop by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nofluffjuststuff.com\/conference\/speaker\/nathaniel_schutta\">Nate Schutta<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Overall UXIM 2014 was a delightful experience. It was eye-opening to share thoughts about mobile with people who do design in various industries, such as healthcare, energy, retail, etc.\u00a0 Thanks <a title=\"Jared Spool's twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jmspool\">Jared Spool<\/a> and the rest of the team putting together a wonderful conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two weeks ago, I attended User Experience Immersion Mobile(UXIM) for the first time in Denver, CO. This is a conference organized by UIE (User Interface Engineering). Unlike other popular UX &hellip; <a class=\"go\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/2014\/04\/uxim-2014-recap\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9575,9577,9578,9594],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/ux\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}