Smashing UX Design

The ultimate guide to UX from the world’s most popular resource for web designers and developers

Smashing Magazine is the world′s most popular resource for web designers and developers and with this book the authors provide the ideal resource for mastering User Experience Design (UX).

The authors provide an overview of UX and User Centred Design and examine in detail sixteen of the most common UX design and research tools and techniques for your web projects.

The authors share their top tips from their collective 30 years of working in UX including:

• Guides to when and how to use the most appropriate UX research and design techniques such as usability testing, prototyping, wire framing, sketching, information architecture & running workshops
• How to plan UX projects to suit different budgets, time constraints and business objectives
• Case studies from real UX projects that explain how particular techniques were used to achieve the client’s goals
• Checklists to help you choose the right UX tools and techniques for the job in hand
• Typical user and business requirements to consider when designing business critical pages such as homepages, forms, product pages and mobile interfaces as well as explanations of key things to consider when designing for mobile, internationalization and behavioural change.

Smashing UX Design is the complete UX reference manual. Treat it as the UX expert on your bookshelf that you can read from cover-to-cover, or to dip into as the need arises, regardless of whether you have ‘UX’ in your job title or not.

From the Back Cover
Everything You Need to Plan, Research, and Design Great User Experiences

UX design is one of the hottest growth areas on the web. The demand for good UX practitioners has never been greater. A great user experience is now recognized as a fundamental quality of successful digital products. So how do you design great user experiences if you don’t have a UX expert on hand to help you? What are the key tools and techniques every UX specialist should have at their disposal?

Smashing UX Design is a practical reference manual for UXers, designers, developers, and product managers to refer to as the UX expert on their bookshelf.

Written by two of the UK’s foremost UX practitioners, Smashing UX Design provides you with a solid foundation in UX principles and practices. It includes ready-to-use tools and techniques for designing commercially successful digital products. You will learn how to satisfy users’ needs, meet their expectations and beyond. It covers all the bases, including:

• Understanding User-Centered Design
• Planning UX Projects and Evaluating UX Designs
• Understanding User and Business Needs
• Conducting Usability Testing, Requirements Workshops, Contextual Research, and More
• Learning UX Design Tools and Techniques
• Task Modeling, Information Architecture, Site Maps, Wireframes, and More
• Design Recipes for Great UX Components such as Homepages and Product Pages

Smashing UX Design provides web designers and developers with all the tools, techniques, and practical, hands-on guidance they need to make their lives easier.

Table of Contents
PART I: UX PROCESSES AND PROJECTS
Chapter 1. Understanding the User-Centered Design Process
Chapter 2. Planning UX Projects

PART II: UX RESEARCH AND EVALUATION TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Chapter 3. Planning and Conducting Effective Stakeholder Interviews
Chapter 4. Organizing and Running a Successful Requirements Workshop
Chapter 5. Planning, Conducting, and Analyzing a Usability Test
Chapter 6. Gaining Useful Insights from Competitor Benchmarking
Chapter 7. Conducting Effective Contextual Research
Chapter 8. Using Analytics to Uncover Interesting User Behavior
Chapter 9. Designing, Launching, and Analyzing a Successful Survey
Chapter 10. Conducting a Useful Expert Review

PART III: UX DESIGN TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES
Chapter 11. Planning and Running Successful Ideation Workshops
Chapter 12. Creating Task Models and User Journeys That Convey Real User Behavior
Chapter 13. Creating Customer Experience Maps to Help Visualize the User Experience
Chapter 14. Creating Useful Persona Profiles
Chapter 15. Designing Usable Information Architectures
Chapter 16. Using Sketching to Generate and Communicate Ideas
Chapter 17. Designing Great Wireframes
Chapter 18. Using Prototypes to Bring Your Ideas to Life

PART IV: UX COMPONENTS DECONSTRUCTED
Chapter 19. Navigation UX Deconstructed
Chapter 20. Homepage UX Deconstructed
Chapter 21. Category Page UX Deconstructed
Chapter 22. Search UX Deconstructed
Chapter 23. Product Page UX Deconstructed
Chapter 24. Shopping Cart and Checkout UX Deconstructed
Chapter 25. Article and Content Page UX Deconstructed
Chapter 26. Photo UX Deconstructed
Chapter 27. Help and FAQ UX Deconstructed
Chapter 28. Forms UX Deconstructed
Chapter 29. Tables, Charts, and Data UX Deconstructed
Chapter 30. Great Client UX Deconstructed
Chapter 31. Designing for Behavioral Change
Chapter 32. Designing for Internationalization
Chapter 33. Designing for Mobile

Book Details

• Paperback: 446 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (June 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470666854
• ISBN-13: 978-0470666852