Comics are real work

Bonny Colville-Hyde

User experience Architect

@almostexact

How do we make

great digital stuff?

User research is

Awesome.

We need to ask

people how they do

things…

…why they do them…

…and when they do

them.

…And we need to

Listen to what they

say!

Userresearch

Documenting &

communicating

Human experiences is

hard

If we don’t engage decision

makers,

we fail.

People love

Stories

People Love Comics

17,897

17,897Comic strips

50years

Peanuts, Charles Schulz

the longest story ever told by one person

Why comics?

Verbal

Non Verbal

Facial Expressions

Eye contact

Body language

Gestures

Speech

Non-Verbals &

Comics

The power of

Suggestion

Great!

I’ve booked

my train home!

“…But comics are for kids – My clients wouldn’t get it…”

Charles Schulz

The fun bit!

Basic skills:

Understanding comics

Single panel:

Strip:

Pages:

Yay! Gutters!

storytelling

? !!

!

Buy this

“…But I can’t draw…”

xkcd.com/386

Basic skills:

Drawing faces

Basic skills:

Drawing expressions

Basic skills:

Drawing figures

1. Skeleton 2. Sausages 3. Detail 4. Inking

5. Tidy up 6. Vectors 7. Colour

Basic skills:

characters

Basic skills:

Creating a comic

Planning is

REALLY

important!

Practical ways to use

comics

Pitching

Camera ShopThe

A fake brief:

… they currently have a well developed

customer base of professional

photographers…

…but they want to increase the number of

amateur photographers shopping with them.

Via the Money Saving Expert forum

Finding ideas:

• ‘Bob’ wants to buy a new compact camera.

• He’s shopped around, but has been overwhelmed

by the variety and choice of cameras.

• He doesn’t want a lot of fancy features, but he

does care about the image quality.

• He has up to £100 to spend.

• He is looking for help to make a decision.

• Bob wants to buy a new camera because his current one has broken. He wants to replace his camera before he goes on holiday.

• He has looked on several websites, but has been overwhelmed by the choice. He needs help to refine appropriate cameras into a more manageable shortlist, or even to find the best one for him.

• The site or app needs to allow him to control his searching and browsing so he can manage the volume of results. It needs to give him choice but not overwhelm him.

• He needs to be able to look at cameras based on their size (he wants it to be compact), their image quality (it needs to take nice pictures) and its price (it must be under £100).

1. Introduce Bob2. Bob’s camera has

broken

3. Bob looks for cameras

online

4. Bob gets

overwhelmed

5. Bob finds The Camera

Shop

6. Bob finds ‘The

Compact Camera’ finder

7. Bob filters compact

cameras by price and

size

8. Bob finds a camera he

is interested in

9. Bob browses photos

taken with the camera

from Flickr

10. Bob feels satisfied

and purchases the

camera

Share research(A.K.A: Bringing research to life)

Test ideas with users

Kevin CHENG, Yahoo

Develop personas

Meet ‘Denise’:

Communicate &

explore ideas

Scott McCLOUD, Google Chrome

Comic created for conceptual iOS fitness app ‘Training Buddy’

Comic created for conceptual iOS fitness app ‘Training Buddy’

Key points to

remember

engage decision makers

Speak to users as often

as possible

Plan!

Wait for ink to dry before

using an eraser

Enjoy yourself

Thank you!

@almostexact