Any football fan will tell you: the plays they run in high school would never cut it in the NFL. At the highest levels of the sport, playbooks are tailored to the skills of athletes who run faster, hit harder, kick longer, and throw with precision. Designing software for expert users is no different. If you call your plays from the same UX playbook that you use for consumer apps, you will get creamed on the field. Veteran interaction designers Alan Baumgarten and Ben Judy will share examples and show you the plays that can help you score and maybe even win when you face the humbling challenge of designing for highly trained professionals who use software. Along the way you will discover the essential plays that must be in your Pro UX playbook if you hope to compete at this level. You will also learn a few boneheaded moves--used by most UX professionals--that will knock you to the turf faster than an All-Pro linebacker.

7. Why couldn’t Tebow make it as a pro?

8. As a professional, Tebow kept playing his college game

9. Professionals run plays from a professional’s playbook

10. Professionals Who Use Software
Dentist
Investor/
Trader
Database
Administrator
Computer
Animator
Administrative
Assistant
Business
Analyst
Chemical
Engineer
Airline Crew
Scheduler
Cashier
Geek
Squad
Teacher
Customer Service
Representative
Architect
Recording
Artist
Domain Expertise
Digital Literacy

11. The Consumer-to-Professional Software Matrix
Digital Literacy
Domain Expertise

12. What we know about professionals
• Many work 40-80 hrs/week
• They spend a majority of their work hours
using one primary software tool
• They are highly trained/experienced
• Some are self-employed, so earnings are
tied directly to productivity
• “Easy” means faster, fewer steps, less
effort, less friction, greater efficiency, and
better results
• The stakes are often high; data has to be
accurate, and decisions have to be right
• They tend to resist change but are open to
it if productivity improves; most have no
say in the matter

13. Professionals run plays from a professional’s playbook

14. The Consumer UX Playbook says…
X
X
X
X X X
X
X
X
X
X
O O
O
O
O O
O
O
O O
O

15. Don’t Make Me Think
X
X
X
X X X
X
X
X
X
X
O O
O
O
O O
O
O
O O
O

16. Provide Consistency
X
X
X
X X X
X
X
X
X
X
O O O O O O O O O O
O

17. Remove the Obstacles
O O O O O O O O O O
O

18. Reduce the Clutter
O

19. Simplify the Workflow
O

20. Great for consumers. Not for the pros.

27. Welcome to the pros, kid!
Here’s your new playbook

28. Strong Blitz
#1.
Build Domain
Knowledge
…FAST

29. Based on these indicators, we
want to buy to open FB,
August, 30-35, strangle five
times
Yes…uh
huh…right.
Blah, blah,
blah…strangle
someone,
Blah, blah….

33. Man-to-Man Coverage
#2.
Watch
Professionals
Work

34. Collaboration
Decision making
Data flow
Inefficiencies
Human factors

35. Two Point Conversion
#3.
Convert
solution ideas
into problems,
then solve the
real problem

36. Be skeptical of solution ideas from professionals

37. Compliments of Yan Xiao, PhD & C. Probst, PhD: Human Factors @
Baylor Scott&White Health - presentation to the SHARPC working group on 3.25.14

38. Up the Middle
#4.
Efficiency
Trumps Easy

39. Professionals wouldn’t
use this even if you
gave it to them.

42. Double Coverage
#5.
Reuse
Screen
Real Estate

43. Multiple windows
Docking frameworks
Tabs & accordions
Collapsing panels
Contextual controls
Data density

47. Zone Coverage
#6.
Design for
Effective
Collaboration

48. Hey, let me know
when you’ve completed
Real-time updates that Genome sequence
Check in/out
Versioning
Lock-out

51. Locking

52. Screen Pass
#7.
.
Visualize Data

53. Charts/Graphs
Interactives
Skeuomophism
Dashboards
Blunders

58. Aptitude

59. Wing Formation
#8.
Get Real
with Testing

60. Onsite
Online
In the Lab
Real users
Real data
Real contexts

61. Half-time Report

62. Domain Knowledge Blindness
Rookie Mistake #1

67. “Don’t Make Me Think”
Rookie Mistake #2

71. ‘For people doing a job,
maybe the software
doesn’t need to be dead
simple. There is delight
in mastering something
complicated.’
Jeremy Johnson
Yesterday
(paraphrased) photo credit: @juliehudspeth

72. ”Journey Mapping”
Rookie Mistake #3

75. Crane operator journey map
“Sigh” “Sigh” “Sigh”
Come to work
Lift heavy
objects
“Yay!”
Move them Go home

76. Are we really designing
experiences?

77. A high-level overview of airline crew management

78. ”Mobile First”
Rookie Mistake #4

80. Some professionals are mobile Others…not so much

83. Microinteractions
Rookie Mistake #5

85. UX and Value Engineering
$20 K
Mass Market App
Features: 15
Total budget: $1 mil
Time to market: 9 mo.
Cost per feature: $40K
Days per feature: 12
Professional Software
Features: 400
Total budget: $6 mil
Time to market: 2 yrs.
Cost per feature: $15K
Days per feature: 1.2

86. Attractive Things Work Better
Rookie Mistake #6

87. “Designs intended for stressful
situations have to pay special
attention to matching the needs of
the users, to making appropriate
actions salient and easy to apply.”

90. Guerilla User Testing
Rookie Mistake #7

91. Where would you
click to see the range of
proton-antiproton energies
during the deceleration
cycle?
CERN testing in-the-wild at the Geneva Starbucks

92. Post-Game Recap

93. What’s In Your Playbook?
DesignForPros.com
@design4pros

94. Vote for us at SXSW 2015
panelpicker.sxsw.com