NoVA UX Meetup: UX Army of One

In his presentation titled, “The UX Army of One: How to Get More Done with Less,” Jonathan Rubin, program manager for the DigitalGov User Experience Program at the U.S. General Services Administration, explained five simple steps to get usability and user experience rolling in your organization.

The first step is to take advantage of cheap, effective resources such as templates (scripts, personas and Heuristic evaluations), free tool trials (for prototyping includes Axure, Balsamiq and POP) and books (Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug).

The second step is to make quick wins. He suggests making small tweaks along the way rather than making big design changes. For usability, he advised using three testers and to focus on three top usability issues.

The third step is to sell your concept by presenting both good and bad UX stories and showing before and after screenshots of your design. Jon also recommends applying Jakob’s “Corporate Usability Maturity.”

The fourth step is to share results quickly (the day of the testing if possible). When sharing the results, don’t just email them. Present the results instead. Making quick reaction videos are highly recommended if you have the resources.

The final step is to build a team. Find other people who do user experience both inside and outside of your organization. Give yourself a cool title like user experience evangelist or UX team lead. Hands-on training is also a great way to build a partnership.

While the presentation was informative, it focused more on usability than UX aspect. Jon spoke more from a theory than design perspective. Still, I am glad to see some UX activities in the NoVA community. I am definitely keeping an eye on the NoVA UX Meetup in the future.