In March 2013, we conducted a survey to get insights into what people in the Toledo region needed to help them create better user experiences.
Executive Summary
- Largest needs are user interface design specifics and case studies/practice to understand the process.
- The ideas to provide training were all popular.
- Formal activities (such as forming a local professional chapter), business-related ideas (such as evangelization) and “academic” options (such as book club) were not that popular.
- Being low cost was important.
Respondents
We got 43 replies. Some generic job titles of some of the respondents:
- Executives: CEO, President, Vice President, CIO
- UX Practitioners: Web designer/developer, Usability analyst, Creative director, Interactive designer, UX designer
- Other practitioners: Communications, Software developer, Application developer
- Academia: Student, Instructor
Needs
In response to “What do you need to improve the user experience (UX) of the things you create?”, the ranked list of needs (with % of people who marked each as a need) are:
1. (70%) Insights into innovative UI & interaction designs
2. (67%) Knowledge of advanced UX techniques
3. (63%) Case studies showing how others do UX
3. (63%) Practice doing UX
5. (58%) Training and formal education on how to do basic UX methods
6. (44%) A UX “tribe” to hang out with, get support from
7. (35%) More commitment from my clients to pay me for UX work
8. (30%) Better tools for doing UX work
9. (28%) Awareness and understanding of UX by others within my company
10. (19%) UX talent to hire
The comments from the Needs sections included these 2 groups of responses:
What I need…
- Inspiration and aspiration for my team
- Real-world use cases and empirical data
- User interface design guidelines and best practices
- Good UX (for my app), without paying too much
- UX value to business
- More of ALL of this
How I want to address these needs…
- Tell war stories with other veterans of UI
- See UX teams in action
- Network with people who need my services
- Compare my practices to the work of others
- Bounce idea off of others
- Learn by doing
Ideas
We asked “What can we do to address your UX needs?” and for each idea, let people select from 1 of 4 categories: Bad idea / Good idea / Great idea, will help / Awesome idea, will pay $. Respondents could skip an idea and not rate it. We can break down the ideas into 3 general categories:
Top Ideas (the most popular ideas, probably try them first)
- Add more UX events to the Toledo Web Professionals program: #2 “Great idea”
- Arrange online webinars and virtual training: #1 “Awesome idea”
- Organize a local conference about UX: #2 “Great idea”
- Create hands-on training of UX methods
- Set up a mentoring program for students and others new to UX: #3 “Awesome idea”
- Build a directory of UX people/companies in the region: #1 “Great idea” but no “Awesome” votes, so ranked lower overall than other top ideas
Middle Ideas (have some merit but not as popular)
- Evangelize UX to local business leaders
- Schedule UX reviews so we can talk about UX and help improve local products and services
- Collaborate with AIGA Toledo
- Create a marketplace for UX work (where clients and agencies can meet): Most controversial idea, #1 “Bad idea”, #1 “Awesome idea”
- Plan road trips to UX events in Detroit, Columbus and other nearby cities
Bottom Ideas (least popular, not worth doing any time soon)
- Create a Meetup group, schedule meetups
- Establish a local chapter of a professional organization (like IxDA or UXPA)
- Rejuvenate Refresh Toledo: #1 “No Response” because few know what it is
- Set up a site where we can show off our UX capabilities
- Set up an online area for discussions (e.g., Google group)
- Suggest the best national UX conferences to travel to
- Set up an exchange program with other cities (to help us get up to speed faster)
- Compile a list of classes to take (e.g., BGSU CS 3240)
- Launch a UX book club: #1 “Bad idea” and #20 “Great idea” so the overall bottom idea
Comments about the ideas
Several of the comments were about a lack of time:
- I would love to help out but I am spread too thin as it is.
- I don’t have a lot of extra time/energy these days to assist but I am a cheerleader.
Several comments featured the importance of training:
- Love the idea of training opportunities. For example, plugging into that web cast last year was great.
- I’d be willing to pay for (or make the case to the powers that be to pay for) specific training classes or materials.
- Training the next generation is the foundation of it all.
Several comments were about not knowing what Refresh Toledo was.
Finally, some people volunteered for specific activities:
- My new project would be a great homegrown solution to mentoring locally.
- If you need someone to help organize a UX conference, contact me.
- I am willing to talk and present.
Observations
- 43 responses: that seems good, more than expected. Enough interest to keep going, at least.
- Largest single need is how to do user interface and interaction design. “What to design” we might call it.
- “How to design” is also a major need, captured in the “case studies” and “practice” needs.
- Despite “training” being a mid-level “need”, the training-related ideas were all rated highly, and the comments called out training even more. As long as it was not too academic.
- Large, more formal efforts, like Refresh Toledo or a UXPA chapter, were ranked low.
- Connecting with nearby regions, like road trips, was ranked low.
- None of the “business development” needs or ideas were ranked very high. This includes getting more commitment to pay for UX work, evanglizing to business leaders and creating a marketplace.
- In general, things that cost less money were rated higher than things which obviously were going to cost more. 70% of the respondents were not willing to pay for ANY idea.
- Some of the comments called out the power of combining different ideas: definitely a good approach to take.
Already happening
Two ideas were so highly ranked early on that when opportunities arose to make them happen, we jumped on them:
- Add more UX events to TWP. Join us on May 8th for an out-of-town speaker on UX.
- Arrange online webinars and virtual training. We are hosting the Rosenfeld Summit webinar on May 29th.
Important elements of the survey
We are collecting information about User Experience needs for the Toledo Region. We would also like your reaction to ideas to address these needs. Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey. It will help us plan local UX community activities. Thanks in advance!
NEEDS
What do you need to improve the user experience (UX) of the things you create? The things you are creating might be web sites, software products, paper brochures, smartphone apps, hardware, healthcare services, events. And more.
- Practice doing UX
- Awareness and understanding of UX by others within my company
- Better tools for doing UX work
- Insights into innovative UI & interaction designs
- Knowledge of advanced UX techniques
- More commitment from my clients to pay me for UX work
- Training and formal education on how to do basic UX methods
- A UX “tribe” to hang out with, get support from
- Case studies showing how others do UX
- UX talent to hire
IDEAS
What can we do to address your UX needs? Below are some of the ideas that have been suggested for the Toledo Region.
Scale: Bad idea | Good idea | Great idea, will help | Awesome idea, will pay $
- Plan road trips to UX events in Detroit, Columbus and other nearby cities
- Launch a UX book club
- Set up a site where we can show off our UX capabilities
- Schedule UX reviews so we can talk about UX and help improve local products and services
- Collaborate with AIGA Toledo
- Set up an online area for discussions (e.g., Google group)
- Arrange online webinars and virtual training
- Create hands-on training of UX methods
- Rejuvenate Refresh Toledo
- Create a marketplace for UX work (where clients and agencies can meet)
- Organize a local conference about UX
- Set up a mentoring program for students and others new to UX
- Evangelize UX to local business leaders
- Build a directory of UX people/companies in the region
- Establish a local chapter of a professional organization (like IxDA or UXPA)
- Create a Meetup group, schedule meetups
- Add more UX events to the Toledo Web Professionals program
- Set up an exchange program with other cities (to help us get up to speed faster)
- Compile a list of classes to take (e.g., BGSU CS 3240)
- Suggest the best national UX conferences to travel to