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SM 3511 Interface Design
Institutionalizing interface design
Eric Schaffer, 2013. Institutionalization of UX: A Step-by-Step Guide to a User Experience Practice (2nd Edition)
A champion (usually reports directly to the CEO)
Most important first step in institutionalizing usability
Best predictor of whether a company will successfully deploy usable designs
Without a champion, usability issues will also play a minor role after marketing, software bugs, etc.
The right kind of champion
Knowledge of interface design is not so important
Knowledge of organizational politics, business imperatives, and able to converse with different functional groups to promote usability
Able to muster funding to support usability efforts
An agent of change
Product develop process
Waterfall
Product design methods
Waterfall
Once a design stage is signed off (e.g., coding has started), there is no turning back
If the working prototype creates a new usability problem, there is few ways to rectify this issue
This puts a lot of pressure on the interface designer to get it right the first time
An impossible task
Product develop process
Waterfall → Iterative design
Product design methods
Iterative design
Designers and software developers work closely together
Instead of developing 100% of the design at an early stage, interface designers can work on a series of prototypes
Prototypes are progressively more detailed
Major issues are resolved earlier in the design cycle
More attention to details later
Interface designers are better integrated into the corporate processes
But what issues to resolve first
This can be determined through functional decomposition of the abstraction hierarchy of a workplace
An abstraction hierarchy
This hierarchy can be used to analyze most corporate workplace (e.g., factory flow, retail processes, etc)
Why questionsHow questions
An example of an abstraction hierarchy
WhyHow
Anatomy of an abstraction hierarchy
Abstraction hierarchy of an interface
Abstraction hierarchy of an interface
Objectives/functions of the software
Information needs to accomplish the above
Workflow (screen to screen)
Stylistic elements (e.g, buttons, icons, etc)
Codes
Scenario-based design approach
Scenario-based design approach
Objectives/functions of the software
Information needs to accomplish the above
Workflow (screen to screen)
Stylistic elements (e.g, buttons, icons, etc)
Prototyping tools
Wireframes, e.g., Balsamiq
Prototyping tools
Functional, e.g., Visual Studio, HTML / CSS
Prototyping tools
GUI, e.g., Pencil—open source prototyping tool
The ever shortening software lifecyle
From iterative design, some design teams begin to develop even shorter, more frequent design cycles (e.g., “Scrum,” AGILE, etc.)
Software improvement features are divided into chunks
Each chunk represents a series of small and incremental build (improvement)
Each build is achievable within a 2-4 weeks period of intensive work
A design team (e.g., interface designer, user researcher, users, software developers, marketers) is assigned to work on this build
Team members are often co-located
Uninterrupted from daily routines
Since work is face-to-face, few documentation is needed
LEAN startup took this idea further
LEAN startup
Dispense with formal lab-based user testings
Release any features you like to test to a limited set of users
For example, you could release “design 1” to a group of 500 users, and “design 2” to another group of 500 users
After two weeks of release, conduct survey/interviews to gather feedback
Collect quantitative measures (e.g., download rate, user demographics, etc)
Rinse, repeat
This works for startups because the need for communicating is much reduced due to small company size
For large companies, communicating with management and across functions remain important
Commonly used measures with communicating with the management (and other departments)
Communicating with the management (and other departments)
There are many management tools for communicating usability issues
“Severity” ratings
Impact (on the user experience) (1 to 3)
Frequency (of occurrence) (~)
Relevance (to business objectives) (~)
Rate these three criteria against each and every usability issue
Rank each usability issue by their “severity” to indicate priority
Similar to FMEA
Communicating with the design team (those with minimal interface design training)
Contextual Design is one suite of design methods that provide a range of models
A popular form of ethnographically-informed method
Observation Develops affinity diagram
Common deliverables in Contextual Design (from interaction-design.org)
The flow model captures communication and coordination between people to accomplish work
The cultural model captures culture and policy that constrain how work is done
The sequence model shows the detailed steps performed to accomplish each task important to the work
The physical model shows the physical environment
The artifact model shows the artifacts that are created and used
Sequence model
(workflow)
Flow model
Flow model
Cultural model
Artifact model
Artifact model
Physical model
Physical model
Physical model
Communicating your design objectives to a large audience
Persona
Simplified descriptions of “typical” users
Why persona?
It is very hard to get research findings across the company
Employees have very short attention span
Persona makes it easier to comprehend your design purposes, especially when they are not intuitive
To create reliable and realistic representations of your key audience segments for reference
Personas are extremely simplified and easy to create (and thus may also delude your co-workers)
Personas should be based on comprehensive user research
Purposes of a persona
Represent a major user group for your website
Express and focus on the major needs and expectations of the most important user groups
Give a clear picture of the user's expectations and how they're likely to use the site
Aid in uncovering universal features and functionality
Describe real people with backgrounds, goals, and values
A persona as a boundary object (a shared and neutral artifact) –hinted at but does not convey design features
Stakeholders and leaders evaluate new site feature ideas
Information architects develop informed wireframes, interface behaviors, and labeling
Designers create the overall look and feel of the website
System engineers/developers decide which approaches to take based on user behaviors
Copy writers ensure site content is written to the appropriate audiences
Process of developing personas
Know your audience
Where are they likely to see these personas? In what format?
Procedure
Conduct user research –who are your users? What are the key activities? What are their practices? Why do they do things their way?
Identify common/recurring themes
Identify the key activities and user groups that your product will serve. What are the personas that exist within these groups? Narrow down to 3-5 personas
Write down short descriptions of each persona. Refine them until they are concise and realistic. Present them in the most effective way.
http://www.usability.gov/
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