bake ux into your startup (march 2009)

eBIG Presentation:Bake User Experience

Strategy Into Your Startup

March 2009

Meadow Consulting Meghan Ede

March 2009 | Meadow Consulting Bake in User Experience (eBIG Presentation) 2

Agenda

Speaker What is User Experience? How to “Bake it in”? UX Professionals Meadow Consulting Services Contact Information


Meghan Ede Nearly 20 years hands-on experience:

User Experience Strategy & Research Enterprise, IT, finance, productivity, consumer Products, websites, web applications,

documentation, education programs Before Consulting, Meghan was:

Staff, Manager, Director, VP in UCD at… PayPal/eBay, Charles Schwab, Wells Fargo,

Intuit, Sun Microsystems, Symantec/Norton… Master’s in Psychology (Human Factors) Skated to University


User Interface (UI)

If your product has…

A user accessible portion, then it has a UI

“Look and Feel”

UI

User Interface

Feature Set

What you see in product

Web Page

Task Flow

Controls


User Experience… Every contact your customer makes

with your product or service or staff…. Is part of their experience!

Affects their… Perception of your product Understanding of what your product does Satisfaction with your product Likelihood to buy or buy again


User Experience is more than UI

UIUser Interface

Feature Set

What you see in product

Web Page

Task Flow

Controls

Marketing Newsletters Box design Ads

Installer Wizard Command Line Download

Training Webinars Manuals Classes TutorialsDocuments

User Guide Quick Start Online help

Updates Recalls Patches (CDs) Auto-updater Email notices

Sales Demo Trade Show Contracts Invoices

Partners Resellers 3rd party apps OEM

Forums Blogs Facebook Reviews

User

Exp

eri

en

ce


User Experience also…

Happens over time…

Inform DecidePurchase / Obtain

Download / Install

UseTrouble- shoot

Update Upgrade

Possible Customer Interactions with a Product over Time


Inform

AdsReviewsFacebook

Control

May include things you don’t control

DecidePurchase / Obtain

Download / Install

UseTrouble- shoot

Update Upgrade



Decide Purchase / Obtain

Download / Install

CD CoverBoxPull-outWebsite infoCostFeature List

ContractsSalespersonWebsiteProduct KeyEmailInstructions

CDMailWebsiteProduct KeyInternet speedNetworkHelp InfoInstructions

DepartmentsMay include things you control… in different depts.

UseTrouble- shoot

Update Upgrade

Inform



UI FeaturesLook“Feel”Easy / HardLearning CurveTask FlowScreensStabilityPerformance

Main Product

Definitely includes the UI - “face” of your product

Inform DecidePurchase

/ Obtain

Download / Install

Trouble- shoot

Update Upgrade


Use


Trouble-shoot

Update Upgrade

ChatMailPhoneQualityServiceContractBox InfoFAQReviewsOnline Help

EmailNotificationsFriendBill / Invoice

After Purchase

And frequently includes a long relationship “after purchase”

Inform DecidePurchase

/ Obtain

Download / Install

Use



How to “Bake In” UX Strategy


What are the Ingredients?

1. Understand your USERS2. Set pragmatic UX goals3. Create a “user-centered” culture

Note: A good UI or UX cannot be grafted on “after”, it needs to be “baked in” from the start


1. Understand your USERS

Who? User Profiles / Personas

Doing What? User Tasks Why? User Goals Where? Environment When? End-to-end

experience


Case Study: Home Computer Product

WHO - Customer ≠ User

Market Segment

User Profiles

25-50 year old Men Technically savvy Own 3+ computers > $60K annual

1. Household Manager: Purchase Decision

2. Informal Techie: Installation On-call trouble-shooting Often lives outside home

3. Child (4-17 yrs) Responds to messages May be guest in home

4. Parent / Guardian Sets usage rules



User TASKS Home Manager:

Features, value, payment method Reads advertising, purchase steps, box, product returns

Informal Techie: Purchase advice, explain features, maintain product Installation steps, product code, passwords, tools,

instructions, on-call

Child: Uses product, sees most messages (often ignores), may

use the product in ways parent/guardian…

Parent/Guardian: Controls settings/access (with help from techie)



User GOALS: Communicate with my friends Track my home finances Play games … Quickly and without FEAR or

CONFUSION NOT

Learn how to work yet another product



Environment Before research:

1:1 relationship - person:computer



Environment After research:

“Home”

Dad’s house

Mom’s Boyfriend

Dad’s Office

Mom’s Office

School

Relative’s Home

Many to many


More Ways to Learn about Users

User Insights / Research Home / site visits, “follow me home” Card sorting Usability studies, prototype studies Focus groups, Surveys Listen & Observe (use customer feedback)

Use the product, realistically Out of box studies, cognitive walkthroughs Use the product, daily and end-to-end Realistic tasks

Hire a UX professional to learn more!


2. Set pragmatic UX goals

This part is difficult Goals should be:

Easy to understand Easy to measure Clearly related to usage Best if they combine biz and UX needs Company-wide, at least some of them Modified and improved over time


Example GOALS – out of box

Case Study: Computer company Reduce the “out of box” experience from 5 hours to 30

minutes

Departments affected: Documentation Box design, packaging, delivery (manufacturing) Customer support Product industrial design CD jewel cases … Cross-department knowledge-sharing and cooperation

Business impact: Improved brand response Reduce support calls/cost Expand market (to include less technical)


Example GOALS - LearningCase Study: Enterprise Network Product 5-day training, 1-2 month installation/configuration, up to 2

years learning and mastery

Goal: reduce this customer learning time Departments affected:

UI Marketing Sales Training Customer Support / Call Center Customer Forums Etc.

Business Impact: Reduced costs: support, training, documentation Increased sales (upgrades, components) Expand market (less technical companies)


3. User-Centered Company Make User Experience

A company-wide focus; all depts. A company touch-point

Encourage and empower staff to: Make positive user-centered changes Share with each other about users and

UX Meet and learn from users regularly

Practice: Iterative Design With regular user input


Companies are organized to…

Efficiently complete DIFFERENT tasks Work is organized by FUNCTION User experience is FRAGMENTED

En

gin

eeri

ng

Desig

n

Mark

eti

ng

Sale

s

Cu

sto

mer

Su

pp

ort

Accou

nt

s

Fin

an

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Qu

ality

A

ssu

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ce


Company-wide Focus Each department, group gathers important

user information: …which is often not shared

Information sharing examples… Customer support meets regularly with

technical writers – to improve support feedback and prioritize help topics

IT department meets with UI design to discuss problems with the Enterprise product used in-house

Sales support provides feedback to manufacturing about…


Case Study: Intuit

“Follow me home” User input championed by CEO All staff encouraged to observe users

Usability Studies – open to all Home visits – part of annual goals Personas – posted & discussed regularly Iterative Design with UX goals -

standard


Standard Development Process

RequirementsPRD

Development

QADesignEarly

Launch(Alpha,

Beta, FCS, GA)

Full LaunchUrgent Fixes

“dot” release

Focus Groups with

customers

Surveys

Support Calls

Meet important customers

Emphasis on CUSTOMERS Seek FEATURE information Controlled and limited interactions with staff


User-Centered Development Process

RequirementsPRD

Development

QADesignEarly Launch

(Alpha, Beta, FCS, GA)

Full LaunchUrgent Fixes

“dot” release

Understand User Needs: Site visits Card-sorting Interviews Task Flow

Support Calls

Meet important customers

Understand User Tasks:

Prototype/ Wireframe Cognitive Walkthrough Usability Studies

Evaluate: Active proto. Usability Studies Terminology International

Refine: Screen text, help Beta Feedback Remote studies Site visit

Fix & Prepare: Remote studies Cognitive Walkthrough Usability Studies User Panels Shadow Support

Focus Groups with customersSurveys

Customers and USERS Five W’s (what, how, why, when, where) Iterative feedback cycles, company-wide sharing


I’m a small company

In-house Classes, training, seminars Clear company-wide user experience

goals Appoint someone to be user advocate

Out-source Hire the skills on contract, part-time,

full-time Mix of in-house and on-contract skills


User Experience Advocate

Appoint someone or a group Looking at the FULL user experience Seeing products/services:

The WAY your customer does Who helps the WHOLE company:

Have this perspective

Consider locating this role at the executive level

Consider hiring: UX background / training


UX Professions Functional UX Areas A UX professional typically is master of ONE of these functional areas (though

their title may be different). Some have skills in multiple areas, but tend to focus more in one than others.

User Research, Usability gathering and interpreting info about the 5 Ws for users

Interaction Design the “feel” and structure, task flow, wireframes, storyboards

Information Architecture organizing large info sets, such as websites, menu structures, content

Technical Writing tips, help, on-screen text, labels, manuals, documentation

Visual Design the “look”, layout, font, color scheme, icons, graphics, sometimes

brand Accessibility

making the product accessible to variety of abilities (different levels of sight, hearing, mobility, language understanding, etc.)

More…


Meadow Consulting Workshops (typically one day):

‘Quick and dirty’ user profiles Creating great user tasks and task flows Creating good UX goals How to do Paper prototyping How to do Usability Testing (and recruiting) How to do Site/Home visits More…

Customized User Research (typically 2-6 weeks): Home / Site visits Remote studies (observe via WebEx) Usability studies Focus groups, Interviews Cognitive Walkthrough Card Sorting More…

Strategy Consulting (typically hourly) Provide advice, feedback or instruction on … how to improve your products / services how to create a UX culture (including who to hire)


Contact InformationFor questions or additional information, please contact:

Meghan EdeMeadow Consulting415-706-3989 – cell408-786-5314 - [email protected]://meadow.consulting.googlepages.com/home

Build features customers will actually use; fix only what is truly broken

~ Customer information and insights to help you get there ~

bake ux into your startup (march 2009)

Technology

product code

product understandingof

product likelihoodto

main product

customer user

product installation

user interface ui

use purchase