Enhancing Zone of Product Design with Wiki Practice

IADIS IHCI Conference 2011, Rome, Italy, 24–26 July 2011

Nikolay Yaremko

Enhancing Zone Of Product Design With Wiki Practice

1. Motivation and context that implies it.

2. Case study of using wiki practice.

3. Results and observations.

4. Conclusion and further work.

is a bit about

Enhancing Zone Of Product Design With Wiki Practice

Nikolay YaremkoUser experience design for the Web since 2000.

Working for Yandex since 2005.

Nikolay YaremkoTook part organizing user experience of recent redesign of Yandex.Mail — №2 largest webmail in Russia, mail.yandex.ru

Nikolay YaremkoTook part in organizing product and interaction design of recent major release of Yandex.Maps — №1 mobile maps and navigation application in Russia, mobile.yandex.ru/maps

The question that bothers me much is as follows:

How do I learn as a designer to organize dialogue with team about vision and product definition?

to organize collective thought of product team.

It comes from my perception of designer’s key role:

Let us discover how I have arrived to this point by the flow of my experience at Yandex.

— what’s that?

YNDX, www.yandex.com

— in Russia:

— Most visited website,

— ¹№1 Search engine,

— ¹№2 Webmail service,¹№1 Web and mobile maps and many other products such as news aggregation engine, product search, social and blogging networks, dictionaries, online music streaming, etc.

Over 3000 staff

— in Russia:

— Most visited website,

— ¹№1 Search engine,

— ¹№2 Webmail service,¹№1 Web and mobile maps etc.

More than 50% involved in product development and maintenance

— in Russia:

— Most visited website,

— ¹№1 Search engine,

— ¹№2 Webmail service,¹№1 Web and mobile maps etc.

— in Russia:

— Most visited website,

— ¹№1 Search engine,

— ¹№2 Webmail service,¹№1 Web and mobile maps etc.

Yandex is a very open company. We welcome open-minded thinking, open expression of opinions and ears open for listening.

«»

— Yandex inner code of conduct.

More than 50% involved in product development and maintenance

— 20 interaction designers

— in Russia:

— Most visited website,

— ¹№1 Search engine,

— ¹№2 Webmail service,¹№1 Web and mobile maps etc.

Yandex is a very open company. We welcome open-minded thinking, open expression of opinions and ears open for listening.

«»

— Yandex inner code of conduct.

More than 50% involved in product development and maintenance

About 200 involved in product development and maintenance

mail

— including:

— Webmail interface,

— Storage and protocol — infrastructure,

— RSS Reader,

— Calendar, Chatand some minor features such as e-cards and video messages.

mail

— including:

— Webmail interface,

— Storage and protocol — infrastructure,

— RSS Reader,

— Calendar, Chatand some minor features such as e-cards and video messages.

Redesign team: 45 people

mail

— including:

— Webmail interface,

— Storage and protocol — infrastructure,

— RSS Reader,

— Calendar, Chatand some minor features such as e-cards and video messages.

Redesign team: 45 people

— 3 project managers,

— 6 server-side developers,

— 3 client-side developers,

— 3 interaction designers

Interface team: 15 people

mail

Interface team: 15 people

Yandex is a very open company. We welcome open-minded thinking, open expression of opinions and ears open for listening.

«»

As a result, interface team is faced with hundreds of opinions.

It looks easy to plan a product in a steadily developing situation.

We develop our product in the unstable situation with a lot of actors who affect the market, the user, the technology — everything.

Both local and global competitors are pressing

We develop our product in the unstable situation with a lot of actors who affect the market, the user, the technology — everything.

Social networks becamedirect competitors.

21

In a turbulent situationwhat mattersis dexterity.

Agile development is built upon three C: communication, collaboration, coordination.

Kollman, 2008

Martin, 2003

Morris, 2009

We recognize design as a process intended to form and model a concept of a product, specify the way it functions, implement the concept and finally introduce it to the market.

A typical agile project product design isn't something limited to the implementation phase, but rather a continual flow that keeps running through the life-cycle of a product.

Dexterity is well covered by ‘agile methods’.

A sort of a

Case Study: Wiki practice

What is ‘Wiki’?

— Simple

— Open

— Incremental

— Organic

— Tolerant

— Observable

W. Cunningham, 2003

What is ‘Wiki’?

Design process is going public: open and observable.

All design artifacts are published immediately in intranet discussion club. Comments are welcome.

Designers picked out mockups and prototypes for publication in order to reveal current directions of product growth to the team while avoiding portrayal of chores. Product team lead by designers collected peer reviews to find fresh ideas and avoid exhausting approvals.

A regular offline meeting was conducted weekly and allows as much open communication as intranet discussion in the club.

315 members*

* compare that to 200 people working on Yandex.Mail

200+ mockups

1600+ comments

Tolerance while gathering opinions and improvement ideas

Designers initiate and facilitate colloquy to study out particular experience issues. They welcomed substantive outgivings and stood back from it appraisement.

This behavior displayed in public speads culture of mutual tolerance: instead of keeping tabs on ‘design errors’ fellow developers began to describe technical subtleties.

Shifting focus from people to mockups helps separate personal attitudes from decision-making; thus allowing resolutions to be made promptly and thoughtfully.

Instead of confrontation, designers and developers eventually include each other in a cooperational activity.

R. Tinsey, K. Lebak, Zone of Reflexive Capacity, 2009

Perception simplicity as a governing principle for design artifactsAny mockup shown to the product team should be as close to a final product in terms of look and feel as possible. It is easier to use than abuse:

— high fidelity mockups

— interactive HTML prototypes

Cross-system detailed interface specifications were replaced by interactive prototypes and short guidelines.

42% — HTML

Results and observations

Results of wiki practice

— Design phase 1,5 times shorter, total time to release 2,2 times shorter.

— Quarterly and other regular reports are easily accepted by whole Yandex team, no flaming discussions on product anymore.

— Feature requests and improvement ideas are regularily processed by team.

— Developers are motivated to create consistent experience rather than to complete tasks in issue tracker.

— Product vision is no longer contained in a single head of a visionary designer.

30

Dexterity is crucial:it is more efficient to focus product team rather than to refine product focus.

Dexterity is... an ability to deal with any incoming task

— in a right way (adequate and precise)

— inventively (nimbly and proactively)

— quickly (fast and hastily)

— rationally (effectively and reasonably)

N. Bernstein, 1940

guidinglevel

guided level

}}

Dexterity is... an ability to deal with any incoming task

— in a right way (adequate and precise)

— inventively (nimbly and proactively)

— quickly (fast and hastily)

— rationally (effectively and reasonably)

Designers

Developers

Ideation Design Implementation Release

Number of questions on product behavior designer and developer can answer

Ideation Design Implementation Release

Number of questions on product behavior designer and developer can answer... in fact.

Not ready for help

Assistance allows to overcome challenges

No help needed

L. Vygotsky, 1934

Zone ofProximal

Development

The More Knowledgeable Other is... a person or a tool or a methodology that allows one to overcome challenge in Z.P.D.

Designers have their tools and methods

— Goal Driven Design (scenarios, models)

— User Centered Design (workflow, use cases)

— Human Centered Design (user stories)

— Design Thinking and many others.

Designers have their tools and methods.

Developers usually have none.

The More Knowledgeable Other is... a person or a tool or a methodology that allows one to overcome challenge in Z.P.D.

The designer is the only More Knowledgeable Other for developers in their Zone of Product Design.

The designer is the only More Knowledgeable Other for developers in their Zone of Product Design.

— 20 interaction designers

Conclusion and further work

Conclusions

— In the era of technology, market and expertise turbulence it is essential to focus the product team efficiently and quickly.

— The designer is the only M.K.O. for developers to help them to obtain necessary dexterity in a product vision.

— According to Z.P.D. framework it is possible to evaluate organizational practices using the measure of the number of questions answered by developers on product vision during the stages of the project.

Further work

— To gather wider spectre of cases to confirm the correlation between number of the questions asked/answered by product team and product success in both speed and quality measures.

— To evaluate a number of practices using given measures in order to find out exact skills and competencies that allows to effectively organize Zone of Product Design.

How do I learn as a designer to organize dialogue with team about vision and product definition?

As a practicioner I am concerned about next question:

Nikolay Yaremkonikolay@yandex-team.ru

Thank you!