UX and Business Analysts - Stop the Madness

Stop the MadnessA modest proposal for sane software design.

Andrew Hinton & Patrick QuattlebaumIIBA Denver / April 2011

1Tuesday, May 10, 2011

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MS WordJack of all trades, master of none

iA WriterNearly perfect

for a particular context2Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Word has so many features, they often get in the way of one another. When the fact is, the vast majority of users need only the most basic capabilities it offers. It’s an example of how a list of requirements can be literally translated into a UI, without real Design happening. Word is not a “beloved” application. People use it because they have to. iA Writer, however, is a different application with a very specific audience: people with iPads who want to be able to write on them without the distraction of unnecessary functions & user interface widgets. It’s enormously successful -- selling at a fraction of the price of MS Word, but making tons of money for its creators (a small team) with a rabid fan-base. It was designed to be something you *want* to use -- that makes you happy about sitting down to write. Why can’t we make software like this all the time? There are many reasons that we can’t get into today but one to focus on has to do with the relationship between technical & business analysis and design.

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WHY CAN’T WE MAKE STUFF

PEOPLE LOVE TO USE?


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This isSal

the cook for M*A*S*H unit 4077

This isHawkeye- Chief Surgeon- Recently given

charge of mess hall- Has a favorite family recipe for french toast

A MeetingBetween People

Who are Part of an Organization


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Production

Develop, Review, Test

SMEs &Stakeholders

BusinessAnalysts

DesignTeam

Content

UI Description(wireframes + visual design)

DetailedSpecification

Requirements& Process Models

Task, Process & Point-of-pain

descriptions

Design isn't actually finished

but process pretendsit is.

Deliverablesmissing tacit knowledgebehind the

design

Design, in a bubble, misses out

on the inputs it needs most.

Task & Processoften miss deepercontext (cognition)

& interaction (behavior)issues.

The “Outsourced Design” Model

Edge use casesoften outnumberthe most common

use cases.


A typical process. (Explain each part - then click through the risk points)What is missing?

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Most important use cases for highest percentage of users

Long tail of edge-case requirements

Everything flattened into one long list of equally-weighted

requirements. (Also, loses context)


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CONTEXT


This is a big deal. We may think we’re getting the full story when we interview SMEs and stake holders (and even end-users), but often we aren’t.

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Situation

Need

Need

Need

TaskTask

Task

Task Task

Task

Task

Task

“Scenario”


In addition to the inherent behavioral characteristics of the person,>> there is the Situation the person is in, which is often the main reason why they are using what we make to begin with. The situation could be International Travel, Getting Married, Going to School. And, frankly, it could be all three of those at once! >> A situation gives rise to needs -- problems the person needs to solve. These are practical, concrete outcomes of the general situation. I’m traveling: I need to book plane fare and hotel, and decide what to pack; Wedding: I need to plan the ceremony, get a ring, send announcements, plan a honeymoon.

>> So those needs then give rise to tasks that must be completed in order to solve the problems. The tasks require tools, knowledge, and some kind of interactive activity. Increasingly, the tools we use to solve these problems are *digital* ... fifteen years ago, Travel, Marriage and Going to School had very little to do with *software*!

>> This nest of contextual facets is what we try to describe with a Scenario. And like the persona, the goal is *understanding* -- no matter what format, documentation style or method you choose.

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PhysicalDOINGphysical activity & ability,

habits, preferences, sensory

Cognitive

THINKINGcognitive assumptions, education,

learning ability

Emotional

FEELINGpsychological state, anxiety, confidence, stress, desire

“Persona”


First, we have to consider the context of the User -- who is, after all, not only a “user” of our product, but a whole person with a whole life of behaviors, where many things are much more important to them than our precious design! Here are several dimensions that exist for the person, whether we acknowledge them or not:

>> Doing (physical activity and ability, habits, preferences, and their sensory experience)>> Thinking (cognitive assumptions, education, learning ability) >> Feeling (psychological state, anxiety, confidence, stress, even desire)

These facets change from one person to the next, and can even change from one day to the next for the same person, depending on other factors we will look at next.

>> This is in essence what we are wanting to understand when we use a “persona” for user experience design. How you document the persona doesn’t matter as long as it helps you gain an *honest* understanding of the person.

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Emotional

Cognitive

Physical

Situation

Need

Need

Need

TaskTask

Task

Task Task

Task

Task

Task

Time


When you overlay these, diagrams, you have what I call the Situation/Behavior Complex. It’s helped me to map out the human situations people are in, their likely behavioral patterns and assumptions, and better understand how my design can help them complete their tasks. This keeps me from thinking of the user as someone who is doing nothing but using my software or website. >> Another important factor to consider is that people change over time, sometimes in a matter of days or hours. >> So it’s important to know where your users are in a given narrative. Because even something as simple as their interaction with your system can cause changes that require the system to interact with them differently later on.

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Scenario-based Design


Designing with persona & scenario approach is different from use-cases.

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!!!


Org I worked with early in my career had a mess of a site.

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A typical “site map” architecture

Organizes information, but shapes nothing else.


Tried doing basic IA content organization, but it wasn’t enough -- I organized their information without considering the larger issues they were facing (because I wasn’t listening for them). Once I showed a normal “sitemap” (this is just a stand-in, not the real one) they started talking more about the soft-tissue issues in their org -- how while this might organize things OK for content’s sake,there would be tensions with

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A contextual blueprint


This diagram describes something more like rooms or neighborhoods -- it’s a description of context, not (necessarily) literal links & hierarchies. It helped establish the conceptual structure of the shared information environment. This was more successful, and ended up driving the vision for the site.

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SKETCHING


This is a big deal. We may think we’re getting the full story when we interview SMEs and stake holders (and even end-users), but often we aren’t.

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Bill Buxton


Explain diagram ... - moves from cheap, easy, low-risk sketching to higher-cost, more-complex, higher-risk prototyping- Ideation = exploring alternatives; prototypes are more for usability & feasibility. - as our investment increases, so should the weight of the design criteria - you don’t manage ideation the same way, or with the same rigor, as usability & feasibility.- circular arrows remind us we include users throughout the process, not just for usability testing

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From Bill Buxton’s “Sketching User Experiences”


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Bill Buxton on the shape of design

19Tuesday, May 10, 2011Bill Buxton talks about how we tend to think design iterates into a tighter and tighter perimeter, until we’ve winnowed and honed to an ultimate, ideal answer.

>>But he says that’s not how design really works -- design is about exploring alternatives and requires constant consideration of alternative possibilities, lateral ideation.You come up with variety, then winnow down, then expand again, until you explore your way to a solution.

But that’s not a very efficient activity, in the eyes of what is still mainstream management thinking by which I mean the thinking style of most people with management roles. So we have to create a permission space within the linear activity of a project.

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Exploration of Alternatives

Inflection point: the broad outlines & design rationale are mostly settled


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SMEs &Stakeholders

BusinessAnalysts

DesignTeam


This is a collaborative, conversational process -- not an assembly line.

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Design Space

Project Process

22Tuesday, May 10, 2011There has to be room for that sort of playful, exploratory thinking to happen.

Now, that certainly makes a lot of managers nervous. But I would argue that giving this room for design is non-negotiable.

If giving designers this room doesn’t result in great work -- don’t take away the room. Get new designers.

It’s our responsibility to be sure that, given the room to do the work, we make the most of it.

That means the responsibility is on us to be ever-vigilant of our own biases & cognitive flaws.

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SMEs &Stakeholders

BusinessAnalysts

DesignTeam

An Integrated Model

Informed by Context

Collaborationthroughout

lifecycle

Exploration & divergence before refinement & final

design.


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THANKS!Patrick [email protected]@ptquattlebaum

Andrew [email protected]@inkblurt

