Design for Usability | Confidential©1999, Sapient Corporation Page 1 Virgin Mobile Stefan Magdalinski (CTO Upmystreet.com)

©1999, Sapient Corporation Page 1 Design for Usability | Confidential

Virgin Mobilehttp://www.virgin.com/mobileStefan Magdalinski(CTO Upmystreet.com)

Matt Jones(Creative Director, Sapient London)

©1999, Sapient Corporation

Page 2 Design for Usability | Confidential

When there is not time for user researchTime to market super-importantVirgin brand ‘user-focussed’

How would we minimise risk of launching an inappropriate solution...

…when we didn’t have time to have a conversation with the users



From the top-down: user scenarios

The client team had done extensive research of their target market

Including demographically broken-down information on: What they’d look for before making a

purchasing decision Their attitudes to buying online

Extrapolate ‘user-scenarios’ from this and the site’s brief which describe ‘flows’ through the sites User goals, prompts and feedback



Patterns vs. spikes

User scenario brainstorming will give the design team Patterns of behaviour that… …an appropriate information architecture

can be built to enable Try to derive enough to give good

coverage of the maximum possible behaviours

There is a danger that the patterns will leave blind spots

These may be exposed when you go live - spikes of user-behaviour



Virgin Mobile: Homepage



Virgin Mobile: phone detail page



Virgin Mobile: order form



Live user testing..!

Benefits of watching users Watching log files, e-mails Prioritising what to fix and when How to prioritise?

Business and brand drivers Value equation



Worked well! But...

Trust and history in delivery teamEvolved a shared viewpointUnusual…Would not recommend without

established, ‘bonded’ teamOr for a project with a more complex

brief or wider scope



User testing & the delivery team

As essential to process as the productUser testing can accelerate the

evolution of a shared viewpoint and purpose Helps defuse disagreements Educates both parties… …about the third participant in the design

process

The user.



The project team

Virgin team: Stefan, Dan Burzynski, Mike Chamberlain

Sapient Team: Kai Turner (Information Architecture) Hans Von Sichart (visual design) Nic Fogler (site development) Me (stupid sketches & team mascot)

©1999, Sapient Corporation Page 12 Design for Usability | Confidential

Questions?



And finally -Make sure you all go visit

http://www.stand.org.uk

and fax your MP about the privacy-violating, e-commerce damaging RIP bill that the government is trying to get through parliament

Documents

Design for Usability | Confidential©1999, Sapient Corporation Page 1 Virgin Mobile Stefan Magdalinski (CTO Upmystreet.com)