IA Summit Recap

April 16, 2009

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Where to Find Stuff• Podcasts are available on Boxes & Arrows

– http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/ia-summit-09-day-1

• Most presentations are available on SlideShare (tagged with ias09)

– http://www.slideshare.net/search/slideshow?lang=en&page=3&q=ias09

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Selling UX• Several sessions focused on the concept of selling UX (whether as a

service to potential clients, or as a practice within an organization)

• These included:

– Eric Reiss, “ROI: Speaking the Language of Business”

– Gary Carlson & Samantha Starmer, “Using Enterprise IA to Support Business Strategy: Driving Revenue and Brand Health with Better Information Management”

– Naomi Norman, “When Appeasement is Not Enough - Or How to Work Within ‘Government Time’”

– Richard Anderson & Craig Peters, “Strategies for Enabling UX to Play a More Strategic Role”

– Samantha Starmer, “Turning HiPPOs into Allies: How to Connect with Powerful People in Your Organization”

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Eric Reiss, “ROI: Speaking the Language of Business”

• Focused on speaking/selling in terms that your client (or your company’s key stakeholders) will understand

– “If I don’t understand it, I don’t want it, and I don’t want to pay for it”

• You need to understand business language

• It’s not about ROI as such, it’s about inciting emotion and perceived value

– “There are two levers to set a man in motion: fear and self-interest”

• Need to describe actions/results, not intangible “benefits”

• Don’t sell a service, sell a relationship

– If they trust that you have their best interests at heart and will take care of them, they will buy whatever you recommend

• Great time to sell UX—take advantage of fear and need for self-preservation during the economic downturn.

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Gary Carlson & Samantha Starmer, “Using Enterprise IA to Support Business Strategy: Driving Revenue and Brand Health with Better Information Management”

• To get a project approved, need to evangelize both horizontally and vertically

• Write a business case that speaks both to the CEO and to the developers, and makes perfect sense to both of them

• Document exactly how your project will support business objectives

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Naomi Norman, “When Appeasement is Not Enough - Or How to Work Within ‘Government Time’” • Included advice on how to work with clients in a highly political environment

– Define clear goals to establish a common focus

– Define the users and their context, and acceptable usage levels

– Leverage user research (preferably quantitative) to cut through the deliberation• User surveys

• Scored interviews

• Data mining

– Train your client—help them understand your process

– Know your client—know each person’s responsibility and target your communication accordingly

– Establish an audit trail of when decisions were made and why

– Make it clear ahead of time what questions need to be answered/decisions need to be made in each meeting, so that the appropriate people are in the room.

• Card-sorting/cluster analysis

• User testing

• A/B testing

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Richard Anderson & Craig Peters, “Strategies for Enabling UX to Play a More Strategic Role”• Small groups discussed which strategies would and would not work in their

organizations, including:

– Just say “No”

– Evangelizing/Influencing/Education

– Calculating and showing ROI of UX work

– Adjusting placement of UX personnel in organizational structure

• It was recommended that UX teams partner with other groups that lead/gather research in order to combine efforts/share findings

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Samantha Starmer, “Turning HiPPOs into Allies: How to Connect with Powerful People in Your Organization”• Understanding people and their relationships is key

– Need to know not only who reports to whom, but also who used to report to whom, and who wants to report to whom (and who is friends with/dating whom!)

– Understand people’s divisional and personal goals—what motivates them?

• Be sure you’re using the same terminology/definitions as your stakeholders• Watch people’s reactions and expressions

– How is the info you’re sharing being received?

• “Lay pipe”– Set the stage for what you want to happen in the future

• Sell your ideas up, down and sideways• Make people “barely uncomfortable”• Find the HiPPOs breeding ground

– Where do they hang out? Can you insert yourself into their conversation?

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Selling UX: Common Themes• Get to know your stakeholders

• Speak their language

• Become a trusted advisor

• Demonstrate value (not necessarily a formally-calculated ROI)

• Make allies throughout your/your client’s organization

• Share data that is relevant/of interest to your stakeholders

• Communication is critical

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Content Strategy Consortium• The IA Summit held its first-ever consortium on content strategy this year

• Content strategy has significant impact on and crossover with the field of information architecture

• “Content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design” (Rachel Lovinger)

• Key articles on content strategy:– “Content-tious Strategy” by Jeffrey MacIntyre

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/contenttiousstrategy

– “The Discipline of Content Strategy” by Kristina Halvorsonhttp://www.alistapart.com/articles/thedisciplineofcontentstrategy

– “Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data” by Rachel Lovingerhttp://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/content-strategy-the

• Presentations from Consortium should all be uploaded to SlideShare

• Also initiating an online community blog and e-mail discussion list