UIE Roadshow: Developing a UX Vision

The most valuable talk at the UIE Roadshow last week was the time spent on developing a User Experience vision. If you're a UX professional, I'm sure you've heard this from your clients or business stakeholders:

"I want the [website/application/product] to be easy to use. It should be quick and users will like it."

That means a whole lot of nothing. Who doesn't want that? How is your company setting itself apart from the competitors if the vision is too general and everyone else wants to achieve those same goals in some respect? What this vision also lacks is some accountability and measurability. Five years from now, how do you measure success? You can't.

To better understand how to create a vision, Roadshow attendees teamed up and evaluated a case study problem, brainstormed the needs and desires of sample personas, and worked toward a UX vision for the case study company. To get there, my team focused on satisfying emotional needs rather than talking about features. We storyboarded a scenario that led a representative user along this emotional path:

• I'm hungry and grumpy and growing concerned.
• I am elated and thrilled.
• I feel comfortable and less stressed.
• I'm excited.
• I feel smart and satisfied.

A UX Vision First Draft
A hungry airplane passenger doesn't have time to grab a bite before his first flight of the day. He's grumpy and worried that there won't be time to eat during his short layover. On the plane, he quickly sees he can pre-order a meal from his seat to pick up as he boards his next flight. He's thrilled that he won't have to go wait in a long fast food line and doesn't need to worry about the time between flights. After landing at his layover destination, the passenger receives a message on his phone confirming his order and his next gate. He is no longer stressed because he knows where he needs to go and that his meal is waiting. When he sees the food at the gate, he's excited because it looks delicious. It's definitely not McDonald's. While eating on the next flight, he's not just satisfied, he feels smart as he looks around and realizes he made a great choice to order his meal.

Over the next several years, the company can reference a UX vision to be sure work on a product or service continues to achieve steps along the way. In five years, this airport food company can look back and see that they have created an on-board meal ordering system, a gate delivery service, partnered with cellular service providers, and solved a huge problem for airline passengers around the globe.

What's your user experience vision?

UIE Roadshow Recap

I spent February 19 at the Bloomington, Minn. UIE Roadshow, absorbing all that Jared Spool offered on user experience. I was there as a guest of UIE on a press pass, tweeting when I was able, and taking notes as fast as I was able to write.

Jared started off the session with a hard-hitting fact. Apple's iPod has 75% market share, yet has poor sound quality, the menu is sluggish, and the wheel can be cumbersome to work with. Sandisk put out the Sansa mp3 player, a technically superior product but yet few people know anyone who owns the device.

What sets Apple apart is the overall experience. Apple has stores, a fantastic website with support. You don't see a Microsoft or Sandisk store anywhere. Device vs. experience.

After hearing stories of companies that invested millions in design but failed because they didn't research their users, my motivation for solving my company's biggest UX problems increased significantly.

The morning rolled into a session on team skills. The obvious skills a UX team should have competency in include interaction design, usability testing, user research, and visual design, but Jared pointed out the importance of understanding marketing, business, copy writing, design process, education, ROI... and the list goes on. Take the time to learn these other roles to become a better UX professional. Understanding will help you communicate better and come to more holistic solutions.

I'm not going to dive too deep into the content of the Roadshow to preserve ownership of the material with UIE but I highly recommend taking to Jared about how companies/ux teams evolve in four stages from the point of being first to market to becoming a commodity. Understanding where your team is within this cycle will help you make the best research and design choices. Know that your customers determine which phase you are in, not you.

My favorite part of the day was the vision workshop. I'm not going to say much here but I'll post on this over the weekend in more detail. The time we spent reviewing concepts for developing a UX vision was some of the most enlightening and inspiring I've been involved in for some time.

Jared wrapped up the day with a discussion on the importance of magic and illusion in user experience design. Remember that complexity should fade into the background but if there are holes, the illusion will break. Users don't need to know the backend of a website. Show them what they want to see and hide anything that doesn't improve the overall experience.

For those of you unfamiliar with UIE, check out one of their virtual seminars to get a taste of what you can learn to improve your team and your expertise. If you'll be in Atlanta on March 2, register for the UIE Roadshow at the Westin Peachtree Plaza.

More to come!

UIE Roadshow - Minneapolis

I've been looking forward to the UIE Roadshow in Minneapolis for several weeks. Hearing Jared Spool speak on most any UX topic is educational, but the focus on UX teams and forming a User Experience vision is what will really help strengthen my team at work. Working on a very young UX team in my organization means we are still raising awareness and evangelizing our methods. I want to know what comes next. Certainly there is more to UX team growth than preaching.

Just a few of the questions I have:

• How else can we promote our services?
• What are some quick ways to calculate ROI?
• How can we convince reluctant stakeholders?
• What methods work for getting buy-in for a staff increase?

Awareness and Promotion
At large corporation, awareness beyond a small technology department is difficult to attain but often the business stakeholders are not technology-savvy. The outside perception of user experience risks being lumped into other departments - QA, marketing, customer service, graphic design - so establishing the team as a unique service that is as critical as QA must happen early in a team's development.

Return on Investment
Sometimes making a convincing argument is as simple as saying, "you need me on your team" but usually the pitch needs to align with a few facts. Until user research and usability testing are a process requirement, business stakeholders will be reluctant to sign on unless they can be convinced of the cost savings.

Reluctant Stakeholders
Once and a while, even after reviewing clear evidence of the benefits of a UX team, stakeholders push back. They still feel that the short term cost and time savings are more important than the potential of long-term benefits for the company. This hurdle is hard to overcome and one that I encounter once or twice a quarter.

Staff Increase
When there are many projects on the docket and the team finds itself acting as a quick-and-dirty usability test service, it feels like time for a new staff member. Since the work (albeit condensed, minimalist work) is getting done, developing a justification for more team members is more difficult than dealing with reluctant stakeholders.

I hope to answer a few of these concerns at the Roadshow on Thursday and what I learn, I'll be sure to share with you. If you are on Twitter, I will try to tweet regularly but please be aware that my live tweeting will be BlackBerry-only. I'll respond to @s and DMs during the break. If you're curious, follow me on Twitter.

Lackluster Resumes

With the economy failing and the job market dismal, I expect to see outstanding resumes that set each candidate apart. Skills are clearly matched to the job description, accomplishments and roles are specific, and there is a clear match between the resume and the opening.

I haven't seen too much of that lately. I'm not talking just about resumes I've seen for openings at work, but also those I've downloaded from practitioners' websites. For now, I'll stop looking at research and design resumes on the web as I've been fairly disappointed.