I think it s always useful to know a little bit about your presenter I m a seasoned UX professional currently working in Cambridge Have previously

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "I think it s always useful to know a little bit about your presenter I m a seasoned UX professional currently working in Cambridge Have previously"

Tamsin Lynch
5 years ago
Views:

1 1

2 I think it s always useful to know a little bit about your presenter I m a seasoned UX professional currently working in Cambridge Have previously worked both in-house and for agencies 2

3 And of course you might also know me from my long running Location Location Location TV show with my onscreen wife Kirsty Alsop 3

4 Confessions of a former UCD devotee How I managed to kick the UCD habit and learn to love lean UX So this is my story Will be looking at user-centred design, my own experiences with user-centred design and why I eventually kicked the habit 4

5 I want to take you back to

6 The year of Maradona s infamous hand of god (was never a goal) 6

7 The year that Tom Cruise was being dangerous as Maverick in Top Gun 7

8 And the year that Europe was rocking to the final countdown by er, Europe 8

It was also the year that the ZX Spectrum 2+ 128k was released, 128k memory can you imagine!

9 It was also the year that the ZX Spectrum k was released, 128k memory can you imagine! The ZX Spectrum k happened to be the first proper computer in the Turner household (incidentally this isn t it) Fondly remember trying to load a game, getting about 80% there before the cassette gets corrupted 9

10 The start of a love affair with computers and technology 10

11 From the Spectrum I graduated to Windows PC You might recognised this as Windows 3.1 Really not progressed that far to Windows 10 11

12 And decided that I wanted to be a programmer I mean, why wouldn t you? 12

13 So I enrolled in a Computer Science degree at the University of Warwick 13

14 And it was here that I first became aware of UX, or Human-Computer Interaction as it was called at the time as the term UX hadn t been popularised yet 14

15 I graduated and my first job was as a web developer Learnt 2 things from being a web developer 1. It didn t matter how well something was coded it the design sucks, if website or application doesn t actually do what users need it to do 2. I m a lousy coder and enjoyed designing the front-end much more than coding it 15

16 Started to learn more about the world of UX This magical world people try to make technology work in perfect harmony with humans 16

17 I had found my calling as a UX Jedi 17

18 Decided that I d rather be designing websites, than coding them So I enrolled in an HCI MSc at University College London 18

19 It was here that I first learnt about user-centred design 19

20 Wikipedia defines UCD as 20

21 But I almost think of it as a form of worship Of worshipping the mythical users Putting users at the centre of the Universe Making the entire design process revolve around them 21

22 Learnt all about the importance of user-centred design Importance of extensive user research Importance of including users in the design process Importance of getting user feedback at each step Importance of always user testing designs and design changes Importance of a laser beam focus on The user 22

23 Ready to fight the good UCD crusade To bring order, where there was once chaos To bring usability, where there was once bad design And to bring joy to users, where there was once frustration and misery But I found that working on real project, was quite different from the theory 23

24 I would carry out user research I would find out about users, who they are, what they need, what their requirements are I would create personas and relay information about users 24

25 And this research would often just gather dust somewhere It would rarely if ever get used 25

26 I would be told to ask the users That we d have to let the users decide 26

27 But of course the users never knew And their insights were not always that insightful 27

28 When I did have the opportunity to carry out usability testing 28

29 It was invariably too late to fix anything but the most minor of problems 29

30 When I was asked to estimate the cost of carrying out all the UCD work that would ideally take place for a project 30

31 I d get this reaction from project managers and from clients 31

32 If only others would see that UCD is the right path they would see the light If only others would see the ROI that UCD delivers, they would see the light If only others would realise the competitive advantage that UCD delivers, they would see the light 32

33 So I thought I need to do a better job of selling UCD 33

34 And got the world out about UCD 34

35 I quoted good old Jakob Nielsen The original poster boy of UX 35

36 I even helped to create this awesome video to help explain the UCD process I mean who couldn t help but be persuaded by this piece of cinematic gold 36

37 Of course everyone nodded On the face of it user-centred design sounds fantastic 37

38 I saw an awful lot of effort for very little return A lot of work that never amounted to anything And this nagging feeling that a lot of this stuff wasn t really all that necessary a lot of the time But it still felt like I was flogging a dead horse 38

My enlightening came in the form of Lean and Agile thinking Lean thinking has come out of lean manufacturing Pioneered by Toyota Motor Company Everything is lean these

39 My enlightening came in the form of Lean and Agile thinking Lean thinking has come out of lean manufacturing Pioneered by Toyota Motor Company Everything is lean these days lean manufacturing, lean UX, lead design, lean start-ups, lean cuisine Goal is to avoid wasted time and effort Agile becoming the defacto way to code and build stuff 39

40 Made me think about how much of user-centred design is absolutely necessary UCD is like a big heavy truck Big heavy, cumbersome process that involves a lot of work and takes a lot of effort to get going But how much waste is there? How many outputs are necessary e.g. personas, specs, wireframes? How many projects really require in-depth user-centred design? 40

41 When what you want is something more like this Something quick, nimble and lightweight 41

The famous racing car designer, engineer and founder of Lotus cars Colin Chapman said that to make a car go faster you should simplify then add lightness Of course adding lightness doesn t really

42 The famous racing car designer, engineer and founder of Lotus cars Colin Chapman said that to make a car go faster you should simplify then add lightness Of course adding lightness doesn t really make sense, surely you should be taking weight away, but the theory also makes sense for UCD UCD is still the right approach but has a tendency to become too bloated What we need to do is make it more lightweight Make it more like a racing car, and less like a big cumbersome truck 42

43 Can you simplify UCD, make it more lightweight? If you do this will you still get the right sort of user experience at the end? 43

44 How do we get from this 44

45 To this? 45

46 But before I talk about making UCD more lean I have another question for you Hands up who still buys CDs CDs have obviously been eclipsed by MP3s Which is funny in a way because in terms of sound quality CDs beat MP3s hands down 46

47 This is the amount of sound information that you get back from a CD compared to an MP3 CDs are lossless, you get all the sound, where as MP3s obviously use compression to reduce the amount of data I d like to see if you can notice the lost MP3 sound 47

48 I m going to play two tracks One is a CD recording, the other an MP3 recording I d like you to tell me which is which 48

49 Well done to all those that correctly guessed that the first was an MP3 recording So what have MP3s got to do with UCD 49

50 Well user-centred design can sometimes feel like a CD You get a high quality result but there is a lot there I believe that like an MP3 you can do without a lot of the work and still get good results So like the Agile manifesto I ve created a Lean UCD manifesto 50

51 Do just enough UCD, not too little, not too much, just enough Continually ask, what is the minimum we can get away with? What sort of user-centred design activities do we need to undertake to get the sort of insights we need? 51

52 You see UX has a tendency to want to gold plate things To carry out lots of user research Get lots of user feedback Carry out lots of design iterations and rounds of user testing To make everything the best possible user experience for the users 52

53 When often something more stripped back is perfectly fine Something stripped back meets both the user needs and the business goals 53

In fact, some times quick and dirty is OK It s important to know when to invest a lot of time and effort, and when you can get away with something quick

54 In fact, some times quick and dirty is OK It s important to know when to invest a lot of time and effort, and when you can get away with something quick and dirty Although I wouldn t necessarily recommend something this quick and dirty And that counts for UCD activities, as much as the final user experience 54

55 I ve been talking for a while now so we re going to have a little fun interlude I d like to you watch this video very, very closely, and tell me how many times the white team pass their ball 55

56 Hands up who saw the dancing gorilla first time around? So what has a dancing gorilla got to do with UCD? Well with it s laser beam focus on users, UCD sometimes misses other very important stuff Things like business needs, technical constraints, project constraints, other actors, other stuff going on Which leads me on to my second principle 56

57 User-centred design, by its nature only really considers the users It places the user at the centre of the universe Which leads me on to my second principle of lean UCD 57

58 58

But there s so much other stuff going on that needs to be considered Need to consider the entire system, not just users As Anna and Meriel pointed out, business

59 But there s so much other stuff going on that needs to be considered Need to consider the entire system, not just users As Anna and Meriel pointed out, business needs need to be considered as much as user needs Business, other stakeholders, other actors UCD doesn t do a good job of considering anything other than the user 59

60 I m not going to go into how you can consider the wider system But will shamelessly plug my introduction to the service model canvas workshop tomorrow afternoon In the workshop I will go through the service model canvas which is one way to help identify and think about the other important actors and considerations, besides just users 60

61 We have this design process centred around users But do users even know what s good for them? 61

62 No UX presentation is complete without a quote from the mighty Steve Jobs And it s true, users are not a great source of answers Here is what Alan Cooper, of the inmates are running the asylum had to say about the matter a number of years ago 62

63 63

64 Design should be driven by design insights, not user whims and feedback Should be designer driven design, not user driven design 64

65 Which makes me think, would we be better calling UCD, user-considered design? As the Wikipedia definition outlined we should be considering users at every point, but we shouldn t centre everything around them Need to work out what is best for them, because users certainly don t know Also need to factor in business goals and objectives After all, first and foremost the business case for any design needs to make sense for it to be viable 65

66 But of course as they say, or at least used to say The proof of the pudding is in the eating I wanted to put lean UCD in to practice on a real life project Fortunately had the opportunity for a web site redesign Utilising agile development team so ideal candidate 66

Redesign of a website for a local firm called Ubisense Ubisense manufacturer among other things location systems used by some of the worlds top automotive manufactures to

67 Redesign of a website for a local firm called Ubisense Ubisense manufacturer among other things location systems used by some of the worlds top automotive manufactures to track where something is on the production line They wanted to redesign their old school website to something shiny new and responsive So I tried to take a lean UCD approach 67

Instead of in-depth user research carried out a number of workshops with customer facing members of the business Instead of creating extensive personas and other user requirements docs created sketch

68 Instead of in-depth user research carried out a number of workshops with customer facing members of the business Instead of creating extensive personas and other user requirements docs created sketch personas and mapped out customer journey Instead of multiple rounds of user testing carried out some internal testing when required e.g. to test new IA for the site Instead of detailed designs created a lightweight prototype showing key components and style tiles to show the visual style Instead of running field trials used analytics and remote user testing to track usage and identify problems. 68

69 Whilst the project had it s difficulties, the lean UCD approach worked really well Was able to deliver a good UX design, with much less UCD work than before Was able to cut out a lot of the UCD waste but still deliver something that met both the needs of the users, and of the business 69

70 So once again I d advocate the following Lean UCD principles 70

71 Can recommend these 3 books if you want to find out more about Lean UX and Agile UX 71

72 Thank you once again for coming along I ll upload the slides over the next few days to both my website and to slideshare 72

1

http://www.songwriting-secrets.net/letter.html 1 Praise for How To Write Your Best Album In One Month Or Less I wrote and recorded my first album of 8 songs in about six weeks. Keep in mind I'm including